We belong to God and his desire is for us. That is stronger than any desire sin may have.  As we seek to heed God’s warnings and avoid the danger of sin crouching at our door, we do not do so in our strength but in his mighty power, knowing that we are his.

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. Genesis 4:7
Last Friday was Mountain Day in Japan, a public holiday to encourage people to take some time off in the summer and enjoy the mountains. I decided to brave the heat and climb a mid-sized mountain. At the entrance to the trail, however, I was faced with a warning sign: Beware of Bears! On average bears kill 1 or 2 people every year in Japan and injure several others. As I pondered whether to risk climbing the mountain, another climber appeared so I figured it was safe if I followed him. Some others had obviously heeded the warning and had bells hanging from their rucksacks to warn any bears off.
For the past few days in Japan we have been hearing warnings about a typhoon making landfall today in the west of the country. Flights and trains in that area have been cancelled and people have been urged to take precautions and stay alert. Japan is a country with a lot of natural dangers such as earthquakes, flooding, mudslides, tsunamis and tornados, so it has developed sophisticated warning systems, including alarms on our phones and loud public announcements. Giving people warnings about a coming danger means that they can take action to try to stay safe.
Recently I was reading the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 and was struck there by the warning that God gave Cain. I imagine that most of you know the story of Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the older son, worked the soil and his younger brother, Abel, kept flocks. In the course of time the two brothers brought offerings to the Lord. Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil and Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.
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Christians in nearly any context will have to biblically object to these culturally expected policies and practices.  No matter the situation, we must start with the authority of Scripture, explain why we cannot acquiesce from what is clearly taught in Scripture, lay out how we will disobey the policy only enough to avoid sinning while maintaining respect for all, and then accepting the consequences and trusting God to sustain us through them and bring ultimate justice in the end. 

As our culture becomes less and less “Christian”, we will increasingly face situations in which we are pressured to participate in or approve of activities that are sinful.  As I write, the Supreme Court is considering just such a case, in which a Christian web designer is suing Colorado over a policy that would essentially force her to design websites for same-sex weddings.  Christians in wedding-related professions have faced this situation for several years, but it is spreading far beyond that industry.  Christians in all walks of life are threatened with similar scenarios.  A Christian family may be invited to the same-sex wedding of a friend or family member.  A Christian supervisor may be directed by superiors or company policy to participate in Pride Month events .  Christian parents may face situations in which their children are forced by school policy to participate in Pride Month events or be exposed to overly descriptive or graphic curriculum on sexuality.  And these are just scenarios dealing with homosexuality.  There may be mandatory work social events in which excessive drinking is essentially required, work or school policies that require active support of causes that directly contradict Scripture and lead to the degradation of society, or the expectation of working in a dishonest way to increase profits.  Possibly the most likely scenario for any Christian involves transgenderism and the use of pronouns clearly inconsistent with biology, which I cannot cover briefly here, so I will cover it in the next post.  And there is a myriad of other such situations that any Christian may encounter.
Approaching the Situation
Clearly, all Christians need to be prepared to respond biblically to any of these scenarios.  While such a prospect is new for American Christians, it has been the norm throughout the history of the Church, as Peter makes clear:

“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”
-1 Peter 3:13-17, ESV

In this passage, Peter basically outlines how Christians should approach these situations.  This begins with approaching the situation with the right perspective.  Peter points out that no matter what happens, blessing will come to those who obey Christ.  Whether no harm comes to you because you are doing good (which Peter says is generally the case) or you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you will be blessed, whether in this life or the next.  Therefore, we should approach the situation without fear, trusting in the sovereignty and goodness of God over and above what any human can do.  We must fear God rather than man, which is the point of Isaiah 8:12-13, which Peter is directly referencing in verses 14 and 15.  Next, we must start with the objective of honoring Christ as of first importance.  We must honor and obey Christ in whatever we do, so however we decide to act in the situation, it must honor and obey Christ.  Then, we must always be prepared to give an answer as to why we decided to act in that way.  This means we need to have a well-thought-out reason from Scripture and be able to explain it.  But we must do this with gentleness and respect, honoring our opponents as people made in the image of God.  So any conscientious objection must be both logically robust from Scripture and lovingly applied with the ultimate objective of glorifying Christ.
Knowing Your Opponent
With that in mind, we must prepare for battle. Arguably the most famous line from Sun Tzu’s Art of War is: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril”.  He wrote this around the fifth century B.C. about military battles but it applies equally to spiritual battles.  Make no mistake, when we face these situations we are at war and must therefore take on a wartime mentality, following his advice to know both ourselves and our opponents.  First, we must recognize that the people who make and support these policies are not the enemy, neither are the people who want to coerce us to support their sinful lifestyle.  Instead, the true enemy is the devil who has blinded and enslaved them.  Therefore, we must always approach our opponents not as the true enemy but as those held captive by the true enemy, whom God can free from that captivity.  He may even choose to use the humble and winsome demeanor with which we approach them as part of their salvation.  Paul says as much when telling Timothy how elders are to approach such conflicts:

