EverGrace Church

Dennis White: Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this afternoon and we ask that you would come and visit us. We believe by faith and we quote the passage that where two or more gathered in your name, you are there. I believe that there are more than two of us that are here for the purpose of glorifying you. We trust by your promises that you are here. But sometimes as weak and feeble human beings, we just need to feel you are here.

Lord, so we just ask if we have not felt the presence of God in a while, if we haven't felt the presence of God yet today through the worship, that as we open our Bible the presence of God would be tangible in our life. We would leave here in a little bit of awe of who you are and what you have done. Maybe our problems will not have been solved but in one way they have been because we've been in the presence of God. We just thank you so much for this. We thank you Lord, we thank you, we praise you. In Jesus' precious name. Amen.

We're trying to get through First Peter this summer. We're in First Peter chapter three. Let's turn there and we'll start in verses 13 until the end of the chapter. I have really enjoyed First Peter. I myself have learned a lot and probably like any sermon series or any book of the Bible, as soon as we're done, we'll forget everything we started with so we could probably re-teach the whole thing and not remember any of it. I am really excited what God has to share today and today's topic is this idea that when goodness fails.

Have you ever done something good and expected great results? Has that ever happened in your life? You have done something good for your company and you've been there a long time and you expect a raise, a high raise, and you don't get it. Or you helped someone so therefore you expect that that positive energy that you exerted will return back to you and give you something good back. There are many examples of good things that we have done but I think we've all been alive long enough to realize that when we do good it doesn't always mean that we will be rewarded for the good that we do.

The question we're asking ourselves is what do we do then? It's a really big question and we've been dealing with that here in First Peter chapter three because the church is being persecuted and they are being told, "Don't return evil for evil but continue to do good." It ends here in verse 13. Listen to this verse. We're just going to read the one verse for now. It says, "Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?" Basically saying that my interpretation, especially off the face value of this passage, was if I do good, if I am constantly doing good, then they will see that I do good and they will not harm me. If I do good, the world, they will see that I am doing good and they will reward me for the good that I have done.

In measure we see that there is some truth to this. If you were to flip in your Bibles and look at the qualifications for a church elder or church deacon, one of those requirements is that the world speaks well of you. Interesting, isn't it? I am a believer, I serve Christ, I serve him radically, yet the world is supposed to speak good of me. Why? Because of the life that flows out of me communicates life to others. The life of God that is inside of me, it communicates the life of God to other people that are estranged from God. That doesn't mean that everyone's going to like you. Actually, usually when we follow God, what do we find out that happens?

Guest (Male): Yeah, they're not going to love you. We heard last night, Daryl Strawberry, he gave a sermon at the end of the game last night and he said this, he says they talked about me when I was in the world and then when I left and became a Christian they talked about me. So no matter what they're talking about me. So might as well be for following the Lord than for doing something stupid.

Dennis White: But we find ourselves that as we draw close to God that there is a sanctification, there is a separation between who I am and who the world is. That separation should become more and more clear because I am constantly being changed into the image of God, not the image of the world. The longer I'm alive, the longer I follow the Lord, the more I am conformed into his image.

There is this separation and oftentimes that separation can cause great division in the workplace, at home, on the sports team, on the streets, in the shopping centers. There can be great division. That in one sense is okay, but we often think that if I do good then good will return. The reality is that often we could say it this way: goodness fails.

Let's read the entire passage, verses 13 through 22. It says: "Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 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 a defense for anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is inside of you. Yet do it with a gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile you for good behavior in Christ might be put to shame.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteousness for the unrighteousness, that might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he sent and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from your body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with the angels, authorities, and the powers having been subjected to him."

Peter here is preparing us for this idea that you will do good as I have commanded in the midst of persecution. In verses 13 through 14 he deals with this idea that goodness will fail and you will be persecuted nonetheless, even though you do good. I was actually reading the story of Nicholas Winton. He was a businessman in 1938, he was only 29 years old actually, a British stockbroker. He cancelled his skiing vacation with a friend in Prague where he witnessed thousands of refugees living in squalor under the immediate threat of Nazi occupation just before the war happened.

Moved by the plight of the most vulnerable, Winton did not wait for a committee, he did not wait for a church group or for a government to act. He set up a makeshift desk in his hotel, began collecting the names of families desperate to send their children to safety. For months he worked tirelessly, he forged travel documents, raised money out of pocket and convinced British families to open their homes. Between March and August of 1939, he successfully organized eight trains known as Kinder transport, rescuing 669 Jewish children. Amazing, isn't it?

