Speaker: Um, hey, there's been a lot of talk about peace in the news recently.
In fact, that kind of seems to be what Trump wants his
second term to be known by.
He's been working hard with Zelensky and Putin.
In fact, just this last week, he was on the phone with Putin
and the meeting with Zelensky.
Uh, he worked out peace or helped to negotiate peace
between a Azerbaijan and Armenia.
He's been working with a, a border dispute between, uh,
Thailand and uh, and Cambodia.
And then most recently, kind of the biggest splash he made was
the agreement to a ceasefire at least between, uh, Gaza and Israel.
And that saw the exchange of the prisoners of war that Israel had and the hostages
that Gaza was holding at the time.
Uh, but, but it seems that he really wants to be known as a president of
peace, at least during this second term.
But I think as, as Christians, as much as we can champion peace, we have
to ask ourselves, what if there's a peace that we're not supposed to have?
What if there's a peace that we're not supposed to pursue?
What if there's a peace that if, if we are pursuing that peace, we'll find that
not only are we dishonoring the Lord, but we're putting our very souls in danger.
What if until we go to be with Jesus life here with Christ is
really meant to be life at war?
I'm not talking about conflict between nations or people groups
anymore, but the tension that needs to exist and should exist.
The feeling that every believer should have between, uh, the
existence of light and dark, good and evil, the spirit and the flesh.
This tension that happens when we become a new creation in Christ,
when things shift in our point of view, shifts such that now we live
this life with Jesus as life at war.
Peter's already told us this world is not gonna be our home.
He's gonna revisit that in our text.
He's gonna expound upon that and say, not only are we exiles and
sojourner, but we are exiles and sojourner behind enemy lines.
And so as we navigate this life with Jesus, we navigate it as life at war.
Pick up in one Peter, chapter two.
We're gonna be in verses 11 and 12.
Peter Rice.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the
passions of your 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.
So Peter begins and he says, beloved, I urge you as Sojourner and exiles.
This is something that he's hit on already.
He's started the letter by saying to the elect, exile.
We already mentioned that they were literal exiles.
They had been resettled away from their homes and settled in the
region of Asia Minor, and that was probably a political move.
They were the persona non grata within Rome.
The, the Christians were already beginning to be looked down upon at this time,
they're gonna be really persecuted under Niro's reign, which is on the
doorstep of what we're reading right now.
Uh, but they were exiles.
They were actual, literal exiles.
But more than that, Peter wanted them to understand their
identity as spiritual exiles.
And that's how he wants us to understand our identities as well.
That as we read this, it was written to an original audience almost 2000
years ago, but by the spirit, it applies to us where we sit today.
And so as we read, Peter addressed them as Sojourner and Exiles.
It applies to you and me as well, in what sense them?
Well, we talked about the word exile.
To be an exile is to be away from home.
But now he introduces another word here, the word sojourner.
And the word sojourner is from a compound Greek word that means to live
alongside of, if you've been around our area in this culture, you, you've seen
that there have been a lot of people from other nations and other cultures
moving to North Texas and, and one of the things about that is that they
have not necessarily moved here to just assimilate and blend into the rest of
what our culture has always looked like.
Right.
And, and so even this weekend is the Festival of Diwali.
It's a festival of light in the Hindu religion.
And so there are neighbors that you may have that are celebrating, right?
That right now, I know when my wife and I go for walks in our neighborhood,
we'll often see there are older Indian couples that are walking around in
their full dress, in their full garb.
See, they have brought their culture here.
They are living alongside us.
They are among us, but they're not necessarily of us.
Just by the, the, the nature of the fact that they're here, they're
here as Sojourner, and, and they stand out as a result of that.
Yes, church, we need to stand out in the world in which we live in the same way.
We're not here to amalgamate to the culture.
We're not here to assimilate to the culture.
We're not here to just blend in with the world and just ride
it out until Jesus comes back.
We're here to be those that are by definition and by
identity, exiles and Sojourner.
But why is Peter writing to a group that were literal exiles
and sojourner and stressing this?
Again, they knew that there were exiles and sojourner.
This is not news to them in any way, shape, or form.
I think the reason he is doing this is because it wasn't so much that he was
concerned that they would forget that there were exiles, but that they might
grow too comfortable in their exile and forget that they were spiritual exiles
and not just any spiritual exiles, but spiritual exiles behind enemy lines.
Peter is building on something that, that Paul has already talked
about back in Ephesians chapter six.
Paul says that we as Christians need to put on the armor of God every single day.
He says, because why?
Because we are at war every single day.
Not against flesh and blood, he says, but against the spiritual
forces at work in this world.
The evening before D-Day, the men of Easy Company of the hundred
first Airborne were airdropped.
They were parachuted into enemy lines, enemy territory, and they had a mission.
Their mission was to soften the defenses of Germany such that the
allies, when they landed on Normandy, would have an easier time to try to
penetrate the defenses and get inland.
You had these paratroopers who were dropped in the middle of the night
with anti-aircraft fire and everything else going on into enemy territory.
