We're continuing our message series, "The Original Peter Principles" today, looking at both the life and writings of the disciple Peter and the dramatic change that Jesus brought to his life. For those of you who haven't been with us so far, this series was inspired by something in the business world that's called "The Peter Principle." In the business world, the "Peter Principle" is the idea that people tend to get promoted to their highest level of incompetence. So, for example, maybe they're an engineer and they're a good engineer so they get promoted and become a manager of other engineers. But they're not good at being a manager because that involves a very different skill-set than being an engineer. That's the "Peter Principle" in action.

We're calling this series about the life of Peter, "The Original Peter Principles" because you see just the opposite of that happening in the life of Peter. He starts off incompetent. He says and does a lot of dumb things in his early years with Jesus. And yet he gets "promoted", if you will. He becomes one of the primary leaders of the early church and by the work of Jesus in his life, he becomes more and more competent all the time. In the book of Acts and in his writings in First and Second Peter, we see a very different man. Peter becomes wise and mature and humble. And that, of course, is the path on which Jesus wants to take us all.

Today we're going to talk about the "Spiritual Warfare Principle" which Peter learned in Matthew 16 and which he wrote about much later in his life in First Peter 5. And I want to talk with you about three specific things we learn here. First, "Where Satan Works." Second, "How Satan Works". And finally, "How We Fight Back". OK? That's our message for today. Where Satan works, how Satan works and how we fight back.

WHERE SATAN WORKS

First, where Satan works. We all know where Satan works, right? Satan works in the hearts of Al Qaida terrorists. He works in the hearts of dictators. He works among all the godless and heartless and ruthless and greedy people in the world, right? Well, yes. But we learn today from Peter, that that's not the only place where Satan works, and if we think it is, we're kidding ourselves. Satan can be and, in fact, is working in the heart of every person, even Christians, even great Christian leaders like Peter.

Matthew 16 starts out with Peter receiving high praise from Jesus and well he should. He has just boldly confessed the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus affirms his answer. He calls him blessed. His confession of faith is the rock on which Jesus will build His church and the gates of hell will not overcome it. He even gives Peter the keys of the kingdom!

And four sentences later, Jesus calls Peter "Satan" and publicly rebukes him! Satan can be working in anyone.

The other day I was reading an article that said, "One of the worst features of some popular fictional treatments of spiritual warfare is that they encourage our tendency to think of "us" as good and "them" as bad." [John Ortberg, "Fighting the Good Fight", Leadership Journal, Spring, 2012, p. 24.] But that's not at all the way the Bible talks about where Satan works. The Bible is always encouraging us to be discerning for the work of Satan in our own hearts. For example, in Second Timothy 2, the apostle Paul is giving instructions for how Christian leaders are to operate and he says,

"Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will."

One commentator on these verses says, "Really? Do you mean Mr. Smith? Mrs. Brown? He does. Paul is talking about otherwise upstanding church members who spout the right creeds, subscribe to all the correct doctrines, espouse all the proper moral stances. But they've been taken captive to do the devil's will. This seems overstated—after all, these are people who sit on the deacon board, who work in the nursery, who play the organ on Sundays. Yes, it seems overstated, unless you've seen it a hundred times: the good man or woman, who, in the name of some righteous cause, creates so much division, suspicion, confusion and enmity that only Beelzebub wins. But it shouldn't surprise us... If that can happen to Peter—in the space of mere minutes—it can happen to anyone." [Mark Buchanan, "Get Behind Me, Satan!", Leadership Journal, Spring, 2012, p. 106.]

And maybe that's why Peter, in his writing from First Peter 5, starts off by warning us to be "self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." That's not just a theological conviction for Peter. He learned that lesson the hard way. He wasn't self-controlled or alert and Satan snuck up on him. He thought 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."

Peter is saying to all of us. Be careful! This can happen to you too! That's where Satan works!

