Episode Transcript
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It was written, we believe,
from Rome about eighty sixty five to gentile
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Christians disperse throughout several provinces of Asia
Minor. It's written directly to them,
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but it's also written to Gentile Christians
attending covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Tucson,
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Arizona, on eighteen April in two
thousand and twenty one. So pay heed
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to what Peter has to say to
us here. Let's stand together as I
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read First Peter to verses eleven through
seventeen. Beloved, I urge you,
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as sojourners and exiles, to abstain
from the passions of the flesh which wage
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war against your soul. Keep your
conduct among the gentiles honorable, so that
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when they speak against you as evil
doers, they may see your good deeds
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and glorify God. On the day
of visitation. Be Subject, for the
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Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as
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supreme or to governors as sent by
him, to punish those who do evil
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and to praise those who do good, for this is the will of God
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that by doing good, you should
put the silence, the ignorance of foolish
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people live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover
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up for evil, but living as
servants of God. Honor everyone, love
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the Brotherhood, fear God, honor
the emperor. This is the word of
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the Lord. Let's pray. Father, it is indeed good to be here
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this morning to study this letter written
by Your Apostle Peter, to your church,
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written to not only disperse Christians in
Peter's Day, but also to us
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in our day. Lord, come
now and teach us, give us insights
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as to how we are to live
as Christian men and women in this hostile
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world, in real life situations,
and I pray this in Christ's name.
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Men, please be seated. You
know, as is not infrequently the case,
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the the chapter divisions of the Bible
being added long after the completion of
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the New Testament, are not always
located in the most appropriate place, and
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that's the case here in our text
for this morning. We should have a
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chapter division here, at at Verse
Eleven of Chapter Two, since verse eleven
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rather obviously begins a brand new section
of Peter's letter. It's here that Peter
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begins what is structurally the second half
of his letter. You know, whereas
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the first part of the letter is
primarily theological in focus. This part,
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beginning in verse eleven, is pretty
much practical in emphasis. Now, in
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the first part, Peter Deals with
the identity of Christians, their placed in
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the Church of God and the purpose
God had informing them into a kingdom of
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priests. Now, in this second
part, his attention shifts to the place
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or position of Christians in the world, among gentiles, as it were.
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If they are God's chosen people,
a holy nation and a royal priesthood,
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which people, which Peter says they
are? In Verse Nine, how should
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they relate to the society around them, to the governments of this world and,
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in particular, how should they respond
to the world's animosity and, in
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some cases, rejection? They may
be the apple of God's eye, they
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may be his chosen people, his
servants in the world, but the world
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hardly believes it. So how are
Christians to relate to the unbelieving world?
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And Peter Answers that here in this
short text. So, as I see
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it, here's the main theme of
this passage. Nations, their governments and
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other worldly things provide simply an environment
in which Christians can demonstrate their faith,
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give glory to God. and to
love their neighbor. And so I want
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to want us to take a look
this morning and develop that theme. Versus
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Eleven and twelve here in the text
are a general introduction to this new chapter
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in which Peter gives us. He
gives us three general principles which then lead
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into a long series of ethical exhortations. And these principles provide the context,
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they provide the foundation for Peter's description
of what your Christian life and my Christian
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life should look like as we live
in this hostile world. And Peter begins
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by repeating what he said about these
people at the beginning of the letter,
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that they are so journals, that
is, their resident aliens, people who
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don't have a permanent place in this
world. They're also exiles, their foreigners,
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that is, they don't belong to
the world's native population. They're outsiders,
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they never fully fit in. Now
Peters talking about ethics. Here he's
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talking about how Christians are to behave
because their sojourners and exiles in this world
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and because it cannot be their home, not only because it's passing away,
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but because it's not it's not congenial
to their life as the people of God.
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They have to take their ethics,
their way of life, not from
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the world around them but from their
true homeland, and their true homeland is
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a very different moral and spiritual culture. Now, Peter is certainly not recommending
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that Christians withdraw from the world.
