Nonresistance Part 2

Let's bow for prayer. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And Lord, we are here with normal human struggles and normal human conditions.

And we have a choice to make, Lord, as to whether we're going to be complainers or worshippers this morning. And I pray that you would help us to be worshippers. And so, Lord, we worship you for what you've done.

We accept the hard things in life. We even worship you and thank you for those, Lord. We know they make us into something better if we let them.

And so, Father, I pray that you would just help each one to take to heart what has already been heard. And, Lord, now we're going to hear another message from Jeremy. I pray that you'd anoint his lips.

I pray that you would just anoint our ears to hear. I pray that you would be with each one that made an effort to be here this morning. And be with each one that's listening in from a distance.

I pray that it would be a blessing to everyone wherever they are. So, Lord, we want to honor you with our lives this morning because you are worthy. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning. I want to start off this morning by reading a story from David Berceau. He wrote this book, The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down.

And this story, I remember years ago reading it and it gripping me. And this is a continuation from last week. We started a sermon last week about nonresistance, loving our enemies, what Jesus taught on that.

So listen for that here in this story. Fourteen years ago, my family and I moved to the house where we presently live. It sits out in the country on three and a half acres.

Shortly after we moved in, we noticed that a number of coyotes and strange dogs roamed the woods and fields around us. We had a few goats, so we decided to build them a pen with a sturdy fence to protect them from the dogs and the coyotes. We hired a professional fencing company to build a strong five-foot high fence around the perimeter of our goat pen.

Despite this, early one morning, we awoke to the sound of dogs barking and goats bleeding. We rushed outside to discover that the dogs had somehow slipped into the pen and were attacking the goats. We ran as fast as we could to get to the goat pen.

Seeing us, the dogs slipped out and disappeared in the neighboring field. One of our goats died from the savage attack and the other one was in a state of serious shock for several days, barely eating. In the dim light of dawn, we didn't get a good look at the dogs, but we assumed they were stray dogs.

So we called the county animal control officer and asked for their help. They furnished us with several humane, toothless traps that would clamp on the dog's foot and hold him, but would not damage his foot. The agency said it would pick up any dogs we caught.

We put out the traps that night, and the next morning we were once again awakened by the sound of commotion outside. We hurriedly ran out and saw a pack of dogs outside the goat pen, but we soon realized that these were not stray dogs. These were our neighbor's dogs.

The dogs quickly ran off when we saw us, and that is all the dogs but one. One of the dogs was caught in a trap and couldn't get away. The poor dog was scared to death, and he was shaking like a leaf when we approached him.

Just then I saw a pickup truck turn into our driveway. It came barreling down our county drive, kicking up a trail of dust behind it. The driver jumped out and immediately sprinted toward the captured dog, which turned out to be his dog.

Oh, is this your dog? I asked meekly. Yes, it is, he replied sullenly, and he helped me open the trap and free his dog. You know, he continued, this isn't going to do anything but cause hard feelings with your neighbors.

I moved out to the country so that I could let my dogs roam free. My first thought was to retort, well, I moved to the country so our goats could run free. But I didn't.

I also thought about saying, look, I'll make you a deal with you. You keep your dogs off my land, and I'll keep my goats off your land. However, I thought about Jesus' words to turn the other cheek.

What would he do in a situation like this? There was no doubt in my mind, so I replied cheerfully, well, I'm open to any suggestions. The neighbor, whom I had not met before, seemed a bit surprised at my mild response. He lost his sullen expression, and he replied calmly, well, what you could do is run electric wire around the bottom and the top of your fence.

That will keep dogs out. I'm willing to do that, I replied, feeling a bit surprised at myself. I'll do what you've suggested, and I'll return the traps to the county.

It seemed a bit unfair that I was having to incur extra expense so that his trespassing dogs wouldn't hurt my goats. But I knew that I had handled this minor crisis the way Jesus wanted me to. It's an amazing story about everyday non-resistance, and that's what I'm hoping we can discuss further.

