Our master has granted to us a reservoir of spiritual power to fulfill our calling to overcome our sinful attitudes and partake of Jesus’ glory and moral excellence. But we are the ones who must step into that battle and unleash that power. WE must respond to Jesus’ call to become like him. To do so is the path to the greatest possible fulfillment in life.

Author, David Murrow, in his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, observed that Jesus demonstrated the pattern of a man on a mission. He writes.
“Jesus had a vision. He called it the kingdom of God. It was huge. It involved nothing less than a re-creation of the world, one person at a time. And we are His partners in this task. This vision was the focus of his entire life. Everything about his life was tied up in this vision. This vision is what kept him focused on his mission. It was the reason he lived and died” (Why Men Hate Going to Church).
As followers of Jesus, we have joined his mission—to restore rightness to every square inch of planet earth, or as Jesus put it, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Spreading the kingdom of righteousness begins with the loyalties of my own heart; I am called TO CHRIST to enjoy a love relationship with him. Spreading the kingdom then moves outwardly to encompass my heart attitudes; I am then called TO BECOME LIKE CHRIST. The reign of King Jesus over my heart attitudes expels wrong attitudes. Paul explains this part of the Christ-follower’s mission when he said to the church at Ephesus, “You’ve been taught to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  
Great men, in the eyes of Jesus, are those who fight the sinful attitudes of their hearts, self-centeredness, pride, resentment, lust, selfishness, impurity, rivalry, idolatry, greed, envy, selfish anger, laziness, lack of love for others. They surrender in humility to God’s reclamation project of re-making them into the toughness of character that Jesus showed. They channel their masculine aggression towards overpowering the dark attitudes of their fallen hearts. This episode explores what the Apostle, Peter, taught about how to unleash the power God has provided to overcome the selfish attitudes and wrong desires of our hearts.
To overcome the wrong attitudes and desires that arise from our sinful nature, we need spiritual power. In fact, we need the mightiest power there is since the greatest power in the world is the power to overcome evil. Today, we begin a new November series, Becoming Men Who Exhibit the Toughness of Jesus on the Inside, based upon 2 Peter 1:3-8. Let’s explore what Peter said about accessing that power.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s dig into this amazing passage that tells us how to access the unlimited power God has provided us for winning this battle over our heart attitudes. Verse 3:
His divine power.
Jesus located sin in the human heart. The message of Christianity is that only Christ, God himself come in the flesh, could defeat evil, and dethrone it from its control over the human heart. The summary message of Paul’s great theological tome, Romans is that righteousness is from God (1:16-17, 3:21-22). Righteousness from God not only saves us from the penalty of sin (justification) and saves us ultimately from the presence of sin (glorification), righteousness from God also saves us right now from the power of sin (sanctification). This word, power, is DUNAMIS, from which we get dynamite.
Trusting Christ’s power to overcome wrong attitudes is described by another Apostle, Paul. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20). The relentless battle against our sinful attitudes requires a constant supply of spiritual might that is found only in Christ’s resurrection defeat of evil and its consequences. Just as faith is trusting God to impute Christ’s righteousness to us so that we are justified, faith is trusting God to impart Christ’s moral power to have right attitudes, i.e.be sanctified.
Has granted to us all things.
The grammatical structure of the Greek sentence begins with the word all things, putting the emphasis on the sufficiency of this power source. Years ago, the manufacturers of the infamous Rolls Royce refused to identify the exact horsepower of the engine. They simply listed it as adequate. The power over sin granted to us is adequate to get the job done.
The word translated granted is DOREOMAI, which literally means “freely given as a present” This word is not the common word for give but puts the emphasis on free gift, gratis, without payment. The verb tense, “has granted,” implies that the past act of granting continues its effect to the present day and is thus to continue. Jesus paid a high price for us to have this power to overcome sinful attitudes. Peter had written in his first letter, You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Pet 1:18-19).  Having paid such a high price, our master wants us to unleash this untapped spiritual power.
That pertain to life.
Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. The power, which is in view here, is the power for restoration to the life God intended. The wage of sinful heart attitudes is always death. Paul urges believers to never doubt that truth though they may not see the destructive consequences of sinful attitudes.  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal 6:7). The biblical concept of eternal life is not just existence that begins after we die and continues forever. It is the quality of life that begins in this world when it is partially restored by the power of Christ to what it was created to be, before the fall, which and continues into eternity. This high-quality, abundant life is described by David in Psalm 63:
Because your steadfast love is better than life my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy (vs 3-7).
