If you have your Bibles, I want you to open with me to the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 17. In Romans 12:17, it reads like this. "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all." Now I don't know about you guys, but when I read a verse like that, I get a little concerned, because that is very difficult for me to do.
I know that as Christ followers, both you and I are called to live a life of compassion. We are called to live a life of love, a life of justice, of reconciliation, all of those things. We know that life can be lived now, even though it is a life of the future. The Bible gives us an incredible promise. It talks about that one day, heaven and earth are going to come together, and there is going to be no more pain. There is going to be no more heartache. There is going to be no more sin. There are going to be no more injustices.
The beauty of the whole Bible, as a redemptive story, is this. We don't have to wait on the future. Because of the resurrection, the future has broken into the now. In other words, the power of the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit living deep inside of us, that future has now come to the present, and we can live like that right now.
As a Christ follower, you have a calling. You have an identity. I have a calling. I have an identity. That calling and that identity is to lead the world out of darkness. It's not only to lead the world out of darkness, but it's also a call not to collide with the world by repaying evil for evil.
I've said in the past a lot of times that I believe we're in a spiritual, Western Christianity crisis. What I mean by that is I think we're slowly becoming (if we're not already there) a church in America that is known more for what it is against than what it is for. There are a lot of things I think personally I can be against, but I don't really need to live that thing. What I need to understand is there are a lot of things I am for, and I think that's what the world really needs.
The world needs more love. The world needs more compassion. The world needs more justice. The world needs us to clothe more and to feed more and to take care of people. The world needs for us to show it how to navigate a world that is run amuck, a world that is hostile. We are living, I believe, in a day and age where we are starting to be persecuted more and more as Christians. It's not like it used to be some 30, 40, 50 years ago.
If you were a Christian 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, people kind of liked you. Hello? Nowadays, the moment you begin to mention the name of Jesus, it comes with a heavy stigma, right? All of this kind of stuff comes against your way. "You're judgmental. You're narrow-minded. You're all of these things." Right? Instead of, "Tell me more about this Jesus."
I believe that's where we, as a body of believers, as Christ followers have a responsibility to learn how to navigate this hostile world we now live in, to learn the virtues of the future, these characteristics of the future that will one day be, but that are now in our lives. We have to learn these characteristics, these habits of the heart.
A few months ago I was able to get a brand new truck. I haven't had a brand new truck in my life since way back in 1998. Back in 1998 when I got a new truck it had a lot of the bells and whistles on it. How many of you know 1998 all the way to 2012 (of course, we're in 2013 now)… I own a Chevrolet now, and it's a 2012. It's a brand new truck.
When you get it it, it has all the bells and whistles. It has a great radio, man. It has like satellite radio. It looks like a spaceship. Literally, when I took my 1998 Dodge, and I pulled up to the place to do a trade, I had over 200,000 miles on my truck. I pulled in, and the guy came out, and he goes, "Man, Pastor, I have to tell you something. You pulled that thing in at the right time." He said it had over 200,000 miles on it, and he said the transmission was getting ready to hit the floor.
I said, "That's the way I roll." He said, "Well you rolled in the right place." He gave me a fair trade on it and everything. We made the deal. When I got in my 1998 Dodge, it was natural to get inside this truck. When it was nighttime, I didn't have to fish around for where the lights were. Do you get what I'm saying?
I didn't have to fish around for where the lights were. I knew immediately you went over to the left, it's just above… Boom. I turned them on. The lights would turn on. I knew where to reach to get over there to the radio, and I knew how to get to my stereo and all that. I knew where the emergency brakes were. I knew how to turn on the windshield wipers. I knew how to make it spray water on the windshield and all of that. I didn't even have to think about it.
Now when they rolled this brand new truck out, and we finally did the deal, and we did all the financing, and we did everything we were supposed to do, I got inside this thing for really the first time. He said, "Enjoy!" I looked around, and I was like, "Holy smokes." I had never seen anything like this. I didn't even know how to respond to it.
I was thinking, "Okay. I can't pull out on the road and end up colliding with somebody because I don't know where all the bells and whistles are on here. I have to know how to crank the thing up. I need to know how to turn the radio on. I have to get the air conditioner just right. If I need water to come onto the windshield, I need all of that." So I sit there for just a little while, and I begin to look at everything.
"Okay, where are the turn signals? How do you turn it on?" I felt like I had it all down pat. Then I pulled out into the hostile world of Charlotte. I took off in my truck, and part of me was like, "Man, this is good. It's a new vehicle. This feels right." How many of you know even that new car smell? Have you ever gotten in a new car? You just breathe in and go, "Man, this thing smells good." It has a different smell.