HOW SATAN WORKS

So, that's where he works. But secondly, we see how he works. And there are three specific things I want to point out here about how Satan works. First, he works through our failure to listen. Peter wasn't listening very well here. Jesus had just told them that "he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." Jesus was being very detailed about exactly what needed to take place. But Peter didn't, or more likely, wouldn't hear it. It's not that he didn't hear the words. Peter wasn't literally deaf. He was just so determined to tell Jesus his plan, that he wasn't able to hear Jesus' plan. And I wonder if that might be true of you and your life with God. How many of your prayers, do you think, are essentially about trying to get Jesus to submit to your plans? How willing are you to submit to His plans?

This leads us to the second way Satan works. He works through our sinful pride. C.S. Lewis called pride, "the essential vice, the utmost evil... the complete anti-God state of mind." [Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity, Macmillan, 1943, p. 94] And Peter is full of it here. And they way you can tell is because he's absolutely certain that he is right and Jesus is wrong. There's no question in his mind, whatsoever. "Never Lord!" he says. "This shall never happen to you!"

How about you? Be honest with yourself. Are you the kind of person who is always absolutely sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong? If so, you're not only going to have a tough time in your relationships with other people. You're going to have a very tough time in your relationship with God!

Again, C.S. Lewis says, "In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." [Lewis, p. 96]

The third way Satan works is through tempting us to believe in no-cost discipleship. Peter doesn't like Jesus' plans because Jesus' plans involve suffering and struggle and sacrifice. They always do. Peter wants something simpler, something easier. And more often than not, so do we. And again, a great way to recognize whether this is happening to you or not is to analyze your prayers. So often, our prayers become nothing more than "Lord, please fix this problem. Make this sick person well. Don't let anything bad happen to me. Make my life easier." And so on... And it's not that any of these prayers are wrong or sinful, in and of themselves. Sometimes God does all of these things. The problem is that we can start to think that God owes us all these things and that something is wrong with Him (or us!) if He doesn't give us what we want. I think Jesus' words about denying ourselves and taking up our cross challenge us all to pray prayers more like this:

Not "Lord, make things easier for me", but "Lord, give me the strength to follow You today, even when it's hard."

Not just, "Lord, fix all my problems" but "Lord, help me to 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 like Yours so that I can be more compassionate toward others who are suffering."

HOW WE FIGHT BACK

So, that's where Satan works and how Satan works. Finally, how do we fight back? How do we fight back against Satan's work in our lives? Two things stand out to me.

First, we fight back with clear confrontation. Jesus didn't mess around, did He? When Peter started going off track, He pointed it out to him with crystal clarity:

"Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Someone once said that one of the biggest struggles of the church today is what they called "terminal niceness." We're so afraid of offending anyone or looking hypocritical that we just keep our mouths shut when we see people going off track. Or, instead of just coming right out and saying the truth clearly, we hint around at it so vaguely that the other person doesn't even get what we're talking about. Jesus understood that failing to listen to Him is dangerous! Pride is dangerous! Expecting no-cost discipleship is dangerous! Jesus' confrontation of Peter was truly an act of love. And if we really love each other, we've got to be able to speak truth to each other when we're going off track. That needs to happen in our families, in our friendships, in our marriages, in our PEACE Groups... everywhere! That's what real love looks like. We fight back against Satan's work in our hearts with clear confrontation.

And finally, we fight back by remembering the true promises of Christ. His promise to us, in the midst of the spiritual battles we fight every day, is not that we won't struggle or suffer. Even Jesus didn't get that! But that doesn't mean God has promised us nothing. In First Peter 5:10, Peter reminds us of the hope we can cling to, no matter what's going on in our lives. I love these words! He says,

"...the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, 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 and Christ's victory is ours. Amen!

]]> http://www.reachgrowserve.org/s2012/20120506.htm http://www.reachgrowserve.org/s2012/20120506.htm Sun, 06 May 2012 09:30:36 GMT