Ron Dunn Podcast - What is a Christian? - Bellevue

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Ron preaches from 1 Peter 1 and Psalm 37 and helps gives us a definition of a Christian.

There's a little sign here on the pulpit that says, For spiritual help, call 385-5656. Did you put that there for me? It's always wonderful to come to Bellevue Baptist Church because you never know what you're going to find. I think the first time I ever preached in Bellevue is the old building, and I was so impressed with myself getting to preach in that great old church and that auditorium and that huge, gorgeous chandelier hanging down there. And I got up to the when I get up here.

And keep the phone handy. I may need it before it's over. Well, when we were coming in just a moment ago, Adrian said, boy, thank you for coming. And I said, my soul, thank me for coming. Thank you for having me. I'd do this for nothing. Not going to, but I would. But I look forward to these conferences to hear the Word of God

and get my own heart blessed and to hear this great music. Man, you don't want to miss tomorrow night when they have the banners if you've never seen it. And my goodness, I look forward to coming to a place like this where they have such outstanding music. I'm on the road all the time. I'm in a different church every week. You do get a variety of music in that way.

I feel like that some of the music I have to listen to ought to get combat pay. So it's always a special joy to me to get to be in a meeting like this where we have great preaching and great singing. Well, I want you to open your Bibles this morning to 1 Peter chapter 1. This afternoon, I forgot the time. Yes, this is the siesta session. 1 Peter chapter 1. I'm going to read just the first two verses. Before I read those two verses, I want to read as a background the first six

verses of Psalm 137. By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. And then the first two verses of chapter 1 of 1 Peter, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Kippur, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. I live in Irving, Texas. I've lived in Irving, Texas since 1966. When we first moved to Irving, we moved on the outskirts of that city,

which is a suburb of Dallas if you're not familiar with it. We were practically in the country. There were cow pastures across the streets from us. It was nice, a lot of green trees and grass. We were almost in the country. But that was in 1966, and since that time a lot has happened. They built the DFW airport, and that place has boomed and built, and now instead of green grass everywhere there is concrete and there are buildings and shopping centers. It has changed remarkably.

And I remember one day I decided I needed to go across town. So I went across town to take care of a specific errand and on the way back I decided I would come back by a shortcut, a way that I had not traveled in about three or four months, but it was a shortcut, a back way to my house where I could avoid the main highway. And so I just said, I'll take this shortcut. I'll go the back way to my house. And when you've lived in a place for 26 years, you don't watch, you don't look at street signs.

You know where you are. I mean, it's just there. You don't even think about it. You hardly watch where you're going. You just know where you are because it's such a familiar place. And so I got on the street as I was heading home, and all of a sudden I came to an intersection that I did not recognize at all. And the light was red, and I stopped, and I began to look around, and I couldn't believe it. Somehow, I had got lost. I had no idea where I was.

Over here, on this street corner, there was supposed to be a little church with some oak trees around it, and there was a Winn-Dixie there instead. And over here on this corner, there were about four wooden frame houses, but no, it wasn't. There was a little shopping mall there. And over on this corner, there was something else that was no longer there. And over here, there was something else that was no longer there. And all of a sudden, I was disoriented, and I thought, my goodness, I've made a wrong turn somewhere.

And then I did the second thing that men hate to do the most. The first thing men hate to do is ask directions. But then I did the second thing. I decided I might ought to look at the street sign. And I looked at the street sign, and I was right where I was supposed to be. I wasn't lost at all. I was right where I was supposed to be. Now, I don't mind being lost in some places. I've been lost in Memphis, and I don't mind getting lost in Memphis. I don't live here. I've been lost in Houston. I don't mind being lost in Memphis. I don't live here. I've been lost in Houston. I don't mind

being lost in Houston. I don't live there. I've been lost in Boston. I don't mind being lost in Boston. Everybody is lost in Boston. That's how they came to settle the place, they couldn't get out. But it's a little disconcerting to be lost three blocks from your own home. You begin to take stock and wonder what has happened. Well I'll tell you what had happened in those three months that I had since traveled over that road. They had come in and they had taken down the old landmarks that I had guided myself by and replaced them with new things I'd never seen before. And I sat there and I thought to myself, I am lost in my own backyard because they have removed all of the familiar landmarks that guided me all these years.