If you take your Bibles and turn to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5, we've been analyzing especially the Sermon on the Mount in the area where it talks about not resisting evil and loving our enemies. And last week we looked at verse 38 and down through around 42. We looked at three examples, if you remember, that Jesus gave, three literal examples.

And you know, it's an amazing thing. I read a comment somewhere that said, you know, Jesus wasn't this high systematic theology person. He didn't give all these philosophies.

He gave three simple, very down-to-earth examples, but yet the Word of God and so powerful. He gave the example of somebody striking one person on the cheek and turning the other cheek. He gave the example that if somebody comes and asks you or compels you for your coat or your shirt, sorry, give him your coat also.

He then gave the last example that if somebody asks you to go to a mile, don't just go one, but go two. And if you remember, I did write on the board last week, I wrote, I have some principles I was hoping we'd get across. The first one was suffering love.

And I want to add here a word we've heard many times. Some people say we're pacifists. And I want to add we are passive in retaliation.

I don't even know if I'm spelling this right, but I think you'll get the point. Wherever that goes, I don't know. But we're passive in retaliation.

We have a suffering love. All three examples, when Jesus said, when somebody strikes you on the cheek, the first example, he didn't say to do anything back. The second example, when he says, give him your shirt, you're supposed to give him your shirt, not hold back at it.

When he says, go a mile, you're supposed to walk the mile and not say no to them. So it's a passive, it's a suffering, it's a bearing the shame and the blame like Christ did. We looked at that last week.

I want to say this before we go on. Does anybody remember what this cup represents? I would say, yeah. What's that? A little bit of doctrine.

You know, we can all come here this morning and say we were non-resistant Christians. We believe in taking Jesus literally. And I'm afraid sometimes it's about this big.

Does anybody remember what the other one was? I didn't bring it this morning, but what was the other one? It was a cup about this big. It was a coffee cup about this big and had a big plant coming out of it. Representing that there's something more, something deeper I think we're missing sometimes.

And though we come at this as a doctrine, I want us to come at it as a life, a practice, a way of being like Christ. Let's pick it up in verse 44. 43, sorry.

You have heard that it has been said thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you.

Do good to them that hate you. And pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Think of the person that first comes to your mind that you love.

Just think of people you love. Probably your family comes to mind, your children. Maybe some people here in the church come to mind.

But I'm guessing naturally your worst enemy, the person you just really don't enjoy, you despise. Somebody that maybe you struggle with doesn't come to your mind I'm sure. And yet Jesus tells him with the word but there.

He says love your enemies. What a revolutionary teaching. They'd heard in the Old Testament to love their neighbor.

And even David himself said he hated his enemies with a passion. But in the New Testament Jesus tells his followers to love their enemies. And he goes on.

He tells them to bless them that curse you. Think of somebody. Put yourself in a situation where somebody is mad enough at you to curse you, to say words.

I mean I've been in situations where people have come to me and they've been so angry. Like their lip is twitching. Their whole facial expression is just all their nerves are on edge and they're cursing you.

And it says you're to turn around and bless them in that situation. Think how unnatural that is. Jesus says here to do good to them that hate you.

Think of somebody that hates you, absolutely despises you. And you're supposed to look for ways to do good to them. And lastly to pray for them that despitefully uses you.

This word despite is from our word spite. And it means deliberate. They deliberately are trying to hurt you.

They are looking for ways to make your life miserable. And you're supposed to be praying for them. You're supposed to be blessing them.

They're looking for ways to hurt you, annoy you, and offend you. Quickly turn to Hebrews. I think we mentioned this verse.

And maybe we even turned to it last week. It was Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 34. Actually verse 32.

But call to remembrance the former days in which you were illuminated. You endured a great fight of affliction. Partly whilst you were made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions.

And partly while you became companions of them that were so used. For you had compassion of me and my bonds. You took joyfully the spoiling of your goods.

Knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and enduring substance. An eternal perspective. Think of it like this.

Think of your little truck, your little car. What if I told you that if anybody ever steals your car, just give it to them. And I'm going to give you the best whatever car you like the most.

