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We return this morning to uh the first letter that our the apostle Peter wrote to those to those folks who were spread abroad in the
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area of Galatia and what he says to them. Our focus this morning is in chapter 2:es 11 and 12.
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But I'd like to uh start my reading uh in chapter 2 at at verse 4 and read down through 12.
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and coming to him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God. You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up
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spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious
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cornerstone, and he who believes in him shall not be disappointed. This precious value then is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve,
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the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. for they stumble because they
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are disobedient to the word and this to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal
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priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his
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marvelous light. For you were once not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
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Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the
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Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of
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visitation. Let us pray. Our heavenly father, we do ask that by your holy spirit, you would open our ears to
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receive the word and that you would truly speak to our hearts and minds, to our very souls. We might hear what you
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have put you put in the mind of the apostle to teach the people long ago. And yet knowing that you have not
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forgotten us, that these things also apply to our lives and how we live them in this world. Please, Father, we do ask, teach us, give us wisdom and understanding.
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Help us as you have called us to be holy in all our conduct. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
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We spent a great deal of time in the first chapter or so of of Peter talking about the idea and uh someone uh echoed that um thought this morning that Peter
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tells us to remember who you are in Christ. Or as I like to phrase it because I think the who you are puts too
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much emphasis on us. Remember whose you are. Peter here tells us that we are living
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stones being built up because of that great precious cornerstone. That we are a chosen race, a royal
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priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. Those are lofty lofty things that that that Peter would
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call us. You are you are chosen. God has separated you and called you to be his. And it's quite a jolt in verse 11 when
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he says, "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers."
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It's as if, wait a minute, we we were chosen, we're a holy nation, and now you're asking us or telling us we're aliens and strangers. One of the commentaries begins by uh he
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starts his uh exposition by asking the question or the situation where he goes into certain places and then realizes I don't belong here.
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uh because of the activities that are going on. going on. But I think we need to ask this ourselves the question, do I actually belong here on this earth? I mean, some
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Christians really wish that that God once he saves them that he would just whoop zip and take us out of this world. But but Peter is not saying that to us.
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He he has a deep love. We can see that several places. He uses this word beloved. I I I love you as my brothers and sisters in Christ. His affection is
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deep. It it's not just this distance acquaintance, you know, live holy lives and then he exits and goes on to write
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to somebody else. And it is, we know from what he's already written, it's based on the love that God has for us and for them. His great mercy has caused
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us, he wrote in chapter one, to be born again. But but why is Peter reminding them of their status? And why is he saying on
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the one hand, you are a chosen race, a holy nation, holy nation, and then he says, but I want you to live as aliens and strangers.
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service as bonds slaves of God and servants not slaves to the church and to the world.
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Peter is going to tell us how to relate to the world while we are strangers in the same
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perhaps leading us to verse two of chapter 4 where he says teaching us quote so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lust of
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men but for the will of God. That's what he's driving toward. And there are connections here. The chosen race, notice the chosen race. So
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that verse 10 verse 10 uh sorry verse um verse 9 so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
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called you out of darkness. And in verse 11 you are aliens and
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Why? So that on account of your excellent behavior, people might come to know the God of the
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universe. It's a reorientation of our self understanding and I think also our other
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understanding. Thomas Shriner in his commentary writes, "The Christian life is certainly not depicted as passive in which believers simply quote let go
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and let God." Daniel Doriani adds, "Peter expects us to stay in the world living among the
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pagans." See, Peter's getting to the heart of his letter here. It extends, I believe, from verse 11 of chapter 2 to verse 11 of chapter 4. Christians must
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learn to live rightly within a pagan society. And he begins in 212
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or 11 and 12 what I think of as an executive summary of what he's about to say. Perhaps as Aaron pointed out on
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the right hand side of the board this morning, we think kind of linearly. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you and then I'm going to tell you and at the end, guess what I'm going to do?
