Slide 1
1 Peter 2:11-12
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 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.

Slide 2
Matthew 5:16
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Slide 3
Does my life make people curious about Jesus?

Slide 4
Two Commands:
· Abstain from passions that wage war against your soul
· Keep your conduct honorable

Slide 5
The Purpose:
So that… they may see your good deeds and glorify God

Slide 6
“Beloved” – Peter begins with affection, and with identity before behavior.

Slide 7
“Sojourners and exiles” = You’re not from here, so don’t live like you are.

Slide 8
Peter is not telling us to go hide and isolate, but he is warning us not to assimilate.

Slide 9
Passions… waging war against our soul:
· the need to always be right
· the addiction to pleasure
· the reflex of outrage
· the idol of success
· the love of money
· the need to be seen

Slide 10
Evangelism doesn’t start with our mouth: it starts with our soul.

Slide 11
1 Peter 2:21-23
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

Slide 12
Jesus’ witness wasn’t only His miracles.
It wasn’t only His sermons.
It was also how He responded when He was mistreated.

Slide 13
Jesus was “reviled” and he “suffered” but:
· He didn’t clap back.
· He didn’t threaten.
· He didn’t spiral.
· He entrusted Himself to the Father.

Slide 14
1 Peter 3:8-9
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 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.

Slide 15
Three practices of a noticeable life:
· Practice restraint (2:11)
· Practice honor (2:12)
· Practice blessing (3:9)

Slide 16
If someone watched your life for seven days, would it make them curious about Jesus? Or, would they conclude He doesn’t make much difference?

Slide 17
“There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.”
– Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Slide 18
“In those days the church was not merely a thermometer… it was a thermostat…”

Slide 19
A thermometer gauges the temperature in a room.
A thermostat changes the temperature in a room.

Slide 20
Does my life reflect the world around me or influence the world around me?

Slide 21
Am I a thermometer or a thermostat?

You, you’ve probably heard before that if people are out in the wilderness and they don’t have a reference point, that they tend to roam around in circles. Back in 2009, some neuroscientists, they decided they wanted to test that they published their findings in a magazine called Current Biology. And, and here’s what they, they kind of went into it thinking that they thought, well, maybe the reason that people roam around in circles is maybe one leg is slightly shorter than the other leg. ’cause For most of us, one of your legs is slightly longer than the other. And maybe that’s what causes people to just kind of naturally drift. But that’s not what they found. They found that people do, in fact, roam around in circles if they don’t have a reference point. Meaning if they’re in a place like the desert where there’s not some clear geographical point that they can walk towards, that they tend to roam around in circles.

But the reason they found is because what happens in your brain is that there are so many senses that your brain is picking up all around you, that it basically gets overwhelmed by those things and it loses its sense of direction. Interesting. I thought this was fascinating, that if you took any one of us and you put us in a wide open field and you can completely blindfolded us, and you said, okay, the goal is to walk from this side of the field all the way over to the other side of the field. Most of us would walk around in a circle, but the average size circle, the diameter of the average size circle would only be 20 yards, which means that we start turning in circles very, very quickly. Now, what I have found is that in life, the same thing tends to happen, that people think that they’ve got a direction for their life.

They think that they have a purpose for their direct, their, their life, and they start heading in that direction. And maybe they head in that direction for a few months, maybe it’s even a year, but all of a sudden they find themselves right back at the same place that they started. And we have these moments. New Year’s resolution is one of those moments, okay, it’s a New Year’s gonna be a new me. I’m gonna have new habits. I’m gonna change a lot of things in my life. But oftentimes a year later, they’re coming up with the same New Year’s resolutions, trying to change the same habits and trying to go deal with the same problems that have always been there. But what God wants to be in your life and my life is our reference point. He wants to be the direction that we say, okay, that’s my anchor, and that is the direction that I am heading.

That way I don’t just spin around in circles. But once that, further than that is that if you are a Christian in this room, what God is calling us to do is not only do we wanna anchor our life where he’s our reference point where we’re chasing after him, but scripture teaches that we are meant to be a reference point to the world around us. That means that if I have a, a friend who’s not a Christian, they should look at my life in the direction of my life. And something about that should cause them to pause and wonder and say, what is different about that person? And we’re in a sermon series called The Red Chair, and it is an evangelism series. And I know what typically when we think about evangelism, oftentimes we get wrapped up in a program we get wrapped up in a process.