Maybe it's a Dodge or a Ford, Power Stroke. The best out there, an $80,000 truck. I'm going to give you the best one there.

And you'd be like looking for ways to get somebody to take your car. That's about the perspective that Jesus says here. And here in Hebrews it says, We know that we're going to have something so much greater in heaven with Christ.

That these things on this earth just don't mean that much to us. The perspective. An eternal perspective.

The second principle I want us to see this morning is the principle of overcoming evil with good. And this one I want to put is a proactive. So the first one is passive.

In all three examples, the first situation they were passive. They didn't resist the person from hitting them. They didn't resist the person from taking their shirt.

And they didn't resist the person from walking a mile. But this one is they're proactive in love. Look at all the situations, all the three examples that our Lord gave us.

And they did something more. Something more loving. Something more kind.

And I think we need to see that this is the Father's heart. It says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It doesn't say for God was so irritated with the world that he sent his only begotten Son.

That whosoever should believe in him. It said for God so loved the world. Think about that.

The Father loved you even in your sin, in the moment of your sin. And while you were still an enemy of God, you would curse him to his face. You would spit on him.

You would mock him and even crucify him. He still loved you to die for you in that state. Not in the state of now loving him.

He died for you in this state. And in the same way, we are like Christ in this. We are trying to mimic God.

We are trying to mimic God in overcoming evil with good. And I think we need to see that this is a secret weapon of the kingdom. We actually do fight back.

We are actually resisting evil in a different kind of way. When the guy hits you on the cheek, you are actually fighting back. When the person asks you to take a shirt, you're actually fighting back.

When somebody asks you to go to a mile, you're actually fighting back with this weapon. The secret weapon in the kingdom. And that weapon is love.

It's a proactive love. Turn to Romans chapter 12. Somebody read 19 through 21 for me, please.

Nice and loud. Romans 12, 19 through 21. All the way through 21.

Notice how Paul starts this to the Romans. He says, never take revenge. Never retaliate.

Never take vengeance. Because it is written, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. This is something we all as followers of Jesus need to get.

And we need to realize that in his kingdom, we leave all vengeance to God. We leave all revenge to God. Even Jesus himself left all revenge to God.

Hung on the cross after being shamed, after being persecuted, and still left vengeance to God. And then notice at the very end of this, verse 21, it says, do not overcome evil. Sorry, good.

Sorry, I'm not reading this right. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So the second principle we have to get is in God's kingdom, in this kingdom of God, that's being set up by Christ right now, is the weapon of our warfare is overcoming with love, overcoming with good.

It says in 2 Corinthians that the weapons of our warfare are not what? Carnal. What does carnal mean? Physical, fleshly. So when we whip out a gun, when we whip out a bat, when we whip out fill in the blank, whatever it is that's physical, if you're using it as a weapon, it is carnal.

And Paul says it's not that as a Christian, they're not supposed to be carnal, but they are what? Somebody say the rest of the verse. Mighty through God. God's weapons in his kingdom are mighty and love is that weapon that we have in his kingdom.

So this is a revolutionary thought. Jesus came to set up a kingdom that actually does battle. That actually does have weapons.

That actually is advancing. And we sing about this. Lead on, O King Eternal.

You know the song, Lead on, O King Eternal? It says this, for not with swords loud clashing or roll of stirring drums, what do you think the rest of it says? Anybody remember? But with deeds, with love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes. You see the song is saying that through deeds and love and mercy, we're bringing in the kingdom of God. That is our weapon.

Here's another one. Stand up. Stand up for Jesus.

Stand in his strength alone. The, what does it say? Arm of flesh will fail you. You dare not trust your own.

Another song that I love that we learned in the John D. Martin book. It says, it's 395. It says, by wars and tumults, love is mocked, derided, his conquering cross no kingdom wills to bear.

No kingdom wants to take up the conquering cross of Christ because that is the cross of Christ is where we put ourselves to death. And we love in face of resistance. So weapons of love and kindness, blessing and prayer.