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I'm going to tell you what I told you. So Peter is not using kayazm here. Okay? At least as I can understand it. But
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this is it's has as its theme again verse 11 that as they observe our
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excellent behavior excellent behavior they will glorify God in the day of visitation. And he ends this section in verse 11
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telling us so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and do dominion forever and ever. Amen. This is Peter's
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And he has the negative in verse 11, abstain from fleshly lust, and the positive in verse 12, live a virtuous life. Or could be translated
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literally, live a beautiful life. But how do we do this? Peter says that we must respect,
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even appreciate and value non-Christian society while we maintain our distinct values as
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visiting strangers and resident aliens. Now there is some discussion among the scholars when he says keep your be uh
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sorry beloved I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts. We we know that like and as even in in
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English it can mean compared to something or for example if we look up in verse two like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word. We we know
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that's a figurative statement. the the people reading this were not newborn babes. But so the question is, are they actually aliens and strangers
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or is he saying live as if you were? And my mind is it's probably what somebody said in Sunday school this morning. The
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answer is yes. There were some who were displaced. They were a part of the diaspora after diaspora after Christ was crucified and the saints were
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scattered some. But some of the people were natives kind of like our congregation. Some of you are Greenville natives, Pickings natives. But many of
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us like myself were transplants. So I think Peter is saying it doesn't matter where you came from or where you were born, but this is the mindset that you
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ought to have. You ought to be resident aliens. You're not, and it was true in that day, they were not full residents with all the
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privileges of a resident, but they lived there and they were strangers because they were not native to that culture.
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And the attitude doesn't start with Peter. It goes all the way back even to Abraham in Genesis 23. And I thought it was at the beginning of when God called him out of the Caldes.
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But it's actually after his wife Sarah died. He wanted the Hittites to give him a place to bury her. And what does he say to them? I am a foreigner and
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stranger among you. Even all the blessings that God had blessed him with over those years. And yet Abraham had that mindset. I'm an alien and a
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stranger here. stranger here. He was one and we ought to be in this mindset. One who dwells beside the native citizens
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native citizens but with restricted rights and understanding that there will be trouble, there will be persecution
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in Peter's day. The Romans, I am told by the historians that I looked up, the Romans were deeply religious and they believed that any failure to
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worship their gods affected the well-being of the entire society. In fact, someone says the Latin word religio, which we get religion, could be
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translated obligation to the gods. So Roman religion and Roman politics were
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and any failure to practice was called atheism and it was severely punished. One historian says the cultist deorum,
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meaning the correct way to perform these traditional rights of worship, was essential to maintaining the pax deorum, the peace and goodwill of the gods
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towards Rome. towards Rome. and by the reign of Trajan in AD around 100 merely to confess in some situations
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confess to being a Christian was a capital offense to many believers Christianity and I think it's still true today is a foreign
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religion with many negative stereotypes because of our faith in in Roman times first century here it was you've deserted the gods you're
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going to upset the peace not only of the gods but of Rome of our society and even then there were many who said
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well yes the Christians do some good things in society but they believe in creation ex nilo out of nothing we'll
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try having a discussion in your workplace today and you'll get that same you believe in that stuff. Or take the attitude of the Lord's
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supper. If you were to say someone then or today,
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blood. Yeah, that's a tough one. And you will be maligned for it. We're accused of withdrawing from society and rejecting fellow men.
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there. He does answer the question, what is it all for? all for? The goal is to live in such a way that unbelievers will glorify God and some
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will come to faith in Christ. the good works, the beautiful life that we live may lead to God calling them out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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The way it's and it's hard even even as I sat and translated and tried to understand the Greek here in verse 12. keep your behavior excellent among the
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Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slandered you as evildoers, they may on account of your good day deeds, as they observe them, glorify God
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in the day of visitation, even in the very things that they maligned you for now, as as they dismiss you for now as an airhead, as an unscientific just a
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lemming. In those very things, they will one day glorify God.
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But that means unbelievers seeing the lives of believers transformed as they the believers are called to holiness. That's what that means.
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And so Peter says,"I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul."
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There is a Greek word for war, but this ain't it or this is not it.
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The word is to engage in a campaign. Now there are campaigns in war. So the war is the bigger picture. But I think what Peter is doing here is is he's showing us that I mean we can kind of
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say well war that's out there. We haven't had wars on our shores for a long time. But what he's saying here is that it's a campaign. Listen to what a historian writes. A mil
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military campaign is a series of coordinated operations aimed at achieving a specific goal during a conflict. It's a series of planned
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related military operations aimed at achieving specifical specific strategic and operational objectives.