And you know what they did when they hit the ground as exiles
and sojourner behind enemy lines?
It's not as though they thought to themselves, where can we
get a good beignet in France?
They didn't think, you know, let's go try.
Let's go on a coffee crawl.
Let's go find the the cute coffee shops in the area and get some, some caffeine.
They hit the ground understanding they were there on mission.
They hit the ground understanding.
We're in hostile territory and we have to be aware of that.
If we're gonna be effective in our mission, if we're gonna survive doing
what we are called to do, we're here.
And we have to understand that we have to be those that are exiles and
sojourner and we need to be aware of that.
Y'all, God has put his church behind enemy lines as well with
the mission for her to carry out.
We are here as exiles, those that aren't at home.
We are here as Sojourner living among, living next to living alongside of
the world, and yet not of the world.
And as we think about life with Christ being life at war, it's
so important that as we fight, we fight to maintain that distinction.
Our first point this morning is this, fight the temptation
to make yourself at home.
Fight the temptation to make yourself at home.
Amanda, and I'm a, my wife and I were 31 before we bought our first house.
And before that we lived in rental homes, in, uh, rental
town homes, things like that.
And I, I remember when we bought our first house, it was in Arizona.
The first thing, one of the first projects that we did is there was carpeting right
in the, the, the front entry room there.
And we decided, you know what?
We're gonna tear this carpeting up and we're gonna put down
vinyl flooring instead.
My dad helped us and we tore the carpet up and we scraped the glue
and we put down the vinyl plank flooring and we did the leveling
agent before we put down the flooring.
But it was a beast of a job.
And it was one that was like, are we gonna be able to do this?
I don't know.
This is, this is a lot.
This is a big undertaking, but I tell you what, it was rewarding to do it.
And the reason why we did it, and the reason why we put in the sweat equity and
the financial equity into putting down this new flooring in this house that we
bought is because we bought the house.
It was home.
It was ours.
We've lived in plenty of rental places, including when we just
moved out from here, back here from California, where you can't buy a
house with all of Donald Trump's money.
Um, and that's just a starter home.
Uh, we, we rented while we were there and we rented this home that was built
in the 1960s, and it was this level, like they, we had a, a leak in the home
that they had to come repair and they had to check the house for asbestos
before they would repair the leak.
And thankfully there was no asbestos, so that's a win.
But there were plenty of things about that house that we would've loved to change.
But we didn't.
Why?
Because we were renters.
We knew this wasn't our permanent home.
We didn't have an ownership.
We were just there temporarily.
It was a place we were thankful for.
It was a place we made use of.
It was a place that we stewarded, but you're gonna treat a rental property
different than you're gonna treat a place that you own Christians.
We are renting in this world.
We're, we're not owners here.
We're not here to change out the wallpaper.
We're not here to put down new flooring in this temporary abode.
And if we forget this first point that we are sojourner and exiles, we can be
tempted as we're here, as those that are, are not of the world, to make
ourselves at home here and, and we can try to get so comfortable with the
world that we're asking the world about, well, what do you think about this paint
shade that I want to paint my walls?
It's hard in our context.
Let's just admit it.
It's hard here in North Texas to feel like an exile and a sojourner, let
alone one living behind enemy lines.
Every single one, one of us in this room are, are, are comfortable,
especially when you consider that by the world's standards.
You have food on your table, you have water that runs, you have a
roof over your head, you have clothes to put on, you have transportation
to get to church this morning.
It, it's hard for us to feel comfortable or not to feel rather comfortable here.
It's hard for us to feel like an exile in a soldier, not to feel the
temptation to make ourself at home.
And, and, and it's not that I'm saying that it's wrong
to invest in your community.
It's not that at all.
I'm, I'm also not saying that's wrong, to enjoy the home that God
has given you and blessed you with or the things that God has given you.
So long as we do that vigilantly watching to make sure that it's
not luring us to store up our treasures here instead of there.
That's what Jesus told us to do In the Sermon on the Mount.
He said this, he said, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth
where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves can break in and steal.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal for.
And this is the kicker here where your heart is or where your treasure is.
There, your heart will be also.
We have to make sure that we are not making a home for our heart on this earth.
We are.
We have to make sure that, that we are sojourner and exiles, that
when it comes to our heart, our heart is home with Jesus, not here.
And so we have to guard against storing up treasures for ourselves here, making
ourselves comfortable and at home here.
What does that look like?
How do I know if I'm in danger of that?
Well, here's some good diagnostic questions for us.
We often talk about, as Christians, our time, talent, and treasure,
time, talent, and treasure.
So think about your time.
Do you find that you spend your time more on temporal things with a temporal
mindset about those things than you do?
Spending your time thinking about how it impacts eternity, how the use of
the time that God has given you impacts what eternity is gonna be like for you?
Same with your talent, the gifts that God has given you.
Are you using the talent, the gifts that God has given you for temporal gain, for
temporal status, for temporal fame, for temporal treasures more than you are using
those gifts with the eternal mindset?
