Love Worth Finding

Guest (Male): As Christians, what are we supposed to do when people oppose us? Listen to Adrian Rogers.

Adrian Rogers: Do you know how people perceive us? Do you know what they think about us? They call us hate-mongers. They call us narrow. They call us bigoted. They call us insensitive.

And the problem with many of us is that we react to that with angry rhetoric, and it escalates on both sides. Do you think that's going to win anything for our side? It will not. The Bible says we are to be slow to speak, quick to hear. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Love Worth Finding. Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers said, "America is not going to be won by argument. It's going to take a lifestyle of godly people who know the truth and walk humbly before their God."

As believers in Christ, we have to come together. We have to be united in our Christian worldview and then learn how to articulate what we believe to a world hurting for hope. The book of 1 Peter was essentially a survival guide for the early Christians in Rome, and in it, we can find five principles of our worldview as we face opposition in today's society. If you have your Bible, turn there now, as Adrian Rogers gives the powerful conclusion of this message, Christian Worldview.

Adrian Rogers: Now, the scripture in 1 Peter is more or less of a handbook for survival. Peter is talking to these people in duress, and this is what Peter says to them. He says to them in verse 15, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."

The very first thing we have to deal with is the principle of Lordship. He says, "sanctify Christ as Lord." That is literally what it says. Everything in your life must line up behind, never ahead of, the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Now, here's the second principle. Not only the principle of Lordship, there's the principle of learning. Look in verse 15 again. "Be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." When the Bible says be ready to give an answer, this is the word we get the word apologetics from. This is a person who is ready to give an answer, an apologetic response to those questions that come. We have got to be aware. We have got to understand and have a Christian worldview.

The third principle is the principle of lowliness. Look, if you will, in verse 15 again. "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." The Bible teaches that you and I are to have a lifestyle of meekness. Meekness is not weakness. It means strength channeled, strength under control.

The word fear does not mean that we quake at the enemy. It's not talking about being afraid of the devil. The Bible says in nothing be terrified by your adversaries. The word fear here means reverence, the fear of God. And what is the fear of God but love on its knees? Those who love God the best fear him the most.

I want to say this, that America is not going to be won by arguments. We're not called upon to out-argue the devil. Not by the ballot box and not by organization. It's going to take a lifestyle of godly people who know the truth and walk humbly before their God.

Do you know how people perceive us? Do you know what they think about us? They call us hate-mongers. They call us narrow. They call us bigoted. They call us insensitive. And the problem with many of us is that we react to that with angry rhetoric, and it escalates on both sides.

But here, just put this verse in your margin, James chapter 1, verses 19 and following. "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." And then here's the key. Watch it. "For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

Have you ever seen some of these Christians in some of these demonstrations? Their face red, their fist in the air, they're shouting and screaming and calling names. Do you think that's going to win anything for our side? It will not. The Bible says we are to have meekness and fear. We are to be slow to speak, quick to hear. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Jesus, of course, had righteous anger toward religious hypocrites. But I want you to study the life of Jesus and see how Jesus treated those who were down and out and those who lived in spiritual blindness and darkness. See the love of Jesus Christ toward the adulteress, toward the prostitutes, toward the tax collectors, toward those who were taken captive by Satan. His heart went out. He knew the depravity of their heart.

The problem with many of us is we think that somehow if we get organized enough, we can teach billy goats not to butt. They are sinners. And come up close now, and I'll tell you what a sinner does. He sins. That's his nature. And they're not going to be out-argued. What they have to see in us is a superior lifestyle. And what I hope will come out of this study is that we will come out with a full head and a loving heart, and we will learn to speak the truth in love.

Jesus did not lash back in anger. Notice here in 1 Peter, just turn over to chapter 2 and look in verse 23 of this same chapter. It speaks of Jesus, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.

When people came against him, he took his case to the Supreme Court. I said the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court. He committed himself to him who judges righteously. Isn't it wonderful that we can carry our case all the way to the Supreme Court? I'm not talking about those nine folks in black robes. I'm talking about Almighty God.

Nero burned Rome. So history tells us, and I believe it is true, he fancied himself as being an urban renewal expert, and there were some slums and things where the poor people lived, and he wanted to remodel the city. According to tradition and history, he had the city torched and set on fire. The thing backfired on him, and the people were rising up and they were angry and hostile.

His advisor said, "Well, you have got to find a scapegoat. You have got to find someone to blame. There's a new sect of people called Christians. Blame them. After all, they're talking about a God of fire and setting the world on fire and Holy Ghost fire and all of this." And the people retaliated on these Christians.

