Written by William C. Godfrey |
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
The presence of the image of God in all human beings is cause for hope. God’s will concerning peacemaking, for both maintaining and mending peace, can be applied even in our workplaces, schools, communities, and digital spaces in the world. 

We undergo a radical change in becoming Christians. We are born again to a living hope through true faith in Jesus Christ. We are no longer citizens of this world, and we become citizens of heaven. We are still in the world, but we are no longer of the world. Our citizenship in heaven involves alienation from the world. Our Christian commitments now differ starkly from the commitments of those in the world around us. We no longer share the same loyalties and priorities.
Psalm 120 vividly captures the reality of these divergent commitments. This psalm is the first in a collection of psalms that each bear the title “A Song of Ascents” (Pss. 120–34). The word “ascents” simply means “going up.” These psalms were likely given these titles because they were used by pilgrims as they made their way up to Jerusalem for their holy feasts (because Jerusalem is on a mountain, one always travels up to Jerusalem). In Psalm 120, we find the psalmist at the beginning of his pilgrimage. He is far from home (Ps. 120:5), surrounded by a world of “lying lips” and “deceitful tongue[s]” (Ps. 120:2). And the psalmist prays, expressing the desire for deliverance from a world of people who “hate peace” and who “are for war” (Ps. 120:6–7).
Of course, we thank the Lord every Sunday that we are able to “go up” to church and to our heavenly worship, fellowshipping with like-minded believers. But after the Lord’s Day, most of us are called to go “back down” into the world for another six days. Our jobs, our schools, our volunteer and recreational pursuits, even our digital and social media activities bring us into contact with the world. So how can we bring the peace of Christ to bear on a world that hates peace?
God’s people must begin with the calling we have received in Romans 12:18: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” This is an important passage because it reminds us of our God-given responsibility. We are to do what we can to live peaceably with all, including with the world. Wherever Christians can make peace without compromising godliness, we ought to do it.
In the first place, we live peaceably when we strive not to be the ones who interrupt the peace. Peace is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and a characteristic of the wisdom that is from above (James 3:17). Psalm 120 reminds us that the world hates peace and is war-mongering. The hatred of peace and love of war are characteristics of the sin-cursed flesh and manifest themselves in enmity, strife, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions (Gal. 5:19–20). What Samuel Miller said to his incoming divinity students about their conduct in the church certainly applies to all Christians and their conduct with the world: If war is made and peace is broken, “see to it that none of you be found among the workers of the mischief…Do not lend your influence to the unhallowed work of corrupting and dividing.” Our God-given responsibility to live peaceably begins with not being the ones who break peace by our sinful conduct.
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Being different, being set apart and having a close family creates a sense of identity and purpose. Today so many young people are confused because they don’t know who they are, what they believe, or what their past is: they know nothing. They are adrift and depressed and confused to the point of trying to change their biology! But by doing things differently from the status quo, we as parents give our children a solid foundation that our kids can rely on. They don’t have to question who they are because we’ve told them and shown them and lived it for them their whole lives. And that will anchor them as they go into the world.