I'm not just talking about serving within the church, I'm talking about
even the gifts that God has given you in your intellect and in your
personality that have put you in the position that you are at work.
I mean, are you working in order to build your earthly kingdom or are you
working in order to build God's kingdom?
Third, your, your treasure.
Are you using the money that God has given you strictly for temporal
pleasures with a temporal mindset?
Or are you using those resources that God has given you to
make an impact in eternity?
In fact, in Matthew, that's the context here.
Jesus goes on to say, you cannot serve two masters.
You cannot love both God and money and, and so as Christians,
we are sojourner and exiles.
We are here not to be at home, but to remember we're not at home.
In fact, that's why Pastor Rod read two Corinthians chapter four through
chapter five in that text there, because that's what Paul's talking about there.
He says, man, this, this body is a tent, but God's got a building for me.
He says, man, I, I'm, I'm here, and while I'm here, I'm away from the Lord.
And he says, man, I I, I would rather be with the Lord than to be here.
Yeah, while I'm here, I'm gonna make it my aim to please him.
But I wonder, and here's another question, maybe another diagnostic question.
Can we say with Paul, like he says there, that we would rather be away
from the body and at home with the Lord, and that will reveal right there
whether or not we're home here or whether we're thinking about home there.
And, and again, we have to fight for that mentality.
We have to fight for that mindset because it is so easy to be comfortable here.
We don't need to despise those blessings.
We can be grateful for those blessings.
But one thing that comes with it is it's harder for us to think about how
much better it's gonna be with Jesus than it is for somebody who has to walk
five miles each way every day just to get water for their family, to be able
to have something to drink, and we have to work, we have to fight for that.
The, the attitude that Paul has in Second Corinthians chapter
four, I don't think that's just for Paul or for elite Christians.
All of us.
Paul says in Philippians chapter one even, he says, you know what?
I don't know whether I'm gonna live or die.
And I'm hard pressed between the two because I know for me to live and and to
remain here means fruitful labor for you.
But man, I tell you what, I'd rather depart and go to be with Jesus
because he says that is far better.
Yeah, it's one thing to say that's far better when you're in jail.
It's another thing to say that's far better.
When you've got your house and you've got your car and you've got your family,
and you've got the successful kids and you've got everything that you need.
Can we still say in that moment, man, it's far better to be with Jesus.
That's the mentality, that's the mindset that we have to fight for.
And again, I'm not calling us to a macab and depressed life
here, but exactly the opposite.
I'm calling you to realize, man, as good as you may have it right now,
heaven's gonna be so much better.
As sweet as your family may be to you right now, being with
Jesus is gonna be so much better.
And so fighting as those that are behind enemy lines, as exiles, as
soner, to make sure that, that we are not making ourselves at home
here because as Christians, there's been a seismic shift in our life.
When we come to faith in Christ, we have death to life.
We go from darkness to light.
We go from old to new.
We go from at home in this world and alienated from the Lord to at home with
the Lord, and alienated from this world, and we have to fight for that mentality.
Life with Jesus is life at war, and the first battle is the battle
against the temptation to make ourselves at home in this life.
One of the men of Easy Company was a guy named Shifty Powers, which if we were
still having kids, might be a contender.
Shifty Powers Burner.
Yeah.
I mean, shifty Powers just cool name.
He was known for his keen eyesight.
He was a sharpshooter.
In fact, there's a, a scene in Band of Brothers where he takes out a sniper
that was pinning down American troops.
But there's another story about shifty powers that's not
told in the, the mini series.
And it, this one just is one of those like, wow, that's amazing.
So during the Battle of the Bulge in the forest of the den, when,
when he was in, amidst all of these trees, you, you have to picture it,
they were trees all around them.
Dense, thick forests.
And, and the, the American forces were pinned down.
They were in foxholes.
And so from the foxholes, some of their, their, the troops, their job at the front
of the foxhole line was to keep an eye out on the, the enemy line, on the defenses
to make sure that they weren't coming at them, to make sure that they didn't
need to all of a sudden get the troops ready because here was coming an attack.
Well, on one of those watches, shifty was in his foxhole and, and, and shifty called
his sergeant and said, Sarge, there's a tree there that wasn't there before.
He's in a forest, y'all.
The enemy line was over a mile away, and he's saying, Sarge, there's
a tree that wasn't there before.
You can imagine that the Sarge was probably like, okay,
it's time to swap you out.
Time to get a different guy in here.
But because of who it was and because of how keen his eye eyesight was, the Sarge
said, okay, let's, let's investigate.
So upon investigation, they found that the Germans had moved anti-aircraft
artillery into that position.
They had dis disguised with a tree that wasn't there before.
And so because of shifty power's, keen vigilance and eyesight, the Americans
were able to train their artillery on that location and blow up this
anti anti-aircraft munitions station that the Germans had placed there.
That would've potentially turned the tide of, of at least that battle, if not more.
All because shifty saw a tree that wasn't there the day before.
As we continue in our text here, Peter is gonna tell us that we are at war.