Some of them had hot oil poured over them. Some of them had melted tar poured over them, and then they were tied to stakes and lighted on fire like human candles, and they were burned at the stake. But they suffered righteously, as Peter says we are to suffer, and it was their ability to suffer that brought the Roman Empire crashing down.

A Chinese student, facing the iron boot of Chinese communism when they came against these students, said this, and it's a wonderful statement. "Lies written in ink cannot obscure truth written in blood." That's the way the early Christians overcame.

We have to be careful. I have to be careful. Have you ever noticed I have an argumentative attitude? Don't answer that. But I do. I am argumentative by nature. I have to watch it. You have to be careful as a Christian that you do not win the argument and lose the audience.

Look at what he says here. He's talking to us. "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer." That's the argument. "To everyone that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." Strength under control and the reverence for Almighty God.

True humility, real humility, will often disarm those that we come against. And we must all admit that even the best of us have not yet sprouted wings and gotten a halo. We are all still part of the human race.

I like the prayer that Nehemiah prayed, and I think more of us ought to pray that prayer. Nehemiah was living in a day very much like ours. Nehemiah was a righteous man, but listen to this. Nehemiah chapter 1 and verse 6. He's praying to God, and he says, "Let thine ear be now attentive and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now day and night for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Both I and my father's house have sinned."

Nehemiah was a man of God. But it is time for the church to be on her knees and her face before God, not telling God about the wickedness of all of those other people only, but saying, "Dear God, have mercy on us." For the Bible says judgment must begin in the house of God. Do you agree with that?

There is the principle then of lowliness. And then here's the principle of lifestyle. Notice again in verse 15, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you."

The word hope doesn't mean maybe, perhaps. It is not sort of a sanctified wish. The word hope means rock-ribbed assurance based on the word of God. That's the reason the second coming of Jesus is called the blessed hope, not the blessed maybe, the blessed hope.

Why were these early Christians able to live as they lived? Because they had a hope that was in them that was so real, so vibrant, so incontrovertible that they stood out. And the pagans would come to them and say, "What makes you tick? I cannot understand you, the way you live. You have a different lifestyle. What has transformed you? What has made you different?"

Look in chapter 2 and verse 12 of this same chapter. The Bible says we are to be having our conversation honest among the Gentiles. That means our behavior among the pagan, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

The day of visitation means literally the day of observation, inspection. When they look at you, they will bad-mouth us, they will talk about us, they will criticize us, they will call us all manner of things. But we have got to outlive them. We have got to out-love them. We have got to out-pray them. We have got to out-preach them. We have got to out-give them. We have got to out-sacrifice the pagans. Why? Because of the rock-ribbed assurance we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They will look at us and they will say, "They are different. Tell me about the hope that is in you." May I ask you a question? Don't answer it out loud. But has anybody ever asked you to explain your life? Has anybody ever come to you and said, "Hey, I don't understand you. You are different. Would you tell me about it?"

I want to submit to you if we are living under the Lordship of Christ, if we are living as the Apostle Peter says we ought to be living, people will be coming to us and asking us for an explanation of our lifestyle, and we will be able to testify of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A classic example of that, Paul and Silas were in prison for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were in the innermost prison. Acts 16 tells about it. They had been beaten. They were put down in that prison in the bottom with the sewage, the vermin, the rats, the roaches. Their backs were lacerated. Their hands and their feet are in manacles. It is midnight.

The Bible says at midnight they're praying and singing praise to God. The jailer, he had often heard cursing, but not praising. He had often heard moaning, but not singing. He could not understand it. He brought a light and came in after God sent an earthquake into that jail, and he asked this question of them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

He saw the difference in Paul and Silas. I hope that people can see a difference in my lifestyle. I hope people that know me can say, "He is different." I hope people that know you can say, "He has a hope. She has a hope. This person stands out like a gardenia in this desert of mediocrity and filth."

Nietzsche was an atheist. As a matter of fact, Nietzsche was one of those who Hitler fed on. Nietzsche flung this challenge into the face of the church. He said, "If you want me to believe in your redeemer, you're going to have to look and act a little more redeemed." What an insult to the church of God.

There is the principle of lifestyle. Here is the last principle. There must be the principle of love, of love. Now we have been primarily in verse 15, but I want us to back up and see how this starts in verse 8. "Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another. Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous."

And then go to chapter 4, verses 8 and 9. "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging." If we're against abortion, and we are, then we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing to help? How are we helping young pregnant women? Sometimes our attitude just simply pushes them into the arms of the abortionist.

We believe in the permanency of marriage, but what kind of a church are we to those who have experienced the trauma of divorce and broken homes, some of them by their own choosing and some of them not by their choosing? If we do not have a church with open arms to people who have had broken marriages, we do not have the right for the property we exist on. These people are hurting. They do not need to be pushed further down. They need to be loved.