It's a funny feeling to be lost in your own backyard. I've been feeling that way about my country. I feel like I've misplaced it. I feel like I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Everything seems to be changed. What has happened is that they have removed the old landmarks that have always guided us, and you never wondered where you were, and you never questioned where you were going. You knew you were on the right road because there were certain landmarks, there were certain signposts that everybody knew would be there forever. Gave you a sense of direction, gave you a sense of bearing, let you know where you were, gave you that sense of security. But something has happened. They've taken down all those old landmarks and those of us

who spend our life driving and living by those landmarks, we feel kind of lost in our own backyard. Our country is changing and has changed and has made some dramatic changes in the last few months. I'm not speaking now like the others have said. I'm not speaking Republican or Democrat. I'm not speaking about that at all. But we do admit and do know that the evangelicals and the conservative right took a big blow in the election. And after that was over, I remember Chuck Colson coming to Dallas and making a talk in two or three different places. And he used a phrase

that I'd heard before. It's a phrase that all of us have heard before, but it's a phrase that I'm always hesitant to use. But he kept talking about the fact that we're living in a post-Christian era, that we're living in a post-Christian America. And I don't like the sound of that, you see, because I was brought up believing this is a Christian nation. But I have to admit the fact today, and I've come to agree that I do believe with all of my heart that we are living in a post-Christian era. No longer are we living in a Christian country.

Oh, it's Christian in the sense that you and I can still gather here today and worship and that in God we trust is still on our coins, and I can't imagine them leaving that there for much longer. But for all practical purposes, we're living in a pagan society because the old values, the values of morality and ethics are no longer accepted by the majority of the people. And it's been kind of a rude awakening for us, hasn't it? I mean, it's been kind of a rude awakening for us, hasn't it? I mean, it's been kind of a rude awakening for us. It's something new for us who've been growing up in this country and who've been Christians.

We've always assumed we had the upper hand in this matter. We've always assumed that the country catered to us and that the government catered to us. Well, we remember in the days when Hollywood, even though none of them were Christians, yet the Christian ethic guided them in the movies that they made, and the Christian ethic would guide people who were not even Christians because, well, that's just the way it was, you see.

Those were the old landmarks, and we've grown accustomed to that. And what's happened through the years is we've got the idea that the church was welcome here. And the fact of the matter is the church has never been welcome in the world. And it's shocking some of us to discover that as far as the Christian is concerned, the world is no longer user-friendly. And that we no longer have the upper hand. Instead of being catered to from now on, you and I are going to have to fight.

And there is going to be persecution. Already there is persecution. Already there is persecution. Would you ever have believed in your wildest dream that the day would come when simply because a Christian took a stand against homosexuality, he was called a bigot and a fanatic and some wild type of person? Well, we don't see so much physical persecution right now being burned at the stake, but there's a lot of evil speaking and a maligning going on, and then there is a slur campaign against Christians.

And what we have to wake up to realize is this, that we are not welcome in this world. Never have been, and the problem is that ever since Constantine, we've had the idea that the government is supposed to prop us up, and that part of our mission of the church was to prop up the government, and we could equally coexist. And the church no longer has its favorite position in this country, but it was never intended to have that in the first place. As a matter of fact, I believe that all of this is happening, and it's going to happen in more with greater intensity, but I believe what is happening is that God is giving us one great chance to become what the church should have been all along.