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The idea is multiple engagements over a long period of time. A sustained effort with a defined goal. It's not a one-off
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action. It's not a skirmish. It's not even a battle. It's a campaign. And I think Peter wants us to see this because
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sometimes, well, you know, I've I have that sin, but I I've I've conquered it. No, no, no, no. This is this is
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conflict that is in your own mind and heart and soul, and it's going to come over and over and over. Williamson Murray in his book, The Dark
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Path, the structure of war, was reflecting on the first Gulf War. And I'm not going to get into the first Gulf War and what he says about that, but I
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want to read this sentence in relation to that. The response, he writes, to the American success in 1991 reflected a misunderstanding of the
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difference between war's fundamental nature, which has never changed, and its character, which in the west has been changing continuously since 1500.
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The character of war is that is how the wars are fought. I if if you believe the the cave drawings and the cartoons and the movies that you watch, it was went from hurling
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stones and sticks at each other to finding more sophisticated work ways to hurl things and to bomb things. And so
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we've moved on to gunpowder and cannon and bombers and ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads.
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nuclear warheads. The character of the war has changed. But I think the important thing to pick up from what he says is that the nature of war, the nature of
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the campaigns against your soul to capture your soul. He uses the word and to destroy it. That hasn't changed.
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The lust could be translated fleshly desires or unchecked human impulses. And it's not just sex. It's not just drink. It it actually encompasses well
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Peter writes this in chapter 4. For the time already passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of indecent behavior, lust, drunkenness,
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carousing, drinking parties, and wanting idolatries. See, it's not just one physical thing. It's social as well. In Romans 13, which we've just been
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hearing, let us behave properly as in the day. Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and
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We're in a war. We're we're being campaigned upon by our own thoughts and our own minds. And we need strategies and we need a tactic or opposite. We need a strategy
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and tactics. And what does Peter say? He simply says, I urge you to abstain.
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We as humans don't do abstinence very well. I mean, I mean, what he's saying is distance yourself from the temptations to lust that seek
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to destroy you. But we don't, especially as Americans. I mean, we invented the phrase
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when I was growing up, if it feels good, do it. We invented the phrase, have it your way. your way. We say, "But I have my rights. What I do
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in the privacy of my own home," we start sentences by saying. We even pray, "Lead me not into
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temptation." And what do we do? We lead ourselves into that very temptation because we don't check ourselves. We don't distance ourselves. We don't
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abstain. See the mentality is well just this once won't hurt. So if it's one look or one taste or one
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well let me just try it is that's all I want. Peter says no abstain distance yourself.
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And guess what? Because the nature of cam those war campaigns never changes.
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never changes. You can't blame your culture.
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The nature of the lust of the flesh is the same the same no matter what the character of the culture changes. People will argue
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will argue that via the electronic access that we your smartphone, your TV, your your tablet, your computer, we bring in ideas and people into our
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and let me I guess ask it this way. If those same people bringing those same attitudes and ideas and pictures were standing at your door, would you open
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the door and let them in? The same types of temptations are the same regardless of the culture.
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Physical, social, Physical, social, temptation to even things like bad moods, evil ambitions, unruly emotions.
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Yes, we ought to go to Ephesians 6 and remember to put on the whole armor of God. But the context here is conduct, not the world powers of this
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present darkness. It's your own conduct. It's you. It's the whole man. That's what he means by the soul. He's not thinking the soul is good and the body
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is evil. That that's not in scripture. It's the whole man. body, soul, heart, mind. The sinful allow desires allowed to
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My mind went to Proverbs 4 and5 when Peter says abstain. I I I think it's fleshed out in Proverbs 4 this way. The writer writes as it's to his son,
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"Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men. Avoid it. Do not pass by it. Turn away from it and pass on."
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That's abstinence. That's abstinence. But that's planned abstinence. That's planned looking out ahead. And I don't want to rock anybody's
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sensibilities here, but in Proverbs 5, we read about the seductress, the seducer, the the woman, the adult who
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stra strangles men in adultery. And years ago, I was uh traveling. I was working in Chicago for three weeks uh on
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a convention and uh I love Chicago because for 21 days we could we could have a meal with 21 different cuisines.