We ought to be against the pollution of pornography, and we are. Yet, do we have programs and helps for those who are driven by this compulsion? Jesus can radically, dramatically, eternally transform people. But we have to be very careful that we do not show such hostility, such antipathy, such negativism that they would never come to us to learn about the Lord Jesus. We live in a society that is hurting, and we have got to bind the wounds up with salve and not with salt. They need the love of Jesus Christ.

The world is looking for some answers. We need a Christian worldview that's backed up by a Christian lifestyle. We're in serious trouble, and people are wanting to know, is there an answer? I'm here to tell you that there is an answer.

And I leave you with this last thought. Don't get the idea that the church will not survive. The church of the Lord Jesus will survive. Jesus said, "Upon this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

In the Cultural Revolution in China, the Communists took over. One of the first things they did in the Cultural Revolution was to burn all Western books. Schools and universities were closed. Churches were turned into warehouses, and even crosses that were found on Christian graves were chiseled off. Pastors were either killed or put in prison.

Everyone was forced to bow down to a picture of Mao Tse-Tung every day. Those who would not bow down, their legs were broken below the knees. This was to be a massive revolution, and the church was to be put out of business. At the same time, the Communists began in China with intense brainwashing, and the lack of compliance brought severe penalties. Everybody said the church in China will die.

They were stripped of all political power, forbidden to share their faith personally or privately. And during that period of time, when the Cultural Revolution came to China, when it began, there were one half million Christians. Today, it is estimated that there are between 50 and 100 million Christians in China.

Those people who suffer for their faith are enriched by that suffering, and the church under the severest persecution has multiplied more rapidly than the church that boasts of its freedom. The persecution wiped out the theological liberalism, and only the true Christians remained. That is what happened.

Now, we as individual Christians need to be like the Chinese and witness wherever God has placed us. We are personal representatives of the Lord Jesus, and the church of Jesus can continue to grow even when it is perceived by the government as the enemy. So I am calling you folks to Christian worldview that's backed up by Christian lifestyle.

Our job is not ultimately to save America. Our first responsibility is not to preserve our freedoms, as important as they are. Our primary responsibility is to stand up for Christ and witness to this world of his grace and his power. To say it and mean it, Jesus is Lord. Do you believe he is? Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for your word. And Lord God, I pray as we study together a Christian worldview that you'll help us to be prepared to go from this place and stand up, stand up for Jesus as soldiers of the cross.

And now, while heads are bowed and eyes are closed, if you have never yet given your heart to Jesus, if you have never been twice born, if you do not know for certain if you died right now you'd go to heaven, you can get it settled right now. Where you are, Jesus will save you right there in that seat, once and for all now and forever, if you'll trust him.

The Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. It goes beyond intellectual belief. The word believe in the Bible means to trust. To trust. Trust Jesus and he'll save you. Would you pray this prayer? Lord Jesus, I need you. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin. Cleanse me. Save me. Thank you that you paid for my sin with your blood on the cross. I believe you're the son of God. I believe God raised you from the dead, and I receive you now by faith like a child. Save me, Lord Jesus, and begin now to make me the person you want me to be. In your name I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Well, if you joined Pastor Rogers in that prayer to receive Christ just now, we would love to celebrate with you. Would you go to our website, lwf.org/radio and click the tab that says Discover Jesus? You'll find there a link to a digital book titled "A New Beginning." This insightful resource will answer questions you may have as you begin your new life in Christ.

There is a response section there as well. You can share your decision, you can leave a prayer request, tell us how this message spoke to you, anything you'd like to say. Welcome to the family of God. We can't wait to hear from you today. Again, click Discover Jesus at the top of the page when you go to lwf.org/radio.

Cary Vaughn: Hi, this is Cary Vaughn, and this program has been brought to you by Love Worth Finding, a non-profit ministry showcasing the powerful preaching and teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers. We operate solely through the generous gifts of individual supporters just like you. To give a gift today, call 1-877-LOVEGOD. That's 1-877-568-3463. Or write to us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38-600, Memphis, Tennessee, 38183. You can also connect with us online by going to lwf.org/radio.

There, we offer helpful resources inspired by the timeless teachings of Pastor Adrian Rogers. Additionally, you can sign up for daily emails, donate to the ministry, and learn more about how to become an ambassador of the word. Thank you so much for listening today. Be sure to join us next time for more profound truth simply stated, right here on Love Worth Finding.

Guest (Male): Can I share this note from a student who shared some feedback with us regarding our new course "How to Deal with How You Feel"? She said, "I am so thankful for this course and how God still uses Pastor Rogers' wonderful teaching from God's word in new ways. We will meet in heaven one day because of God's saving grace."

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