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
-2 Timothy 2:24-26, ESV

Just as it would be foolish to treat an enemy harshly who is about to defect to your side, it would be foolish to alienate someone whom God may save (and therefore make your brother or sister).  The Gospel that says that all people are dead in sin and cannot do anything to be right with God is inherently offensive, so we have no need (or Scriptural warrant) to offend people any further.  In everything, we must avoid offending God altogether and endeavor to offend people as little as possible.
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Our fate is to die and be forgotten. Tying ourselves to one another and to life can diminish that trouble’s force, but kingdoms and cultures and homes rise and fall. Being willingly bound in devotion to the Creator redeems that trouble forever, for that kingdom and that culture and that home know no end. 

Remember now thy Creator.
Princeton, WV. The two diligent old ladies sat low in their church pew. One lady’s figure—blond hair, tanned skin, and upright shoulders—evoked the Academy Awards. The other woman’s figure had softer shoulders curved slightly forward; her hair, still brown, was worn close to her head. My wife, Rebecca, knew both ladies for more years than I knew them, but by the time I became their pew-neighbor, I’d been an active member of our congregation for more than a decade and knew almost nothing about either one of the women, except for their names. The bulk of our exchanges entailed generic expressions such as “Good morning” or “Hello.” Given my poor engagement with them, the likelihood that the two elderly ladies would fade from my memory seemed inevitable.
My reliance on rudimentary phrases stemmed not from ill-will but from uncertainty. I didn’t know what to say to them. Because uncertainty breeds anxiety, I limited my interactions. Yet the life of safety, especially within a local assembly of believers, is not the life of human flourishing.
Of course solitude and quiet foster contemplation, the highest form being communion with God. To talk to everyone all the time keeps one away from contemplation and, worse, from communion with God. However, though Jesus kept solitary and quiet spaces to commune with God, the Son of Man dwelt among us mortals; he indwelled our flesh and broke bread with us. The example demonstrated by Jesus, which aligned with the greatest commandments–to love God and love our neighbor–caused me to realize my recalcitrant excuses for not talking with my pew-neighbors Jackie or Frances could no longer be given quarter.
Communion comes at a price. Rather than taking time among better known friends and acquaintances during our church’s mid-service reprieve, I brought my coffee back to the auditorium and sat on my pew, immediately behind the pew occupied by Jackie and Frances.
The ladies might have taken to the fellowship hall a few times once our church instituted the mid-service break, but they mostly remained at their pew where they talked with each other and ate the snacks they brought themselves to church. Could they have continued to use the fellowship hall with almost everyone else? Yes. But during the mid-service reprieve, the auditorium held a calmness not afforded in the fellowship hall because a good number of toddlers and young kids played during that break, as they should, under the watchful eyes of their parents. It was also evident that neither Jackie nor Frances stayed in the auditorium out of protest to the volume of the fellowship hall. They did not murmur against or scowl at those who used the fellowship hall for mid-service reprieve. In fact, given the amount of room available in the entire church building, several church members found other quiet places to sit in-between services. Jackie and Frances favored the auditorium.
When I first joined them for the mid-service break, I noticed their snack collection was like a boutique grocery. The ladies offered me samples of each snack and included their encouragement-as-a-command to “take as much as you want.”
Once food was shared, Jackie and Frances proved to be good talkers: they listened and responded freely. In other words, they knew how to converse. They delivered no monologues until prompted. Eventually, prompting monologues from the elderly women turned out to be a far richer endeavor than deliberating over what I might say. A good question or two provoked each lady to speak from the deep cisterns carved out in her soul from a long life. Sometimes their responses dovetailed, so Jackie wove into France’s remarks, or Frances wove into something Jackie said. It was like a tutorial delivered by two voices in harmony. By way of their words, the ladies crafted what felt like a thick quilt, gleaming with colors and giving off warmth I could feel in my face and chest. Perhaps it was friendship taking form among us. On my part, it certainly included much admiration.
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