Look at in, in verse 11, he says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners an exiles to
abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
And so here's the thing, church, we have to be on the lookout
for the attacks of the enemy.
As keenly, as shifty was watching those woods,
I think we understand.
The battle that we face against the big ticket items in our life, such that,
man, if you're in one of those foxholes and you're looking out there, and the,
here come, the German tanks, you're gonna be like, ah, we're in trouble.
There's tanks coming.
Or, or all of a sudden they just start charging, uh uh, the enemy's coming.
They're charging at us.
We need to be ready.
There are things in your life as a Christian that you guard
against that you're going, okay, I, I, I know the big ticket items.
I'm not gonna do these things, but we also need to be on guard.
Perhaps even more vigilantly.
Vigilantly against the smaller things.
We have to watch the perimeters.
We have to notice the tree that wasn't there the day before.
We have to have that level of awareness against the passions of our flesh because
they are waging war against our souls.
We are at war, we are behind enemy lines, and one of the greatest enemies that
we face, y'all, is the enemy within.
Peter says, I urge you.
It's a word that means I beg you, I plead you.
I implore with you.
I beg you, I urge you, I plead with you.
I, I, I implore you as sojourners in exiles to abstain from that
means to keep away from, to avoid, to maintain your distance.
From then he says the passions of the flesh.
We've seen that term passions before, back in chapter one, verse
14, where Peter said there that we needed to be on guard against the
passions of our former ignorance.
It's the same word.
It's the word epit.
Theia in the Greek, which means desire, lust, or craving.
And Peter says, we have desires, we have lust, we have cravings inherent to
our old man, to the flesh that we have to be on guard against as Christians.
And so as Christians, though, the old man has been crucified
with Christ, the vestiges of the old man still remain such that.
We have to realize that there are things that we once crave
that we should no longer crave.
There are things that we once desire that we should no longer desire.
And here's the hard reality is we're still going to face the
temptation for those things.
We're, we're still going to be lured, we're still gonna be enticed by those
things, and yet what we have to do is be on guard looking for the tree
that wasn't there the day before.
So much so that we recognize them now for what they are.
And we recognize that the enemy conceals behind the lure of
the sin, the hook of death.
And so as Christians, we have to be on guard.
We have to abstain from these fleshly passions, which he goes on
to say, wage war against your soul.
And, and that's not an over translation, by the way.
That's what the word means.
It means to go to battle against, to fight in a, in an army is
what the Greek word means.
The noun version is to be a commander of an army.
And so Peter is saying there is a battle.
There is a war that we, as exiles and Sojourner are a part of whether
we want to be or not, because we're new creations in Christ.
There's been a shift, there's been a, a break with the old, and now
we are new, and yet the vestiges of the old are still here and they
want to take us out at every turn.
And so we have to go to war because they're waging war against our
soul, not just the immaterial part of us, but the whole being.
The whole person.
Paul instructs believers to flee from sexual immorality.
He tells them to flee from youthful passions, to flee from idolatry.
Yesterday with our, our men Pastor, rod preached on the fact that Joseph
fled from the lures in the enticing looks and words of Potiphar's wife.
But if we think back to King David, we remember a story where David did not flee.
And fell into sin and suffered the consequences for it.
We know what it means to abstain or to flee, for example, for an alcoholic.
Abstaining from alcohol is not still going to the bar with his drinking
buddies, but just promising that he's not gonna have a drink this time.
For the glutton abstaining is, is not going to the all you can eat
buffet, but promising that all you're gonna do is go to the salad bar.
For the man enslaved to lust.
Abstaining is not turning on Game of Thrones, but promising yourself.
You're not gonna watch the bad scenes.
None of those things are abstaining.
None of those things are fleeing.
None of those things are keeping away from, and we know what it is to flee and
what it is to abstain from something.
And so did Peter.
And that's exactly how he says we need to fight against these passions.
Waging war against our souls.
Life with Christ is life at war, and we have to fight by remembering we're not at
home and because we're not at home, those fleshly lusts that were once at home in
this world are at war within our souls.
And so we have to fight against those.
Point number two this morning is this fight faithfully by fleeing from sin.
Fight faithfully by fleeing from sin.
In a regular battle, the side that runs is not often the victorious side.
The side that flees is usually considered.
The, the losing side, the side that retreats is the side that has
withdrawn from the battle, and yet the biblical paradigm that Peter
gives us and that Paul also gives us.
That the, the paradigm for fighting Biblically is indeed
to flee, is indeed to abstain.
And that is what victory looks like for the Christian.
It doesn't look like white knuckling it through the temptation and saying,
well, I'm gonna resist and I'm gonna show myself that I can overcome.
If we do that, more often than not, we're gonna be like King David.
But rather it's to say, no, I'm gonna get out of here.
You wonder if King Solomon's wisdom on this came from King David.
He was teaching his sons in Proverbs, chapter five, and he says this, for the
lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,
but in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death.
Her steps follow the path to shield.
She does not potter the path of life.
Her ways wander and she does not know it.
Then he turns to his sons and he instructs them.