We feel really guilty about it. And really, that’s not the heart behind this series. The heart behind this series is to think of the person who is the person in my life, who’s the person in your life that does not know Jesus, who needs to take a seat in that chair, needs to experience all that God has for him. We’re looking at the book of one Peter and walking through it a little bit verse by verse. And so, if you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to one Peter chapter two. We’re gonna pick up right where we left off last week. And that’s one Peter chapter two starting in verse 11. Here’s what it says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Now, now that last line when it’s talking about the day of visitation, the idea behind that is that one day when Jesus comes back, that they would be glorifying God. What what Peter’s trying to allude to is he’s trying to say that our good works, our good deeds, would reflect Christ in such a way that it would cause other people around us to become Christians as a result of those good deeds. Now, now, don’t get it wrong. It doesn’t mean that that it’s because we are great. It’s because the gospel is great and our lives when done right, when living according to the gospel would point people to want to have that thing that we have. Peter definitely is picking up the teaching that he heard Jesus give in the sermon on the Mount famous verse in Matthew chapter five, verse 16, that echoes this heart when Jesus taught in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.

It’s saying that, that we as Christians are meant to, to shine our light on the world around us, not to bring us glory, but instead that when we live our light in a dark world, it brings the glory to God and makes people curious. And so I wanna kick off our conversation this morning in one Peter with a simple question, does my life make people curious about Jesus? Like if I just paused and, and, and take a step back and, and said, if I think about who I am, how I live, that the conversations that people might have around me, whether it’s my coworkers or whether it’s my neighbors, or whether it’s my friends, or whether it’s my relatives, is there something about who I am and how I live that at least is making them curious about the person of

Jesus?

Peter gives

Us these,

These two commands, and then he gives us

The

Purpose behind those commands. So his two commands are to abstain and to keep.

So we’re supposed

To abstain from passions that wage

War

Against your soul. I wanna point out he’s recognizing that we all have passions

Waging war

Against our soul. That means that we have a sin nature that is going to want

To guide

Our heart in a certain direction that is going to lead to ungodly

Choices.

And so my first thing is I have to recognize that there

This war that is

Waging within my soul, if I don’t recognize those things, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t

Exist. I mean, Peter’s clear, scripture’s

Clear. You and I both

Have this war

Waging within our soul. The question is, can I name what

That war is? What are

The passions that war within me? So I need to abstain from those things, and then

Separately,

I need to keep my conduct honorable. That word honorable could also be trait translated as morally

Beautiful,

Meaning my life

Has such. This just

Flourishing of the Holy Spirit,

Fruit of the spirit’s, love, joy, peace,

Patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, that

People

Would look at me and say, there’s something about

Their choices, their words,

Their actions that

Is beautiful.

And it makes me curious. And

Then he gives us the purpose. The purpose

Of those things is not so that I become high in Mindy, that people are

Like, oh, wow, he’s

Awesome. And I’m like, yeah, I am. I’m a man. No, that’s not the purpose.

Peter says, the purpose is so that

They may see

Your good deeds

And

Glorify

God. And now I think one of the challenges that we always face when we start talking about evangelism and living the right way is that naturally there’s some shame that can be associated with that or some guilt associated

With that.

Like right now you’re like, yeah, I need to be a better person. Yeah, I need to do better things. Yeah, I need to stop sitting. And now it’s just like, oh, I’m the worst. But that’s not how Peter

Starts this verse. He

Starts with one word.

He starts with the word beloved

Is a reflection that Peter, the

People he is writing

To, he wants them to know that

He Peter

Loves them. But more important than that is he wants them to know that they are

Beloved

By God.

That Peter

Begins with affection, and he wants us to understand that

You have to start with

Identity before

Behavior.

Last week, we unpacked this idea

Of our

Identity in Christ

That were royal priesthood, that were

Loved by him. And, and first and foremost, I have to find my identity in that. And if my identity is in being beloved,

It starts to overflow.

And me wanting to orient my life in the direction that

God would

Have for me, that he’s the reference point. He’s the anchor that I’m chasing after. Why?

