(audio cuts out) that we have in our Savior. And so I wanna highlight that on Saturday, before that Christmas service time, from 1230 to 2300, there's gonna be an opportunity to go outreach and to just greet people and to pass out these flowers, but also just to share the gospel with the opportunities that we have.

So if you'd like to sign up for that or you have questions, please, the link is there. Make sure you sign up through that. As the end of the year approaches, we do have some fellowship opportunities to spend time together as a church family. One, there's a ping pong tournament on Sunday, and you can sign up for that.

All levels of skill are welcome. We also have New Year's games at 8 p.m., and that's just actually free time for people to come together. If you're newer to the church, that's a good time just to jump on in. We're gonna have some greeters at the door, help you get placed into board games or different activities as well.

And then we have our New Year service to really give that time to the Lord as we usher in the new year. So if you wanna mark your calendars for that, 11 p.m. is the New Year service. The other thing I wanna highlight is that we announced last week that we're going to be taking what is called a Lottie Moon Missions Offering on Sunday the 29th.

And some of you may not know exactly what that is, but that is fundraising specifically for missions hosted by the International Mission Board. So the funds will go to that organization and that is the organization that our friends, the Han family and Tong family are involved with. And we are able to earmark our offering towards them.

So just to let you guys know, Lottie Moon, the name comes from a famous individual who went to China to do missions and invested years and years and faithfully tried to teach, tried to minister to the people there. And for her namesake, they made this into an annual offering time for us.

We're gonna be participating in this year. And so again, it's gonna be Sunday the 29th, not next week, but the following week after. There's also just a highlight for you, still time if you'd like to contribute to offerings for the India pastors, there is a link there that you can participate that way or reach out to Sarah Kim if you have any questions.

At this time, Pastor Nathan will come to deliver us the message. - Thank you. Good morning, everybody. If you could turn with me to 1 Peter chapter five, we're gonna read just two verses, verses eight and nine. And it says in his word, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.

"Your adversary, the devil, "howls around like a roaring lion, "seeking someone to devour. "But resist him firm in your faith, "knowing that the same experiences of suffering "are being accomplished by your brethren "who are in the world." Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you so much. Thank you that we can, week after week, come back together and we are filled with joy as we can sing songs together, listen to your word together, to commune, to fellowship, all in all, Father, to marvel and wonder at the wonderful God that you are.

You are the God that we serve. Your kingdom is the one we live for. Father, you are our God. And Lord, when we hear your word, we hear it. Father, we understand that these are yours. And so, God, I pray that you would help me to be clear in the delivering of it.

Would you allow your word to take root and produce fruit? In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, we're kind of in the middle here of our covenant series, our tenfold covenant series, and these are kind of a stream of just different topical sermons. And this is one that the leadership was kind of thinking about, the idea of soberness, something we quite often talk about, I think, here at our church, and this idea of being alert, especially in a place and in a world where it's easy to get kind of sleepy.

And so, I don't think there's anything new in this passage. There's a lot of what we already know. And the good thing is, this is 1 Peter again. Last week, Pastor Peter went into chapter one, and so now we're in chapter five, kind of at the tail end of the book, and it's the same people, the same people that was being addressed last week is the same people being addressed this week.

They're aliens, they're sojourners, they're exiles, they are people scattered and persecuted. And all in all, it's addressing the church, the church that might be prone to kind of flapping around a little bit, and especially in the midst of trials, especially when you feel like, man, I don't belong here in this world because they were migrants.

And now, this command comes out, this command of being sober, this command of being alert. A lot of the Apostle Paul, when you read his epistles, you're going to see a lot of his books kind of have this logical flow. And the logical flow for Apostle Paul, not Peter here, but Paul, is that the first half, many times, is going to be very much kind of indicative-based.

So he produces lots of truths, and then eventually gets into the application. Peter actually doesn't function that way. If you look through his book, 1 Peter, through all five chapters, what you'll see is his imperatives just scatter all the way through. He goes in and out from the imperatives into the indicatives, and back over, folding in and in again.

And so these commands are, many times, used as something called the Aorist Imperative. There's a long list. Maybe one day you could do a personal study on it. It's pretty fascinating, actually, when you do. But these Aorist Imperatives we'll talk about in just a moment. But first, let's go into this idea of this call to be sober, this command to be sober.

The first half of it is, be of sober spirit. That's what it says. Be of sober spirit. So let's define it first. Being of sober spirit is to be self-controlled. That's largely what it means, to be self-controlled. And we have to sit there, pause, and think about that. He's saying be self-controlled.

And that comes with a lot of thought. It means to be free of intoxicating influences. That's what being self-controlled means. So what does this look like? Well, we understand here that this is spiritual in nature. Be spiritually sober is what he's saying. Be spiritually self-controlled is what he's saying.

Be spiritually free of intoxicating influences. Spiritually, you're in control of your thought process. Spiritually, you're in control, or at least not in danger of, irrational thinking. Spiritually, you're composed. You're behaving with restraint, with moderation. Spiritually, you're not permitting excess, impassions, or rashness. And so some diagnostic questions we should always be asking is, we should always be kind of digging up in our lives when we come across imperatives.

