By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
April 26, 2026
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Query 4 (Faith and Practice of EFC-MAYM pg 61)
Do you provide for the suitable Christian education and recreation of your children and those under your care, and endeavor to train them for upright and useful lives?
Are you thoughtful and careful to supervise their social activities and to guard them against harmful reading and associates?
Do you encourage them to read and study the Scriptures?
Do you prayerfully seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your efforts for their conversion and growth in grace?
Ephesians 6:4 (ESV)
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
1 Peter 2:19–25 (ESV)
19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 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. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 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. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
What does it mean to follow Christ? What is a true Christian?
These are questions that have been asked for probably the past two thousand years. Questions that we have all asked, and probably been unable to answer adequately in our minds. We have these ideas in our mind of who is good, what it means to be born again. But as time goes on we find that some of the people we once aspired to be like had skeletons in their closets. CS Lewis for example. Today we would not think much of it but when he married his wife it was a scandal. At that time it was unacceptable for a divorced individual to remarry in the church. He married Joy anyway. He married Joy even though she had cancer. He married her because it was the right thing, and at times the right thing is hard. Sometimes it carries pain. The world and even our closest friends do not understand. And even worse the people we respect may not have guidance. He married Joy.
He loved her, and it brought great pain to his life. I cannot tell you why he did it. He did not have to do it. His life would have been easier had he not married her, yet what everyone else thought was logical did not convince him. He loved her and her children.
Lewis’s marriage was a scandal, but he also accepted evolution as a manner of explaining creation. In the time of history and in his location that train of thought was widely accepted. Even among evangelicals that was accepted. It was only after the second world war that fundamentalist ideas began to take prominence, along with dispensational theology. Now there are groups that forbid children from reading the works of CS Lewis because they claim he promotes magic and erroneous creation theologies. Can you imagine a childhood without Narnia?
I bring this up because what people find scandalous in faith often changes. We like to say our stances have never changed, but this is not fully accurate. We as people of faith have changed over time. We have recognized areas where our testimonies of faith did not coincide with our understanding of scripture. Our understanding of history has deepened. We gained greater knowledge of the grammar of ancient languages. And most of all, we have found manuscripts that confirm or provide broader insight into how we translate the words. This causes some to question faith, but for me it is exciting. With everything we have found, with all the textual criticism, or research, we have found that, by in large, the text used to translate scripture has been faithfully transmitted through history with very few errors.
Most of the differences that have been found are nonuniform spelling. There are some other errors that are attributed to scribal clarifications primarily in the Latin sources. As we do this work we become more aware of how various passages connect with others. We find how they connect with writing inside and outside the church. It gives us more context and when we have more context we can then look at the passage with greater clarity.
We have learned more, and this can cause scandal. When I use the word criticism, I am sure most of us cringed just a bit. That word is the proper thing to use, but usually when we use that word it is negative. We criticize someone’s clothing. We criticize the pastor’s sermon. We speak criticism in reference to someone’s cooking when it is not like our mother’s. We criticize. We speak negatively. This is not the fullness of criticism. When we speak of textual criticism regarding scripture, it basically means we are looking at the text and considering all the sources we have, and we are attempting to determine with scholarship if it is part of the original text or if it was potentially added. They do this by considering if the handwriting, the word usage, the context fit with the rest of the text around it. And if it does not seem to fit, some translations move that portion into a footnote, or add some sort of editorial notation explaining that this might not be original.
I have gone completely into nerd mode, but I do this for a reason. It makes us uneasy. We do not like the feeling we get when our faith is challenged. We are more comfortable with our faith when it is unquestioned and dictated to us. Faith is not supposed to be dictated, it is supposed to be experienced, lived in, and explored.
Living faith is difficult. CS Lewis wrote about it in many ways. He spoke about injustice in his children’s books in a manner that most kids can understand, “The White Witch cast a spell which caused it to always be winter but never Christmas.” Children can understand that. They understand the pain in their fingers when they get too cold and warm back up. They understand the need for heavy coats and blankets just to be able to function. They understand all of that, but when you say never Christmas, that is unfair. Christmas is what makes winter bearable.
Peter tells us, “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”
I will not be one of those teachers that tell you that if you come to faith your life will get easier. Life is never easy. We will have pain and sorrow, we will have to deal with thorns and weeds, we will have to endure the antics of governments lording over the governed. This was promised in Genesis. Coming to faith does not change this completely because we still live in a world with people of different understandings and different faiths.
Those that do not understand us often speak out against us. I mentioned last week how I have been accused of things simply because I hold to a traditional testimony of Friends in regard to peace. I will be honest with you, there was a time where I was not so traditional. I thought I was a maverick when I boldly said in worship one Sunday evening that I supported the invasion of Iraq, and I justified it in my mind because we were going to protect the Kurdish people. I have regretted that statement. We did not protect the Kurdish people, they are just as oppressed today as they were twenty years ago. And this caused me to reexamine why I believe things, and why Friends have their stances. I do not hate those that have a different opinion, I love many who have served. But I believe that we should do all that we can to prevent the use of violent means.
These misunderstandings have caused me a great deal of stress of late. I have suffered. I have been told to keep my mouth shut. I have been called things from a liberal communist to a mindless sheep. Why, because I have tried to explore, and live within faith.
