©2001 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

9/16/01

Power In The Presence Of Evil

I Peter 4:7-8

9/16/01 Power In The Presence Of Evil

1PE 4:7 ¶ The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

1PE 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

1PE 4:9 Be hospitable to one another without complaint.

1PE 4:10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

We are not returning to our study of Romans this morning,

not after a week like the one our nation has just been through.

Sandee and I began our Tuesday morning

at 6:30 a.m.

with the phone ringing

and a family member beginning the conversation when I picked up the phone

with the words, “We’re under attack! We’re under attack!...Turn on the TV...”

And from there

we joined the rest of the nation,

and much of the rest of the world,

in the shock and the horror

of what was taking place in New York and Washington D.C.

So many lives lost,

so much death,

so much suffering

all because a handful of men and women

were taught to hate at any cost,

and told their ability to inflict suffering on those they hate

would actually be viewed by God as righteousness.

Things happen inside us when we are confronted with evil

and with tragedy on the scale we have faced it this past week.

Some things that, the day before, we thought were very important

somehow don’t seem important at all anymore.

And some other things we’d nudged to the edges of our lives

suddenly surged into the center.

Did you notice what you did last Tuesday

sometime soon after hearing the news about the tragedy in New York?

Did you notice the urge you had

to pick up the phone

and call those who are closest to you,

not because they were in New York,

not because you were really worried about their safety,

but just because you wanted to hear their voices,

just because you wanted to know they were still there.

Events as traumatic and devastating

as the one that took place this past week

impact our lives in a number of ways.

Some of them can be healthy -

causing us to reexamine our own priorities in life,

remembering once again

those things that really matter,

and those that don’t matter

nearly as much as we thought they did.

I was in the post office Wednesday morning,

standing in line,

listening to the way people were talking with one another.

Everyone I heard was so nice,

so courteous.

It was like, in single day,

for just a little while, at least,

we’d all remembered what a precious gift it is to have life,

and how quickly

and unexpectedly that gift can be removed.

But there can be some other affects on us from this kind of tragedy as well,

affects that are not nearly so positive.

Being confronted with overwhelming evil in our world,

seeing it vividly portrayed across our TV screens,

seeing real blood,

and real pain,

and real profound loss in the lives of people just like us,

and then having to process those images,

and somehow integrate them into our lives,

without having any control over them,

and without having any power to alter them,

is an extremely difficult thing to do.

It can make us feel angry,

and frightened,

and anxious,

and deeply insecure all at the same time.

And with all of the advantages

that have come with our technological advancements,

one of the huge disadvantages

is the way in which we can daily be assaulted with images of intense evil

over which we have no control.

Never has that been more of a reality

than this past week.

And so,

to help us cope with what we’ve been through,

I’d like to remind us this morning

of a passage in which Peter provides for the people of God

a strategy that will equip us with the ability to cope with the kind of events we have experienced this past week.

The passage is found In 1 Peter 4:7-10.

It was written by Peter

in order to free us from the sense of helplessness

and powerlessness that often accompanies the intrusion of evil into our lives.

You see, we are never helpless,

we are never powerless.

In fact, Scripture makes it clear

that God Himself is actively,

aggressively expressing Himself through His people on a daily basis

in ways that can have a profound affect on those who make up our world.

But if we do not realize how He is doing this,

and where He wants our attention focused so that we can see what He is doing,

we, like the rest of the world,

can find ourselves being caught up

in the same feelings of helplessness

and despair

that the rest of the world feels.

So let’s walk through Peter’s comments together

and see what he has for us.

He begins with a statement designed to capture our attention

and to put into words

what we feel so intensely

whenever evil confronts us.

He said,

I Peter 4:7, “The end of all things is near...”

Now, from a strictly theological point of view,

Peter is making an accurate statement.

He is telling us that those of us

who have been privileged to live

in this relatively brief period of time

between Christ’s resurrection

and His 2^nd coming

do live in what Scripture calls “the last days”.

This is the final phase of God’s interaction with the human race

on this earth as we know it.

From our human perspective,

an “end times” that lasts 2000 years

seems like a very long end times.

But from God’s perspective

it is nothing.

In fact, at the end of his second letter

Peter talks with us about this very thing.

He says,

2PE 3:8 ¶ But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

2PE 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

From a strictly Divine perspective

the end of all things truly is near.

But there is something else going on in Peter’s comment here as well.

You see,

it is impossible to be confronted with evil in our world

and to know that that evil exists

because of the moral disintegration of our society

without wondering how much longer we can continue.

For most of the past decade

those of us who live in the U.S.

have lived in an imaginary bubble,

believing that we had somehow stumbled across the magic formula

for creating and perpetuating the good life forever.

We really believed that, as long as we could generate enough money,

and as long as we boldly affirmed every person’s “right”

to spend that money on whatever life-style they personally preferred,

we were assured of security

and the good times would never end.

But what happened this past week

has burst our bubble forever.