And so I wrote out a few that hopefully some of it would hit home. So for you parents, when your kids are acting up for the eighth time that day, you're responding out of spiritual soberness. When a coworker makes a snarky comment against you, you're responding out of spiritual soberness.

When you have a decision to make at the end of the day as to what to do with your time, you're responding in spiritual soberness. When someone cuts you off on the road, spiritual soberness. This is a question to all of us. Are we spiritually controlled? Are we spiritually sober?

And that question is so hard because when we cast a wide net and try to figure out in our life, in our day-to-day living, in my minute-to-minute thinking, spiritual soberness can't quite be aimed at things, right? The question is, are you spiritually sober? Do you have the ability in the midst of life to not just have the right theology, but the ability to exercise that theology or that doctrine?

Do you have the right spiritual faculties at work inside of you? It's this idea of preaching to yourself rather than listening to yourself, that as soon as the alarm goes off on your phone in the morning, what kicks in? Is it spiritual soberness? Or is the instantaneous reaction going to be part of the opposite?

What are the first thoughts in your mind in the morning? Even as you begin your day, where is your attention? At what point does soberness kick in in your day? So, that first part is be of sober spirit. And then there's a second half of this command, be on the alert.

It's along the same lines, the idea is to be watchful or to be vigilant. So, what does this look like? Again, this is spiritual alertness, spiritual watchfulness, spiritual vigilance. You're seeing everything with kind of a kingdom eyes, a gospel-centered eyes, or a God-centered God view of the world. It's a biblical worldview.

Again, some diagnostic questions for you, you have to ask, because we know this. This is a problem, we know these commands. And we know we ought to follow these, but we have to put these into our lives. When someone asks you, how are you doing spiritually? How do you respond to that?

Sometimes the vagueness of how you respond to that question when someone asks you, might kind of display your spiritual alertness in your life. If you're like, how am I doing spiritually? If you're trying to kind of reach into the corners of your heart, and trying to figure out, what am I struggling with?

It might mean that you have not been spiritually alert. When you look at a non-believing friend, and you feel no sense of urgency or tension, it might reveal how alert you are spiritually. When you're spending time with brothers and sisters, and you don't have the desire to know how their walk has been, and instead, there's this group that I'm a part of at Berean, it's a Dodgers-Berean chat.

We talk all the time, because right now, the winter meeting's just closed, and there's all these trades happening, and then signings of free agents, and I'm like, man, we talk for a long time on that chat group sometimes. And sometimes I wonder, I sit back and I wonder, man, I wonder how this guy's doing spiritually.

Do I care? Again, in dealing with children, if your primary objective is to get them to behave and conform to household rules, it's possible that our spiritual alertness and awareness is off, where our victory is when they obey, or when they behave. When we see the news, the politics, and we react viscerally from the flesh, where you feel like, oh, darkness, and there's hopelessness, or something like that, the spiritual alertness is off.

So these commands are that, it's to be on the alert, it's to be aware, it's to be ready, or on guard, that when you view the world, just generally speaking, you're able to be sober in your view and understanding of how things are working. Because we are prone to the opposite, this is C.

We are prone to the opposite, that's why he gives these commands. If we weren't prone to the opposite, he would not give these commands. So this is important for us to recognize, that the proneness in our flesh, you know that song, Prone to Wander, it's there, there's a proneness to not be sober, to not be alert.

What is the opposite of sober? It's to be drunk or inebriated. It's to be under intoxicating influences. We're not thinking clearly. Our spiritual judgment has been impaired. We've lost control over ourselves. If we are supposed to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, we've lost discipline. We've lost the goal of our lives.

The opposite of alert is distracted. It's sleepy or asleep. And especially in this season, it's very easy. In the simple decisions we make, our spiritual sobriety, our alertness is put to the test. In this season, it's really easy to get swept up. And there is this idea that if we sit still, we will get swept away.

And I like this idea of mission statement. A lot of companies have mission statements. And it's something like, honestly, all people have. Everyone has some kind of mission statement in life. We all live living out something that has to do with what we would deem to be our mission.

That is, that we act upon what we deem to be the goal in our life. That's where our actions come from. And if every believer in this room, if we were all to sit, pull out a piece of paper, grab a pen, and we all wrote out our mission statement, for every believer, ours would sound very similar.

Our mission statement is to live for God's glory. Our mission statement is to live for His kingdom. Our mission statement is to love God with all of our hearts, to go after His purposes, His goals, and not mine. Actually, my goals come into conformity with His goals. My will comes into conformity with His will.

There is no personal self kingdom building in my life. That is my mission statement. It's His kingdom. The mission statement says your goal and purpose, and so that's our question. What is my goal and what is my purpose in life? What is the reason that I live? What do you deem to be most important in your life?

Again, ours would align. However, how much do your everyday thoughts, actions, attitudes, decisions, fall in line with what you wrote down? And that is where you're going to see soberness, or lack thereof. That is where you're going to see, if I'm making these decisions, but this is what I want to live for, if these don't line up, we've lost soberness.