So my question to you is, are you willing? Are you willing in each situation in your life to fight in God's kingdom? Are you willing to fight it in his way? You know, no soldier gets into the battle and says, I'm going to do it my way. You know, thank you, Mr. General for that. But I think I'll go fight over here today.

No, he is told what to do. When he signs up for boot camp, his will is over with. And whatever his commander tells him to do, they do.

If he says storm that beach and he knows I'm going to probably die in storming that beach, he knows the greater cause. And he goes out on that beach and he gets shot and he might die. But he knows he's fighting for a greater cause.

Are we willing to do the same thing? Are we willing to take orders from our commander? And if it means even die, if it means even our pride be shamed, are we willing to fight in his way? Are we willing to suffer and to bleed and to die to advance the kingdom of God in his way? I want to tell you a story. This was right about the time I was waking up. The Lord was showing me things in the Bible and about following his son.

And I was still in that gray area. I was still I mean, at one point I was actually going up at the courthouse. Trying to fight our government in Washington State for some bad law they were bringing in.

And I was reading this while we were in the congressional hearing, whatever they do in there. And so this places me in another place. I was in the city hall and I was fighting for another you're going to laugh at this.

But I was fighting to get the speed limit. See, they went along and they put the speed limit from 50 miles an hour to 35 miles an hour. And I thought that was wrong.

So I went in and I did all the research to find out they couldn't do that legally. They can't just change speed limits when they so feel like it. They need to put out special markers and they need to record all these metrics.

And then there's certain ways they can change the speed limit. So I put together a referendum and I was fighting the city for all these things. Well, anyway, in the process of all of this, I met this city councilman.

And he was running his city meeting and he was a Christian in our town. And he was up there behind there and behind his desk with the other councilmen. And he started cursing.

And I knew he was a Christian. He went to the Assembly of God church down the road. We were at the Baptist church.

And he started cursing and just saying really vile things to people. And so afterwards, I politely went up to him and I said, could I talk to you outside? And I took him outside and I said, you know, Christians shouldn't represent our Lord like that. I was blinded that maybe I shouldn't be representing our Lord like that.

But I told him, you shouldn't be cursing like this in front of these people. Everybody knows you go to this Assembly of God church and you're using curse words and vanities. And he got very upset with me, told me I didn't, you know, who was I? And, you know, I'm not supposed to be judging and stormed off very angrily.

And but I knew I had been reading Jesus teachings and I was starting to realize things. And so I decided I was going to do something to bless him. And I came up with the idea I'm going to make him cookies.

So I made him a bunch of cookies and I went to his house and I knocked on his door over where he lived. And I said, I just want to thank you for your service in our city. And I want to give you these cookies.

And he goes, I'm a diabetic. I'll find somebody to eat them and took them, shut the door. So I thought, OK, well, the battle isn't won yet.

So another day I was driving to go make a service call for my business. And I saw him out in the park mowing the grass and I thought, perfect opportunity. I'll just get out and I'll go talk to him.

So I went up there and I said, I just want to thank you for taking the time to mow the city's park. And thank you very much. And he just grunted some reply, thought I was ridiculous.

And I just sowed the seed like I felt like I should. Well, about six months later, he shows up over at the Little Baptist Church and he says, I want to come to a church where people will will challenge you if you're in sin and that preach the right, preach the truth. And that testimony, just overcoming evil with good.

And mind you, hear the story out. I wasn't totally passive. I still I still told him he was in sin.

I just like Jesus did. He told people they were in sin, but I loved him through the process. And that won his heart over in the end.

And he was there for many years. So this principle of overcoming evil with good. The third principle I want to write on the board here is absolute trust in God.

Now, when I was trying to decide what I believed about non-resistance, I read Jesus teachings and they seem like maybe they were just hyperboles. I wasn't sure trying to determine what was truth. And I remember as a home group, we started reading First Peter and studying it.

So turn there with me. And First Peter was what for me personally, was what pushed me over the edge and caused me to say, I believe in non-resistance because of what I read in First Peter. And so I want to look at this for a little bit.