He says, now, oh, sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
And then he says this, just be careful when you go next to her house.
Hey, just be careful not to get too close to her.
That's not what he says at all.
He says this, he says, keep your way far from her and don't
go near the door of her house.
Then he goes on to list the consequences that come with drifting too close to sin.
And so Christian to flee, to run is not weakness, but victory.
It's strength to abstain from the fleshly lust, which wage war against your soul.
Because again, those lusts want you to fall.
They want your downfall.
They want you feeling distant and guilty and condemned and deadened to the spirit.
There's nothing to be gained by flirting with lust, everything to be lost.
It's not a weakness to fight for the purity of your soul, even if that means
limiting yourself and the access to things that other people get to enjoy.
For example, if you struggle with lust, it's not weakness to get off
social media or to install a covenant I accountability filter on your technology
or to get rid of the internet altogether.
That's not weakness.
That's victory.
If you struggle with materialism.
It's not weakness to cut up the credit card.
It's not weakness to put yourself on a cash budget.
It's not weakness to take some of those things that once promised
satisfaction and turn around and, and sell them to say no satisfaction
is ultimately found in Christ.
If you're somebody whose battle is with food, with gluttony,
it's not weakness to throw out the cookies in the ice.
The bags of chips and the other foods that may call to you and promise
satisfaction at the bottom of an empty container that never comes.
That's not weakness, that's victory.
If you struggle with laziness, laziness or sloth, it's not weakness to delete the
apps off your phone that distract you.
It's not weakness to put in screen time limits and give somebody else the
passcode to those screen time limits so that you can be more productive,
be more present with your family.
Get more done for the Lord.
That's not weakness, that's victory.
Beloved, I urge you abstain from these things.
Your flesh has been crucified with Christ, and yet, until we leave this earth to
go to be with Jesus, the vestiges of the old man are still present in our
lives and they're still gonna fight.
They're still gonna wage war against us.
What we have here, y'all, is an examine a, a chance to examine our lives.
To see if we are indeed in Christ.
If we are, the battle is going to be evident.
If you're fighting, that's a good thing.
If you feel the tension, you can know that that tension is there because you
are a new creation and the passions of your flesh are waging war against you.
What should be concerning for you this morning is if you don't feel
the fight at all, if there's no battle, if there's no tension.
If you've rolled out the welcome map for sin, it may be that
you're not in Christ at all.
Jesus said in Mark chapter nine and elsewhere, he said, if your hand
causes you to sin, cut it off for.
It's better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go
to hell to the unquenchable fire.
If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off for.
It's better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.
If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.
It's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to
be thrown into hell where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
In other words, Christian Jesus wants us to treat every, every vestige of
sin in our life radically because of the threat it poses to us.
Go after it.
Get rid of it.
Eradicate it from your life anywhere it's found.
And a few chapters, Peter's gonna tell us that Satan is like a roaring lion
prowling around seeking someone to devour.
And while we, we have to understand Satan is not omnipresent, right?
So Satan can only have one target at a time 'cause he's bound in space.
But Satan does have a legion of demons at his disposal, and I firmly
believe that those demons are fixed upon our church and upon you and me.
Part of the job that those demons have been tasked with, and part
of the disposal that they have and the time that they have is to study
you and to know your weaknesses.
And so I say that Christian, not so that you can say, well, the devil
made me do it, but so that you're aware that the devil and his demons
know what your weaknesses are.
And they will exploit them.
They will exploit them to get you to think, well, one
more time isn't gonna hurt.
Or to get you to think, you know what, after all, Jesus died on the cross.
For my sins, I'm forgiven.
So what does it matter?
If I sin this time, I can't outs send his grace.
Such a mentality and such a mindset can lead to to devastating consequences,
even just for the believer.
As we think about some of the consequences of what it looks like,
if we don't flee from sin, if we give in sin, your conscience can be
deadened to the spirit's influence.
You're not soft to the conviction of the spirit, the
prompting of the spirit anymore.
Another consequence might be that you're kept from fellowship with the the saints
of God because you feel a guilt that you would say, I, I don't really want
to be around God's people right now.
Another consequence is being kept from the word of God.
'cause you feel like, man, how can I read the Bible after I just did what I just did
after I just thought what I just thought after I just said what I just said.
Another consequence is a damaged testimony in the eyes of the world.
So
what do we do?
How do we flee?
What does this look like?
Few thoughts for us.
First, know your weak spots and be proactive.
Know your weak spots.
Be a student of yourself.
Strive to know yourself better than the enemy knows you.
Know where those weak spots spots are and be proactive and, and y'all
be honest with yourself in this.
Put protections in place that you need in place.
Plan another route.
Don't go near her house.
Expect the temptation to come in these areas.
You know, these are your weak spots.
Don't be caught off guard.
Don't be like, whoa, I didn't even see that coming when it's already
happened to you a hundred times before.
Know your weak spots and be proactive against them.
Second, take every threat seriously.
Take every threat seriously.