That is something really good, isn't it? On September 1st, 1939, his ninth train and largest train was scheduled to depart from Prague with more than 250 children. It was the largest group yet. That exact day Germany invaded Poland, World War II broke out, and the borders closed instantly. The train never left the station. Nearly all of those 250 children perished in concentration camps.

This is a larger scale of a historical fact that really happened and I am moved by Nicholas where he was so moved not to wait or to go home and give this idea to someone else but he simply in his hotel room decided to do something, saving 669 children. I would just imagine if I'm a believer I'm saying, "God, this is amazing, you are doing a great work. Please promote him, please help him to do good, please continue this work." Then here he is September 1st, the Nazis come into Poland and shut the whole operation down. All those kids that he was trying to send to safety end up perishing.

Could you imagine his own heart? Devastated by this catastrophic loss, Winton felt his goodness had failed. He did not feel like a hero, he felt the crushing weight of 250 children that he could not save. He went home to Britain, locked his leather scrapbook of names in the attic and told absolutely no one of what he had done. Not even his wife. For 50 years he lived in the quiet shadow of what he viewed as unfinished and ultimate failure.

If we are to unpack this story of Nicholas Winton, we see several things and this is kind of basic but I want us to look at this story and then we're going to compare it to First Peter chapter three. We're going to see that there's a lot of similarities between the two. First of all, we see that Nicholas was motivated to make a difference. That he saw the plight of these families and these children and the way that they were living and he says, "I want to do something, I am motivated."

Then number two, that he took that motivation and then he worked tirelessly. Could you imagine in those few months being able to save 669 children? How could he organize that? How could he raise the money? Where was he sending these children? So many questions. His motivation allowed him to a place where he could work hard. This is amazing that in his hard work there was a measure of success, wasn't there? We read the story and we say he is not a failure, he is a success, he saved lives. But put yourself back into time without knowing the end results. You don't know what happens to these children, you just know that on September 1st these children that were bound for safety are now dead.

This is where the story changes. Despite his measure of success, he now has an experience where he feels that his goodness failed. So what does he do as a result? He withdraws. He goes back home and lives his life as if those months of his life never even existed. Never even shared it with his own wife where he sleeps next to every night, pillow to pillow, never shared a single word.

We live in a world where we measure obedience by fruits and we measure and reward disobedience by punishment of some kind. This is where we get these ideas of instant karma: "If I do good, then good will be done unto me." There's a Bible verse actually, isn't there? But we also read other verses where it says an eye for an eye that I want justice. We have talked about Santa Claus where if we do good throughout the year we'll get rewarded with presents. We are given scholarships as students and we are given promotions if you do well at work.

Guest (Male): Do unto others as you'd have others do unto us, who does anything in the world today. It's true.

Dennis White: It's true. But with what this world measures, we now live under the constant weight of failure. Because I don't know about you but I could do something good but what resonates in my own heart and my own mind is all my failures. I don't remember the good things that I did, I remember all the bad things that I did. I don't remember the good things that people said to me, I remember all the bad things people said to me.

These are the things and I do not understand why. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, but for some reason these negative thoughts and these words that are actually from the pit of hell and these actions that are from the pit of hell and it is sin, it makes its mark into my life and the Bible actually says that it sears our conscience. It makes our conscience numb so that way we no longer can feel. Isn't that amazing?

That is exactly what sin does in our life. It makes us so we cannot, we don't feel anything. If you've ever stolen something, you steal something small and you feel, "Oh man, that was exciting and dangerous." But then as you start stealing more and more things you're like, "Oh, the candy bar is not a big deal." You just start ruining more lives and stealing more things and sin develops into more sin. Gross sin develops into more gross sin.

This is actually by the way why the Bible is usually much harder on sexual sins because sexual sins scar the human soul more than any other sin. Because it goes right against what God created in the Bible, man and women to be together in unity as one, as one group, as one. That's how God created. What did man do? Distorted it. We can have many lovers, we can have many experiences with whoever we want and now it doesn't matter the gender and we can continue.

Actually the question of marriage even comes into question. Is it necessary? What is the value? We no longer believe these simple basic truths. The Bible says that these things will produce darker things. But when we look at the story of Nicholas, we see the good that he did and actually these are not things that are foreign to us. Are we not ourselves motivated to make a difference in this world? If you were to read First Peter chapter one verse 22 it says almost those words.

We are motivated by an incorruptible seed that is within inside of us to do the will of God. Are we not also moved to action? Not only to make a difference and we're not only motivated but then we go and we work hard. We see that in First Peter chapter two verse 11. I think about our church here, I mean we have been here in this building for five years. Have we not been motivated and have we not done good? You could answer that question.