Now, when we were going through this time studying through First Peter, I lived in fear. I want to try to paint a little bit of a picture of what it's like when you have the burden of needing to defend yourself. I remember I had weapons, I had guns, and I was prepared to defend myself and my family if somebody broke in.

And I had this, it was a motion detector. If anybody came into my yard, it would go off. Well, it would always go off wrong, so I decided one day to get a better one.

So I buried me a nice line under the driveway that had this sensor. If any car would go over the sensor, it would go off. And I remember many times in the middle of the night, the sensor would go off and I would jump up and find my guns and run out and look out the window and who's in my driveway.

And I remember during this time as we were studying First Peter and I was studying Jesus' commands and I was realizing that, you know, I'm going to trust in God and I'm not going to kill somebody. I was able to take that motion sensor down. I was able to start sleeping restfully and just, I'm not going to kill him anyway because I'm going to trust God.

And so let's look at that a little bit here in First Peter 2. These are the verses that really convinced me. And I want to look in verse 21. He's going through and he's giving commands.

And he says here in verse 21, he's talking about suffering. If you look in verse 20, he's talking about suffering and being buffeted for your faults. In verse 20, he says, this is your calling for here is what you were called for.

This is the will of God for your life to be a follower of Jesus. And he says this, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. The way Jesus died and suffered was an example for us as his followers that we, ye, should follow in his steps.

He talks about Jesus doing no sin and no guile was found in his mouth. In verse 23, when he was reviled, when people mocked him, it says he did not revile back. When he suffered, when they spit on him, when they whipped him, when they put him up on a cross, it says here, he did not threaten.

But what did he do? He trusted in God. He committed himself to him that judges righteously. He thought, God, I don't understand my father.

I don't understand this whole situation and how it all is going to work out. But I'm committing my soul to you because I know you judge righteously. And that's why the third principle we have to run through is absolute trust in God.

Now jump over to the same book and let's look in chapter 3, verse 8 through 9. Finally, he's speaking to all of the Christians there. Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing. That's where you railing is when you're yelling at somebody, but contrawise blessing.

On the other hand, instead of yelling at them, bless them, knowing that there unto it you were called. This is your calling. This is the will of God that you should inherit a blessing.

Jump down to 4, verse 1. So we are to arm ourselves. Peter tells us we need to arm ourselves with the same mind of suffering, with the same mind of bearing with others patiently, loving them through it, not reviling, not threatening. Just like a soldier puts, okay, he thinks through I'm going to be in a battle today and I'm probably going to need my gun.

So what kind of ammunition will I need in this battle today? I'm going to need this kind of ammunition. So I'll put it here and I'll put it here and I'll make sure my gun is clean. And okay, what else do I need? Well, my gun might malfunction, so I probably should have a pistol.

So I'll make sure I have a pistol on my side and I'll make sure it's loaded. I'll make sure it's clean. He thinks through all the scenarios that he's got to be ready for, and he's arming himself for that moment when he does come into contact.

In the same way, we're to arm ourselves, no different than a soldier, with the mindset of Christ which says, if this happens, I will love them. If this happens, I will pray for them. If this happens, I will bless them.

We're to arm ourselves with that mind, and it's an arming of absolute trust in God. Now, hold your place there, and I want you to go back to Ephesians. I've been meditating on this verse the last week, and it's Ephesians chapter 1. It's actually a predestination verse, but the part that really stood out to me was the part right after the predestination part, and it says this in verse 11, Ephesians 1.11, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.

Did you get that last part? God works everything to the counsel of his own will. I was with somebody yesterday over at Joel's house, and they said he believes that everything we run into, if we're in a grocery store, and we're talking to this person right here, God ordained that moment. God knew that moment.

He works all things to the counsel of his own will. You know, God knows how much hair is on your head. God knows probably today what clothing you would pick and choose to wear.