Because

He loves me. And that changes everything. Now then he uses this term where he says

That they

Are sojourners and exiles. Paul uses a similar phrase in the book of Philippians. In Philippians, he says that

We

Are citizens of heaven.

So the picture that both

Of them are trying to paint is that

Although we live here

In this culture and are part of this

Culture,

They’re trying to

Say, but you are really a citizen

Of heaven, that you are meant, I am meant to reflect heaven and how I live that I’m meant to,

To feel like a

Sojourner or an exile in the culture around me. Then

Instead of just living in the culture,

Looking the same as the culture, acting the same way as everybody else around me, I should live in such a way

That

Reflects heaven that says that my

Values look

Different than the world around me.

Very simply put, he’s trying to say, you

Are not from here. So

Don’t live like you are.

And now understand this. Peter’s not telling us to go off and live as monks alone in the forest or up in the mountains. Now he’s recognizing that we live in this culture,

But he’s

Warning us not to assimilate, not to become like

The culture. So we

Are meant to be in the world, but not

Of the world.

Now, I want you to think for a moment

About your

Passions.

‘Cause Peter says that there are

Passions that are

War at war

Against our

Soul. So, so there’s this spiritual battle

In my heart and my soul

Where there’s

A part of me, my, my fleshly

Side of me is, is going against

The direction of God. And I have to be fighting against that in order

To go towards

The direction of

God.

I really tried to, to sit and think about, okay, what

Are the,

The passions at war

Against

My soul in my life? I think sometimes one of those passions is the need to always be

Right. Like

I like being right sometimes in an argument somewhere halfway through the argument, like the argument doesn’t even matter anymore. I’m just trying to convince that person that I’m right and they are wrong. And that’s, that’s an unhealthy passion or, or maybe the addiction to

Pleasure,

That we can look at our culture and our, our culture loves to be entertained and loves to feel good. And, and

Although pleasure

Itself is not an evil thing, it becomes an evil thing depending upon

What we do with pleasure. And

If we become addicted to

That pleasure or, or the reflex of outrage, I feel like that

Is so common inside of

Our culture

Right now, and

We just get outraged

At everything all the time. I found that when I’m driving that if I leave early and I have plenty of time, I am a very pleasant driver. Like I, I’m not worried about I hit a red light, no big deal. I’m not frustrated. Somebody turns on their blinker. I’m like, go ahead. You can go right in front of me. You’re behind that guy and you’re trying to turn right and they don’t turn right even though they’re in that lane. And you’re like, no big

Deal. Don’t worry

About a thing. But if I am running late, my disposition changes pretty

Radically.

All of a sudden, if you’re running late,

Every other

Car is the enemy that they’re in your way and they’re, they’re, they’re just going too slow. And so they turn on their blinker and you speed up.

You’re like, ah, I got places to go.

You’re behind that person and, and you need to turn right, but they’re not going right. And you’re

Like, what is

Wrong with you? So you turn on your blinker and you scoot

Up as tight

As you can, just hoping that that blinker is shaming them for not turning while being in that lane. But I can become

Outraged. Why? Why?

Because of my circumstance. I can just be

Irritated

At things all of the time. That’s a natural passion at war within my soul.

What about the idol of success that

So often we wrap our identity up into success? And it starts really early

With kids. They, they see

Their success in their report card or in a sport or in an activity or being the best at something

Or

The love of money. It’s pretty common in our culture right now, or the need to be seen. I, I think the challenge with these passions is that

The,

The language Peter is trying to get across

Is that they are at

War within us. And if something is at war, it means that, that something is on the line. Nothing goes to war for no reason. They either

Go

To war for an idea, for a concept, for a

Purpose, for a life.

And some of our passions, Satan is trying to use those unhealthy passions in order

To destroy the future

That God might have for us. I remember when I was 16, I, I got my license the day I turned 16, which, which

Is a

Little bit of a foreign concept because I talked to a lot of teenagers. They’re 17, 18 years old and they haven’t gotten their driver’s license. And I’m like,

Why? Like, what, what has

Happened? My 19-year-old nephew, he, he did not get his license until he was 19, and his parents were trying to, he just didn’t want to. And I was like, I, I don’t understand. I, I’m like a totally different generation. That was the moment that I was like, I’m not Gen Z clearly,

Because

I don’t comprehend what’s happening in your mind. When I turned 16, I got my license that day and I started driving right away. And here’s the truth. When you become a driver,

You’re bad for

About six months. So if you’re in here and you’re 16, you just got your license, you think you’re good, but actually no one’s good when they start driving. So

I was a bad driver for

About six months. I didn’t realize I was

A bad driver, but I was. But

Somewhere about six months to a year in,

I thought I was the

Greatest driver in the history of

The world.