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It it was great and uh especially the hot dogs at Wrigley Field. But our hotel was in the area where all of the conventioneers were. So many men
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were there. And one evening coming back from from dinner, I was with two men who happily were were believers. And it was like, well, we got across the street
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here. Why are we going on this side? And they said, because of her. And I looked up just in time to see Proverbs 5
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lived out in front of me when she caught her man and he caved.
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This is real. It's serious. Peter uses the words which wage war against the soul.
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But Peter's answer, do I belong here? I think the answer is yes. This is where God has placed you and me. This is where we live. This is the culture that we're in by his providence. And what's it all for?
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That we might live a beautiful life. Your neighbors, your co-workers watch strangers
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watch strangers more closely than they do the regular folk. Be mindful of how your conduct is
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evaluated. They don't understand why we do the good that we do to others. They don't understand why we value
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marriage and family life. And Peter does not exhort us to get in political office or have a verbal dispute with your neighbor over why you
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do what you do. What does he say? Pursue holiness. pursue virtue. pursue virtue. Karen Job's in her commentary says
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there's there's two natural reactions to Peter's exhortation, to either resist or to privatize.
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Some of us want to resist either verbally or or physically to engage in any way with those outside the church. We we just it's hard. I It's disturbing.
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It's it makes us uncomfortable and some of us want to privatize our Christian faith. Christian faith. We want to
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publicly assimilate to the culture and we want to worship Christ only in our closet.
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But she goes on to say we ought to have a visitor's mindset. She writes, "Peter challenges his readers to live by Christian values and when their values conflict with those of
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society to be willing to endure graciously the grief and alienation that will inevitably result.
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But we don't let stay. Peter doesn't where she ends that sentence because Peter is going to bring in the one who was alienated, the one who was
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malign, the one who was spoken of badly even in the face of living a beautiful life. He will focus his attention on the life
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of Christ and how he endured, how he lived in his society.
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So we're not left hanging. We're not left guessing. left guessing. How does this work? Some people call it a lifestyle lifestyle evangelism.
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lifestyle evangelism. I mean, comp contrast the thoughts of 118 with what we're reading now. In verse 18, he says, "You were not redeemed from perishable things like
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silver and gold, from your feudal way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the pre precious blood of Christ." It was a feudal life. And he's
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saying, "No, you can live a beautiful life. You can live a life in front of the non-believers. Even when they accuse you of doing wrong
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or they slander you, their accusations will have no validity because of your attractive lifestyle. attractive lifestyle. Abstain from the selfdestructive
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behaviors and live in a way that will eventually be deemed good by those who see you.
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It is hard to understand what Peter means by the last phrase glorify God in the day of visitation. It could refer the day that someone has been captured by God and his life is
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renewed and restored as a believer. Or it could be the day of judgment because we know that at the day of judgment every tongue will confess that
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Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Richard Lensky writes, "The good works of true believers have a strong missionary power. Deeds that reinforce
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doctrine. The gospel in both word and life draw men to God through Jesus Christ." That is our hope. That is our prayer.
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But I think some people get it wrong. Peter Brown in his book Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity writes uh with some uh I don't know. He seems to praise
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this. I find problems with it. But he writes, "A late antique landscape was dotted with human figures. the living dead, the aesthetic holy men who live
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whose lifestyle involved them in prolonged and clearly visible rituals of self-mortification and death to society.
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I see three problems at least. The men were dead to society, but that lifestyle became an end in
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itself. And guess what? Some Christians came to venerate the men themselves, essentially worshiping them.
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And I think they missed Peter's whole point of why we ought to live godly lives, to live it among pagans, not hiding behind closure walls.
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Peter says, "For you shall be holy, for I am holy." Living as bonds slaves of Christ, living in submission to others. That's where he's headed in verse 16 of chapter 2.
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for God's sake, for the sake of fellow believers, and for the world's sake. That's how we ought to live. Jesus summed it up by saying, "Let your
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light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven." We don't know if those people will be
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saved in this life or whether they will be among the infinite number of people who bow the knee and confess Jesus as Lord. But our goal ought to be to let
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our light shine whether us others see it or acknowledge it or not. Let us pray.
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Our heavenly father, we do ask that you would transform our lives in such a way that you are glorified. You are glorified by the way we live
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and you're glorified by the way people react to your people that you have called to be your own. And so we ask Father that you would build your church.
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you would do these things that you would cause a great revival among your people that there might be glory in your house. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.