Again, this is the idea of go of, of cutting off the hand of, of
gouging out the eye, looking for the tree that wasn't there yesterday.
Not letting any sin in, in the perimeter of your life and thinking, well, it's
not that big of a deal because it's not as big as this sin over here.
This sin over here that you're thinking about that's so big
started as this sin over here that you think is no big deal today.
So take every threat seriously.
Be willing to go without for the sake of your holiness, for the sake
of your relationship with Christ.
If that means you're gonna go without internet or social
media, or alcohol or dessert or fantasy sports, go without them.
It's worth the trade off for being faithful to the Lord.
Not being blindsided by her sin.
Third is this fight daily.
Fight daily.
Pastor Rod said yesterday in the message, no days off, and that's, that's just it.
There's a famous picture of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston
on the mat, and he's standing over Sonny Liston on the mat Yes.
To, to, to flex over him, but more so to make sure what that Sonny
Liston doesn't get up off the mat.
Yo, whatever sin comes at you, whatever your struggles are, you
have to stand over them and make sure they don't get back up off the mat.
As soon as you turn around and go back to celebrate over here, that sins
gonna get up and cold cock you in the back of your head and you're gonna be
on the mat going, what just happened?
And so there's no days off.
We have to fight daily.
We have to fight vigilantly and, and if you're thinking,
man, this feels exhausting.
I, I think you get it.
And I think that's one reason why elderly saints are so ready to go be with Jesus.
'cause they're like, man, I'm so ready to be done with this flesh.
I can't wait to go be with him.
That's one of the reasons why heaven is gonna be so sweet, y'all.
You're not gonna have to battle this temptation anymore.
You're not gonna be at war anymore while we're here.
Yeah, life with Christ is life at war, but that at that time, it's
not gonna be life at war anymore.
For now, though, we have to fight daily forth.
Repent quickly.
When you fall to, to temptation.
When you sin, be quick to repent.
Don't give up.
Don't buy the lie that change is impossible.
Don't buy the lie that, well, today's a lost cause.
Don't buy the lie that tomorrow will be different.
Repent, quickly.
Come to the cross.
Find forgiveness that is there in abundance because
of the sacrifice of Christ.
Fifth, fight in community.
Use your church.
Don't fight alone.
Remember the context of everything we're looking at right now is the church.
And we get to do this within community, within the bride of Christ, and
that's why having relationships with one another is so important.
Why we stress community groups?
Because you can be known and know one another to this level and have
people that are willing to fight with you and fight for you and to pray
for you, and you can pray for them.
Such an important part of our ability to fleece sin is not fighting by ourselves.
Don't fight in secret.
Don't fight in quiet.
Don't fight in solitude.
The enemy watch you there.
But when you come into the light and when you come into the body of
Christ, you are gonna find strength there that the enemy cannot withstand.
And so fight with your church.
Fight in community.
This is the task of the believer.
John Owen said it this way, he said, do you mortify?
Do you make it your daily work?
Be always at it while you live.
Cease, not a day from this work.
Be killing sin or it will be killing you.
This is our task church.
As we fight faithfully by fleeing sin, we do so because we are at
war against the fleshly passions, which wage war against our soul,
and so we fight and so we battle.
And this battle with sin will persist as long as we're here and
as long as we're here, we have an another side of that battle as well.
And if I can put it this way, the, the other side of that battle is the,
the positive side of that battle.
And Pastor Ra alluded to it earlier as we were talking about scripture reading and,
and during his prayer that we are here with a mission and during announcement,
so to, to reach, teach, and train, to go after the lost in the world around us.
And Peter shifts to that focus here in verse 12.
He says, keep your conduct among the en, 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.
Peter says, keep your conduct, keeping your conduct.
It's a part of simple, but it has a command force to it 'cause it's connected
back to the phrase I urge you to abstain.
So keep your conduct, which is your conduct, your way of life,
your behavior, how you live.
Keep this honorable among the Gentiles.
The word honorable there is from the, the Greek that means
good, beautiful, commendable.
And so he says, keep your conduct good or beautiful or commendable so that
when they speak against you as evil doers, they may ultimately have reason
to glorify God on the day of visitation.
We'll get to that in just a second, but, but good behavior
in the eyes of the Gentiles.
In other words, what Peter is saying here is that the Christian
can live a life in part, at least.
Such that even the world will look at what you do and say, that's good.
Now, that's not holistic.
There's a lot about our lives that the world is not gonna like.
We'll talk about that in just a minute.
But there are things that we can do that Peter is saying that, that the world
will look at even and say, you know what?
This is good.
And he says, we're we're supposed to do this because the other side of this is
they will speak against us as evil doers.
So there's a call on us to make sure that, that we are doing things in
such a way as to mitigate some of their slander of us and our savior.
Put it this way for the final point this morning.
It's this fight to silence the slandering of our savior.
Fight to silence the slandering by the world that is of our savior.
The world is going to attack us.
That's meant from the very outset.
He says so that when they speak against you as evil doers, this is the reality
the church faced from the get go.
The early church faced accusations of cannibalism because people
didn't understand communion.
