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THE ORIGINAL PETER PRINCIPLES - "The Spiritual Warfare Principle" - July 24, 2016 - Pastor Scott Christenson

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St. Paul's Lutheran Church Orange, CA

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so we're continuing our sermon series called the original Peter principles today we're looking at a both of in the writings of the disciple Peter and the just dramatic transformation that took place in his life not for those of you you been with us so far you should know this this series is inspired by something in the business world called the Peter Principle in the business world the Peter Principle as the eye the people tend to get promoted to their highest level of incompetence and so for example maybe there an engineer a good engineer and so they get promoted and they become a manager of other Engineers but they're not very good at being a manager because that involves of different set of skills than just being an engineer well that's the Peter Principle in action  I'm calling the series about the life of the original Peter principles because what you see happening here is just the opposite in the life of Peter he starts off income 10th he says and does all kinds of really dumb things in his early years with Jesus and yet he gets promoted if you will he becomes a one of the primary and leaders of the early church and because of the work of Jesus in his life he becomes more and more competent all the time and so in the book of Acts and in the writings of 1st and 2nd Peter we see a bear different guy emerge Peter becomes wise and mature and humble and that of course is the path that the Lord wants to take all of us on  and you'll see today we're talking about the spiritual warfare evil witch Peter learned in Matthew 16 and what she wrote about much later in his life in 1st Peter 5 I want to talk with you about any specific things of that we learn here in these writings three specific things first where Satan works  a second house Satan works and finally how we fight back okay so that's our message for today where Satan Works how Satan works and how we fight back so first where Satan works and we all know right we all know where Satan work Satan works in the hearts Isis terrorist he works in the hearts of dictators he works in the hearts of all of us the Godless and heartless and ruthless greedy people in the world right  well yes  but today we learn from Peter what's not the only place that Satan works  and if we think it is we're really kidding ourselves  we learned today that Canby and in fact is working in the heart of every person including every Christian including great Christian leaders like Peter you see there Matthew 16 starts off with Peter receiving High Praise Jesus and well he should write he has just boldly confess the faith and the truth that Jesus is the Christ he's the son of the Living God Jesus affirms this answer he calls him blessed he says that this confession of faith is the rock on which he will build his church and even the gate tell will not stand against it  Steven gives Peter the keys to the kingdom  M4 this is later Jesus calls Peter Satan  any publicly rebuked Satan can be working in anyone but the other day I was reading an article that said this I love this quote says one of the pictures of some popular fictional treatments of spiritual warfare is that they encourage our tendency to think of us as good and them as bad  but you'll see that's not at all how the Bible talks about how Satan works the Bible is always encouraging us to be Discerning for the work of Satan in our own hearts example in 2nd Timothy 2 of the Apostle Paul is giving instructions to a Christian leaders to tell them how they are to operate and take a look at what he says he says that those who oppose him the Christian leader he must gently instruct in the hope that God will grant them repent leading them to a knowledge of the truth and that they will come to their senses look at this and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them stiff to do his will one of my favorite commentators on this verse says this he says really  do you mean mr. Smith mrs. Brown he does pause talking about otherwise standing church members who spouts the right Creeds subscribe to all the correct doctrines espouse all the proper moral stances but they taken captive to do the Devils will  he says this seems overstated after all these are people who sit on the Deep bored who work in the nursery who played in Oregon on Sundays  yes it seems overstated unless you've seen it 100 times the good man or woman who in the name of some righteous cause create so much division confusion and enmity that only Beelzebub wins but it shouldn't surprise us if that can open to Peter in the space of mere minutes it can happen to anyone maybe that's why in his writings from 1st Peter 5 starts off by warning us to be self-controlled and alert  says your enemy devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour  I'm pretty sure that's not just theological conviction for Peter he learned that lesson the hard way he wasn't self-controlled more alert  and Satan snuck up on him he thought that he was being Godly when in fact according to Jesus he did not have in mind the things of God but the things of men and Peter is saying to all of us  you better be careful  this could happen to you that's where Satan works so that's where he work secondly we also see here how he works and other you things I want to point out here about how Satan works first you see he works through our failure to listen  you know wasn't listening very well here Jesus had