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Be Real
1 Peter 3:8
Jody Vickery wrote the following about a vacation that He took with his
family a few years ago:
While we were on Vacation my children talked me into going White water
rafting. Maybe you've had that pleasure before, and I use the word
pleasure very loosely. We arrived at the Rafting experts home base that
was not much more than a one room shack dropped into the middle of the
woods. I figured that we were in trouble when the directions to the
rafting company includes turn at the small winding road that goes into
the woods, and drive until you can’t go any farther. I am sure I saw a
sign that said you are entering the place where Deliverance was filmed,
but not wanting to disappoint my children we continued on.
We finally made it to the afore mentioned shack and were herded onto the
back porch where we dazzled by a state of the art presentation on their
slide projector about the dangers of this river where I am about to take
my loving and devoted wife and my precious children. After the movie we
were forced to sign all of these papers about how you understand this is
a dangerous thing to do and that you won't hold them accountable if
something bad happens, and on the river you could get hurt, or maimed,
or loose you life. Once all of the legal responsibility is taken care of
we are issued our life-vest that are two sizes too small and helmets
that are two sizes two big. Then off the porch to the 1952 School bus
with the holes in the floor to take that ride up to the top of the river
where we would put in.
I decided that if I prayed the entire time on this bus maybe, just maybe
God would be gracious enough to allow me to live through this insanity.
I found my seat and began, “Lord, for this beating I am about to
endure…” when the guy in front of me turns around and says “Where ya
from?"
Stopping my prayer I looked at him and said “Atlanta.” Smiled and back
to God I went.
Undaunted his next question is, "Where do you buy your groceries?" I
thought where do I buy my groceries? Lord I am going to die today
sitting next to a crazy man. If the river doesn’t get me he probably
will. So my prayer changed from “Lord save me from the river to Lord,
I'm on vacation. Please don't let me end up in a raft all day with a man
who is already wanting to know where I buy my groceries."
He asked me again a little louder this time “So, you’re from Atlanta,
where do you buy your groceries?”
I looked his way and asked, "Where are you from?"
"North Florida." He replies, and I say, "Then the correct answer to your
question is Publix."
He says, "Yeah, but is that really where you shop?" I said, "Yes. You
must work for Publix."
He did. He was from the corporate office. And he and I knew that Atlanta
is a battle ground between Publix and Kroger. But to make matters worse,
the guy across the aisle turned and said, "Hey, my name's Frank. I'm a
Publix store manager from Lakeland." The rest of the bus trip both of
them extolled to me all the reasons why Publix is a better place to
shop; they have their own dairy, they are non-union, their prices are
better, etc.
Boy was I glad to finally see that water.
I like that story, not just because Jody is a friend of mine but I am
impressed with the guy's enthusiasm. Here he was on vacation but he had
a chance to maybe influence a customer in a battleground market. Now,
I'll bet you think I'm going to get onto us because we aren't as
evangelistic about Jesus as he was about Publix. And you're right. I am.
We're not.
Here's the difference between that guy and me and most of us; Publix
isn't just his job, it's his life. For most of us, church is what we do,
not who we are. And if it's what you do, you can leave it behind or set
it aside when you want. So we're beginning a series this morning
entitled evangelists R Us. See, we're not talking about something we do.
We're talking about something we are. Or something we're supposed to be.
Look with me in 1 Peter 3:8-16 (Read text pray)
Let's start with this premise: authentic faith is always attractive.
People hate hypocrisy and pretense. So when they encounter someone who's
faith is genuine, and authentic they find it refreshing and attractive.
They still may not accept what you have to say or what you believe, but
they will respect you.
People hate hypocrisy. Now I think they use that as an excuse a lot of
the time. A few weeks ago I was talking with a guy and I told him I was
a preacher and he looked at me and said “Don’t talk to me about all that
church stuff. I won’t go to church because it’s filled with hypocrites.”
You have heard something similar to that before haven’t you? And there
are plenty of hypocrites out here but that doesn’t give us an excuse to
tolerate it here. If we are going to succeed at evangelism we're going
to have to have a church full of people with genuine, authentic faith.
Christianity cannot be pretended for very long. Sooner or later, the
true character of your faith is going to be revealed. Usually by trial
and struggle. It's interesting that at least sixteen times in this book,
Peter mentions suffering, accusation, insult or abuse. Apparently his
readers were under pressure from a culture that wasn't all that friendly
to their faith. They were accused, persecuted and attacked.
Peter counseled his church to respond to that hostile environment with
authenticity. That's what he was getting at in 1 Peter 2:12:
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak
against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God
on the day of visitation.
He was urging them to be -authentic; real. Authentic faith is always
attractive. Even to people who oppose it
In chapter 2 he talks about what authenticity looks like in every day
life. He tells them to respect and submit to authority.
In chapter 3, he talks to wives and husbands about how to treat each
other. People notice how you treat your family. If you aren't kind and
loving toward those closest to you, you won't treat others much better.
Authentic faith means our families are going to function well. Then in
3:8 he begins to describe what authentic faith looks like in the
community, the church. He focuses on two areas; corporate authenticity
and individual authenticity.
Listen to vs. 8: Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy,
brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Here's a question that comes up a lot when churches are trying to think
about how to do church; do we emphasize building relationships within in
the body or do we emphasize reaching those outside the body?
Relationships or evangelism?
I think Peter would answer that question this way: every time you work
on making your church a warm, inviting, authentic place, you are working
on reaching outsiders. Warm, authentic communities are attractive.
People want to be a part of that kind of place.
That is why all last year we spent our time together talking about how
we should treat one another. If we can love one another, greet one
another, forgive one another, pray for one another, support one another,
encourage one another, bear with one another, and be patient with one
another we will be attractive to the world.