We've lost alertness. We are inebriated. We are drunk on some kind of intoxicating influence of the flesh through the world, under the control and influence of the enemy. 2 Peter chapter one, verse eight says this. There's some other stuff around this, but I'm just gonna read this. It says, "For if these qualities are yours "and are increasing, they render you neither useless "nor unfruitful in the true knowledge "of our Lord Jesus Christ." So a whole list of things that Peter listed out before this in 2 Peter.

But he says, "If these qualities that I previously listed "are increasing, and if they're yours, "then, listen, they render you neither useless "nor unfruitful." Again, inductive study, a really good thing to do is just flip it around. The flip around here is, then, there is a possibility for people to be useless and unfruitful.

The Christian can be rendered useless. The Christian can be rendered unfruitful. But he says here, if the qualities, again, we're not gonna go into those qualities, this is right before this passage. "But if these qualities are yours and are increasing, "you will not be useless, you will not be unfruitful "in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." In verse nine, "For he who lacks these qualities "is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten "his purification from his former sins.

"Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent." That's another discipline word here. "To make certain about his calling and choosing you "for as long as you practice these things." Again, this action-oriented thing here, "You practice these things, you will never stumble. "For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom "of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ "will be abundantly supplied to you." See, there is this thing where we're called to actively pursue and to actively live in a sober type of living and thinking.

See, right now, every day, there's a new deal on something to purchase. And so, of course, we know, we all know the drill here. It's not wrong to buy things. It's not wrong to desire things, even. But what we purchase, or even if we don't purchase, you know, we're sitting there and you sit there for like five hours contemplating, should I buy this or not?

Regardless of all that stuff, they become kind of indicators in our lives of what we're consumed over, where our attention is, where we see our heart struggling, battling, contemplating. So when we see the subject of our contemplation through the day, it might reveal our sobriety and our alertness. A lot of college students in the season of final exams could be tested.

In a season where our children are headed towards the long winter breaks, could be tested. In a season where we're going to spend a lot of time with family members we don't see all that often, we can be tested. Right now, there are just so many holiday parties. Sometimes, even in the midst of church, there's so many holiday parties.

I just have to cook all the time for this polygon, that polygon, I got to go buy a gift for this gift exchange, that white elephant gift exchange. Our hearts are tested. We lose soberness in these things. What consumes our attention from the moment we wake? What distracts us?

What causes us to veer into sinful attitudes? What do we complain about? What does that display about our own personal mission statement and your adherence to it? So now, if we're to look at our lives, and we listed out what we're actually living for, and we just write it all out, and we hand that paper over to a brother or sister and said, "Hey, read this list and write out what you think "the mission statement of this person is." See, these types of things might be things in our lives that inebriate us, draws us into intoxicating influences, distracts us, makes us sleepy Christians, and we lose sharpness.

But we understand it's not our circumstances. It's not Christmas. We know that for the drunkard, alcohol isn't the problem. It's the man. It's his control. And for us, ultimately, it's not the situation we're in that's to blame. It's not our circumstance that causes us to lose soberness. We are called to be sober people.

It's not an unfair professor. It's not a misbehaving child. It's not a mean-spirited coworker. It's not financial downturn. It's not a health condition that causes us to lose soberness. See, it could be negative circumstances. It could be positive circumstances. All circumstances can cause us to lose perspective, can cause us to lose soberness.

For you to be sober, your heart must be sober. And so, Peter issues this command from our God. He says, "Be of sober spirit. "Be on the alert." We talk about this so much here at our church, and I love it. I loved it. From the moment I got here two years ago, I loved it.

And people just, I'll talk to this person, "I wanna be more sober-minded. "I wanna be sober-minded." I'm like, "What? "You're not sober-minded?" I'm like, "No, I'm sober-minded." I'm like, "No, I'm sober-minded." I'm like, "I wanna be more sober-minded." I'm like, "Man, this is awesome." I talk to this person, "I wanna be more sober-minded." "Yes, man, I love being here." We talk about this a lot, that we're called to be sober-minded, but we have need to really again and again and again and again apply this principle to ourselves.

Have we been spiritually sober, or have we been spiritually drunk? You know that idea of drunk dialing? So you're not using good judgment and you say some dumb things. How has your spiritual judgment been? Have you been making decisions that are quite honestly spiritually dumb? Have you been making decisions that are not using good and sound judgment?

Have you been spiritually not alert? Have you been spiritually distracted? Is something or someone taking your eyes off of Christ? Have you been spiritually asleep? And we know this, and we know this, and we know that we can even maybe identify some of these things in our lives that we're struggling with.

And we can evaluate ourselves and say, "Yes, there are places, there are things, "and I can write it down, and I can share it, "and I can tell my brothers and sisters "that these are things I'm actually struggling with, "that I am not sober in this arena of my life.

"We're very good at it, and I get encouraged by it, "but it is not enough." If we know it, and if we talk about it too much, and we ask for prayer requests, and if that's where it ends, what concerns me today is how much do we apply it?

It's great that we know it, but what is the active application of it? And the reason why I bring this up is because of myself. Since February, we've been going through the book of Hebrews. Pastor Peter Kim has been preaching through the book of Hebrews. I wanted to see, I wanted to see how many sermons he did, so I went back and counted.