And what I

Realized that I really liked was,

Was just going a little bit faster and a little bit faster and a little bit faster. Now, I knew that I shouldn’t speed and I’m not gonna give you the number that I was speeding at. But I knew that I wouldn’t speed. But I will confess that

I as

A 17, 18-year-old, I

Sped all the time

And for no good reason. It’s not like I was

A

Heart surgeon at 17 and I had really important things to get to.

I I just liked the thrill

Of going fast and weaving in and out of traffic. And so that was just the way that I drove. And I knew I shouldn’t, and yet that was just the feeling, the temptation. And I remember what one time I, I spoke at a youth event on a Friday night, and then I didn’t leave till about midnight. And I was driving to a different youth event where I was gonna speak on Saturday morning. So it was past midnight when I left. And it was a little bit misty. It wasn’t quite rain, it was a little bit foggy, and there was no cars on the road ’cause it’s after midnight. And so I’m just flying and I hit this big overpass. It’s one of those exchanges from one freeway to another freeway really high up in the air. And I’m listening to the music too loud, and I’m just going too fast and I’m not paying close enough attention.

And while I’m about halfway up in the middle of this giant overpass, I start to spin out my, my car turns completely sideways, turn slides sideways for, for probably a hundred yards. I I come with inches of hitting the concrete barricade to my side and then finally kind of wiggles straight and, and I get it under control. You ever had that moment where you feel like you’re about to die and then you don’t, and like your, your skin gets clammy and your heart starts beating outta your chest? I remember that moment, rolling down the windows and turning off the radio and just, I mean, 10 and two just staring straight ahead, <laugh>. And, and I remember slowing down to 40 miles an hour on the freeway. And, and I, I mean, I just in that moment realized I could have died. And that moment transformed how I drive, like, like I drive, like, like the most senior of senior citizens.

I mean, I drive, I drive the, at the speed limit or below the speed limit. Like that is just how I operate. And it’s because that one moment I realize that that passion, that desire to speed the thrill of speeding almost took my life and it was a game changer for me. I, I think one of the challenges is that there’s a lot of passions at war within us, and they might not take our physical life, but they absolutely are robbing our spiritual life and the trajectory of what God wants to do in our life. Hey, here’s the thing about evangelism. We think about evangelism as I gotta have the right words at the right moment, and I gotta teach ’em the right way. But evangelism doesn’t start with our mouth. It always starts with our soul. It starts with me getting those passions under control, orienting my life in the right direction and chasing after Jesus.

Let’s keep going. Skip down to verse 21. Verse 21 says this, for to this, you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example. So, so pause for a moment what he’s about to say. He’s saying this is an example that Christ has given us that although he was in the midst of suffering, he set an example for us. So what is the example that we learned by? He says this so that you might follow his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled. He did not revile in return when he suffered, he did not threaten but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He’s saying he’s writing a letter to, to a group of Christians that they were being persecuted for their faith. Now, a few decades later, there’d be really, really bad persecution.

There was persecution at this time, but it wasn’t so much that they were a threat of death as much as they were living a life that looked radically different from culture. And because of that, people were hurling insults at them. People were treating them different people were, were treating them poorly. And so he’s saying, look to Jesus as an example. And he’s trying to point out that Jesus’ witness wasn’t only his miracles, it it wasn’t just his sermons. That, that, yes, those things got people’s attention, but but there was something else too. It was also how he responded when he was mistreated. You see that even on the cross, that he’s on the cross, they’ve tortured him, they’re crucifying, and what does he cry out to God? He says, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. So he was reviled and he suffered, but his response was very different than what we think of as our natural response.