And so I feel like that one of the great things before us is to redefine what is the church and what is our place in this world. If we no longer hold the upper hand in so many ways, if we are no longer in our ethic and our morality and our beliefs are no longer accepted as the norm standard, then I think it's time for us to reevaluate what is to be our relationship, our position in this world. And Peter, as he writes this epistle to these believers, really I believe that 1 Peter is fast becoming the most relevant book in the New Testament because he's writing to people who are living in the midst of a hostile environment

and who are facing increasing persecution. And I think as he writes them and describes to us, his readers, I think you'll get a clue as to what the church really is, what is to be our relationship in this world. And in those opening verses, he uses three words that I want to call your attention to. First of all, he says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers, that's one word, scattered, that's another word, throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, and then in verse

two, elect, that's the third word, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. As he opens this letter, at the very beginning, the apostle Peter identifies his readers, and he identifies them with these three words, strangers, scattered, and the elect are chosen. As a matter of fact, in the Greek text, those three words come together in the very first verse, and the word elect or the word chosen is the very first word. Literally, he's saying Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen strangers scattered throughout those Asia Minor provinces. Those words chosen and strangers can be used both as nouns and adjectives and there's not

a definite article in the whole verse and so you could say that he is not simply just identifying them but he is characterizing them. These words indicate to us their character. What is a Christian? What is a believer? Well, a believer is one who's been chosen. A believer is a stranger. A believer is one who's been scattered. So let me just take these three words today and sort of realign ourselves. What is to be my relationship to the world? First of all, I'd like to suggest that as a believer, we are strangers in this world. Strangers in this world. Now, this is the chief metaphor that Peter uses in this first epistle. It's the controlling metaphor that he uses. And everything that Peter says is based upon this concept. He addresses these immediately as

strangers, those who've been scattered. And he treats the Christian life as a pilgrimage. For instance, in verse 17 of chapter 1, he says, and if you call on the Father who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. Again, it's the word of a pilgrim. In chapter 2, verse 11, as he begins the second major division of this epistle, he says, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. In other words, he's saying the basis of my appeal, everything I'm saying to you, loses its meaning if you don't understand one thing.

You are strangers and pilgrims. You'll not appreciate what I'm about to say, he says, unless you first of all understand this. You are a stranger and a pilgrim. And then, of course, in chapter 5, verse 13, he ends the letter with this word, the church that is at Babylon, chosen together with you, salute you. And so throughout this letter, Peter is using that imagery of someone who is a stranger. I love the way the New American Standard translates it, to those who reside as aliens. Now what a Christian

is, is a resident alien in this world. He is a stranger. Now, of course, all of this harks back to the Old Testament, to the people of God. They were strangers in the earth. They were exiles. As a matter of fact, you go back to the beginning when God calls Abraham. What does God call Abraham to do? He says, Abraham, I want you to leave your country where you are, where you're settled, where you're well known, where you have all your security, where you're a member of the community, and I want you to go into a country that I will show you. I want you to live in tents. I want you to be a tent dweller. I want you to be a pilgrim, a stranger, a sojourner. Actually, in those days, that type of person was despised. People who lived in tents and moved from one place to another,

they were despised people. They were gypsy-like people that you didn't trust because they only pitched their tents here long enough to plunder and to steal, and then they were gone before you knew it. And they had no permanent burial place for their families, and so they were outcasts. And God is saying to Abraham, a man of great wealth and a man whose family and kindred and wealth, he has everything. He's saying, Abraham, I want you to leave this land and become a nomad, become a stranger, become a pilgrim.

The interesting thing is that over in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, the Bible says that when Abraham arrived in the promised land, you remember what he did when he arrived in the promised land? He still lived in tents. He lived as an alien. He lived as a foreigner, even in his own promised land. Now, I could understand him living in tents while he was making the sojourn, but it would seem to me that when he finally got to the land,

that's time to build a brick house. That's the time to build a permanent residence. No, because by that time, Abraham had discovered something. People of God are not just exiles in Egypt. They're exiles in the earth no matter where it is. And so he lived as a pilgrim, a stranger, you see. Now, you know the old song that we sing, this world is not my home, that's more than just a song. That is a spiritual truth. That is a scriptural truth. We are strangers. We are objects of curiosity. We are objects of suspicion. Matter of fact, over in chapter 3, I believe

it is, Peter says, these friends around the world, they think it's strange that you don't run with them to the same excesses of right they do. They can't figure you out. They say, well, those are strange people. They don't seem to get with it. And they don't understand why you have a different set of convictions than we have. They don't understand why you believe what you believe. He says, but listen, brethren, don't think it's strange concerning some fiery trial that's come upon you. Don't be surprised at that. This is the way it ought to be. This is the way it's supposed to be. You're strangers. You're strangers. You remember the book of Esther.