I think a lot of Christians have sometimes
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misunderstood Peter in this way. Some
forms of for example, monasticism, were
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an attempt to separate Christians from the
world. But that's not what peters getting
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at here. Indeed, I think
he would certainly attest that Christians were and
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are to be worldly in the best
sense of that word. The Apostle Paul
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certainly was. He wore the same
clothes, he ate the same food,
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he earned his living in the same
way as unbelieving people around him. He
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read the world's books, he knew
the world's poetry. Remember, he was
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a Roman citizen, which he proved
himself quite willing to appeal to as his
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rights as a citizen of the empire. He was in those respects. Paul
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was thoroughly at home in the world. So Peter is speaking here. I
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think his verse twelve confirms of Christians
as sojourners and exiles in the moral and
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ethical sense. He's speaking about their
conduct, how they are to behave as
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they move in and about the world
in which we live. The lives of
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Christians are to be nourished by,
and I are to reflect the principles and
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practices of that place and that world
to which they're heading. And there's such
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a difference between this world and that
world that it's inevitable that each world should
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produce a very different way of life, a different so fundamental that it ought
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to be distinctly visible and impressive to
unbelievers. So here's what Peter is asking
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of these people, asking us.
In what ways is it obvious that you
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and I do not live the world's
life, that we belong to another country,
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that our speech, our customs,
our habits are very different from those
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of this world? That's what he's
asking. Have we taken, in this
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way or in that way, our
values from the world are? Are they
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consistent with the life of our homeland? Are Our business ethics those of this
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world or those of Heaven? Is
Our family organization worldly or heavenly? What
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about our thinking about the use of
money or time or the choice of entertainment?
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Is Our life related to God in
the way this world prefers distant,
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attenuated, irrelevant in most respects,
or as it is in heaven, where
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his glory, his purpose, his
wonderful love and wisdom dominate everything and preoccupy
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everybody. Do we speaking of foreign
accent that demonstrate to the people of this
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world that we are from another place? Ought we not to take care never
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to behave in ways that suggest that
we would rather live here than they're in
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heaven? Ought we not to have
such a sense of heaven as our home
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that we feel detached from this world
and unimpressed by its allurements? You know,
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of course we should, but the
question is, you know, do
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we? So Peter tells us to
live here on Earth as strangers and aliens.
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This is Peter's thought, this challenge
to us here in verse eleven.
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I hope you see that. You
know a Parentan by the name of Thomas
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Kin one, said this of his
friend Isaac Walton. He said of this
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just man. Let this do praise
beginning. Heaven was in him before he
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was in heaven. You know,
does that describe you? Your thoughts,
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your actions? So I think that's
one general, general principle that Peter lays
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out here. The next of these
general principles is found in this exhortation of
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Peter here in verse twelve. Keep
your conduct among the gentile as honorable,
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so that when they speak against you
as evildoers, they may see your good
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works and glorify God on the day
of visitation. You know, Jesus said
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something similar to this earlier in his
sermon on the Mount. Memory said,
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let your light shine before men that
they may see your good deeds and praise
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your father in heaven. So what
Peter gives us here, because the Lord
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did before him. It's an exhortation
with a motive. It's an exhortation with
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an intention. The exhortation is pretty
plain. It's right there on the service
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live a life of love and good
deeds, and so is the modive for
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doing that. Live your lives for
the effect they will have on unbelievers who
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are watching you. You know,
there's a lot of reasons we're living a
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faithful Christian life. A great many
modives for God, Godliness that the Bible
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speaks of. There's a love for
God, gratitude to God, there's a
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desire for reward, there's a fear
of God and his judgments. At the
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same time, there's a sense of
duty and honor. All of those things
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and others are to drive us on
to love and good deeds. And Peter
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adds one more motivation here. We're
also to act out of the desire to
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see our lives produce a spiritual effect
in the hearts of others and the prospect
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of people who do not believe giving
glory to God as a result. We're
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to live, Peter says, so
as to make unbelievers set up and take
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notice of the kind of life that
we live, whether in marriage, family,
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neighborhood, at work, school,
play. You know. Do we
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think of this? Is this part
of who we are as Christian men and
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women? Well, Peter Thinks so. He says so. Men, do
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we treat our wives with patience,
Love, grace forgiveness? Do we treat
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our children with affection, with consideration? Who We treat our parents and friends
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in a way that will make unbeliever
unbelievers notice because it's so different from what
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they ordinarily see, even in a
way that will make them envy us and
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want to imitate us in our behavior? Do we do those things? So
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there are lots of good reasons to
live a committed, faithful, obedient,
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consecrated, sacrificial Christian life. This
is but one of them, but it's
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important nonetheless that we can live so
as to bring even pagans to give glory
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to God. God help us all
to influence those around us for him.