27 sermons through Hebrews already. Crazy how fast that goes, right? 27 sermons. And much of it, I know, we cling to in our minds. Do you know how I know? I have heard probably over 100 times already, like, "I'm afraid that I'm drifting." I'm like, "Wow, that's Pastor Peter Kim language." Like, he said that in his sermons.

You probably have said that, right? You probably shared that. I'm, that's, the odds are you have. I'm afraid of that spiritual drifting. The most important thing here, though, is that this knowledge has caused in us change. Here's some of the sermon titles Pastor Peter went through. March, do not neglect your salvation.

Another one in March, do not drift. That's where it came from. In June, he went through three weeks of the warning signs of the apostate. Remember that one? That one was like cut to the heart. In August, he preached a sermon called, Let Us Hold Fast. In September, he preached a sermon called, Moving Beyond Spiritual Infancy.

And so, we have all of these things. And I know, just travel with me, like, if we get into this time machine we have here, and we travel back into March, for example, where he preached on the, like, not spiritually drifting. If you can look back at your sermon notes, and scan down to your personal application for that sermon, the question to us is not how much did that affect us, or how much did that cause our theology or doctrine to kind of change, it's how much has that actually caused change in our lives, in our decision making.

When we see the things that we knew we have to surrender, today, eight months later, have you surrendered it? Has something changed? And I think, I'm just so encouraged, because for many of us, there has been great change. I've been very encouraged. And I know these truths of God's word have personally caused in me change as well.

But, if there hasn't been change, and you feel the same conviction week after week, and you're like, haven't I heard this sermon from Pastor Peter before? Why is it hurting so good again? Why is it convicting me and cutting me so deep again? And if it's the same thing week after week, just, oh, that's good conviction, oh, that's good stuff, oh, that's awesome.

But nothing changes. That's scary. If you're asking the question, is that good or bad that you're being convicted like that every week? I would actually say it's bad. Because that might be an indicator that you are not in obedience. You might be in disobedience. Week after week, getting cut to the heart.

Week after week, not much changing. You've lost soberness. You've lost sound spiritual judgment. And so we've become master spiritual compartmentalizers. And we were able to, in places and portions of our lives, live out our convictions. And we're able to say, though we're not living sober here, though we are not actually actively living out our convictions here, that we can come to our brothers and sisters, sit around in a circle, and talk about the fact that we're struggling with that.

Week after week. And even for those of us who are actively applying, actively crucifying the flesh, actively seeking the Lord and denying the flesh, the call to us is, we need more of this. We need to apply this idea of sobriety not just to parts of our lives, but to our entire lives.

It needs to be the way we think. From the moment we wake up, this is the way we need to live. This is our mindset, is what we learn through the book of Philippians. That's that word phrenel, it's a mindset that we live as Christians, we have the mindset of Christ.

And so it doesn't matter if it's a negative experience or a positive experience. Now when Pastor Mark was teaching through that, that stuck with me. That it flips upside down, that the Christian worldview is so different from the non-Christian worldview. That is for us, our evaluation of what is good and what is bad is very different.

It doesn't matter about circumstantial things. It's Christ. Whether he's exalted. And so, have we been like this? If we're distracted by something in our lives, like are we trying to just apply soberness to that thing? I know I heard some people after certain sermons, they went home and deleted Netflix.

Canceled their Netflix account. You know what happens when you direct soberness at Netflix. YouTube happens. That's what happens. You direct soberness here, and boop, this pops up. You go here, and then boop, this pops up. Why? Because we are not called to spiritually compartmentalize this thing. It's an entire mindset overhaul.

Your entire worldview is just transformed. The old has gone, the new has come. We're different. So we can't aim it. We can't just say like, I'm going to be self-controlled here. I have to be more self-controlled here. It's that from the moment we wake up, we need to be self-controlled people.

We need to be sober people. So again, it's never about the thing, the situation, the circumstance, the relationship, whatever. We're called to have sober hearts. Soberness is called to be continual and constant and consistent. Our every day must be filled with it. We know that sin and selfishness and pride is knocking on the door, and so we're aware of it.

We're alert. If you feel the temptation of the flesh, you should not feel guilty about it. Why? Because the Bible says that's going to be the case for the rest of our lives here. So what Paul is saying here is, not to say like, the flesh is going to be gone.

That's not the goal. Like, the eradication of temptation, that's not the goal. It's going to be there. He says, be alert. He says, be sober. He says, these things are close. These commands, again, they're given in the aorist imperative. Aorist is typically seen as past tense, but it's not.

And so it's interesting, it's not just past tense. When you put an aorist with a command, that kind of feels like, how do you do a past tense command, right? So the reason why an aorist imperative is very interesting is because what it does is it puts a giant force on the past, that this is a command and a truth that is given to you from the moment you're saved.

And then, if that was a stake in the ground, that this is your truth, that you are called to be sober, that you are called to be alert as soon as you become a believer, that this stakes into the ground every time you see this command. At every moment and every juncture of your life, this command is calling out to us to obey.

It's constant, it's continuous, it's moving. It's different than a present imperative. This one has this idea of a past truth, just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. This is who we are. In 1 Thessalonians chapter five, verse one, Paul says that we are children of the light. Let me read this for us.

Now, it's the times and the epics. Brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you, for you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 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.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overcome you like a thief, for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.