The men came to the king of Persia and said, There is a people among us whose laws are different from all the peoples of the earth. We don't understand them. We don't understand them. Now let me show you, I think, what Peter is saying. And I think what the book of Hebrews is saying. What the picture is this? When God brought the people out of their own land and took them into captivity in Babylon, they became exiles, they became strangers. And the 137th Psalm refers to this

and he says, we sat down by the rivers of Babylon and we wept and said, how in the world can we sing our song in a strange land? But there was one thing they kept their eye on, you see. There was one thing they kept their eye on. They kept their eye on Jerusalem, and they said, if I forget Jerusalem, I pray that my power will wither. And if I forget Jerusalem, I pray that my tongue will cleave to my mouth. Even though I'm in a foreign land, I'm going to keep my eye on Jerusalem, my heavenly city where my real citizenship is. And so Paul says, you and I are citizens of heaven while we live here on this earth. We are citizens of heaven. We live by laws that are stranger than

any laws on the face of the earth. Why, we're strangers, you see. And so, here you have us, one culture, plopped down in the middle of another culture, trying desperately not to be absorbed into this greater culture and thus lose our distinctiveness. And that is the greatest danger I believe facing the church today. That we are people of one country, of one culture, of one set of laws, trying to stake out a living on somebody else's turf, surrounded by a culture that hates us and doesn't understand us and criticizes us and is trying somehow to emerge with us and it is a desperate fight for us to somehow maintain our distinctiveness in the midst of all of this that's going on around about us. Can you see me all right? This is my good side.

Can you tell that I've got some Indian blood in me? Some of you can. I do, I do. I can tell I've got the olive skin, high cheekbones, fleet of foot. As a matter of fact, the story is that one of my great-great-grandfathers was a full-blood Cherokee. They tell me he was a lesser chief of the Cherokee Nation. And he married a French woman. His name was Billy Yellow Horse.

And he married a French woman. And when an Indian married a white woman, they took white man's name. So he took the last name Yellow Horse and changed it to Dunn, D-U-N, for that's what a yellow horse is. Those of you that know anything about horses, a Dunn horse, that's the color of the horse, it's a yellow horse. And then somewhere down the way,

somebody added another N to it. So that's how he got Dunn. Now, I don't know if that story is true or not, but it sure sounds neat. But anyway, I've got some blood in me, Cherokee blood in me. I never met my dad. If you'd known my dad, you could see a lot more of it in him, much more prominent in him. If you had known his dad, you would have seen really a lot of it in him. And if you had seen pictures of my great-grandfather, you wouldn't have any trouble at all spotting that. But you know what happens is this, that every generation the distinctiveness becomes less obvious.

Less obvious. You know, I can't see it at all in my kids. I can't see it at all in my kids. What has happened, of course, is that we have been gradually absorbed into the culture around about us, and we've lost our distinctiveness. And that is what is happening to us as Christians. And more than likely, you and I do not have the same convictions that our grandparents had, nor as strong as our parents had.

And tragically, our children and children's children will probably not hang on to the strong convictions that you and I have. What was sacred to the fathers becomes silly to the children after a while. So Peter says, you need to remember one thing. You are strangers in this world. Our task is not to transform the world. Our task is to be the church, what God wants us to be. And the more we are what God wants us to be, the stranger we will be to this world. But not only are we strangers in this world, we are chosen out of this world.