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The critical point is to extend biblical authority to every aspect of our worship—elements, content, structure, and aesthetics: If we understand the formative role of corporate worship in making disciples, and if we consequently recognize that such disciple-forming corporate worship must be formed by Scripture, then we must be sure that our liturgies and how we express God’s truth aesthetically in corporate worship are similar in meaning to how Scripture expresses God’s truth. 

What would it mean for our worship to be truly shaped by Scripture? Christians are people of the book. Conservative Evangelical Christians, in particular, demand that their beliefs and lives be governed by Scripture. God’s inspired Word is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16–17). Therefore, for Christ-honoring sanctification to take place, the lives of Christians must be governed and saturated by the living and active Word of God. And for this same reason, corporate worship must also be governed and saturated by the Word; since public worship both reveals belief and forms belief, and thus it must be shaped by Scripture.
Yet, I think it’s safe to say that most modern evangelical Christians have an entirely different conception of corporate worship. Instead of a life-forming drama, corporate worship has become a concert plus a lecture, a time where we sing some songs that give authentic expression to our hearts and listen to a sermon that hopefully will give us some practical advice for the week. Most evangelical Christians would quickly assert that Scripture in general provides for us the necessary theological foundation and content for our corporate worship, but not much more, particularly when you venture into questions of the aesthetics of our worship, the cultural forms our songs employ.
Instead, what I will argue in this essay is that in order for worship to properly form God’s people as God has intended, every aspect of our worship—including our worship aesthetics, must be formed and shaped by the Word of God.
Biblical Worship
This emphasis upon biblical authority over our corporate worship applies in at least four areas; First, the elements of our worship must be regulated by the Word of God. The sufficient Word has given those ordinary means of grace that, through their regular use, will shape believers to live as disciples who observe everything Jesus taught: These elements have been clearly prescribed for the church in the New Testament: First, Paul commands Timothy, in the context of teaching him how to behave in the house of God, “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim 4:13). He repeats similar commands in Colossians 4:16 and 1 Thessalonians 5:27.
Paul also commands Timothy to “devote yourself . . . to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13) and “preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2).
Third, Paul commands that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and for all who are in high positions (1 Tim 2:1). He commands the Colossians to “continue steadfastly in prayer (4:2), and to the Ephesians he admonishes, “praying at all time in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication . . . making supplication for all the saints” (6:18).
A fourth biblically-prescribed element might not actually be a separate element at all, but rather a form of Scripture reading or prayer, and that is singing. In both Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, Paul commands gathered believers to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, thereby “singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph 5:19) and “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Col 3:16).
Fifth, Christ commanded in his Great Commission to the disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
And finally, Paul told the Corinthian church that he passed on “the Lord’s Supper” to the church, having received it from the Lord himself (1 Cor 11:20, 23). The regular, disciplined use of these means of grace progressively forms believers into the image of Jesus Christ; these Spirit-ordained elements are the means through which Christians “work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in [them], both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12–13).
Second, the content of our worship elements must be regulated by the Word of God. Clearly what we teach and preach, what we pray, and what we sing must contain the Word of God, or at very least express sentiments consistent with the Word of God.
Third, the order of our worship should be regulated by the Word of God. If the primary purpose of corporate worship is the edification of believers—God forming us into mature disciple-worshipers, then even the structure of our services should follow what God has given to us in Scripture. God made clear this purpose when he instituted corporate worship assemblies in the OT, establishing a structural pattern that continues also into the NT. God often calls these assemblies of worship “memorials,” meaning more than just a passive remembrance of something, but actually a reenactment of God’s works in history for his people such that the worshipers are shaped over and over again by what God has done. Beginning at Mt. Sinai (Exod 19–24), God instituted a particular order of what the OT frequently calls the “solemn assemblies” of Israel. This order reflects what I like to call a “theo-logic” in which in the assembly, God’s people reenact through the order of what they do God’s atoning work on their behalf. For sake of time, I will just summarize this structure:
God reveals himself and calls his people to worshipGod’s people acknowledge and confess their need for forgivenessGod provides atonementGod speaks his WordGod’s people respond with commitmentGod hosts a celebratory feast
This same theo-logic characterized the progression of sacrifices within the tabernacle assemblies and the dedication of Solomon’s temple (2 Chron 15–17). In each case, the structure of the worship assemblies follows a theo-logical order in which the worshipers reenact the covenant relationship they have with God through the atonement he provided, culminating with a feast that celebrates the fellowship they enjoy with God because of what he has done for them.