Guest (Male): The answer is yes. We are motivated by what? By the love of God. We are motivated by what? The words of God. What are we motivated by? The brokenness of humanity. We are motivated to do the will of God and then we go and we do it, we don't just talk about it. Where does this come from but it comes from God. So much like Nicholas, we are the same.

Much like Nicholas, we also have a measure of success. Knock on a few doors and have some great conversations, have the opportunity to sit and pray with someone to receive Christ, have the opportunity to help someone move, help someone to have a cup of cold water in a time of need. Today we're giving out the backpacks to those that are in need. I mean there could be 150 people that come today or there could be ten.

We are motivated and we do and we have a measure of success but then it changes. Like Nicholas looked at his measure of success but then he was destroyed by that ultimate failure. When goodness failed he was destroyed. And we say, "God, where is your righteousness?"

Dennis White: Peter's talking to Christians that are living in a world where they are being persecuted. Real persecution. Not name-calling. Real persecution. Burning of homes, killing, losing of jobs, taking away. Real persecution. Peter says, "Give them good." You know what? Maybe they'll recognize that and not harm you. That's not what he's saying actually. Because he knows that they will be harmed.

He looks not at this level. See, his idea of success changes. Nicholas's idea of success was, "I'm going to keep doing this and keep saving children." And what would have happened if he pressed on a little bit harder? What would have happened if he? I don't know. But he met the failure of goodness and then he quit.

I believe it's because of his understanding of what success is. Because First Peter chapter three, 13 and 14 is not a promise to you that if you do good that the world will see it and yes there might be some persecution but don't worry you'll be blessed. No, verses 13 and 14 are actually saying something very different. They're saying you are going to be persecuted but no one can touch you. They're going to touch your outside, they're going to touch your physical life, but what is inside of you, your inner spiritual constitution, the inner spiritual grace that God has given you, no one can touch that.

Isn't that amazing? We could run through the promises of God and we could read that I am a child of God. That is an inner grace that no one can touch. Isn't that amazing?

Guest (Male): The Apostle Paul showed us that, didn't he? Philippians 4:11. He showed it by actually trying to persecute Christians too. And you want not being successful? He was there when Stephen was being stoned to death and he stood there and he watched Stephen being stoned. And the words of Stephen, was Stephen touched? Yes. He died. But they could not remove his inner constitution. They could not remove that inner grace. See, he could not be touched. It is the same for us that no matter what happens that there could be difficulties in our life but we are still blessed.

Dennis White: What Peter does is amazing. Where else in the Bible does it talk about being blessed? Matthew chapter five. Jesus on the mount gives a sermon: blessed be in a bunch of different things, right? Isn't that amazing?

Guest (Male): That's where he gave the Lord's prayer, right? Blessed, blessed, blessed. He changed. You know what Jesus does is that he redefines what it means to be blessed.

Dennis White: That's the thing that we have to understand is that we have to redefine what it means to be successful. We have to redefine what it means to be blessed by God. Peter is doing the same thing here. How does he define it? Jesus and Peter shift the idea of success and blessedness away from the external statutes that of money, of fame, of popularity and he moves it from that to the unshakable inner grace.

He moves it from that to the spiritual posture of the believer and he shifts it from that to the participation that we have in the kingdom of God. To be blessed is not over here as the world is defining it, but to be blessed is actually inside of your life you have the spiritual grace that God has given you. Inside of your life you have a spiritual posture. I could imagine the Christians at the Colosseum being torn apart by lions and devoured, sitting there bare naked, yet inside of their hearts they are standing tall because of their inner spiritual constitution.

I would say each one of us, I mean the Bible calls us saints, isn't that amazing? Corinthian, both books of Corinthian starts by calling the church saints. I don't know if you've read Corinthian recently but there's a few problems in that church, isn't there? I'd be looking at those people and be like, "Mm-mm, you're not a saint and I don't even want you at my house right now. I can't deal with this."

We think that we have problems in our church or our churches today have problems. No, the Corinthian church is a church that you would not want to be a part of. You would not be signing up for membership, you would not be volunteering to hand out backpacks for them, you would not be going evangelizing and say, "Hey come to my church, it's amazing. Look at these evil people over here, they're awesome." You would not be doing that in the Corinth church.

In the beginning he starts the letter out by declaring their inner spiritual constitution: "You're a saint." Each one of us, I don't know where we are in our walk with God right now. I guarantee that if the curtain could be pulled back there'd be some dark things to see, wouldn't there? God sees it, God knows, and what does he say? That you also are loved by God, you also are a saint.