God ordains everything. If we truly trust him, and somebody comes up to attack us, do we really believe that God has ordained this moment? Think about that for a little bit. Somebody comes up and demands something from us.

I want that thing. Do we really believe God has ordained this moment? Or are we, like myself at times, fleshly, and we're just like, this is happenstance, this is coincidence, and when we go down that path, how quickly we're ready to arm ourselves with our own flesh. But when we truly believe that God knows about this, I still remember Glenn, you know, up here right before COVID.

I don't know if you remember this, but this just stood out to me in my mind. He's, like, talking about COVID, and the government was, you know, getting all concerned and worried, and, you know, this is going to kill us all. And Glenn was like, well, do you think God's up there on this throne with all white-neckled fists going, oh, no, what happened? No.

He knows exactly everything. And so, do we trust God? Do we trust God? Do we look to Jesus as our example? Back to 1 Peter. If you turn back there, and I want to look at this last verse, verse 19.

So, verse 1 said, we're to arm ourselves with the same mind of Christ, and we cease from sin. We're finished with sin, as one translation says, when we decide that we will suffer for the name of Christ. We're finished with sin.

We're done with living for ourselves. Verse 19, wherefore, let him that suffers according to the will of God. Do you see that? God has everything ordained according to his purpose.

Let him that suffers according to the will of God commit the keeping of his soul to him, that's God, in well-doing as a faithful creator. That's a little hard to understand. Listen to it this way.

Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. So, while that person is coming against you, you're to commit your soul to God and still do good. That's what it says.

So, as I said, Peter, the apostle that walked with Jesus, and also the one that was so quick to be in the flesh. Remember Peter? Remember the Peter that would say, and Jesus would say, he would make a comment, he said, Oh, Peter, wow, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father, and then the next sentence, he said, Jesus said to him, get behind me, Satan. Peter, that was so quick to be in the flesh, is telling us that the arm of flesh will fail you.

We need to trust God. So, we must have absolute trust in God. The last principle I want to put on the board here is, what would Jesus do? And I know that's a little cliche we've heard around.

They make bracelets and all of that. But Jesus is the word of God. Jesus is the king of his kingdom, and he wants us to look at his life in example.

We just read the verse. He left us an example that we should walk in his steps. So, we need to ask the question, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do in this situation? I know the question, Caleb, you asked, what about pepper spray? Glenn, you asked, well, what about? What would we do if somebody came up and said, give me your shirt? And we're all thinking, well, you know, Paul told us to be modest.

So, now what? You want my shirt, and I'm going to be running around town without a shirt on. Now what? You know, there's all these situations, but we can run it down this list. We can run it down these principles, and we can ask these questions.

This last one, what would Jesus do? Well, let's quickly turn to Revelation. Chapter 5. I don't think I wrote the exact verses down, so we'll need to find them here maybe quick. Basically, in this chapter, yeah.

In this chapter, they're asking, who is worthy to open the seal? Who is worthy to open this book? To loose the seven seals. There's this book, and it's got seven seals. And who's worthy to do this thing? And look, verse 5. And one of the elders said to me, don't weep.

Behold, the lion. The lion. You know, a lion, we think of vicious.

We think of strong. We think of able to pounce. The lion of Judah.

The root of David hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals. And I beheld him low in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, a lamb. A lamb that had been slain.

There's a reason Jesus is called the lamb of God. And there's a reason that he told his followers, I send you out as sheep among wolves. I send you as lambs.

What would Jesus do? Jesus was gentle. Jesus was meek. Paul himself said, I beg you by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ.

Jesus, at one point, the apostles were, the disciples were walking with him and they came to a town and they said, should we, they're not receiving us here. Should we call fire down from heaven? And Jesus said, rebuke them and said, and he said, they said like Elijah. Should we call fire down from heaven? Like Elijah, the Old Testament.

Jesus rebuked them and said, you don't know what spirit you are of for the son of man hath not come to destroy lives, but to save them. Jesus was gentle. Jesus was about saving man's souls.