For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with him.

Therefore, encourage one another and build up one another just as you are doing. So this passage tells us who we are not. We are not people of the night. We are children of the day. That's what this passage says. It's not just spiritual betterment or spiritual self-help we're talking about that we ought to be sober and alert.

This is who we are. It's not just a good suggestion. It's entirely contrary to who we are. It actually ought to be very, very disturbing when we find ourselves acting like children of the night. It should be very disturbing when we're acting like people who say, "Peace and safety," forgetting that judgment is coming.

When we know that everything we see around us is passing away, and yet we're so enamored with the things of this world, that's very disturbing. That is not who we are. And so when we are enamored by the things of this world, that we say with our minds and with our lips that everything is going away, everything will go through God's judgment.

Only eternal things will be found in Christ will remain. And yet, if our lifestyle, if our decisions that we make, if the things we partake in does not fall in line with what we believe, that the world is passing away, that people are dying, it's disturbing. It's not just better to not live like that.

It's not just spiritual, personal betterment. I, ah, this is not good. I know I should do better. It's wrong. It's scary. It's very frightening. And the enemy here, we talk about, you know, that kind of the SoCal or type of Christianity, the enemy lives in that territory. We look just like the world.

It's so, so sad. Actually, I think many of us, in the decisions we make, we confuse the world. They're like, that doesn't make sense, you know? We dilute the power of God's message in our lives, in our living testimonies. We are children of the light, not the dark. And actually, we are called to shine into the darkness.

In Ephesians chapter five, verse seven, it says, "Therefore, do not be partakers with them." That's the world. "For you were formerly darkness, "but now you are light in the Lord. "Walk as children of light." That's so weird. You are light. Walk as that. Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead, even expose them. "For it is disgraceful even to speak of the things "which are done by them in secret, "but all things become visible "when they are exposed by the light. "For everything that becomes visible is light. "For this reason, it says, "awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, "and Christ will shine on you." I love this passage, because what it's calling the Christian to do is to shine into the darkness.

And I think, I fear sometimes, when we're not being sober, what happens is, again, we come over and over and over again into our circles of Christians, and what we do is we go around in a circle and talk about our sin, much too much. Over and over and over again.

When we are called to live as children of light into darkness, we are the light. If we're constantly talking about how we're living in the darkness, there's something wrong. We're called to go and be the light to a dark world. We know that people are dying around us. Are we sober-minded enough to see this?

And if we agree to this, if we're saying that we can see this clearly, how do you act upon it? This brings us to our second and final point here. The enemy is prowling. This is an additional reason for soberness that he gives. The enemy is prowling. In 1 Peter, chapter five, verse eight, if we look there again, it says, "Your adversary, the devil, prowls around "like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." Now the question is, what does this look like, though?

Does Satan come and bite us? Obviously not. I don't even know what that means. What does it mean that he's prowling around? What does it mean for him to devour us, to get us? He tricked us, is it that? And it's kind of that. He uses deceit to get us spiritually.

And we know that we can't be fooled unless you're not being sober. See, the enemy, he never sleeps. His desire, day and night, with every breath he has, is to do this, is to prowl around and devour. He is thinking at every moment how he can devour us, devour people.

Right now, there is a facet where the enemy is trying to find an open place where he can get you. And he never sleeps in this. He's constantly thinking on better and better strategies. He sees, wow, okay, he deleted Netflix. Easy, YouTube. The enemy is constantly thinking. He's thinking, oh, health condition in his family.

I see an opening. He's seeing, oh, this guy got a raise. Oh, I see a big opening. See, he's prowling. He takes no breaks. He takes no vacations. He takes no holidays. He doesn't sleep. Speaking of mission statements, man, at least he lives out his mission, right? He's prowling when we're at work, and he's prowling at the end of a long day of work at home.

He's prowling when we're on vacation and when we're at Disneyland. He's prowling when we're hanging out with our friends in groups or when we're alone in our rooms. He's prowling in the midst of our relationships. He's there, and this is our spiritual reality. That's what Peter is saying here.

And looking at this, we can do that inductive study thing again, try flipping it around on its head. Peter commands us to resist the enemy. So what might it look like if we don't resist him? (sighing) Well, I think that's when the believer is rendered useless. That's why it says here, though, we are to resist him firm in our faith.

What if there was like a cage right here with this giant lion that was like untamed, you know? And then I sat here, and then I opened up this cage, and I ran, ran out that door. Like, and you guys are talking with each other, and then you see this lion slowly come out.

You go, "Oh, lion," and then you continue to just talk with the person right next to you, right? Oh, yeah, those Lakers, huh? Doing pretty well. Oh, yeah, did you get that deal on Slick Deals? You have all these things you're just talking about. No one would do that, right?

All of a sudden, every pair of eyes would be whoop right there, right? And everyone would be like tense. Every hair on your head would be whoop. And that's actually, I think, the thing he's trying to get at here. He's saying the enemy's prowling. There needs to be no command to be sober.

It's responsive. But he's saying, in your flesh, you're forgetting. He's there. And so we must resist the enemy. How do you resist him? Do you just say, getting together in a one-on-one meetup with someone, say like, "I want to resist." Yeah, I want to resist. Is that how you resist?

