The Apostle Peter wrote the letter we call 1 Peter while persecution against Christians was simmering in and around ancient Rome. He wanted his readers to be prepared for hard things to come, and he sought to prepare them by reminding them of their identity as the chosen people of God, living as exiles in a world of suffering.
We continue our series in 1 Peter looking at 1 Peter 2:11-12.
Two Journeys of holiness for every Christian:
- Inward Holiness
- Outward Holiness
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions... Galatians 5:19-20
"Give up everything, however precious, which comes between you and heaven." - J.C. Ryle
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:16
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2
Life Church exists to glorify God by making disciples who treasure Christ, grow together, and live on mission. Salisbury, NC
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Amen. Amen. Well good morning, life church. Oh, there we go. There we go. I hope and pray this morning finds you well if you would turn with me in your Bible. I see a lot of people already turn there. First Peter chapter 2. First Peter chapter 2 verses 11 through 12 this morning. If we haven't met, which there might be a good chance that we haven't, because I am new, as Brittany has said, my name is Alex Wood. I'm the student life director here at Life Church. If you are new with us this morning, take encouragement that the guy who's on stage is also new. This is my third week here. Don't get too nervous though. I don't think that they will ask you to preach after your third week. I think that's just for me. I think that's like a hazing of the new guy, but maybe it's a compliment, I'm not sure. But hopefully you will get to know me and my wife, Catherine, over the next few months. One thing that you should know about me is that I love movies. It's one of my things. I love movies. I actually ended up studying filmmaking in college for a year before I gave my life into ministry. And ever since then I've been fascinating about the art of making movies. One of my favorite movies this year has been a movie called Civil War. This movie followed a photographer as she went through a modern day American Civil War. And it's a really, really good movie. She's traveling on her way to DC with some other journalists. And there's this one scene that sticks out to me as she's going to the Capitol. She stops in this town in Pennsylvania, this little town, and as they're driving through, something feels off. They're shocked because as they look around, the town is acting like nothing is going on in the world. People are walking their dogs, they're going on bike rides, they're going shopping downtown. It's almost like these journalists had gone through a portal into a pre-war America. And so they stop in one of the stores downtown and they ask the girl at the counter. They said, you do realize there's a civil war going on in America right now. You do realize everyone is at war with each other right now. How are you acting like nothing is going on? And she says, yeah, we know, we just try to ignore it. We feel like it's best from what we see on the news just to do our own thing. Now the journalists walked out of the store, they were amazed, they were shocked. How could you live your life and ignore something that significant? How could you go about your daily life like nothing was different just ignoring it? Now our text today, this morning draws our attention to a war in our souls that is going on that we often don't think about. Just as these people in the movie, we often ignore it and we often treat it as if it's not actually happening. The Apostle Peter in this passage today is begging us to open our eyes to see the war that is going on before us and to do something about it. Let's look this morning to God's Word, so read with me in chapter 2 starting in verse 11. This is the word of the Lord. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. God, we thank you for this word. We pray that we would use it to guide our life. We pray that you would speak through your spirit and through your word to help us see how to live out our identity as Christians. Amen. As you can see, we have titled our series "Exiles." If you remember back a couple months ago when we started this series, Peter refers to his readers as "Exiles" in chapter 1 verse 1. He also says that we are exiles in chapter 1 verse 17 as well. So we see that that's kind of a theme and here again we see that Peter emphasizes this idea that we are not of this world. He says once again that we are exiles and sojourners as Christians in this world. Our home is not Salisbury, our home is not North Carolina, our home is not even America. We are just temporary residents here. We are new creations longing for the new creation that Christ will bring one day. One biblical scholar said it like this about speaking about 1 Peter. He says God took a people who were at home and turned them into aliens and exiles. It's this change in status and it's issuing problems that prompted the writing of 1 Peter. So far much of 1 Peter is fleshing out this idea of who we are as travelers in a different land. We saw it really drilled in last week if you were here with us in chapter 2 verses 9 and 10. Peter said we are something different, something new, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. We are not of this world but rather we are merely exiles. Now so far Peter hasn't been interested