They faced accusations of incest and godless immorality again because they
didn't understand Christian fellowship.
Roman historian TAUs described the Christians as those
loathed for their vices.
Loathed for their vices.
And yet in the face of such hostility, Peter's saying that we can live a
life that is honorable, such that it's going to mitigate some of that attack.
In other words, the way you live reflects on Jesus and his bride.
The way you live in your neighborhoods, in your communities, on the road
reflects back on Jesus and his bride.
And unfortunately, we have seen plenty of examples of failures that have
brought shame upon the bride of Christ.
We've seen a rash of pastors disqualifying themselves from ministry, bringing
shame upon the bride of Christ in the name of Christ, and giving the
world ammunition to slander Jesus.
Beyond that, there's the general perceived hypocrisy of Christians in the world.
When you tell somebody who's an unbeliever that you're a Christian, it's
no longer thought of as an honorable thing, but the assumption is, well,
you must think you're holier than me.
You're a fraud.
You're a hypocrite.
Beyond that.
There's just the, the general tide of, of cultural Christianity that I think has
brought shame upon the name of Christ.
It's easy.
Nothing is really required of me to be a Christian.
I'm a Christian 'cause I'm born in Texas.
I'm a Christian because I've always gone to church my whole life.
I, I love Jesus and I cuss a little that, that does immense
damage to the name of Jesus.
Church, the, the way you live reflects on Jesus and his bride.
And so Peter's command is that we would rob the world of reasons to slander
Christ, or at least not give them extra ammunition beyond what they already have.
I mentioned earlier there's some common ground things that we can
do that the world would even say.
Yeah, that's good.
For example, your driving habits,
stepping on toes, getting in kitchens.
Right.
We have these Compass Bible Church bumper stickers, which if we're your church
home, we would love for you to get one and put it on the back of your car.
You say, well, pastor, I don't think you want me driving the way
I drive with a sticker on my car.
I do.
I just want you to change the way you drive.
But there's, there's a way that, picture this, you're on the freeway and, and
the lane giant signs for like the last 30 miles left lane, closed ahead.
It and like a hu sane human being.
You got over in plenty of time with, uh, plenty of room.
But here comes, you know, that guy and everybody's there and, and he's
like, how close can I get my car?
To the cone that's about to, um, run into and to your front end of your car and in
your flesh you have the the choice there to go, how jerky do I want to be today?
Also, how much do I like my car?
Or maybe you back off and, and just out of kindness, you let that person in and
maybe they, they wave to you, whatever.
And then you, you go and you happen to then drive by them on the side
because you know everything works out and they get stuck in traffic and you
can pass by them on the other side.
And as you pass by, they see Compass Bible Church on the back of your car and they
think, oh man, that person goes to church.
And they were so kind to let me in as the world being able to
see something that's good, right.
Or just being a nice person.
Opening the door for somebody, being kind to somebody saying hi to somebody.
Treating your, your barista like a human being.
You know these things.
Helping the needy, being a kind neighbor.
Teaching your kids to be respectful.
Being respectful on social media, right?
There are things that we can do as, as Christians that even the world would
look at and say that, that's good.
That's commendable.
Don't hear me say that.
That's gonna keep them from attacking us.
'cause it's not.
They're still gonna hate us for plenty of reasons.
And Jesus said, expect that.
Jesus said in John 15, the world's gonna hate you because the world what hated me.
Right?
Uh, Paul said that anyone who desires to live a godly life in
Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
There's, there's no question there.
So even if you're kind and polite and generous and patient.
When you stand for the things that God loves, when you stand for
what's biblically right and true, you will draw the ire of the world.
They are gonna hate you for it.
When you stand up and say, God's definition of marriage
is one man, one woman, period, end of story, no compromise.
The world's gonna hate you for that.
When you stand up and say there are two genders, and God does not make
mistakes, the gender that you are born with is the gender God designed for
you to have and should not be altered.
The world is gonna call you transphobic.
They're gonna hate you for this.
When you stand up and you say, you know what, abortion is wrong, period.
People are gonna say You hate women.
They're gonna call you legalistic for your sexual ethic.
They're gonna call you judgemental for your refusal to
participate in their dark deeds.
So I'm not saying that the world is not gonna come after us.
In fact, Peter says they are going to speak of you as evil doers.
Just let's not give them extra ammunition in that process.
I've extended family who's cut off communication with
me because I'm a believer.
In fact, my family and I went across the country to vacation in Washington,
DC last summer where one of my family members lives and it was thought better
for, for from their point of view that they didn't want to get together with us.
Because they have a situation in their family that they know that
as Christians we disagree with, and so they didn't wanna be around us.
So then, okay, if the world's gonna hate me that way, why?
Why?
Why even try?
Why bother with honorable behavior?
Why should I care then what the world thinks of me?
If Jesus said, the world is gonna hate you, if Paul said, we're
gonna be persecuted, why do I even bother being a nice person or being
somebody with honorable behavior?