You see, a lot of times, that's the way our Christianity is. We come into this kingdom. It's new. Everything smells good. All of a sudden, we think we have it under control, and when we get out on the road, we get out into the world, and all of a sudden, if we're not careful, if we don't know where everything is and how it functions and how we're supposed to respond, we'll look down to try to turn on the radio, and in those split seconds, we can run into somebody, and we can kill somebody.
We can reach over and try to figure out where the lights are and not know where they are and begin to look around and take our eyes off the road, and we can collide with someone. What has to happen is we have to go home. What do you do? You get out that manual they send with the truck, don't you? You begin to read through it. You go, "Oh. That's where that button is. So this is how I turn that on. This is how I reduce the volume. This is how I program that. This is the way I adjust this and tweak that." You begin to read.
How many of you know even after you read the manual, you get up from reading the manual like, "Okay, I got it," and you get back in, and all of a sudden, you go, "Oh my goodness. What was that?" You forget again. The longer you drive, all of a sudden, you start doing what? "Hey, man, turn on the radio."
And you start getting used to it, and now you don't even have to look. Right? It takes time. Sometimes you have to go back and relearn the basics. You have to go back and relearn the basics in order to navigate, because you and I as Christ followers are called to call the world out of darkness. We're not called to collide with the world by repaying evil for evil.
You know, the same thing happens in relationships if you think about it. Right? It's kind of like when you're growing up, and you have those two to three friends you grew up with. Does everybody remember those two or three special friends you grew up with? You just know them. Some of you are still friends with them to this day. It felt like the friendship was just natural, and you just made it. You kind of grew up together, and you knew one another.
What happens when they move away, or you move away, and then you move to another town? All of a sudden, you lose those two or three best friends, and you have to start all over again, and it's kind of awkward, is it not? You know how to be a friend. You know what it feels like to be friendly. You know what it feels like to be in a friendship, but now, all of a sudden, you have to restart some friendships. You have to meet some people.
You go out and try some of these things, and it just kind of collides with other people, and you have to relearn some of the basic skills of how to build a friendship. It's hard. It happened to my son and my daughter when we moved from California. They had friends out there, and they had to disconnect when we moved here.
Once we got here, it took some time. I remember they would come home from school and go, "I can't even make any friends. I don't know how to make friends." They would start crying. Years ago, when they first moved back. We kept encouraging them. You know what I had to do? I had to take them back to the basics. I had to take them back and say, "You need to learn these things all over again."
Sometimes we need to go back and relearn what we think we know. The world is forever changing. The gospel never changes, but the world does change. Theology we are to hold very tightly to our hearts, but methodology we can change. How do I navigate now in a world that is rising itself up against Christianity? Because truly, that is where we're living. We are living in a day and age that is becoming more and more hostile toward those who are followers of Christ.
Here's the deal. That is not a bad thing. In the book of Acts, they were all in one accord. They were praying in an upper room. They were taking a promise of God, and they were trusting him by going and waiting on the power of the Spirit to accomplish the mission they were called to do, and 120 men and women gathered in an upper room, and the power of God came down upon them.
It pushed them out into the highways and into the sea of humanity, and they began to radically transform the community all around them. I say a lot of things about that upper room as I preach on it over the years, and I want to remind you of a couple of things I believe. First, it was very important that they waited together, 120 in community, as a church.
I have to tell you. All those days they were waiting, they were getting to know one another, and they were in perfect harmony and fellowship with the Spirit of God while they were waiting on the Spirit of God to drop in on them. Amen? After the Spirit of God fell in that place and consumed them, they didn't hang out in the upper room and say, "Let's just hang around." They went out into the world and began to affect the world with the cure called the gospel. Amen?
I want you to go to 1 Peter 3 with me. As we travel there, let me give you a background of what was happening when the epistle of 1 Peter was being written. Nero was the emperor of Rome. Okay? This is the background, and it will be very important that you understand this so when we read this, you'll get it.
The background is Nero was the emperor of Rome at this time. He had been accused politically of literally setting the city on fire. You remember the great fire of Rome, right? It burned almost all of Rome down. Politically, people were coming against him and attacking him, going, "You have done this. You intentionally set this fire." You know what he did? He turned that violence, and he refocused it upon the Christians.
He had the Christians crucified. Let that settle into your mind for just a moment. What I'm getting ready to read you, when it was written, this was what was going on. He had them crucified. You know what else he did? He would take animals, and he would slice them up. He would have animals gutted, and then he would take the Christians, and he would put them inside the skins of the animals.
Then they would be thrown to the dogs as entertainment while the dogs ate and chewed everything up and killed the Christians. Has anybody ever gone through that on your way to church? I didn't think so. Not only did he do that, but you know what else he did is this. He would take Christians and roll them in tar and pitch. He would put them on a stake in the ground, and they would light the body of the Christians to burn like torches so the palace guards could see during the night to guard Nero.
Has anybody ever had that happen to you on the way to church? Does anybody have anything to complain about this morning? That's the background to these words I'm getting ready to read you. In 1 Peter 3:8, it says this. "Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind." This was written when all of that was going on.