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God help us all to do that
on purpose. The third and final perspective
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that Peter gives us here. It's
not an approach that defines our way of
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life necessarily so much as it is
a description of what it will take to
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live it. I'm speaking of that
little phrase at the end of Versalleven,
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which wage war against your soul.
You know, I suppose, that it's
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the it's the universal experience of Christians
that it comes as a shock to discover
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that the Christian life is as difficult
as it is, you know, more
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demoralizing. I think still is a
discovery that most of the difficulty is within
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us. It's our own predilection for
sin, our own unwillingness to submit to
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the rule of our savior and these
and his law, our own continuing fascination
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with the allurements of the world.
The longer I live as a Christian man,
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the more unassailable is the fact that
the passions of my own flesh are
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waging constant warfare again since my soul
and I'm a big fan of Winston Churchill.
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Some of you know that he wrote
a book entitled Blood, Sweat and
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tears about the difficult progress and the
impact of World War II on the people
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of England. Well, here is
the blood's blood, sweat and tears of
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the Christian life. This is the
pain and the anguish, the humiliation,
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the frustration. Here's the all too
frequent defeat, but here too is the
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victory. You know, when job
said that he abhorred himself, he was
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speaking for you and me, for
every believer. You know, I cannot
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believe some of the things I do. I cannot believe some of the things
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I think, but the Bible teaches
us that this is so. There will
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be struggle, failure, pain,
frustration and exhaustion in our Christian lives,
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everyone's. That is the way it
is. You know, the Christian life
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is described as a battle or warfare
in many different ways. You know,
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our enemies are identified as the world, the flesh, the devil. We're
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taught in scripture what weapons were to
wield, to put on the whole armor
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of God, as Paul describes it, and how we're to fight the good
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fight of faith with the weapons of
our warfare, by which we take every
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thought captive to Christ. But that
the Christian life is war. No one
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with the Bible in his hand can
deny that it's a war. Christ himself
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is frequently depicted in the Bible as
a warrior, most famously, I suppose,
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in the account of the second coming
and revelation. Nineteen go home today.
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Read that, read that passage,
and we who follow him are,
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in the nature of the case,
soldiers in his army, doing battle with
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his enemies as well as ours.
Spiritual warfare certainly has other dimensions, but
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first and foremost it is what Peter
describes it to be. Here. Abstain
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from the passions of the flesh that
wage war against your soul. You know
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they're are certainly a biblical text that
might seem to suggest that in Christ have
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a one the great victory over sin
and devil. Those who trust in Christ
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would find the passions of the fleace
flesh a toothless full without power to do
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US harm. And I think you
know, certainly that's ultimately true. But
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though the enemy is beaten, whether
our own sinful flesh or Satan himself,
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he has not left the field,
he's not going quietly into the night.
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He's still hoping, in the fury
and bitterness of his defeat, to do
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all the harm that he can.