The call is to actually fight against. It's not like someone trying to get you, you know, like when you think of someone trying to get you to eat another slice of cake, sometimes that happens at the end of our potlucks, right? So all this food, there's always that one person that comes and says, "Eat this." You know, you're trying to get rid of all the food.

"Hey, eat this." And it's like, you know that person who goes like, "Oh, no, no, no, no." But the person who's going around knows weak people. They see the opening and they go like, "It's okay." And they go, "All right, all right." Just eat it, right? But the active resistance that we're talking about here, this word can be translated, resistance, the word can be translated to show hostility against.

Okay, so it's like someone comes up and says, "Cake." And you say, "Go away." "Get behind me." You know, that kind of thing. Don't say that last part. But this is the type of resistance that we're talking about, to show hostility against, to hate him, to hate his schemes.

We're talking about the enemy now, so. Ultimately, it's to hate anything anti-God. It's to look at anti-God things and hate it. Hostility against it. This is soberness. This is active resistance. This is alertness. It takes work. You cannot relax in this tension. It's like someone saying like, "Oh, yeah." Like, they're like, "I'm gonna run this half marathon." You're like, "Wow, you're gonna run a half marathon?" Like, "You?

"You're gonna run a half marathon?" Like, "I'm gonna run a half marathon." And then like, they're like, "Okay, "you're gonna run a half marathon." And then, like, you go run your half marathon, and you run like half a mile, and you come out, and you're like, "Did you run the half marathon?" You're like, "Oh, man, I only got half a mile in." You're like, "Why'd you stop?" Like, "It hurt." Like, "It was really tiring." And you're like, "Oh, my goodness." Like, we have to have this idea of like, "I know what I'm getting into here." Like, do we resist him?

Like, are we relaxing in our attention? Are you actually struggling, like, from the spiritual perspective, or has it been half-hearted for you? Has it been a lot of sharing in small groups that I'm struggling with this, and we go, it's half-hearted attention. And we go, and it's a half-hearted attempt of like, "Ah, shit." Two weeks later, you come back, and you say, "Hey, how's that been?" It's like, "Oh, a little better." And you use these little spiritual loopholes of like, "It got a little bit better.

"I tried a little bit harder." And you use the cleverness of your speech to kind of iron and smooth it out. And you say, "But I know." And then you use the secondary, like, kind of the reverse psychology spirituality, like, "But I still have a long way to go." You know, and like, it actually enhances to like, the spiritual view that someone has upon you.

And you know, you go around, and you're going around and around in this. But are you actively struggling? Are you really fighting and resisting and showing hostility against things that are anti-God? Is it active? Are you fighting, not just saying, "I should do better." When someone shares with you that they're struggling with something, you should never think, "Cool, they're just, "they're being vulnerable.

"This is great." And just leave it at that, but you should actually sit there and try to evaluate, is there real struggle there in what they're sharing? If you're sharing with someone something you've been struggling, ask yourself that before you say, "I'm struggling with this sin." Ask yourself, "Am I really struggling?

"Am I kicking against it? "Am I resisting? "Or am I just sharing something "that I've actively not been fighting against in my life?" Again, to come back to February and March when we hear the dangers of drifting, did these sermons simply identify the state we're in? And that's it.

And now I can articulate in spiritual words to a deeper spiritual degree that I am not a sober person. And we sit there. Has there been progress? Has there been change in your life? Because if there hasn't, it's called disobedience. It can be just like the spiritual compartmentalizing we talked about before, that we have conviction week after week, but there's no real resistance, no real struggle, no real hostility.

Knowing it's wrong, being able to identify it. But until there's surrender, there is no soberness. You see, surrender isn't surrender until you actually surrender. You can say you want to surrender to the Lord and resist the enemy, but until you actually do it, have you really surrendered? In your honesty, in something you know that you need to change in your life right now, you can totally sit there and be okay.

And think, maybe the problem is that you're, I'm just straddling the fence. But straddling the fence is actually just living in opposition and rebellion before God. Straddling the fence is the same thing as outright rebellion. If you are not surrendering, and if you are not submitting, you are in hostility towards God.

That's what it means in James 4. Friendship with the world is hostility towards God. Praise the Lord we have Christ and his work for us. But yet, this is a scary thing for us. I think what's scarier than sharp, outright, like rebellion against God is this kind of rebellion.

So scary, tucking away the truths that we know. I saw, I forgot who wrote it, but just the title of an article was very intriguing to me. It said, "The dangers of not atheism, but apathyism." I was like, man, yeah, that's what we struggle with. See, looking at this verse then, 1 Peter 5, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.

"Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, "seeking someone to devour, but resist him. "Firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences "of suffering are being accomplished "by your brethren who are in the world." Let me end with some application. The first application is this. If you wanna, just kinda, let me just start you on the road.

And it's a different passage, and I'm not going to read it, but the idea of permissible versus beneficial things I think is very helpful in understanding how to live soberly. So, focus on beneficial things, not permissible things. When you get stuck on permissible things, that is, like, am I allowed to enjoy these things in my life?