Most of us in Western Christianity, if we were writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and our fellow believers were being dragged off and put into animal skins and put as human torches and being crucified, we would say, "Run and get the ammunition. We're not going to let this happen. Let's kill them before they kill us."
Peter writes, and I will read it again, "Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind." Verse 8 is written for in-house business. Verses 9-16 are about the church going out into the world. When you read 9-12, it's almost like reading the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. We'll get to that in a moment.
The reason I pause at verse 8 is because this unity of spirit, this sympathy, this humility is to first be learned in the church. Do you hear me? It's first to be learned in the church. Do you know why? Because we are supposed to be an alternate community. We are supposed to be the community. We are the community of the future in the now. We are supposed to be the community of what it will one day fully be like in the future, trying our best to live it in the now by the power of the Holy Spirit.
When the world gives evil, we give love. When they give hatred, we give grace and mercy. When they say, "Kill," we breathe life into things. Right? When they come against us and make us suffer, we suffer because Jesus suffered before us. We love because we were first loved. That's why verse 8 is so important in the church. That's why a lot of times pastors… When I stand up and say, "Church community is important," this is what I'm talking about.
I challenge you as a body of believers at Legacy. Hear me now. Start coming to church a little earlier. Start hanging out after church just a little longer. I challenge you now. Start inviting other people to lunch besides me. Hello? I love you, but find somebody. Get to know somebody. Do you know why? Because we are called to do life together so we can learn and struggle together and then take that pattern out into the world that needs a pattern.
If we show up late and we leave early, the only thing we have done is heard some singing, heard Pastor Steve do a little bit of preaching, but we really didn't iron sharpen iron. We really didn't communicate to one another, and we really didn't grow in community. What we did is we had an event. An event will never change this world. Only a community that believes.
That's why I get amazed at a pastor when it is 10:00 and people drag in at 15 after, 20 after. I don't get it. I'm going to look at you. I don't get it. I'm going to challenge you as a pastor. Stop it. "Why?" God's watching. Show up. "Why?" Because you're important. You're supposed to be here. You're supposed to serve. The Bible says you are blessed if you guard the door of the house of God. Hello? Is this okay today? Because I have Scripture if you don't think it's okay, because part of my call is to reprove… That's what I'm doing.
You guys know me. Don't think I let myself off the hook just because I'm here early, because I have to be here early. There are times I'm here early, and I'm really not here, so I'm just as guilty as you. Please understand that. This is for us. That's why he said this. "Finally, all of you, have unity of mind…" Come together. It is important. I'll tell you why it's important.
Let's say a new family comes to church. You know where I'm going with this, right? A new family comes to church, but the people of the community of God are not there to even greet them, they're not there to even embrace them. Do you think they're going to stay? Then, if we're not careful, we'll look around and go, "I wonder why we didn't grow. I wonder why this didn't happen." I don't know. It must be my fault. Hello? That's why verse 8 is important.
Then look what he says in verse 9. "Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing." Now he takes what we've learned in church and says, "I want you to take it out into the highways and hedges, and all the evil, don't give back evil. All the reviling, do not revile. Why? Because you have been…" What? "…called to this. If you do it, there is a blessing."
What is the blessing? The blessing is connected to eternal life. Peter is writing, and he's saying when you live that way, when you don't give evil for evil, when you don't revile back when they revile against you, you are pulling part of that future into the very now, and the world doesn't know how to defend that. They don't know how to do anything with that. What they eventually have to do is surrender to that. Do you see that? That's what Jesus meant.
Go with me real quick to the book of Matthew, chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount. Verses 9-12 read like this. I want to read you a couple of things to remind you. The Sermon on the Mount was never about mere rules and mere law. It was about… Let me read you a couple of things. Chapter 5 of Matthew. Go down to verse 3.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Do you see how it is? He's going, "You're happy now, and you will one day… You're actually this now, but you will be one day…" Do you see how Jesus is reaching into the future, and he's pulling it into the now? That's what he's saying.
This is not a bunch of rules and regulations to learn. He said, "These are habits of the heart. This is the virtue of the future, and the virtue of the future is sitting right in front of you, and his name is Jesus." That's what he's saying. I wish I were a great theologian like N. T. Wright, because N. T. Wright says this, and he says it way better than I can. "God's future is arriving in the present in the person and the work of Jesus, and you can practice, right now, the habits of life which will find their goal in the coming future." That's in his book, After You Believe.
What's he's saying is God's future is arriving in the present. It is coming here right now, he says, in the person of Jesus. You can, do what? You can practice it right now. Look what he says next in the same book. "What Jesus is saying rather is now that I'm here, God's new world is coming to birth, and once you realize that, you'll see that these are the habits of heart which anticipate that new world here and now." That's powerful.