You know that. You know the famous
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illustration, I think, of that
situation that prevails in this spiritual warfare,
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the Christian life. It was provided
by a man by the name of Oscar
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Coolman. He's a swims Swiss theologian
in the middle of the twentye century,
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and he likened our situation to that
of the Allies After d day in World
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War II. He referred to it
as the D day analogy. Said even
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the German generals, even the German
generals, knew that once the allied armies
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were safely ashore at Normandy and ready
to confront the Verrmoch, that the war
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was essentially over. Germany's defeat was
now inevitable. There was nothing that the
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Germans could do to prevent the advance
of the allied armies, larger they were
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better equipped than they all the more
as the immense Soviet army was at the
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same time breathing down Germany's neck from
the east. The decisive battle had been
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fought and one the decision had been
reached, but bitter fighting remained. We
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know that because most American casualties in
Europe occurred after d day, after the
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issue had been settled. Well,
it's so with us. Christ's victory on
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the Cross and in the Tomb meant
that the victory he won for us was
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now guaranteed. But dear one's bitter
fighting remains before the enemy of our souls
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will be finally laid into dust.
The trouble us no more, you know?
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I think so. May wonder why
Peter Uses it's violent warlike extravagant language
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here the passions, the sinful desires
that wage war against our soul. No
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Christian who has been in this battle
for any length of time wonders about Peter's
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choice of words here. They know
them to be true. They have the
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battle scars which proved them to be
true. We are in a war,
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nothing short of a war, and
it's being waged within us, and the
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recesses of our hearts and our long
experience of this divided mind that's so troubles
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US has taught us that if you
and I. If we put up a
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real struggle against sinful desire, if, for Christ's sake, we stand up
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and refuse to budge, refuse to
give in to temptation, refuse to admit
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to permit our minds or bodies to
be put to unholy uses, refuse to
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employ our tongue as an instrument of
hate and not love. If we do
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that, we're going to have a
battle on our hands. It's going to
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happen, the temptations will come after
us with a vengeance and they will not
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cease in many cases until we're left
victorious but bloody and utterly exhausted in the
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field. But it's also very clear
to us that it's just this spiritual fight,
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it's just this spiritual fight for our
own holiness, this refusal to give
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in to sinful desires which rise in
the heart and which are strengthened so by
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the temptations of the world and the
devil. It's these things that determines the
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character of our Christian lives. Martin
Luther said he didn't learn all at once
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how to be a minister of Christ. It was his temptations and his corruptions
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and his sinful desires that taught him
how to preach Christ the devil, he
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said, had been his best teacher
of Practical Christianity. That sounds like Martin
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Luther. Luther want his stripes in
the field before he entered battle. He
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was a child, but battle made
a man out of them. Battle will
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certainly do that. You know,
I read. I read that one of
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the great worries of the American commanders
on D Day was that they were sending
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so many untested men into battle.
The very first waves were thousands of men
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who'd never been in combat before.
Most of them are nineteen years old.
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They worried that the men might melt
under the pressure, they might turn and
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run, might forget all they'd been
taught and care only about their own survival.
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But to their relief, they discovered, in the case of these young
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green troops, that three minutes of
real combat was worth three years of training.
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These rookie soldiers, the greatest generation, learned the craft of a soldier
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in moments, because nothing can teach
that craft like battle itself. No,
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it's the same with Christian soldiers,
you and me and it. You know,
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it's interesting to me, I'm a
retired soldier, that here's Peter doesn't
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say anything more than that we should
fight, that we shouldn't man fully resist
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the attacks made upon our face,
Our holiness, our faithfulness to God.