Here Peter is saying the same thing that you have an inner spiritual constitution, you have inner spiritual grace. This is a part of not only your position but he is exhorting the church now to live out who they really are. Knowing that the times are tough and how does he tell the church to live this out? Number one, he says, "Do not fear." Do not fear what? Do not fear those that are persecuting. Do not fear what the world might say about me if I'm radical for Jesus. Don't fear what the family would say. Don't worry about what your spouse will say. Don't worry about what your children say.

Do not worry about, do not fear either the actions or the words of the world. Actually Isaiah chapter eight, verse 12 and 13, if you're taking notes, two great verses where Isaiah tells the Jews, he says, "Fear not the fear of them, nor be afraid. But allow the Lord, but fear the Lord and be greatly afraid of him." There is this concept of that thing and we're going to get there. That's point number two. Point number one is: do not fear. We see it here in this passage, we also see it in Isaiah chapter eight verse 12: "Do not fear the world."

This leads us to the next principle: honor Christ. Isaiah 8:13 says, "Now we don't fear the world, but now we fear the Lord." See, that which we honor now shifts to God. There's this idea that the thing that we honor will have the ability to cast out the lesser fears. All right, now track this with me. The thing that we honor has the ability to cast out lesser fears. What are some things that you honor in your life besides God? I know you guys do that already. Are there some lesser things in your life that you honor? Shout out a couple ideas, I'm drawing a blank right now.

Guest (Male): Football. Football, yeah. Well we don't have to fight with that anymore starting next week. Yeah we could honor football.

Dennis White: Work. Family. Now if I honor my wife, if I honor my family or work, what fear does that cast out? It does cast out some fears, doesn't it? There is social dependency and comfort that I have with my family that is very, it can be very comfortable, it can be very healthy, even though the Lord's not there it can be good. Very interesting, isn't it?

How about if I honor my work? That one's easy. I mean I get a paycheck every week. I not only pay my bills, back door someone, Michaela's down there. Not only do I get to pay my bills but I get to actually spend some money on things that I enjoy. I get to go on vacation, I get to go skydiving, I get to go rock climbing, I get to do these kind of things. Isn't that amazing?

See the thing that I honor, it'll cast out lesser fears. But the thing is that does honoring my family have its limitations? Because there are things that are higher than that and my honoring the family will not be able to cast these fears out. At some point in my life I will see these fears and my family can do nothing. It's the same with money. Money can make your life very comfortable, very enjoyable, but at some point you're going to get sick and no amount of money is going to help you.

On and on we could talk about the things that we honor. The word honor actually means to make something holy. Isn't that amazing? Here Peter is saying, "Make in your heart, make God, make Christ holy." It's amazing. Make him holy. Can you make Christ holy? The answer is yes. Because you honor him in your heart, you make him separate from the all the other things and what you will see is that when you make God holy, when you make Christ holy, when you honor him and him alone, what happens to the rest of your fears? They're all gone.

Guest (Male): We become holy. We do become holy, yeah.

Dennis White: But when we honor him, all other fears are washed away. Thing is that a believer, even as a believer and even though my soul is saved, unless I am honoring God there will be fears that overcome me. Because Christ is not honored. Only those that honor Christ supremely can say nothing shall make me afraid. Oftentimes we say those passages in the midst of our trouble and we're in the trouble why? Because we have honored something else.

Very interesting. Now I'm going to run quickly here, running out of time. Number three, first is do not fear, second is honor, the third thing that Peter tells us is that we should defend hope. You need to know who it is that you're honoring. This is why we say that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship, because to defend something means you have to know it intimately.

Not only through the books, but also in relationship. You have to know it intimately. Defend it. We see actually Paul doing this in Acts chapter 22. He is in prison and he is standing before important people and what does he do? But he begins to preach the gospel. Notice he is not afraid. Notice he is honoring God and actually Agrippa says himself that I was almost myself persuaded. Amazing when we defend the very thing that gives us hope in the midst of our darkest days, we give hope to those who aren't even in trouble.

Number four, this is all in First Peter chapter three, verses 13 through 18, that we have a good conscience. That doesn't mean that it's clear, but that means it's not impaired. There are things in our life that can impair our ability to look and say, "Hey, this is good or bad." Is that happening today in this world? 100% it's happening. We're not able to look and say, "Hey, this is wrong."

We're not able to look and say, "Hey, this is right." But you live your truth, live your right, do what is good for you. These are the kind of things that are said nowadays. There are no absolutes and if you have an absolute you're a bigot. You're wrong, you're old school, you're dumb. But actually Peter says that if you think this way and you're able to look between what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, that means that your conscience is no longer impaired.