in looking at how we are to live as exiles but rather who we are as exiles. It's all culminated with that passage last week. This word that we read today in verse 11 it says beloved. Some translations say dear friends it shows us that Peter is now trying to shift our focus from what he was setting up our identity as believers to now how we should live as believers, as a chosen race. Peter established our identity. You are chosen, you are born again, you are living stones and now Peter wants to flesh out what this looks like on the ground level in real life. Now it's a beautiful thing that we are chosen people but how should we live in light of this fact. These two verses this morning begin an entire section that goes into chapter 4 in which Peter is trying to flesh out this idea that we are exiles, we are a chosen race. We see him touch on things like how should we relate to those who are in authority over us, how should we as exiles relate to the government, how should we live as a wife, as a husband. All these things are very practical things so this morning we see that shift. So today we are going to break it down in two different ways. We see Peter indicates two journeys in the Christian life. Two journeys of holiness for every Christian and that's the inward journey of holiness and the outward journey of holiness. So that's how we are going to look at the passage first. Let's look at the journey of inward holiness. Going back to verse 11, Peter says, "Beloved, I urge you as so journers and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul." This verse is getting at something we often call holiness. This idea of holiness is found all throughout the Bible in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We see it established in Leviticus chapter 19 and chapter 20 that God is holy and his people are called to be holy like God. Holiness means in its essence, set apart, different than, set apart. God is holy, he is set apart from us as humans. In his very nature, he exists outside of sin. In the same sense, Christians should pursue to be set apart from the sinful desires of our flesh that are waging war against us. As you may remember, if you've been here the past few weeks and months, Peter has already touched on this. You can look back with me if you're in your Bible to chapter 1 verse 14 through 16. Peter says, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy." In all of your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy for I am holy." Now, this journey that we're all on of holiness, of inward holiness specifically to abstain from the passions of our flesh, it's not necessarily a walk in the park. We see here that our flesh is at war against us. As I mentioned in the beginning, oftentimes we don't even know we're at war with ourselves. We don't even know we're under attack by our flesh. We have fallen into ignorance of sin, which is exactly what Satan wants from Christians. He wants us to ignore our sin. And you can only fight the battle of sin if you know that there's a battle to be fought. In Genesis chapter 4, you may remember this story, there was a man named Cain who killed his brother, and God was talking to him after that. And he warned him, he said, "Sin is crouching at the door." Gives us this picture of sin hiding in our heart ready to attack. God says that sin's desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. Peter here is calling us to nothing less than what God said in Genesis chapter 4. We must abstain from sin and rule over it. Now, there's a problem here that oftentimes we forget about. The problem is that we cannot rule over our sin on our own. In the New Testament, we see that before Christ, our flesh, what Peter talks about this morning, our flesh completely controls us. We have no power within ourselves. We are enabled within ourselves to conquer this sinful nature. We have no ability in ourselves to do good. But when we put our faith in Christ and receive this new birth that Peter's already talked about in this book, we are given the ability to live by the Spirit, which is a beautiful thing. The problem is that when we are born again by the Spirit, the flesh still exists, and the flesh is in this now tug of war with our Spirit. We see this in Romans chapter 8, verses 12 and 13, where Paul calls us to buy the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the body. So we have the Spirit, but now by this Spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body. This is a process sometimes called sanctification. It's a word that means the progressive journey of Christ's likeness, defeating sin and becoming more like Christ. Now, one quick note, we have to clarify what the passions of the flesh are. And the great thing is that in Scripture, we see this clarified in Galatians chapter 5. There's this thing called the fruit of the Spirit, which basically means how you will live your life if you have the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience. But sometimes we forget that is contrasted by the fruit of the flesh in Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 through 21. Paul says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you, as I warn you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." These are the fruit of the flesh that we are called today to abstain from, to reject, to run from. But how should we look at this sin that lives in our heart, these passions of the flesh? How should we treat them as believers? In what way should we