So what does authenticity look like on a corporate scale? Peter mentions
four things we need to talk about today:
First an authentic church is characterized by harmony.
That means we all get along with each other. Unity is the bond we share
in Christ. Harmony is the way we treat each other in Christ. Unity is
the principle. Harmony is the principle in action.
You see harmony implies that there are differences among us. Different
colors, different cultures, different ages, genders, places in life. We
are not all punched out by the same cookie cutter. We're not all little
ginger bread Christians with the same shape, texture, color and
ingredients.
It's more like we're all different pieces of the same puzzle. We're all
shaped a little differently, but we fit together. And when we live in
harmony we create a beautiful picture. Everyone of us is important,
because if one of us is missing, then a piece of the picture is missing.
I heard about a church where they had a business meeting one Sunday
night over some issues that were confronting the church. The discussion
became an argument and the argument became a fight that spilled into the
parking lot. They had to call the police to break it all up. How many
new people do you think showed up the next Sunday to be a part of that
church? None! If we want to watch a fight we'll turn on ESPN or CNN.
People are looking for a place of harmony and –peace.
Second, Peter says an authentic church is characterized by mercy.
He uses two words here; sympathy and compassion. Church has to be a
place where the hurting can find help, where the broken can find
healing, where sinners can find forgiveness. It has to be a safe place
to fail. A soft place to fall. We have to agree with William Brown, who
said, "Failure is an event. Never a person."
In the early days of his presidency, Calvin Coolidge awoke one morning
in a hotel room to find a burglar going through his pockets. Coolidge
spoke up, asking the burglar not to take his watch chain because it
contained an engraved charm he wanted to keep. Coolidge then engaged the
thief in quiet conversation and discovered he was a college student who
had no money to pay his hotel bill or buy a ticket back to campus.
Coolidge counted $32 out of his wallet -- which he had also persuaded
the young man to give back! -- declared it to be a loan, and advised the
young man to leave the way he had come so as to avoid the Secret
Service! By the way, the "loan" was paid back.
The church is often the most judgmental place in the world. Which is
odd, given the mission we're called to fulfill; to bring good news to
people. If we're going to be an authentic church, we've got to be a
place where people who have failed are forgiven.
And, third, it's got to function like family.
Peter said, "Love as brothers and sisters." Why don't we use those words
much any more; brother and sister? What, are we afraid people will think
we're Amish or something?
Words have power to shape reality. Maybe one of the reasons the church
doesn't feel like family is because we stopped using family language. We
started using corporate language. We started talking about core values
and organizational imperatives. We need slick presentations and moving
singing followed by a powerful lesson. I don't think you can be a church
without mission, values and organization. But those are just tools to
accomplish our goals, not definitions of our essential character.
This is a family. It's a big one, mind you, but since when was a big
family a bad thing? One of the things we celebrate when we talk about
the good old days, is how big families were. Families where everyone
depended on and supported one another not for connivance but for
survival.
Let me give you a couple of quick suggestions here:
1. Start using family language again. Call each other brother and
sister.
2. Take our greeting time before and after services seriously.
3. Spend time together outside our assemblies.
4. Practice hospitality. Have someone over. Drop in on someone.
5. Visit the hospital. It isn't just the job of the elders and
ministers. Remember Peter began this verse by saying, "All of you."
Last, an authentic church is characterized by humility.
Here's all I'm going to say about that. Humility means we are acutely
aware that we might be wrong about something.
In the past few weeks we got a letter here at the building from a church
within 60 miles of us. It was a position paper really. They spelled out
where they stood on some issues they thought were core-faith issues. To
be perfectly honest, it was the most arrogant thing I've seen lately.
They chose the issues, then they announced their position, then they
implied that if you disagreed with them on those issues you weren't a
real Christian.
I'll bet you my retirement they aren't reaching people. People aren't
interested in an arrogant church. Neither is God. An authentic church is
a church that isn't afraid to say, "You know, we could be wrong about
this. Let's look at it again. "
After Peter talks about corporate authenticity, (that's the "all of you"
part), he turns to individual authenticity. Look at vv. 10 - 11.
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.
Notice he begins with "whoever." He's talking to individual Christians
now. If the way you live your Christian life isn't real, your witness
will be worthless. People see right through pretension. Let me ask you
some stinging questions to help you diagnose your level of authenticity.
I know they are stinging because I've asked myself.
1. Do you have two vocabularies; one you use with some people, one you
use with others? Why do you need two?
2. Do you sometimes worry about which version of a story you told which
people? Why do you have to worry about versions?
3. Are you one person on Sunday and someone else the rest of the week?
4. How many secrets are you hiding? Why do they have to be hidden?
In 1990, a woman wrote this for a Reader's Digest feature. "My brother
adopted a snake named Slinky, whose most disagreeable trait was eating
live mice. Once I was pressed into going to the pet store to buy
Slinky's dinner. The worst part of this wasn't choosing the
juiciest-looking creatures or turning down the clerk who wanted to sell
me vitamins to ensure their longevity. The hardest part was carrying the
poor things out in a box bearing the words 'Thank you for giving me a
home. ‘“
If a church is real -- filled with people who get along, show mercy,
love like family, practice humility and personal authenticity -- God
will bless it with growth.
But if we aren't real, God isn't going send many and maybe not any new
people to us. It would be like taking mice home to feed a snake. If
we're going to fulfill our mission, we've got to be real.
Look at it this way; remember the guy on the bus who wanted Jody to buy
his groceries at Publix? What if Jody had asked him "So, where do you
buy your groceries?"
And what if he had replied, "Well, actually, we shop at Kroger." You
cannot with any credibility at all tell people that Jesus is the way if
you are getting your groceries somewhere else.
So, where do you shop?
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