Paul makes a fascinating comment

when he wrote to the Thessalonian Christians,

telling them what we should expect

in the days immediately preceding the return of Christ.

Talking about the world around us

he said,

1TH 5:3 While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.

That was our nation this past week.

Just as we had grown comfortable

in our bold affirmation to the world around us that “WE ARE INVINCIBLE!”,

devastating destruction comes upon us.

And suddenly we find ourselves wondering

if, indeed, the end of all things is near.

But Peter doesn’t just stop with that statement.

In fact, the very next word he writes

changes everything.

He says,

The end of all things is near; THEREFOR...

And with that single word

he replaces despair

and helplessness

with hope,

and direction,

and an aggressive plan of attack.

And then, in the verses that follow,

he provides us with a two-pronged response to the evil in our world,

a response that defeats our feelings of helplessness

and returns our awareness

to the power of the life of Christ within us.

Now, the first thing he says

may not surprise you all that much,

but the second one, I think, will.

The first recommendation he offers us

in response to evil is this:

The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

Now, I want you to listen very carefully

to what I am about to say.

The most power-filled response to any form of evil we will ever confront

is the response of prayer to our God.

The very act of prayer itself

reminds us of the crucial truth we so quickly forget

whenever evil impacts our lives -

the truth that there is only one Supreme Being,

only One Who created with just a word,

only One who knew the end

before the beginning even existed,

only One who is never threatened by evil,

never defeated by it,

never surprised by it,

and only One who has promised His people

that He both can and will

take even the evil that touches our lives

and reshape it into good

as we place it into His hands.

And, wonder of wonders,

that ONE is also the One

who holds us in the palm of His hand

and calls us His sons and daughters

and allows us to call Him our Father,

our Papa,

our God.

The act of prayer

is the single most powerful cleansing response to evil we will ever know.

It reaffirms the truth

that, not only are we not powerless in the face of evil,

but that the One who holds all power

also hold us,

and our future,

and He can and will bring us through in His love.

And what should we pray?

We should pray whatever is churning around inside us.

If you are like me,

you will begin with prayers of gratitude to God

that the ones you love

are still with you.

And then you’ll pray for them,

for their safety,

and for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in their lives

to bring them in a renewed way to an awareness of the love of God for them.

And then we pray for our President,

and for our other national leaders,

and for those who are in pain,

and for those who rescue and rebuild.

And with every prayer

we reaffirm that, even though this world

has been deeply corrupted by man’s evil,

yet the promise of our God

is that He is forever greater than that evil,

and the offer of our God

is that He can and will lead all those who come to Him

through that evil and into victory.

The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer...

But that isn’t where Peter stops.

He goes on in this passage

to offer a second powerful tool

with which the people of God

can confront what seems to be overwhelming evil in our world.

He says,

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another...

And let me explain what I see going on here.

The feelings of helplessness,

and emptiness,

and fear,

and despair

that we are so vulnerable to

when events like this take place

are feelings that have power over us

because we are confronted with great need

while at the same time having no ability whatsoever to meet that need.

Several days into the endless media analysis

of every detail of this hideous tragedy

I happened to turn on one of the networks

that had reduced their broadcasting

to a camera

fixed on a long line of New York residents

all of whom had lost loved ones

when this disaster occurred.

And, one by one,

each person would step in front of the camera,

holding a picture of the one they’d lost,

and plead with the viewers

to please help them find their wife,

or their husband,

or their dad,

or their mom.

As soon as I saw what they were doing,

I turned that network off.

Why?

Because I had no compassion?

Of course not!

I turned it off

because my God had given me no jurisdiction over that need

or over those lives,

and for me to invest my mind and emotions

into their pain

depleted me of the energies I need

to love those He has placed within my jurisdiction.

And let me explain to you what I mean.

Everyone of us here this morning

has been given by God

what we’re going to call a jurisdiction of love

over a few lives.

Quite simply, these are the people

He has given us to love.

These people make up our highest calling,

and form the heart and soul

of most of the work God seeks to do through our lives here on this earth.

Most of the time

we know exactly who they are.

Now, what I see Peter telling us in this passage

is that, when we see great evil in our world,

as we have seen it this past week,

and begin to feel helpless

or powerless in the face of that evil,

those feelings of helplessness

can be defeated

by actively,

aggressively,

fervently caring for those within our jurisdiction of love.

Let them talk.

Pick up the phone and call them.

Write them a letter.

Tell them you love them.

And Peter gets brutally honest about what this may involve at times.

He goes on to say,

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

He is talking about their sins,

telling us that our love calls us to not let their sins against us

prevent our willingness to love them.

And in all of this,

both through our prayer,

and through our aggressive love for those God has placed into our lives,

Peter is revealing to us

how to renew our awareness of the power of our God within us.

When great evil blasts into our lives,

our first response is often to feel overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness.

But the truth is,

where God has given us jurisdiction in our lives,

we are never, ever helpless.

In fact,

through our prayer

and through our active love

we possess forever

tremendous power in our world

through the life of our Lord Jesus Christ within us.