That he doesn’t clap back. He didn’t threaten, he didn’t spiral. Like in our culture today, those are the natural responses that if someone reviles against you or you suffer because someone else is doing something to you, our natural normal response, our cultural is I’m gonna clap right back at that person. I’m gonna threaten that person. I’m gonna spiral outta control. And and if you doubt that, go look at the comment section of just about anywhere, on any social media, anywhere. Then when they do studies on social media that there’s a few things that are likely to go viral. Humor is one of those things. So people see something, it makes ’em laugh, they pass it on strong emotions. So if you read something and it’s a tear jerker and it kind of gets you all like the feels, you’ll pass that on. But the thing that is the most likely to go viral on the internet is outrage, frustration that they want people in the comment section fighting with each other.

And, and probably you have friends or maybe family members or maybe it’s you, that, that on the surface they’re great, wonderful person. They’re kind, they’re nice. And then you see them in a comment section and you’re like, who is this person? Because someone starts coming against them, they say something unkind to them, and then they clap back and they threaten and they spiral. But Jesus didn’t set the example of any of those things. Instead, what does Jesus do? He entrusted himself to the Father and now un understand how big of a deal that is, that the reason that he didn’t naturally respond. The way that people naturally respond or culture tells us we should respond is because his identity, his trust was not in those people. His trust was in his Heavenly Father. That if we put our trust in other people and we suffer or they’re violent against us, it, it struggles our identity.

And so we respond in kind. But if we put our trust, our identity in our Heavenly Father, then we can take those things and we can just ignore ’em because they’re just not that personal. It’s okay because I’m secure in this. Flip over to chapter three in verse chapter three in verse eight. This is the end of this section where, where Peter’s wrapping it up as this one kind of thought on this section. And he says, finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 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 that he’s saying that when you are reviled against what, when, when people are hurling insults, when people are treating you in a negative way, instead of just responding in kind, he says, you should bless that person, which is wildly radical.

It sounds easy, but but it’s really challenging and difficult. And it’s only possible if my identity is anchored and rooted in my heavenly Father. So you put this together and Peter gives us these three practices that if we wanna live a life that’s noticeable to the world around us, that we should first practice restraint, recognize the passions at war within my soul and, and put restraints around them. A second is to practice honor, live a life that is beautiful, that is admirable, that is morally good and not, not so that I would draw glory to myself, but that I would reflect glory to my heavenly Father. And then he says that we should practice blessing. What would it look like if I practice blessing the world around me, even if it throws stones against me, even if I’m suffering as a result of it, that I respond with blessing?

Think about that, that question that we started with, like, like if I pause and look at the last seven days of my life, if someone watched my life for seven days, would it make them curious about Jesus? Like if they saw every conversation I had, they saw my habits, they saw where I spent my time, they saw how I acted, they saw my actions when I was in private, when no one else was around. They saw my actions when, when I was uncomfortable or something happened that didn’t go my way, they saw my responses. When I’m sitting in traffic and I’m running late, like, would my life make people look at that life and say, that makes me curious. Or would they conclude that Jesus doesn’t make much difference in my life? Like, would they look at my life and say, well, I studied you for seven days and basically your life looks exact same as my life.

You’re no different. You don’t live any different, you don’t talk any different, you don’t act any different. I mean, you go to church on Sunday morning, but basically I I do all the same things you do except I get to go on vacation on Sunday mornings and no, I have to go to church. Like is my life different? I, I think a person that that really just lived this out so well was Martin Luther King Jr. One of the most profound, I think, letters written in in the last few hundred years was the letter that he wrote from Birmingham Jail. And I, I think you, you look at that letter and it just, the Holy Spirit was clearly with him when he was writing that ’cause it is a beautiful letter, amazingly written. I studied it in a secular English lit class. And my non-Christian professor just talked about how brilliant it was and how, how it was organized and how just every, I mean he pared every moment of the whole letter and just said, it’s one of the greatest literary masterpieces of our time.

And one of the things that he’s writing about is that, that he was doing things different than people had before him. That he was a pastor who taught scripture in the Bible. And, and he believed that segregation was wrong, that it was evil, that it was racist. And he believed that, that all people are created in the image of God. And so there shouldn’t be these categories where people are elevated above other people. But, but instead of protesting through violence, they protested through peace. And so they would do these protests and they would, they would march and, and people would say terrible things to them and they would throw things at ’em, and they would just do awful things to him. And instead of responding in kind, he responded by just saying, Hey, bless that person. Bless that person. Bless that person that that’s how he lived.