In fact, if you think about this, what was Jesus' last miracle? Somebody remember? Healing an ear that was just violently cut off. Do you think Peter was like, I was trying to think about this. Do you think he was trying to just cut off the ear? I mean, think about trying to get a sword between that much and perfectly getting that nicked off.

I'm thinking he was going for the head and it just worked out. I mean, what would Jesus have done if he got his head? But think about that. The last miracle on earth was Jesus healing his enemy and then turning to his follower, the Christian, and rebuking him and telling him, put your sword away for all that live by the sword will die by the sword.

His last miracle was to heal his enemy. And then as he hung on the cross, after they did all these vile things to him, he said, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Think about this.

Jesus is hanging there on the cross. He is forgiving them from his heart. But on top of that, he is actually saying, God, you hold all vengeance and vengeance is yours.

But then he says this to his father, oh, please forgive them. I know you could take retribution on them because that's your place. But would you not do even that? Talk about the ultimate forgiveness.

Not only is he forgiving, but he's asking God to forgive them. And then later, Stephen, his own follower, sat there and did the same thing as they stoned him as rocks were hitting him and he was dying and his life was passing away. He said, father, lay not this to their charge.

Think about that. Asking God, I forgive them. God, would you also forgive them and not hold this against them? This is the heart of God.

This is the heart of true followers of Christ. And that's where I, what do we have? Is it this or is it this? Do we, do we, do we sometimes have the attitude, you know, for God's, for God was so irritated with the world. Do we sometimes, okay, I'm going to love you, but this is, you know, I'm going to do it because Jesus told me to.

Or do we have his heart and his pulse, his lifeblood flowing through us as Abe talked about this morning? That as they're attacking us, as they're doing these things, we see them, we see the greater perspective and we are even asking God to forgive them. What would Jesus do? So why did I convert? Why did I sell my AR-15, which I had, and I had a nine millimeter Glock. I had a Ruger mini 30 that could shoot the Russian rounds, which I could get cheap.

Why did I sell my Smith and Wesson 357? Why did I sell all my stored up ammunition that I had kept, like I've told you before, my piano under there, there was a nice place to keep it. Why did I stop going to all the prep meetings and the anti-government meetings and all of that? Why did I get rid of my little thing that was under the driveway, you know, for cars? Why did I stop getting up in the middle of the night and worry about those things? Why did I let people start taking advantage of me? Why did I stop standing up for my rights? Because Jesus lived this way. First of all, I realized after reading Jesus' words and I read in Peter and I read in James, where James even says, the just doesn't even resist you.

He's rebuking the rich and the rulers. And he says, the righteous guys don't even resist you. I saw through the New Testament that this is a general calling for all Christians for Jesus did it and all of his disciples did it after him.

So I saw that he meant it. I saw that his disciples lived that way. And then I saw the New Testament witness, all of his disciples, Paul, all of them.

Where is there any examples of them living any other contrary way than what Jesus taught? And lastly, I saw that in the first 300 years of Christianity, Christians believe this way. This was normal. And if I could, I'd take the time, but I'd probably bore you.

But there's lots and lots and lots of quotes from early church writers for the first 300 years that they just saw it no other way. They said, you can philosophize all you want, but Jesus said it pretty clearly. To them, Jesus' words were clear.

And somehow we sit here and struggle and struggle and struggle. What did Jesus really mean that? But somehow they say it was clear what Jesus meant. That he meant, really, when somebody hits your cheek, don't turn to him the other.

I didn't mean don't, but turn to him the other and love him in it. And they say we put down all of our instruments of war and beat them into plowshares. And we are them of peace now.

And I came and started joining a group like this because there are not a lot of people out there that believe this anymore. So this is a pretty near and dear doctrine to my heart. Are we ready to suffer? Are we ready to bear the shame? Are we ready to bear the blame of others and carry that for others? So run these things through.

Ask yourself the questions yourself. And one thing I want to point out is, if you notice, now whenever we talk about the subject, we always want to go to, what if so-and-so breaks into my house? Or what if I get drafted? Or what if I'm on the side of the road and some guy pulls over? And that might happen to you. But I'm going to venture to guess it's not likely to happen to you.