abstain from them? I personally am often trying to pursue a healthy diet. Many of you can say, "Amen to that, maybe many of you are just groaning, just by the words healthy diet." My biggest sacrifice in this realm of healthy diet is every time I go to Chick-fil-A. You see, Chick-fil-A is a great place. Many of you probably go there multiple times a day. I talked to someone in the first service twice a day, is their usual routine. But the problem with Chick-fil-A is that they give you the option between healthy and unhealthy, right? You guys know, right? They have all kinds of healthy options, but everyone just wants the fried chicken sandwich. And so my journey to eat healthy has been abstaining from the fried chicken sandwich and trying to eat the grilled chicken sandwich. So I've done that for years, just trying to get the grilled chicken. I'm probably like 90% of the time getting the grilled chicken sandwich. Now, the problem is, this is a side note, I always get the fries on the side because I just can't control myself, I guess. And that kind of defeats the purpose. But you get the idea. I'm trying my best to abstain from unhealthy food. Now, our problem oftentimes in our church today is that this call to run from our sin, this call towards holiness, is often treated as if it were similar to avoiding unhealthy foods in your diet. You should avoid sin just as you should avoid unhealthy foods because they're bad for you. They're probably not the best for you. They might have negative side effects, but it's an optional thing. Like every once in a while, you can indulge, it's fine. However, that's not the way to think about the battle with our sin. The problem with this thinking is that it's far too casual about the dangers of our sin. This call that we see here in the text should be seen more so as if it is a cancer that is growing inside of you. If there is a cancer that is growing inside of you, you're going to do whatever it takes to get that cancer out of you. My dad had cancer many years ago, and when the doctors found it, they immediately took action to remove it from the body. This is how we should view removing sin. It's not just a good habit that we should take on like eating healthy foods, but rather, it is something that intends to destroy the believer, and we should run from it. And we should plead the spirit to help us remove it from our hearts. J.C. Ryle. He's a 19th century pastor, and he wrote the most, possibly the most famous book on holiness. You may notice we have a room over here called the Ryle Room. That's named after J.C. Ryle. There's this picture on the room. If you go to the right, you can see it after service. He's got this huge beard. It's pretty awesome. But there's this quote under his picture, and I think it puts perfectly how we should run from our sin. Ryle says this. He says, "Give up everything. However precious, which comes between you and heaven." This is our calling as believers. We're not called to inch as close as we possibly can to sin without sinning. We are called to run as far away from it and towards Christ as humanly possible. Now, in the Old Testament, just as an illustration for you to see what this looks like in life, in the Old Testament, we get a good contrast between what it looks like to pursue holiness and what it looks like to indulge the flesh. On one hand, King David was the king of Israel and he was supposed to be the model king. He was the better Saul. He was supposed to be the good king. Yet in the story we see that one day he was on the roof and minding his own business. And he lingered and he looked to something that he wanted and he took that sin. He indulged the flesh. And this sin that he committed as he lingered and took the sin led to a domino effect of destruction. Now, on the other hand, contrasted towards that lingering and indulging in the flesh, we see a man named Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph, you may know him by the coat of many colors, but you may not know that he was sold into slavery by his very brothers. And in that story we see that one day his master's wife wanted to have an inappropriate relationship with him. In contrast to what David did, Joseph ran in the opposite direction from that sin. He ran as far as he could from the sin that was in front of him, from what his flesh might have wanted to do. We see holiness in action when Joseph is given that opportunity and he runs. So David lingered and Joseph ran. So the question we need to wrestle with this morning is are we lingering in sin or are we running from sin? Ask yourself that this morning. Are you letting little sins into your life? Are you letting little sins into your family? Are you engaging in a secret sin that you think is no big deal that is pushing you away from the holiness of God? Parents and families, are we demonstrating what it looks like to live a holy life for our kids through our entertainment and through the things we discuss at the dinner table and the ways we treat people. Students are we truly understanding that sin seeks to destroy the sin that you see on social media the sin that we hear and when we talk about with our friends it seeks to destroy it is a danger to our soul. This week what are ways in which we as a church can pursue personal holiness in our life. Now this picture of holiness would be incomplete if you stop there because Peter keeps moving and he keeps moving into the idea of outward holiness. Now as the church developed in the first