In the midst of this world, why not just retreat to our holy huddles and
say, let's just hang out here until Jesus comes back because of what
he says in the rest of the verse.
He says, so that when they speak of you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds
and glorify God on the day of visitation.
The day of visitation.
This is where it gets a little tricky.
There are two possible meanings, although one that I think Peter had in mind,
the two possible meanings are this.
First it it, it could mean the day of visitation in the sense that.
This is the day of salvation when God in his grace and by his mercy, opens
the blind eyes to see the light of the gospel and to come to faith in Jesus
Christ as the Lord's savior, such that your honorable behavior, and Peter's
gonna imply that this is even something that's reasonable, he is gonna say
in chapter three, we need to be ready to give a reason for the hope that's
within us, to give a defense for that.
Such that when you live an honorable life.
And when you suffer well, which is the context that he's talking about
there, uh, people are gonna look at the things that you do, your behavior and
say, why are you the way that you are?
And you're gonna have a platform for the gospel.
Or he's gonna say later that wives might win their husbands without a
word through their honorable behavior.
And so that, that is a possibility.
I think here though, what Peter has in mind though is the day of visitation.
Being the the day of judgment.
Either way, we want to live honorably because it's gonna ultimately result
in the persecution of the world turning to the praise of our God.
Our hope is that this happens before they die.
Our hope is as, as we live as, as those that are commendable, as we live, as
those that are honorable in this world, as we live as lights, that that would
be a platform for us to also proclaim the good news that if you repent
from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
There's hope and there's forgiveness, and there's an eternity with him,
and there's forgiveness to be found.
That's our hope, that's our mission.
We're reaching and teaching and training and that that's what we're about.
That's why we're still here as the church.
Yet, if it's not that they're one.
Now, Peter's telling us that part of their judgment on the day of visitation is that
they're gonna think back about your life.
They're gonna think back about how you lived.
They're think, gonna think back about the honorable things that you did.
They're gonna think back about the things that they slandered you for.
And as they stand before a holy God on that final day of judgment,
their accusations of you are gonna turn to adoration of your God.
'cause they're gonna get it.
At that point, they're gonna understand.
I know why he lived that way.
I know why she believed that.
I know why they wouldn't go along with what I wanted them to go along with.
I know what's true now, and Peter's saying that that's gonna
result in the glory of God.
Again, our prayer is that that happens on this side of eternity, and
that's why church, we're still here.
That's why we gotta be after what we're after.
That's why we're, we gotta be doing what we're doing.
That's why we gotta be sharing the gospel with people.
That's why, by the way, what we're we're gonna do, what we're
about to do here with baptism.
One of the things that we do in, in part of our, our, our baptism process is you're
gonna hear those that are in the tank.
Each of them give their testimony, Hey, here, here's who I was.
This is where God grabbed a hold of me, and, and this is who I am now.
And we do that to, to give a platform to the gospel, which is
the message that transforms lives.
That's why we're here.
Our prayer is that as we live lives that are honorable in the sight of the lost
world around us, that that again gives us a platform to point them to Jesus
to say, look, I, I,
can I tell you why I hold to these convictions?
Hey, I, I'd love to explain more about why I believe what I believe.
It's not really political for me.
It's about what I believe that God has revealed in his word.
We wanna see people saved, and we wanna be those that have a, a
winsome presence in this world.
But regardless, our call is to live an honorable life because one day for those
that may reject Christ here, at that point, they're gonna look back on your
life and their interaction with you.
And remember, oh, that's why they did that.
And Peter tells us, God's gonna get the glory for that.
So fight the temptation to make yourself at home, fight faithfully
by fleeing sin and fight to silence.
The slander of our savior
life with Christ is life at war, right?
There is a peace that isn't worth having at all costs.
In fact, there's a peace that as Christians, we shouldn't be
pursuing on this set of eternity.
There's a tension, there's a disconnect.
There's a contrast that should be present between light and darkness.
So we live as Christians, we live with Jesus, but we live at war and we do.
So praying and looking forward to the day that he's gonna come back for his bride
to call us, to be with him, when we will then know what true peace actually is.
Lemme pray for us.
God, we thank you so much for Christ.
Lord, we, we are in awe that you have made us your own.
Lord, that was not based on ourselves.
That's not based on our own merit.
That's not based on the fact that we're better than anyone
else, but simply because you are a God of grace and and mercy.
I pray that more Lord would, would come to the understanding of Jesus,
their need for Christ, and to see that it is a free offer of salvation.
To repent from our sins, to turn from our sins that is, and to choose to put
our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, that he died on the
cross, that we might be forgiven, and that he rose from the dead so
that we could live with him forever.
Lord, that is the offer that exists for anyone in this room this morning
who has not made that choice.
I pray, Lord, that that today would be the day of salvation, even as we
go from here to listen to testimonies and to see baptisms, what it
represents, that we are buried with Christ and raised to newness of life.
What a glorious reality and truth that is.
We thank you for Christ.
We thank you for our new life that we have in Him.
And we gave him all the glory and praise this morning.
In Jesus' name, amen