This is our relationship to the world. we are chosen out of this world. This is our relationship to the world. We are chosen out of this world. If you like alliteration, we have been not only strangers in this world, but we have been selected out of this world. Notice he says we are chosen, the elect. And that's what has made us strangers, you see. We're not strangers because, we're not strangers by default, or we're not strangers for some other reason.

We are strangers because God has chosen us out of this world. He has chosen us out of this world. Now, you know, we talk about the theological aspects of being elected and being chosen, and we praise God and rejoice in that, but we rarely ever talk about the sociological aspects of being elected and being chosen, and we praise God and rejoice in that, but we rarely ever talk about the sociological aspects of it. The sociological aspects of it are this. If you have been chosen by God, you have been rejected by the world. I mean,

we cannot help but be strangers in this world if we understand correctly what it means to be chosen, to be elect by God. It is that that has made us strangers in this world. Let's look just a moment at this. I know every time you start talking about foreknowledge and predestination, you open a lot of doors and ask a lot of questions. Somebody asked me the other day, he said, Preacher, do you believe in predestination? I said, well, of course I do. I have to, it's in the Bible. Don't know what it is, but I believe in it. Have no choice. But listen to what he says. He says, elect according to the foreknowledge of God. Now, I ask myself as I'm studying this,

what does this have to do with anything? I mean, here we are talking about being strangers and suffering and all of this, and why does he make such a big deal of this? He says, we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Notice, did you notice the sequence there of those words? Did you notice the chronology of that?

He says, we've been elected according to the foreknowledge of God through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Did you see where Peter made his mistake? You didn't catch it? Yeah, yeah, Peter got this wrong here. He's got sanctification of the Spirit in the wrong place. You see, what it is, we were elected, but as according to the foreknowledge of God, and then we came to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, and then we were sanctified

by the Spirit. So that's Peter just, must have been a typo. Or maybe that's the way he intended it. Yeah, that's the way he intended it. You know there is a sanctification of the Spirit that precedes salvation? There certainly is. Notice how he does it. He says it all begins with God's foreknowledge. Now that foreknowledge doesn't mean God knows facts about us.

It means God knows us. Like God said to Jeremiah, I knew you in the womb. He didn't say, I knew you were in the womb. It doesn't take God to know that Jeremiah's mother is pregnant. He said, I knew you in the womb. Foreknowledge of God isn't God looking down through eternity and seeing what somebody's going to do and then making his choice on the basis of what they're going to do.

That's not what that says at all. What it means is that God got to know some of us before we were ever born. God set His heart on us. God took a liking to us. That's what it means. That means that God, I don't know how He did this, but God came to me one day before I ever was, and He said, you're mine.

Let's sit down and get acquainted. It means that God set His regard on me. You say I'm a stranger in this world? You say the world laughs at me and mocks at me and says I'm a bigot and narrow-minded and old-fashioned? I've got news for you folks. God has His mark on me. I'm somebody.

To you I look like a stranger. To you I look like a fool. To you I look like a fanatic. But oh, to God, I'm His heart's desire. He set His heart on me and He said, I like you. I love you. Well, then one day I was born.

And then one day I came to church and I was sitting in church. Another fellow sitting in church next to me, just as lost as I was. Both of us heard the same sermon. Both of us heard the same invitation song. One of us, myself, went forward and trusted Christ, and the other sat there unmoved and went away lost. How do you account for that? Oh, I'll tell you how I account for that, because there came a day when the Holy Spirit came to me and said, okay, son, it's your time. And He sanctified me. He set me apart, drew a circle around me, and he said, now I'm going to start bombarding that circle with love and conviction and awareness and sensitivity. That's why one person goes away untouched and unmoved, and the other person is brought to Christ. Why? Because

the Spirit of God has set his heart on that man. C.S. Lewis, of course, was an atheist before he came to Christ, and one day he received a letter from a university student who also was an atheist and he was troubled and he said, oh my, he said he said, Dr. Lewis, he said I have fallen in with some Christians and he said, I'm an atheist and he said, these Christians have been talking to me