just told him that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders Chief freeze teachers of the law he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life Jesus very very detailed here about what exactly needed to take place but Peter didn't or more likely wouldn't hear it it's not that he didn't hear the word I'm right Peter was not literally death he was just so determined to tell Jesus his plant  but he wasn't schiphol to hear about Jesus plan I wonder if that might be true of you and your life with God how many of your prayers do you think are essentially trying to get Jesus to submit to your plants how willing are you to submit to his plants  this leads us to the way that Satan Works he also works we learn here through our sinful Pride  CS Lewis famously called Pride the sensual Vice the utmost evil the complete anti-god State of Mind  and Peter's just full of it and the way you can tell is that he is absolutely certain that he is right and Jesus is no question in his mind whatsoever never Lord he says this will never happen to you how about you  really be honest with yourself are you the kind of person who is always app lutely sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong  if your wife is jabbing your right now such a quote  this is serious stuff though because if so you're not only going to have a tough time in your relationship with others you're going to have a very tough time in your relationship with God  again CS Lewis says in God you come up against something which is in every respect in measurably Superior to yourself  the less you know God as and therefore no yourself as nothing in comparison you do not know God at all  as long as you are proud you can no God  a proud man is always looking down on things and people and of course as long as you are looking you cannot see something that is above you Alfred way that Satan works is through temp we learn to believe in no cost discipleship repeater doesn't like Jesus plan because Jesus involve suffering and struggle and sacrifice they always do Peter wants something simpler something easier  and more often than not show the Wii a great way to recognize whether this is happening to you or not is to analyze your prayers so often our prayers devolve into nothing more than simply saying Lord please fix this problem make this sick person well don't let anything bad happen to me make my life can you use your insulin  it's not that any of these prayers are are wrong or sinful in and of themselves sometimes God does all of the problem is that we sometimes start to think that God owes us these kind of things or that something is wrong with him or with us if he doesn't give us what we want  but I think Jesus words about denying ourselves and waking up our own cross challenges all of us to pray prayers that are more like this  not Lord make things easier for me  but Lord give me the strength to follow you even when it's difficult not just Lord fix all my problems but Lord help me trust you even when my problems aren't fixed not just Lord take away all my suffering but Lord use my suffering to mold my character so that I can be more compassionate others who are suffering like you are so that's where Satan works that's how Satan finally I want to say a few words about how we fight back how do we fight back against Satan's work in our lives couple things that stand out to me here first we fight back with clear confrontation you read this play Matthew 16 you realize Jesus didn't mess around Diddy  when Peter started going off track he pointed it out to him with Crystal clarity  get behind me Satan you can't miss the point  you are a stumbling block to me do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men that's pretty clear  someone once said one of the biggest struggles in the church today is what they called terminal niceness  movie afraid of offending anyone or appearing hypocritical that we just keep our mouths shut when we see people going off track or instead of coming right out and saying the truth clearly we maybe talk to them and we hint around at it so vaguely that the other don't even know what we're talking about  but see Jesus understood that failing to listen to him watches wrong it's dangerous pride is dangerous expecting no cost discipleship is and so we have to understand the Jesus confrontation of Peter was truly an act of love despite how hard should sounds and if we really love each other we've got to be able to speak truth to one another when we're going off track that means to happen in our family as it needs to happen in our friendships in our marriages everywhere that we are that's what real love looks like we fight back with clear confrontation finally we fight back we learn by remembering the promises of Christ  is promise trust in the midst of all of the spiritual battles that we fight your day is not that we won't suffer or struggle  even Jesus didn't get that is it mean that God has promised us nothing  1st Peter 5:10 Peter reminds us of the hope that we can cling to no matter what's going on in our lives and I just love these words  he says the God of all Grace who called you to an eternal glory in placed after you have suffered a little while will himself restore you and make you strong firm and steadfast that's our sure and certain hope  and that's a good summary of the spiritual warfare principle the battle still rages but the end is already determined Satan is defeated in Christ's Victory Is Ours

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THE ORIGINAL PETER PRINCIPLES - "The Spiritual Warfare Principle" - July 24, 2016 - Pastor Scott Christenson

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