And then he gets thrown into jail. And in 1963, he writes this letter. And the letter largely is written to pastors, pastors of the Capital C Church because he found that one of the biggest antagonizes against him were in fact pastors. And this is what he writes talking about the church. He says, there was a time when the church was very powerful and the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed in those days. The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion. It was a thermostat that transformed the mos of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being disturbers of the peace and outside agitators. But the Christians pressed on and the conviction that they were a colony of heaven called to obey God rather than man, small and number.

They were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be astronomically intimidated by their effort. An example, they brought an end to such ancient evils as infant side and gladiatorial contests. And now I’m gonna point out a specific phrase. ’cause He, he creates this word picture that’s, that’s profound. He says, in those days, the church was not merely a thermometer, it was a thermostat. Now, I want you to think about the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. And now the, the pictures I’ve got up on here, I, I realized when I was Googling the images thermometers look so different than they used to. This is an old school thermometer. Anybody in the room under the age of 20 is like, what is that? What’s the red stuff in the middle? Now they’re all digital. And now you got a thermometer everywhere in your house.

Probably your microwave’s got one, probably your watch has one on right now. But back in the day, this is what a thermometer looked like. And what did a thermometer do? You put in a room and, and it gauge the temperature of the room different than a thermostat. I also realized that thermostats look very different than they used to Back in the day, they used to be a dial, used to be a little thing. Now, now, a lot of ’em are smart, but a thermostat changes the temperature in the room. I understand the difference. A thermometer gauges the temperature in a room, a thermostat changes the temperature in the room. Martin Luther King Jr. Is trying to say that, that the church shouldn’t just be a thermometer. It shouldn’t just walk into culture, gauge the temperature of culture and act accordingly. I’m just gonna do whatever anybody else around me is doing.

I’m gonna try my best to blend in and fit in. Now he says instead, the church, especially when you look through church history, you look at acts in the New Testament, the church is called to be a thermostat. And a thermostat doesn’t just blend in a thermostat changes the temperature of the room, which I think causes all of us to wrestle with a profound question. Does my life reflect the world around me or does my life influence the world around me? Like when I walk into a room, am I just gauging the temperature and acting accordingly? Like I’m in the room with one group of people and and they tend to cuss and I normally don’t cuss, but because I’m around that group of people, I’m, I’m a thermometer and so I’m, I’m gonna just blend in. I’m gonna cuss like they cost. Or maybe I’m not really a heavy drinker, but if I’m with this group of people, I become a heavy drinker because that’s what they do.

And I just wanna fit in and I don’t wanna be like them. Maybe you remember being in, in high school or college or junior high and peer pressure is a big thing. And what, why does peer pressure work? Because I just wanna fit in and be like everybody else. What scripture is calling us to do is to not walk into a room, gauge the room and become like the room he’s calling us to walk into a room and say, my trajectory, my anchor is in Jesus. And regardless of where I am or who I am with, I live according to Jesus. Be a thermostat that changes the temperature of the room around us. Am I a thermometer or am I a thermostat? Again, I think the challenge of evangelism is we can so easily make it all about guilt and shame. And I don’t want you to walk outta here saying, oh gosh, I’m just doing a bad job and I’m not doing good enough of a job.

Because that’s really not the heart of what Peter’s trying to get us to. Peter is trying to, to get this vision in our minds of what could a life look like if I lived where everyone around me is cursing each other, but I just bless. I’m overflowing with blessing and blessing and instead of being slave to the passions that war within me, through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the blood of Jesus on the cross, I’ve conquered those passions. I’ve moved on from those passions. And now I live according to the reference point. I’m not just roaming around in circles like the world around me, but the reference point of Jesus is who I’m chasing wholeheartedly. After that, the best opportunity for the gospel is to simply love Jesus and love him so passionately that causes me to live the way he wants me to live.

That is a life that makes people curious. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, God, I thank you so much that, that you give us these things to wrestle with. And as we focus on the red chair and the people that aren’t here, the people that the red chair is for, gotta help us to have a heart for the lost. And, and although there are great processes and there are great programs about evangelism, where evangelism starts is in our soul. It’s not our words, it’s how we live. God, we pray that you would be our reference point, that we’re chasing wholeheartedly after you. God, we could bless the world around us with our lives. This is our prayer. In Jesus name. Amen.