By the way this happens through the Holy Spirit. Because before I lived in sin and I sleep with all these women and I do all these alcohol and all this drugs and I live this kind of life and then what happens? It impairs my ability to say, "Hey, this is right and wrong." Actually it impairs a lot of abilities that I have, doesn't it? It impairs my conscience.

But when I get saved what does God do but he gives me the mind of Christ, he gives me a new heart. I am a new creation and what happens is that my life becomes brand new so I'm able to look and say, "Hey, this is of God." Now I want to say two things right now. The first thing is very simple. That through the word of God and through the Holy Spirit that I am healed and I am able to look and say, "Hey, this is good and this is bad."

Start there by the way. Don't ask these other questions because those questions are harder. If you are not able to look and through scripture through your conscience being renewed and look and say, "Hey, these things are good and these things are evil," if you can't do that then get down on your knees with God and seek him. The more you get to know him, the more you'll be able to decipher what the heck is going on here, what is good and what is bad.

Pray. Because what's going to happen is something's going to happen over here that is not so obvious. It is not so obvious and what do I do? I open my Bible and there's no verse saying that this is evil. There's no verse saying that this is wrong or this is good. There's no verse that says that. So what do I have to do? My conscience has to be unimpaired and I have to have a walk with God so I have the ability to say this is what God wants me to do.

I believe in the Bible there was a prophet who married a prostitute, right? Over here, is this good or evil? Mosaic law says don't do it. But he already knew all of this. He was well established. Now he's living in this question mark: is this really what you want God? Can he go to other prophets for counsel? He could. But what are they going to tell him? "Well in the book of Leviticus it says that she should be stoned, not to marry her."

What is he to do? He stands before God alone and he has to make a decision that no one else can legislate. That's not easy, is it? But that's the place that sometimes we will be in where God might ask us to do something crazy. Not that kind of crazy, I hope. But some things that are not so obvious in scripture. Other questions we could ask is what is God's will for my life? That's a question.

How is that going to be decided? Who does God want me to marry? What job should I take? Where should I move? Should I be a missionary or not? Should the church change location? Should the church do this? A million questions. There's no direct answer in the Bible so where do I start? I start in my relationship with God. In closing, let's compare ourselves to Nicholas.

First we see that we are both motivated to make a difference. This happens for us as believers as we see in First Peter chapter one verse 22. Then we work hard to make this difference. We're doing that today. We're going to hand out these backpacks and simple little blessing. Maybe they don't even need it, maybe they're going to take those crayons and sell them somewhere, I don't know.

They're going to have a moment where they get to meet you and you're going to get to pray for them, you're going to get to share the gospel with them and give them a little bit of hope in their life. We make a difference. Then we have a measure of success. Then yes goodness fails. It might happen today that only ten people walk in. Does this mean that goodness failed?

I believe it's because of his understanding of what success is. Because First Peter chapter three, 13 and 14 is not a promise to you that if you do good that the world will see it and yes there might be some persecution but don't worry you'll be blessed. No, verses 13 and 14 are actually saying something very different. They're saying you are going to be persecuted but no one can touch you.

They're going to touch your outside, they're going to touch your physical life, but what is inside of you, your inner spiritual constitution, the inner spiritual grace that God has given you, no one can touch that. Isn't that amazing? We could run through the promises of God and we could read that I am a child of God. That is an inner grace that no one can touch. Isn't that amazing?

I believe it's because of his understanding of what success is. Because First Peter chapter three, 13 and 14 is not a promise to you that if you do good that the world will see it and yes there might be some persecution but don't worry you'll be blessed. No, verses 13 and 14 are actually saying something very different. They're saying you are going to be persecuted but no one can touch you. They're going to touch your outside, they're going to touch your physical life, but what is inside of you, your inner spiritual constitution, the inner spiritual grace that God has given you, no one can touch that.

Everything is beneath us. Let's bow our heads and pray. Heavenly Father we thank you so much for this story. The story of Nicholas does continue, I believe in the early 90s they brought him on TV and they brought thousands and thousands of people that he was responsible for saving. He just wept because he had no idea of the effect that he had.

Today as believers we might do something small, we might give a cup of cold water to someone in need in the name of Jesus and it has great authority. I just Lord that you would give us that inner strength, that inner ability to persevere in the midst of great trials and tribulations. That when the world mocks us or even as other Christians mock us, we would be so filled with the joy and the hope of Jesus Christ and that we will be honoring you that we just kind of laugh it off and we brush it aside. We just thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.