But I will say that most likely, in the next couple of weeks, somebody's going to take advantage of you. Somebody's going to speak rude to you. Somebody's going to cut you off.

Somebody's going to do something rude to you. Two-thirds of Jesus' example were not violent. One was asking a shirt and one was asking to go a mile.

Those weren't violent. And I'm afraid sometimes when we have our little doctrine of non-resistance, you know, we don't go to war and we don't defend ourselves, we skip all of the rest of life. We skip all of the little situations.

You know, just this week, I went up to the DMV and as I'm walking to get in line, because I got there 20 minutes early with Joshua, you know, we're there and we're getting in line and I see this guy coming and he's running fast so he can get ahead of me. Do I run ahead? You know, what do I do? Should have done is... That would have been hard because by the time the doors opened, there were about 20 people behind me. I should have held the door for each one of them.

Come on, you know. But that would have probably been the heart of Christ, you know. Yeah.

Run that thing through. Ask yourself, you know, I'll let you answer. Pepper spray.

Some guy comes after you. Is it passive in retaliation? Is it proactive in love? Is it absolute trust in God? And what would Jesus do? You have to wrestle with that. Glenn asked, I want an answer next week for the shirt on my back.

What would you do? You know, sometimes we're gonna have to bear the shame. I mean, I would agree with you. If Glenn's running down the street and he's lost his shirt, we would all wonder what happened.

But I would hope if we were in persecution like that, or I would hope even if we weren't, that we would all know him well enough that we would say something's wrong. Something happened to our brother and we would pull him aside and he would tell us a story and we would cheer him on for doing the right thing and saying, brother, you did the right thing. And is it possible we could somehow trust him in it? Trust God in it? Like, God, you'll provide a way.

I don't understand yet how, but you'll provide a way. Maybe there'll be somebody with a towel there or something. I know it sounds funny, but we need to arm ourselves with the mind of Christ and we need to follow his teachings.

And we need to be careful not to justify in a way because systematic theology has a way of just justifying things away. What does the New Testament teach? What does Jesus teach? What did the early church teach? I want to read you this last story. And by the way, Peter said, if you suffer for righteousness, happy are ye.

All those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And that might mean your shirt is taken off. And so be it.

You stand before God. God will know on judgment day that you followed and did what he taught you to do. But let me read you the story.

Henry Soso was a man of God who lived in Germany. A few hundred years ago, he was a saintly man and a bachelor. He prayed often that the Lord would make him broken and humble him like Jesus was.

Can you imagine praying that prayer? Lord, break me. Make me humble like Jesus. One day, God answered his prayer.

Soso heard a knock at his door. When he opened the door, he saw a strange woman standing there with a baby in her arms. He had never seen her before.

She was a sinful woman who was wanting to get rid of her newborn baby and decided that the best man to dump it on was Henry. So she told him in a voice loud enough for everyone in the street to hear, here is the fruit of your sin. Imagine all that hard reputation you've been working on to keep before, man, you know, what would you do in this situation? All of a sudden, all this good reputation of your name and this woman's yelling out something that is a total lie.

Here's the fruit of your sin. And she left the baby in his arms and walked off. Soso was stunned.

His reputation in the town had been shattered in a moment. He took the baby inside, knelt down and told the Lord, Lord, you know I'm innocent. What should I do now? The Lord said, do what I did.

Suffer for the sins of others. Soso accepted the word of the Lord and he never justified himself before anyone. He brought up the child as his own.

He was content that God knew the truth and he was willing for everyone else to misunderstand him. Many years later, the woman was convicted of her sin and came back to Soso's house and proclaimed to all the neighbors that Soso was innocent and she had told a lie. But what happened in the intervening years? Henry Soso's prayer had been answered.

He had become a broken and a humble man like his master. God had been able to accomplish a work of sanctification in Soso's life, freeing him from man's opinions so that God's opinion alone mattered to him thereafter. Thank you.