Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

To be honest, I’d never heard of that rule, and I have never seen it implemented, but can you imagine the pressure of that moment.

Obviously, the opposing coach is going to choose the most unlikely shooter, so the pressure would really be on.

If that was me, I’d be running to the locker room or hiding under the bench.

Can you imagine?

In a sense, this scenario reminds me of what the church is facing today.

We are under attack, and, in many cases, we are losing.

Atheism is on the rise.

Men like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins have belittled God and gone public with it.

I just heard Richard Dawkins on an NPR interview talking about how foolish and irrational a belief in God is.

Christian politicians are mocked in the press.

I do not know anything about the personal life of Christine O’Donnell, who is running for the Senate in Delaware.

I do not wish to defend her personal life because I really do not know it.

But I do know this: She is openly mocked on websites like the Huffington press and in the mainstream media.

She had the audacity to say that indulging one’s lustful thoughts equaled adultery.

Saturday Night Live spoofed that so mercilessly that it made the mainstream news.

Well, if you read your Bible Christine was just agreeing with Christ!

Indulging lustful thoughts is compared to adultery.

Christianity is being attacked in our country.

Now if I were someone like Christine actually stands up and says what the Scripture says and is so lampooned, other believers begin to get gunshy.

We may begin to seek retreat.

We want to, if you will hide under the bench or head to the locker room.

But its the last second of the ballgame and we’re called, everyone of us, to take the shot.

The ball is in our court.

NEED

My question this morning is, How are you responding?

Are you shooting or are you running?

You see, I rather suspect that many of us are running.

We run for many reasons.

Some of us just don’t want to be hurt.

We see the pain of taking a stand and, quite frankly, we’ve got better, more comfortable things we can do with our time.

We’ve got enough trouble just putting food on the table or keeping our job in a bad economy that we don’t need to complicate our lives by taking a shot for Christ.

We run because we don’t want to be hurt.

And then we may run because we don’t want to be corrupted.

Engagement with the world can get messy.

It’s safer to sit on the bench.

You don’t risk failure.

For decades conservative Christians have preached isolation.

Somehow we thought that if we disengaged from the culture, the culture would come to us.

Wrong!

We disengaged from the culture and the culture got worse.

Some of us are in isolation mode this morning.

We’re afraid of being drawn into sin or into compromise, but I tell you, fear is no excuse for running from the challenge.

Yet that’s exactly why some run.

They don’t want to be corrupted.

Others just don’t to be challenged.

They’re lazy.

They don’t want to have their faith questioned or their answers disputed.

Everything is lined up in neat rows in their Christian lives and they don’t want the evolutionist or the atheist disturbing them.

But we’ll never reach a world we do not engage, and engagement means that you’re going to be challenged.

Listen Christian!

If the Bible is true, and it is!

If God is God, and He is!

If Jesus did rise and He did!

If those things are true, we have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear.

We may not know the answers to the challenges, but we can find them!

We must not run because we don’t want to be challenged.

BACKGROUND

So whatever your need when it comes to taking the shot for Christ, Peter can help us.

He was writing to a culture that was much like our own when he penned his first letter.

I say that because it is likely that strong persecution had not yet erupted.

Nero had not yet begun his crackdown on the church, but that doesn’t mean that there was not resistance.

As a matter of fact, while Christians were not forbidden to meet, they were highly suspect.

They were considered cannibalistic because they spoke of drinking the blood of Christ.

They were considered to be incestuous because they spoke of “brotherly love.”

Just like Saturday Night Live does, comments were taken out of context and used for ridicule.

Peter writes to this situation when he says in v 13 of chapter 3:

And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?

14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed.

“And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.”

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; 16 having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

17 For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Now Peter gives these ridiculed believers some good instruction here.

He tells them how to take the shot, if you will, and make it count.

Running, for him, was not an option.

Neither should it be for us.

That’s why, this morning, I want to talk to you about taking the shot.

I want to use God’s word to explain to us exactly how we can do that.

You see, Peter gives us four “f’s” of success in accepting the challenge we’re given.

Let me give them to you and then we’ll talk about them.

Success in meeting the challenge of this world must have the following ingredients: Faith, fear, facts, and fruit.

The first ingredient of success is:

DIV 1: FAITH

EXP

Now, what I like about the way Peter begins is that he does not “assume the worst.”

He begins this paragraph with a very positive question that looks for a particular answer.

He asks, And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?.

Now the answer he’s looking for is “no one.”

The idea is that, if I am genuinely doing what is right, all things being equal, that integrity will be respected and people will treat me with favor.

As you and I face what we know to be a hostile world, we must begin with this notion.

If I do right, most of the time, I will be rewarded.

You know what?

Most of the time that’s true, and that’s the idea we must begin with.

Christians should be optimistic people!

I get so tired of people talking about how bad things are, don’t you?

Look, if you do right, you must believe that, even in the here and now, things are going to turn out well.

You must have the faith to believe that God is going to protect you and that things are going to be ok.

Doing good will be rewarded.

But let me hasten to add that this isn’t always true.

Peter knew that and this is why he went on to say in verse 14, But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you are blessed.