While the particular rituals present in Hebrew worship pass away for the NT church, the book of Hebrews tells us that these OT rituals were “a copy and shadow of heavenly things” (8:5). Thus while the shadows fade away, the theo-logic of corporate worship remains the same: we are reenacting God’s atoning work on our behalf when we gather for corporate worship. Significantly, Hebrews teaches that when we gather for services of worship, through Christ we are actually joining with the real worship taking place in the heavenly Jerusalem of which those Old Testament rituals were a mere shadow. And so it is important to recognize that the two records we have in Scripture of heavenly worship also follow the same theo-logic modeled in the OT.
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Schlafly was beautiful, brilliant, unconventional, hated by her enemies. She may be better than most anyone today. Still, for all her greatness, Schlafly was fighting a rear-guard action that ultimately failed as it took too much for granted to work in her own time (and in ours). Hers was the work of the positive world when women were generally more conservative than men. She lived long enough to recognize that her own project had failed.

Feminism is among modernity’s most successful social movements. Feminists pretend to promote choice, but feminist laws and culture really cultivate a particular kind of womanly character, one economically and emotionally independent of men, family, tradition, and marriage. Feminism’s successes pose an acute challenge. Can feminism, which points women away from the family, and a family-centered society coexist?
Conservatives and Christians have been dealing with this challenge for generations, with only limited and short-lived successes. As feminism determines society’s understanding of an honorable woman, opponents of feminism become by definition anti-woman. Prudence seems to demand accommodation to powerful, widely-held social opinions, but accommodation brings social decay. Resistance, on the other hand, means political oblivion.
One method of accommodation is the “who stole feminism” gambit, to borrow the title from a 1995 book by Christiana Hoff Sommers. “Who Stole Feminism” critics oppose the latest, apparently extreme feminist or gender reform in the name of a supposedly true, more moderate, more pro-family feminist path that once existed or could.
In the beginning, they say, feminists embraced salutary goals like increased female opportunity that would not compromise family life or the sexual dance. Later, however, “radical feminists” warred against men or undermined family life or promoted abortion or transgenderism. Such critics of feminism often disagree about what the good feminism represented, why and when things went sideways, and how to bring back the better brand. But they never disclaim the mantle of feminism: Early feminism, real feminism good; later feminism not good.
Another option is opposition, where the risk is political oblivion. The most successful and famous anti-feminist of the past sixty years is Phyllis Schlafly. Schlafly, who died in 2016, is justly considered the most successful organizer in the modern conservative movement. Her successful opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the 1970s and 1980s also made her, in the words of her daughter-in-law and co-author, Suzanne Venker, “the premier anti-feminist of the twentieth century.”
Schlafly rejects the “Who Stole Feminism” gambit. When asked later in life whether feminism made any positive contributions to American life, Schlafly only saw debits: “No. I think it’s made women unhappy and it’s made them believe that we live in a discriminatory and unjust society, and that they should look to government to solve their problems.” To read Schlafly’s works (as I have the past year) is to hear nary a nice word about feminism (though a fairer disputer thinks Schlafly is a feminist herself).
The woman was a force of nature, such that her legacy guides, inspires, and intimidates opponents of feminism today. Giants walked on the earth then! Helen Andrews took to the New York Times to explain why the next Phyllis Schlafly has not yet arisen. Rebekah Curtis has given “5 Reasons there is no Phyllis Schlafly 2.0” today.
Schlafly was beautiful, brilliant, unconventional, hated by her enemies. She may be better than most anyone today. Still, for all her greatness, Schlafly was fighting a rear-guard action that ultimately failed as it took too much for granted to work in her own time (and in ours). Hers was the work of the positive world when women were generally more conservative than men. She lived long enough to recognize that her own project had failed.
Schlafly launched her campaign against the ERA with a 1972 essay, “What’s Wrong with ‘Equal Rights’ for Women?” Women’s liberation, she wrote, represented a “total assault on the role of the American woman as wife and mother, and on the family as a basic unit of society.”
Yet “equal rights” already had a basis in American law and culture as Schlafly rose to oppose it. Schlafly accepted earlier feminist reforms and then gave them a most conservative spin. The suffragettes, she concluded, were “family-oriented women who had no desire to eradicate the female nature.” The Equal Pay Act of 1963 accomplished “equal pay for equal work,” which, she said, no one opposes. (Advocates of the family wage do oppose it.) She favored including sex as a protected category in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, though she thought that sex is not the same as race, that the law should allow for reasonable distinctions between the sexes, and that the civil rights framework was destroying male-only spaces.
The ERA’s more radical emphasis on equal rights, she worried, would destroy sex-role realism, the key to healthy family life.
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