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Know, very often this is the
Bible's way. It simply tells us to
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fight. It doesn't explain the command, it doesn't provide specific instructions. Simply
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orders US onto the field. You
know, the Bible does sometime provide us
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with a few strategies and tactics to
resist the sinful desires that wage against the
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souls. But at bottom, at
bottom, the issue resolves itself into a
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test of the will. Will I
or will I not do what I fully
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know is God's will, or will
I do what my sinful desires incline me
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to do? The tests of the
will, you know, there is the
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wisdom, I think, repeated often
enough in the Bible, that those who
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would be wholly should whenever possible,
avoid the occasions of sin and temptation.
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That is the best way to resist
temptation is to avoid avoid it whenever possible.
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But you know, you think about
that, that in itself is a
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test of our will. Don't go
near the door of our house. That's
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the father in proverb. That's what
he tells his son concerning the sexual tempers.
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Flee youthful lust, we read in
James. Don't entertain them, and
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we see Joseph doing just that in
Potifer's house. Instead of standing and discussing
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the adultery that Potifer's wife was proposing, what do you do? He ran
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from the house, leaving his cloak
behind him. I think C H spurgeon
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put this so memorably best of all. He said the answer to many temptations.
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Listen to this. The answer to
many temptations is a good pair of
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legs and the King's highway. Run
away from it. A good pair of
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legs and the King's High I love
that. Run away from it. Well,
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you know, because the Christian is
a pilgrim, he's a sojourner,
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he's an exile. He will never
be fully at home in this world.
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I think that's what Peters telling us
in these first verses. Yet we do
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reside here. This is where we
live and what we do here matters.
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Therefore, Peter Moves on from these
sort of general principles, if you will,
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of the Christian life and he tells
disciples how to conduct themselves in public
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and that's what he does in the
rest of the texts. Now here Christians
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of different stations or relations in life
are given instruction as to their particular duty
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to God and man in specific situation. Now I'm not going to read these
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verses, but look there verses thirteen
through seventeen. Let me just give you
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the cliff notes here. Peter's argument
here it's very much like the argument that
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we find in Paul's letters, especially
Romans. Thirteen. Governments are from God.
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They serve to protect and foster public
order, they punish wrong doers,
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they reward good conduct. That's what
scripture says, that governments are there to
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do, and Christians are obliged to
give them obedience and respect for and doing
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and doing that they're honoring God,
who appointed such government. For Seventeen says
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we are to honor the emperor.
So Peter says here very interesting verse thirteen.
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Their submission to the government was to
be offered for the Lord's sake.
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Now, of course that's not the
whole story. A lawfully constituted government once
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told Peter not to preach Christ and
he told the representatives of that government to
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go pound. said he had to
obey God. Not Men. Here he
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tells a community of Christians that may
well have had good reasons to regard their
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government as an enemy to nevertheless show
it respect, to obey it. You
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know, that doesn't mean that one
must approve of what the government does in
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every case, or even most cases, for example, without any intention on
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its part to honor the living God. At that time, the Roman imperial
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government ensured a measure of public order, and you know that was no small
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thing back then. Think of what
that provided to these early Christians. No,
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Paul talks about that over in the
first Timothy to he speaks of the
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great importance to the Church of Christians
being able to live peaceful and quiet lives
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in the Roman Empire, the packs
Romana. You've heard of that. The
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Roman peace made it possible for the
Gospel to spread throughout the land. Now
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Paul could travel by sea without fear
of pirates, as would not have been
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true less than a hundred years before
then. He could and did, appeal
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to his Roman citizenship when assailed by
a mob. Is that happened sometimes.
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So I think Christians could appreciate the
role of the Roman Empire without approving of
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their conduct. In other areas as
a secular nation. You know, our
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situation in the united stays today.
I think it is not yet to be
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compared to what millions of other Christians
face, but I will. I have
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to say this. It is apparent
to any thoughtful Christian, you know,
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even Evangelical Christians in the US.