Peter wrote this letter to Christians that most likely lived in Asia Minor. He likely wrote it just prior to his death while he was in Rome. This was early in church history, those that followed Jesus were often persecuted. They were beaten and imprisoned because they did not make sacrifices to the Roman gods. They were rejected from commerce because they did not carry a form of identification that indicated that they offered sacrifices to the emperor’s temple. People made a sport of violence against the followers of Jesus. And tradition tells us that Peter was the first Pope, the first bishop over the entire Church within the Roman empire.
He is telling that the suffering is good. And we look at these words and we think Peter has lost his mind.
He says that it is good because, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed not 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.”
I want us to think about this for a moment. None of us like suffering. We tend to avoid it at all costs. But there are times where we do need to endure. Peter encourages the churches, not to focus on their suffering, but to turn their attention to Jesus. How did Jesus respond to the world around him?
In the sixteen years that I have served as your pastor, I have mentioned often the lifestyle or the rhythm of Jesus’s life. He made it his custom to worship with the community at the synagogue. He withdrew often to isolated places to pray, and he ministered to the people through teaching and activities. I have expressed that this rhythm can be seen in our own mission statement: Loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit, and Living the love of Christ with others. We love God through worship. We embrace the Holy Spirit through prayer, and we live the love of Christ when we use the gifts and resources we have available to us to encourage and help those around us. This is the same thing that Peter is telling the first century church to do. This is the same thing that Paul tells the churches to do when he encourages us to discard the old life and put on the new. We are to clothe ourselves in the very life and lifestyle of Jesus.
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When we think of sin, most of us think of the breaking of a rule, or one of the ten commandments. I want us to broaden our understanding a bit on this. If sin was only the breaking of the ten commandments, then the gospels tell us that Jesus sinned a great deal. How can I say this? In his culture they were very strict on keeping the commandments, and Jesus was pretty liberal when it came to Sabbath keeping. We justify this in our minds, we say well the religious leaders of his time were just being to legalistic in their interpretations, where Jesus was focused on the heart of the law instead of the letter of the law. I want us to reflect of that for a moment, we are not wrong in saying that.
The commands were not merely rules. They were conversations or concepts to be explored. And Jesus gave us the framework or guide to use while exploring the commandments. When he was asked what the greatest commandment was he said it was to love God with everything we are and all that we have, and that the second is like the first to love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is profound if we think about it. But there was another instance where Jesus even challenges this. The gospels tell us that Jesus became angry when he entered the temple and saw the tables of the money changers, and the pens of animals being sold for sacrifice. He became angry and he made a whip the hair of a beast, and he began shouting, “that God’s house is to be a place of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.” How is Jesus loving his neighbor as himself in that instance?
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. Sin is missing the mark. It is an action that is done that falls short of what of the goal. The goal is to love God with all we are and have, and we do this by loving those around us as we would love ourselves. We show our love for God in how we interact with those around us. This is why Jesus says that the first and second commands are the same. We cannot love God without loving our neighbor, and we cannot truly love our neighbor without loving God.
What this boils down to is one thing. Living justly. When we speak are we speaking truth, with grace and mercy to encourage those around us to a better place? Or are we twisting our words so that we can convince them to do things for our own benefit? That is deceit. That is sin. When people spread untruths or gossip about us are we striking back at them with the same venom or are we responding with truth filled with grace and mercy? When people commit acts that cause us harm, are we responding with the same threats of harm or are do we instead encourage them with grace and mercy?
I want us to really consider the words that Peter is speaking and apply them to our lives, apply them to our actions. Apply them to the activities we encourage our government to enact. Are we following Christ or are we following the world? Are we entrusting ourselves to him who judges justly or are we entrusting ourselves to the powers and principalities of this world?
We suffer in life. It is just part of human existence. We suffer because of things we have done, and we suffer because of things others have done to us. When we endure suffering because of actions we do for the good of others, it is a gracious thing in the sight of God. I have often wondered about that statement. But as I have matured in my faith I have gained understanding. The commandments of God, are not mere rules, but conversations. And one of my favorite podcasts have been doing a series on this the past couple of weeks. Why does God command us not to make idols and worship them? Why should we refrain from making images and setting them within a temple? It is because God created the image for us. We are the image of God, we were fashioned out of the dust of the earth and placed within the garden. The garden is the place where God dwells, it is the temple or sanctuary. When we love our neighbor as ourselves we are offering gifts of praise and worship to the one that created us.
When we suffer for doing good, we engaged in the Lambs war. We are participating in the expansion of the kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. When we suffer for doing good we are following in the footsteps of Christ. But we need to be humble. We need to be careful, we need to examine ourselves and encourage those under our care. Are we providing suitable educations and activities for those under our care and are we making every effort to train them for upright and useful lives? Are we exploring life with those around us so that they are able to live the love of Christ with others?Are we thoughtful and careful to supervise our activities and our media consumption, and do the groups we participate in promote the lifestyle of Christ? Do we prayerfully seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we can be conduits of God’s mercy so that they took can know God and entrust their lives to him?
As we enter into this time of open worship and communion in the manner of Friends. I encourage you all to sit with these queries. Consider the suffering around us. Where is it coming from and how are we responding? And let us seek out our Shepherd and Overseer so that our wounds can be healed by the hands that were wounded for us. And let our lives be renewed just as he was raised.
Previous Messages:
In Your Hearts Honor Christ as Holy
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 10, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 3:13–22 (ESV) 13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for…
Living Stones
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 03, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 2:2–10 (ESV) 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have…
Ransomed to Love
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 19, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 1:17–23 (ESV) 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time…
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