few centuries after Christ's resurrection there was many Christians that saw this call towards holiness that Peter gave in verse 11. Abstain from the sinful desires of your flesh. They saw this and their idea was if we just remove ourselves from the world we will not have to deal with the sinful desires of our flesh. Let's just live in caves, live in the desert they went out and these people were well meaning and I think the Lord used them in many ways but the problem is that that is not what Peter is calling us to this morning. If you keep going look at me in verse 12 he says that we should keep our conduct among the Gentiles honorable. And by Gentiles here he means in general the unbelieving world keep your conduct among the unbelieving world honorable. You see we should not hide from the world in our attempts to pursue this holiness but we should live in the world and as we live in the world we should pursue honor and holiness among all the people that we meet. As we interact with people who are not followers of Christ we show honor as we interact with people who say they're followers of Christ but do not act like followers of Christ we show honor and as we interact with people who are Christians true believers we show honor among all the people that we meet. This idea completes Peter's twofold vision of holiness it's an inward purging of the sin and at the same time it's an outward love and honor to those around us. Now I want to show you how important Peter truly views this idea of us living in the world and doing good things in the world and being honorable in the world is to Peter so look with me if you have your Bible. First we're going to look at verse 15 of chapter two just a couple verses down. Peter says for this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people we see this idea of doing good among the people. Go down to chapter three verse one Peter says likewise wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. And then last one verse 16 of chapter three Peter says having a good conscience so that when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. Here we see that clearly Peter believes that our actions among the Gentiles among the unbelieving world matter tremendously. This is because our actions reflect our identity in Christ they are a picture of our God to the believer when they see us they think of our God. Now I remember one time when this outward holiness was represented to me I saw it firsthand I was watching the show with a friend of mine and my roommate in college was in the room with us. And my roommate was a godly man he I respected him a ton he was mature behind his years and this show that I was watching it was one of those shows that you might have seen where it toes the line between inappropriate and appropriate. And you kind of get that tension in your heart like should I keep watching this should I stop I'm not really sure. And so I loved this show and I asked my roommate afterwards I was like did you like the show and he said well it was funny for sure I thought it was funny but honestly next time you guys watch it I'm just going to go to someone else's room you guys can keep watching it but I just feel this tension in my heart this conviction from the Holy Spirit that I should not be watching that show. Even though he thought it was hilarious he was still willing to forsake watching it based on his desire for holiness he was living out this desire of holiness in the world. He truly believed that his actions painted a picture of God to those around him. So if this is true that this that our actions paint a picture of God to those around us how is that picture to your friends how is that picture of God to your family members how is that picture of God to maybe the classmates in your school. Do people see you as basically the same as everyone else but maybe with some church activity thrown in there or do people see a marked difference in your life because of your identity in Christ. This morning what are ways in which us is a congregation what are ways in which you as a family or you as an individual can pursue good works towards the people that make it hardest for you to love them. Now at this point of the sermon I feel as though a lot of you are tired right you're hearing these words of of stain from the sinful desires be honorable in the world it's a lot of do this and don't do that and a lot of people are tired. They said man it sounds like a lot of work with no reward but we can't miss the why of the passage. We can't miss why Peter is saying we should do all of this because that will fuel us towards this holiness so read with me in verse 12. This is the why behind it Peter says we do all of this verse 12 so that when they speak against you as evil doers they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Have you ever realized that God may indeed use your actions to bring people to salvation? Have you ever realized the weight behind what you do as a Christian? What Peter is saying is most likely a reference to what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 you'll see it on the screen he's talking about his people being a city on a hill a light in dark places and he says in the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. People see your good works and they will glorify God on the day of visitation is what Peter says. Now we can't get it confused alright so focus in with me because we can't get it confused here the gospel will never ever be believed by