That's his commentary basically on the Beatitudes. If you would interview N. T. Wright, this is probably where he would take you. He would say this future was sitting right in front of him. That's why he always teaches that with the resurrection of Jesus, the door of new creation was swung open. Everything changed. This future began to leak into the now. That's why I said when the Holy Spirit fell on the day of Pentecost, it was the Holy Spirit of the future that fell into their hearts, and he brought the redemptive work.
If you'll remember, it was Jesus who, after the resurrection, said, "Don't touch me. I have not ascended." Then he ascended. Later on, in the book of Acts, we find out that Jesus, when he ascended to the Father, received the promised Holy Spirit that he now poured out on them. He had accomplished a work of redemption. Now he pours it out upon them. Now go with me back to 1 Peter. This is what it says, starting in verse 10.
"For, 'Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.'"
A lot of times when we read that last part, that the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, we think, "Well, that's the Enemy." Do you know what? His face can be against his children. When I read 9-12 and I see that the Lord's face is with me when I do right and, per se, is against me when I'm doing wrong, that's a powerful, powerful, holy thing to be taking place.
Sometimes we have to go back and relearn what it is to follow Christ in a hostile world, because guys, I have to tell you. Sometimes, I mess it up pretty bad. I jack it up. I'm not a perfect person. I'm not a perfect pastor. I've never met one. We like to make celebrities out of a lot of them in Western Christianity. I'm telling you, man. We'll lift up a pastor in a heartbeat. Hello? This is where you should be going, "Amen, brother." Because we do.
"Have you heard so-and-so preach? Have you read so-and-so's book?" I just want to go, "Shut up. Have you read this one?" Really. Because I'm not all that great, and this guy isn't all the great, and this person isn't all that great. Who is great is God. Listen to me. I can hear the greatest message in the world I think in the flesh and still go to just the Word of God and open it up and read a Psalm and go, "You can never touch that with a sermon."
Celebrity pastors. I don't get it. I don't get how we lift pastors up to that level. The job of a pastor is to be the servant of all, if you really want to know the truth about it. As a matter of fact, the only lifting up of a pastor that I ever saw that accomplished anything was the lifting up of Jesus on a cross. When he got lifted up, the world changed. When a pastor gets lifted up, nothing changes but his ego. I don't even know how I got over there, but that's good preaching. It doesn't matter if you like it or not.
Anyway, what I was saying is I've messed up. I do things from time to time. I have bad days. I remember one time (I've shared this story with you) when I was in California, and I was a paint contractor. When I was a paint contractor, I had this big contract. It made me a lot of money. I had it down to a science. I'd go in every day, and I'd go to the main guy, and he would give me the key. He would have on a board, "Here are all the apartments you're going to do."
My money would add up. I would say, "Man, I have six to do today." Ching, ching, ching. I would go, and I would do the work, and I would do everything. I did this for years. One day, I walked in, and they changed a policy on me. "Hey, Mr. Wright, we need to see you. No longer will the keys be given out on the board back there, and you can't just look on the board and get them. You have to come in, get the key, check it out, sign this waver, and if you lose the key, it's going to be a $500 fee," and everything like that.
You know what I did? I lost my ever-lovin' mind. "I'm going to tell you what you can do. Maybe somebody else will do it, but I've been over here painting for five years. I'm not checking out any key, and if I lose your little old key…" I'm telling you, I went off on them. "If I lose this key, I'm not going to pay you $500." This poor girl behind the counter was looking at me going… I mean, I let her have it. "I'm the painter of this place!"
I walked out, got in my truck, shut the door, and heard God go, "Really?" Has anybody ever been there? Man. It's tough to eat crow, isn't it? I went back in there, and I walked into the office, and I said, "Can I have everybody's attention in here?" I got the whole office's attention, and I said, "I've been painting here for…" At that point, it was like six years. "…six years, but my calling is a pastor. I just disrespected God and disrespected my office, and I disrespected everyone in this room."
I said, "I will gladly pay $500 if I lose it, and if it's $1,000 I have to pay, I will rightfully pay $1,000. Would you please forgive me?" I'll never forget that little girl who was new. I'd never even met her. She looked at me, and she said, "Thank you. Where do you pastor?" Now, I had a rough day like that, but these people when Peter was writing were being put on torches.
That's what I mean today when I say we are called to lead the world out of darkness and not collide with the world by repaying evil for evil. In just a little bit, as we get ready to leave here and we go out in this hostile world, we need to live a life that shows them what we believe about this future kingdom. Is it really real? Can we live it out in the now?
I'm going to skip some of the rest of the verses, and I'm going to skip over and end with John 17. I want to go to the book of John. In John 17, here's what Jesus prayed. "I do not ask that you take them out of the world…" This is Jesus praying for the disciples. "…but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." Would you stand to your feet with me this morning?