and he said, I have some strange feelings and I don't know what to do. What's going on? And C.S. Lewis wrote back, and he said, I think the Holy Spirit has you in his net, and you shall not escape. Well, I've got to just finish that up. Basically, what I was going to say is what this means. We're chosen by God, selected out of this world. This means one thing, folks. It means that God is the Lord of history, and that God, not nations, rule this country. God, selected out of this world. This means one thing, folks. It means that God is the Lord of history, and that God, not nations, rule this country. God, not nations, rule this world. And one of these days, you and I are going to be vindicated. Every one of us, no matter what the world says or does, we will be vindicated. Why? Because we are the elect of God, and the future

belongs to God and His people. And so the last word is this, scattered. We are strangers in this world. We're strangers in this world because God has selected us out of this world. And as a result, we are scattered throughout the world. Here again, you have the imagery from the Old Testament. The diaspora was scattered across the world. Interesting, James uses this same word in his salutation to those who've been scattered.

Interesting, it's the same word that's used in Acts chapter 8. After the first persecution, it says, and those who were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. A word scattered means to sow seed. Sow seed. Acts chapter 8, they were scattered abroad. Like seed, God scattered them abroad.

Why? Because he wanted a harvest down there in Antioch. You see, I think you and I ought to see ourselves as seed that God has scattered. Why? Some of you live in Memphis. I know a lot of you out in town. Some of you live in Memphis.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you live in Memphis? Oh, well, I live here because my company transferred me here. Oh, is that right? You don't suppose that maybe your seed that God wanted to sow here in Memphis because he wanted to harvest?

Why do you live in the house you live in on the street you live on? I'll tell you why, boy, that's no way. Man, I tell you, that was a repo. We got a great deal on that house. Oh, really? You think that's why you're there? You suppose it might have been that maybe God wanted a crop in that neighborhood, and so He planted some seed there.

Why do you work where you work? Why do you sit at the desk you sat at at school? I think we ought to see ourselves in this life that wherever I am and for whatever reason it seems that I'm here, I know this one thing, I am seed, God's seed, and He has scattered me abroad. Why?

Because He wants me to bring forth fruit, wants me to bring forth a harvest. Well, a few years ago, I was in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I got there without any money. I, a few years ago, I was in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I got there without any money. I was late for the plane, and I just, I don't know what happened, but I didn't have any, I mean, I didn't have a nickel, I didn't have a dime, I didn't have a dollar, I didn't have any money. Well, a fellow gave me a $100 bill, and I went down to the department store. I'd left some

other things at home, and so I picked up a few things, about eight bucks worth. And so I took my little eight bucks worth of stuff, laid it down on the counter, whipped out that $100 bill. And the man said, don't you have anything smaller? I said, no, it's the smallest Well, all right. So he picked it up, pulled it tight, held it up to the light. I knew what he was doing, you know, checking the counterfeit. Turned it this way, this way, turned it over, looked the other side. But then he did something I wasn't ready for. He picked up a piece of white paper and he took that $100 bill

and crunched it up and began to rub that $100 bill against that piece of white paper I had no idea what he was up to just rubbing that thing there and as I watched I noticed that piece of white paper

began to take on sort of a green tint to it. And I said, the ink's coming off that bill. That bill's fading. That's a phony bill. That's a counterfeit bill. Who gave me that one?

What was that guy's name? Oh, they'll never believe me. Here, I'm a stranger from out of town. This is a classic way to pass funny money. Buy about 10 bucks worth and give a $100 bill and get 90. They'll never believe me. What was that guy's name? He gave me that $100 bill.

He just rubbed it on me. After a while, he stopped and he looked up at me and smiled, and he said, Well, it's good. I said, It is? It is? He said, yes, the real thing always rubs off. Would you pray with me, please? please. Father, bless your word to our hearts. And may it be good seed sown in prepared hearts

to bring forth a rich harvest. In Jesus' name, amen.