Nearly every day we are bombarded with stories of troubled teens and young adults, struggling with their identity to the point of desiring sex changes, of the rise in drug use, of young men shooting up schools, of the high rate of depression and anxiety amongst college students, and of growing loneliness among all populations. Like many parents, I want to spare my children those troubles, but unlike previous generations, our culture seems to breed troubled children faster than ever before. Even Christian parents struggle to raise their children in a culture that is designed to draw children away from their family and faith. I’d like to argue that parents need to make radical changes to their conceptions of what it means for their children to be successful and for what that means in raising them in day-to-day home life. What good, hard-working families have done in the past will not suffice in today’s environment.
I recently posted to my social media account about some adjustments we made to our home life, sparking fruitful questions and conversation among friends. Along with a photo of cookies waiting to be baked, I said:
We made some big changes to our life this fall which required some sacrifice. But the end result was more time for me to be home. Probably sounds crazy that a stay-at-home mom needs more home time, but homeschooling is a full-time job now and I needed time to be home and not schooling. My kids are getting older and we don’t have forever with them in the house; I want their memories to be of cookies and good food and a warm home, not of mom frantically driving them all around town to various activities. So here’s to cookies and good memories!
One friend asked what specifically we had done to “slow down for family time” and mentioned, “Our society places so much emphasis on [activities] and I’m wrestling with going against the grain.” She’s right. In order to succeed in life (or so we were told growing up), a kid needs to get good grades, go to college and get a good job. In order to get into a good college, kids are encouraged to be involved in school sports, student government, and a variety of other activities that not only showcase the student’s talent and abilities, but hopefully lead to ever-more-competitive scholarships. That often means extra-curricular activities multiple nights a week, sport commitments requiring entire weekends dedicated to tournaments, not to mention church events or other community activities to which a family might be committed. With multiple children in the family, even if mom stays at home, it’s difficult to have regular family meals, and those sports weekends would require splitting the family up at various fields, tournaments, and locations so that there is very little time spent together. Families have no time for family worship, and often skip corporate worship in lieu of competing sports commitments. The result: a group of people who share the same last name, but have their own distinct, personal goals often at odds with the well-being of the family unit. Well-meaning Christian parents seem surprised when after years of this, their kids go off to college and abandon the faith they grew up with and the political convictions their parents believe in.
So what can a family do? How do you raise Christian children, grounded in their faith and secure in their identity? Each family is different, but there are certain principles that can be followed by families wanting to fight against current cultural trends. First, back to the basics: every stable family starts with a dad and mom committed to each other and to the well-being of their children. Having a stable family requires personal sacrifice from both the husband and the wife, but that sacrifice will produce good fruit not only for the parents, but also for their children and subsequent generations. Second, there must be a family hierarchy. The husband is the head of the wife and of the family, and the children must submit to their parents (Ephesians 5:22-6:4). Third, but by no means least in importance, the Christian family must make their faith a priority. Go to worship every week. Be involved in your local congregation. Seek to serve those in your church. Practice hospitality. Diligently teach your children the faith.
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When you turn from sin to Jesus, you are not only repenting today, but you are also investing into repentance for tomorrow, and next week, and a year from now. Saying “no” to sin today makes it easier to say “no” to sin tomorrow.

It’s happened to me more times than I can count. I’m sitting with a man who has given in to sexual sin for the majority of his life. He’s tried many things to stop, but he keeps failing to say “no” to temptation. He’s fighting to believe that victory is possible, but he feels weary and scared. Teetering on the edge of hope and despair, he asks me a simple question: “Does the battle ever get any easier?”
While simple questions rarely have simple answers, David Powlison was fond of saying, “[There is a] simplicity on the far side of every complexity.”¹ So the simple answer to this question is, “Yes, the battle does get easier.” However, in order to understand what that really looks like, we need to wade through the complex depths of the human experience.
The Battle Has a Context
In humility, we always need to treat each person as a unique individual, and that requires great attention to the details of their lives. I always want err on being slow to speak and quick to listen. I want to assume that I don’t know what this person needs unless I first get to know them. I want a holy curiosity about his or her life. I don’t just want to know about his sexual sin. I want to know about his family, his childhood, his hopes, his disappointments, his suffering, and his understanding of the world, God, and himself.
As I get to know someone more intimately, I begin to understand in greater ways the functionality of sexual sin in his life. I see more and more the specific false promises that sin has tailor-made to fit someone’s particular desires and weaknesses. Consider the complex algorithms employed by modern social media giants. How is it that Facebook knows exactly what advertisement will hook you? It’s because Facebook has studied you. Facebook knows your heart based on what you click on and how long you stay. Sin operates in the same way. The battle is so difficult partly because you have an enemy who knows exactly where you are weak. Sin preys on its knowledge of your life, your sufferings, your heart, and your desires, and it exploits them.
Growth in the battle against sexual sin requires an increasing self-awareness of your own life experiences and how they have shaped you. Your enemy knows your weaknesses. Do you?
The Battle Has a Past
If we’re honest, we often live our lives thinking only about the present, and sin capitalizes on this short-sightedness. If I only think of life in 24-hour chunks, then what’s the big deal about eating one or two donuts? No problem, right? But what if I eat two donuts every day for a whole week? That’s 14 donuts. What if I eat that same amount for an entire month? Now you’re looking at close to 60 donuts! It’s not hard to see that this kind of lifestyle will lead to major health problems down the road. The problem is that you can’t simply stop eating donuts one day and then pretend like you didn’t eat donuts every day for the past 10 years. The effects of those 10 years will linger and perhaps have lasting, lifelong consequences.
We reap what we sow. In Galatians 6, Paul doesn’t sugarcoat the impact of years of sowing into fleshly desires. He writes, “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” (Galatians 6:7–8). Sin has a corrupting impact on our hearts and minds. Every time you give in to sexual temptation, you are sowing seeds of corruption. Think of it like an investment. Sexual sin isn’t just an isolated event. Giving into temptation today makes it harder to resist tomorrow. And science has now definitively shown how habitual pornography use in particular actually rewires your brain to make you that much more prone to return again and again to your sin.
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