anyone without someone sharing the gospel with them. No one believes Christ without first hearing the gospel it's not enough for people just to see your actions and believe in Christ they need to hear what Christ did for them from someone's mouth. That's what Paul says in Romans 10 he says faith comes through hearing hearing the message of Christ but at the same time we clearly see there's a tension here that God uses our good works as Christians coupled with the sharing of the good news to bring people to himself. So let me challenge you to realize the weight behind your actions as a believer in Christ. If you have people in your life that you wish to see saved if you have family members that you've been praying for this verse should matter to you that your actions could be used by God to bring them to salvation. When unbelievers see the church truly living out inward and outward holiness it is often compelling enough for them to ask what is different about them. Now some people maybe most people will revile us as evildoers that's what it says in the text when they revile you as evildoers now some people will do that but others will be curious when we truly live this holiness out but we must do that. We must be a church that truly abstains from the sinful desires of our flesh and lives honorably in the world. So we must ask ourselves this morning how can we put this into practice how can life church pursue holiness and honor in the world. Those of us who are teachers and elders in the church how can we model this and the things that we say and the entertainment we consume and in the ways in which we treat the people here at our church and the people in the community. For our families what are creative ways that we can do good works intentionally in the world for the sake of others. Now the reality here is that as we listen about holiness and we hear this taught Christians throughout the years have not practiced holiness well. You see there's often two spectrums that we find Christians on two ends of the spectrum on one end we have people that fall into legalism. Legalism it's my understanding from meeting some people who grew up in this area that this idea of legalism has been fairly prevalent within our churches throughout the years. Legalism is when you take something that is not specifically and explicitly commanded in the Bible and make it a command for the church. It's when everything about your faith becomes about laws do this and don't do that. It results in people being shamed for things that they should not feel shamed about it results in things that are matters of the conscience as Paul says are made commandments of the conscience. It results in people missing out on what Paul said is of surpassing worth which is knowing Christ Jesus himself. This often results unfortunately and people feeling hurt and jaded towards Christianity. Now that's legalism but on the other end of the spectrum we have something called license. This idea of license is super prevalent among Christians my age a lot of people that I know from college. It's forsaking holiness in view of God's grace. It's saying that God's grace gives us a license to sin. Pastor Kevin DeYoung shares my concern about young people forsaking holiness. He says this I have a growing concern that younger evangelicals do not take seriously the Bible's call towards personal holiness. We are to at peace with worldliness in our homes to at ease with sin in our lives and to content with spiritual immaturity in our churches. This license viewing so heavily on the idea that God's grace covers our sin that it rejects our need to abstain from sin. These people would argue that sin is more nuanced than you would think and because God's grace covers it all anyway we should not feel this tension to abstain from sin. We should feel more freedom. This leads the church to looking exactly like the world around us. And it is what Paul clearly called us away from in Romans chapter 6 verse 1. He says by no means should we live this way. So what's the middle ground Peter here is advocating for the middle ground a gospel holiness if you will. This view of holiness is not solely focused on the do this and not that as maybe a legalist would read in this passage. But Peter also isn't afraid to use the word abstain from the sinful desires of your flesh which would make the license people cringe a little bit. The key to this middle ground this gospel holiness that we should seek is the roots of gospel holiness. Peter's view of holiness is rooted in our identity as believers. You see we can't read this passage outside of its context or we might end up in one of these two spectrums. We have to read it in view of what we read last week in verses 9 and 10 we saw who we are in Christ. We live out holiness out of a correct understanding of what Christ has done for us. Christ died for your sin. Your sin was placed on his shoulders on the cross. He took the punishment for our sins and rose on the third day creating a new people, a holy priesthood just like we saw last week. And this is why we desire holiness. This is why we go out of our way to be honorable in the world. It is because the one who purchased us with his blood is holy and calls us to be holy as well. We desire to be holy because he is worthy of our worship. He is worthy of our very lives. This is gospel holiness. Pursue holiness in your life but never forget why you are pursuing holiness. It is because of our identity in Christ. [BLANK_AUDIO]