What's the answer to that? Yes, of course you're allowed to enjoy the things of this life. But the problem is, when you're asking that question, generally you're not coming from a sober-minded place. You're coming more from a self-centered place and trying to get towards the middle of spiritual appropriateness.

So, don't focus on permissible things. You have to stay laser-focused on beneficial things. So, when you're focused on permissible things, you're not sober. When you're focused on beneficial things, what is helpful in my walk? Those are the things that show that you're being sober. Beneficial, when you're focused on beneficial things, so you're all about God's work, God's kingdom, and God's will.

That's the way you're focusing, the beneficial things. When you're focusing on permissible things, many times you're focusing on your self-work, self-kingdom, and self-will. So, when you ask that question, what is causing insobriety in your life? The question is not, am I allowed to do this? The better question is, does this honor and glorify the Lord?

Will this help in that endeavor? Does it further what I believe, or does it actually do the opposite? Are the permissible things in my life causing me to fall asleep? Are they causing me to grow slowly intoxicated by the things of this world? And in that, permissible things have become kind of this quiet, scary, drifting things.

What was, at one point, permissible, has become downright dishonoring to the Lord. We live a whitewashed life and existence, serving the church, attending Bible studies, general personal devotions, covering over all of this. Our entire mindset, our entire worldview and base desires need to be that of soberness and alertness.

Just to give you a quick example, you know, I was a youth pastor for about seven years, and during those seven years, the youth students, raging hormone days, right? You remember those days, and so everybody just feels like they fell in love with someone every other week. And so they'll come up, and they're like, "I'm dating." I'm like, "Oh my gosh, okay, all right, "so you're dating, all right." Say, and they go like, "So, Pastor Nathan, "how far can I go before it's like sinful?" Like, "What do you mean how far can you go?

"What are you talking about?" (laughing) And they go, "You know, you know, "can I like hold her hand?" I'm like, "You fool." (laughing) That's what I think, but outside, I go like, "Oh, okay, oh, what do you mean?" (laughing) That's the reality versus, you know, and then he says like, "Can I kiss her?" And you know, on and on, and when you see that, that's what we're talking about here.

Like, it's so silly, because when I see them, you know, that's the feeling I get, and then I realize very quickly, you know what happens in ministry all the time? Like, whenever you're ministering to someone that's like kind of younger than you or whatever, and you're talking to them, you're like, "Oh my goodness, this is so annoying." And then you turn, and you go like, "Oh my gosh, I'm just like this." You know, like, God is just like, nothing like being a parent that does that.

You're like, "Stop it!" And then you turn, and you go like, "Oh." And you gotta repent to God, because you're like, "This is exactly what I look like." Man, I live in the permissible. You know, I'm like sitting there, and going like, "God, can I do this?" Yeah, it's okay, right?

And then just asking that question, already I've lost it all, right? So here are some good questions to ask. Will it benefit me spiritually? Will it bring bondage? Will it defile God's temple? Will it cause anyone to stumble? Will it further the cost of evangelism? Will it violate my conscience?

Will it bring glory to God? These are good questions. These are beneficial things, and that is the way we need to live. Secondly, and lastly, the church must be of one mind in this. There's a danger, the greatest danger is when collectively as a church, we allow the permissible things to become, like, okay.

I said that wrong. We allow things that draw us into insobriety is permissible. Does that make sense? So as a church, because of our culture, and we say, "Of course it's okay to do this." And so that as a church, we put a stamp of approval on it, saying, "These things are okay, and these things are not." So you can buy these types of cars, but not these types.

You know what I'm talking about? So there's this idea of the church, but we need to stay sharp in this together being sober. So again, the idea is we need to be sober together. We need to ask good questions of each other. We need to encourage each other, and we need to sharpen each other, and we need to prod each other.

We need to ask uncomfortable questions towards each other. We can't allow each other to sleep. As soon as you see your brother or sister sleeping next to you, you slap them. Oh, sorry, not like in the sermon-like style, but like, you know what I mean? Spiritual sleepiness. If you see your spiritual sleepy brother or sister, you see them on Sundays, you're like, "Hey!" They kind of seem like everything's okay, but you're like, "Oh, they haven't been coming out "till like the weekday things.

"I wonder what's going on." And you go, and you prod. Ephesians 5:15, it says, "Therefore, be careful how you walk, "not as unwise men, but as wise, "making the most of your time." I love that, there it is. That's beneficial, right? "Making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

"So then, do not be foolish, "but understand what the will of the Lord is, "and do not get drunk with wine." And this is just general principle. Don't be drunk on the things of this world. "For that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." Not drunk with the Spirit, but be filled with the Spirit.

Verse 19, "Speaking to one another." Here it is, we do this together. We speak to one another. Oh, man, I'm forgetting what that's called, all of a sudden. Verse 19, "Speaking," the I-N-G verb, right? "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns "and spiritual songs shows you the means "as to how this comes out.

"Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. "Always giving thanks for all things "in the name of our Lord." I love how he changes it. "Of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the God, even the Father, "and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." See, cultural influence is real and strong, and so if we lose soberness, anything that's generally harmless can begin to creep into our church.

We've gotta be very careful about these things, because they're not sinful things, and that makes it more dangerous, because the enemy is very clever in these things. Our goal is God's glory, and our goal takes into consideration all spiritual truths. The dying world, the prowling enemy, the weakness of my flesh, and who I truly am and what I really live for and who I truly love.