We have to begin thinking and speaking about
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government and the Church's relation to it. You know, over these past forty
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or fifty years and ways that we've
never thought or spoke before. Now our
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government is the defender of abortion a
great many other practices that are directly contrary
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to the teaching of the word of
God. And there's a you know,
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there are a lot of practical issues
involved here in submitting to government, such
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as paying taxes, but there's something
here, much more here for us,
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and I want it. We got
to get into this something much more more
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general, more personal and even more
practical than we have to. We have
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to get our Christian arms around this
and they concerns the way in which our
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Christian faith alters our perspective on life, altars, our attitude toward the world,
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altars our attitude toward our country,
for I know Peter is not I
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think in the first place here concerned
to answer specific questions Christians might have regarding
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their relationship to the government and their
obligation to obey the civil authority. He's
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interested rather here in our outlook on
life, and government is just one of
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the context it's one of the environments
in which he works this out. And
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if we were to go on in
this chapter, we would see the talks
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about employment as an environment marriage as
a context. Those would be two other
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context that he talks about. What
he wants from us, I'm persuaded of
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this. What the Holy Spirit wants
from us is an attitude toward life in
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this world, toward relationships of various
kinds, toward other human beings, that
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is profoundly, obviously powerfully shaped and
determine by the kind of spiritual detachment appropriate
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to people who are strangers and pilgrims
and exiles in this world and who are
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living not for anything they will obtain
in this world but for the glory of
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God. I think that's it.
What he wants is to see in these
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verses, and that's that's important,
I believe. Now, I want to
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be careful here, but is there
anyone here who thinks that the American Congress
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or our courts or the president are
the solution to the problems of this country.
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The world certainly doesn't think any such
thing, and nowadays few Americans do
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either. You know, like a
Syria, Babylon and Rome before her,
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America has served a purpose in the
Lord's plan. And if Christ should tarry
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embracing evil with ever greater reli she
too will fall under divine judgment. Then
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we'll be destroyed. Hear me,
we're certainly to be grateful for the blessings
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that God gives us through our country. Were surely to be faithful citizens,
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pay our taxes, working for the
best of our land and its people,
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as Jeremiah remember, he told the
exiles in Babylon to do that. I
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gave twenty five years of my life
to serve and protect the constitution of the
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United States against all enemies, foreign
and domestic, and that was the right
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thing to do. But we're to
remember, and what Peter says about the
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Christians due to the government applies equally
to the American Christian, the Russian Christian,
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the European Christian, the Chinese Christian
and the Iraqi Christian. You Know
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Peter's view of government is that God
has established it to keep the peace and
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the foster order, and that's important. We should never deny that. That's
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what the Roman government provided Christians in
Peter's Day. Nations and their institutions are
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not, however, in Peter's teasing
to be objects of our trust or of
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our devotion. Our devotion needs to
be where it belongs, and that's the
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God. In other words, I
think what Peter is telling us here is
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that the nation in which we live, the government under which we live,
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it's but part of the environment in
which we Christians are to live our lives
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and show our mental do our thing, and I think he's saying we we
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were to have a genuine spiritual detachtament
from the things that belong only to this
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world so that we can be devoted
to that which lasts and counts forever.
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And that's true of the government officer, that's true of the military officer,
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listed man or woman, that's true
of every Christian citizen. And the things
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that belong to this world, whether
government or employment or whatever, important in
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their own ways of course, are
chiefly important for being God. No,
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I can't help but thank here,
as I conclude, of what the Prophet
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Mica said the God's people in the
Old Testament when they sought them, when
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they tried to be salt and light
in the place they lived. Remember what
365
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Mica said to them. He God
has told you, O man, what
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is good and what does the Lord
require of view, but to do justice,
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the love kindness, to walk homely
with your God, your when's government
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serve the function of the public good. But government's nations come and go.
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They belong only to a world which
is passing away. Nothing they do or
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can do affects the eternal destiny of
men, but they do provide a way
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for us, for Christians, to
demonstrate our faith, Give Glory to God
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and to love our neighbor, to
do justice, to love kindness and to
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walk homely with God. Let's pray