These things are all stuff that we need to think through. We need to not just go along with the program, like new movie comes out, oh, we're supposed to watch it. New device, oh, we're supposed to purchase it. New car, you know, like, oh, well, yeah, anyway. I was gonna go into that, but I'm not.

If someone goes on vacation, we all go there. Sometimes we feel that way. Why is everyone in Hawaii right now? Well, I guess I better plan that for two years or whatever. None of this is wrong, but we need to stay sober together, because those things become very distracting, and ultimately, it's not just distracting, it causes in us rebellious hearts.

The best way to do this, don't judge one another. Don't look at Instagram, be like, oh, what the, you spend your money on those things? You spiritually insober person, don't do that. But as a church, we walk together, and we really say our mindset is the same. Can I end this off here in 1 Peter 4, verse seven, before we pray?

And I don't know about you, but for me, it's been very clear that even here in our church, there's been a lot going on the last few months, and there's a lot to pray for. And, you know, this passage here, Pastor Peter brought it out once during a Friday night praise and prayer.

Let me read it for us, and then let's talk about it first, just a second. The end of all things is near, chapter four, verse seven. 1 Peter 4, verse seven, I'm not gonna have it up here, so you're gonna need to turn there. The end of all things is near.

Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. So a lot of times we pray for soberness, right? But here what it says, it flips it upside down, and it says you need to be sober in order to pray. So we need to be sober, and when we're sober, you know what happens?

Just, you can't help but pray. You guys have been feeling things, right? Like, you guys have been hearing and seeing, and you know there's been a lot of crazy things happening to a lot of people at our church. And I hope what happens is soberness is happening. And what did it cause you to do personally?

Didn't it cause you to pray? And I'm so thankful sometimes when trials hit, because it causes us to remember that that's reality, and it causes us to spark us out of our sleepiness. Now, I'm gonna shortly close us in prayer, but I'd like us to all pray, and we're gonna spend a slightly extended time in prayer today.

And one of the things, as you might have heard, Stanley and Christina Sue, they lost their baby that's just a few months old, died very tragically, unexpectedly, we're not sure the reason why. And it's been very shocking, and even personally for me when I heard the news, you know, their child was about the age of my youngest, and they need our prayers.

And I know that they're really fighting and struggling, and they're really looking to see, to look soberly at the situation. But I wanna ask us as a church to pray for them. Her name was Kaylee, just a few months old, again. And pray for Stanley, and pray for Christina.

And on top of that, though, there's a lot of different health conditions. We have people who are struggling with different things. You know, you all know. In your own lives, you know right now, there might be people who have contracted cancer, or who lost a loved one. There are people who have recently had people close to them commit suicide.

There's so many things. Would you take a moment today, as you look and cast this wide vision upon your life right now, and try to be sober in your view of everything that's going on? And the fact that right now it's Christmas time, where it's all about the holiday drinks, lights, the carols, we love Christmas music.

And honestly, it causes in a lot of us drunkenness. And would you and us all together kinda sober up today, and let's look at our lives, and can we spend an extended amount of time praying together, praying on behalf of some of these families, and praying on behalf of our family in Christ here?

And so let me close with some prayer. Afterwards, I'm gonna walk down, and that's gonna be your cue to go ahead and pray on your own. And then we'll move on after that. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that in high places and low places, that when things feel so wrong, and things feel like everything's going right, that when it's easy to be happy and joyful, and when it's hard to be happy and joyful, Father, we are called to the same call of sobriety.

God, that both of those places, if we are not content and satisfied in Christ alone, God, we will lose our heads, we will lose our hearts. And so God, I pray that for Berean Community Church, in the midst of a season that's supposed to be all about Christ, help us not to be a people who just say it verbally.

But God, that it's all about Christ for us every minute of every day. Whether by life or by death, Christ is exalted, and that we rejoice. We pray, God, for our families who are struggling with things. God, we pray for the Siouxs. God, let them be able to say that.

Whether by life or by death, Christ is exalted. Help them to trust in you. Help them to believe in the God they've come to know. The regular truths that we say you are good and you are sovereign and you do all things for the good of those who love you.

I pray, Lord, that it be girded now, and that you teach them to trust in you with all their hearts, and they would not lean on their own understanding. Help them, God, to acknowledge you. Would you give them your peace as they lift up to you their petitions and supplications, and fill them with an eternal gratitude.

And I pray, God, for our church, that we too would come alongside families like this. We know there's a lot going on. And I pray, Father, that we would be sober people who would be able to spiritually appraise and evaluate our own lives as well as everything that's going on around.

That our perspective is eternal, and so the things we partake in, the things we invest in are always eternal. And Father, help us not to just do it in the places that are easy for us to surrender, but God, help us to give up our entire lives again. Help us remember, Lord, that yes, this is a call that was from the past, but Lord, even today, would you anew that conviction, and help us, Lord, to respond, and not just agree with the concept of surrender, but that we would submit now to you and bow the knee before our Lord and our King.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. (blows kiss) (blows kiss) (blows kiss) www.circlelineartschool.com