Australia’s probably one of the best places to get sick and grow old, bar none. But the reality is that our doctors can only keep us alive for so long. We can help them out, by losing weight, exercising, taking the pills they give us, undergoing the knife when they say. But soon enough, they shake their heads and say, ‘Sorry, that’s all I can do. My box of band aids is empty. I’ve got nothing else except good bed side manner and palliative care. Have you got a religion? It’s time to call in your priest!’
Are you ready for that conversation?
This week I got down on my hands and knees to pick up crud under my desk. It happens very occasionally when I can no longer do any work because my messy desk has swamped me. I saw under my desk a small button on the carpet. So I picked it up. And I was reminded that, if Jesus doesn’t come back soon, one day everything I own will be lifted up from my house – the parish rectory -- and be sent away. It might be chucked out. Or it might go to a new home. I might get to do it. Or others will do it. Every little bit of plastic and paper will more than likely need to be lifted up and taken away. Makes you think about our acquisition of stuff, doesn’t it? Don’t get too used to everything around you, because its all on loan. One day, it will be taken back. One day, you won’t need any of it. All you will need is a 6 foot by two foot wooden box. And they aren’t all wood anymore, they’re also made of cardboard now. And the footage from the Netherlands has shows us that not everyone gets that, either. And then there will be an accounting for how you’ve used what you had.
I’m a very happy sort of fellow, aren’t I?
My dear fellow temporary Australians, are you ready for that day? Do these realities change the way you think at all about your few days. We are going to think about 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 11 and 12 this morning. Just two verses that tell us how to live while we wait either for Jesus, or death, then Jesus.
The first half of my sermon today is Chapter 2 verse 11.
11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
Who are we, according to Peter? Aliens and strangers. In this world, we don’t belong. Foreigners, not citizens. Tourists, not locals. I don’t care how long you’ve lived in Mulgoa or Silverdale or Warragamba. You and I are Misfits, not the inner circle, or the ‘in-group’. We are the exotic ones in a strange environment. We are not the native vegetation, but find ourselves having to adapt and acclimatize to a different habitat.
You might speak strine, love cricket, and eat vegemite sandwiches. But if you love Jesus Christ, this country is not really your home. You might fly the flag, sing the anthem, and have relatives who were first fleeters or be descended from the ANZACS, but if you are a Christian, you are just passing through. You might be 100% aboriginal and hold native title as an elder, but if you are a Christian, Australia is just a truck stop, a driver reviver, a caravan park for your overnight stay. Don’t send your roots down too deep.
This world is not our home. Heaven is our home. The new heaven and the new earth is our home. We’ve already been visited by the King of that place: Jesus Christ. He is preparing a place for us. In his Father’s house are many rooms.
Abraham knew that feeling. His long life was spent wandering around a land that he never owned, a country he could not call home. As he wept over his dead wife, he said of himself, Genesis 23:4:
I am an alien and a stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead. (Genesis 23:4 NIV)
Moses didn't fit in as Prince of Egypt, so he fled. In Midian, Moses lives as a foreigner 40 years (Acts 7:29).
And David likewise knows the feeling of being a stranger and foreigner. Even though David is king of Israel, and he got the land that both Abraham and Moses longed for, and even though he lives in a palace, and has been given rest on every side, he says:
We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. (1 Chronicles 29:15; cf Psalm 38:13; Psalm 118:19 NIV)
Old Testament saints were aliens and strangers in their world. New Testament saints are still aliens and strangers in their world. You are aliens and strangers in your world.
And there is an advantage in thinking of yourself as an alien and a stranger. If you consider yourself as an outsider, your expectations will be realistic. You will expect to be thought of as an oddity, and a freak, and weird. You won’t be surprised that you don’t fit in. Or perhaps I should say, we shouldn’t be surprised.
And the reality is, you don’t fit in. And this makes us different. We do not share our society’s values. For as a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, you won’t fit in. The more you belong to God, and his Christ, the less you will fit in here and now.
Because you are holy, God’s people, you and I need to do what Peter says in the second half of verse 11: We need to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
The sinful desires are literally the ‘fleshly lusts’. Unfortunately, part of the sinful and wicked world out there resides in here, within us. You’ll never find the perfect church in this world because even if you did, as soon as you walk in, you make it imperfect. Like barnacles, these fleshly desires still cling onto us. There is resident evil within us. We still have a sinful propensity within us until they lay out what’s left of us in a box.
But for Peter, the real you is your ‘soul’. And the real you, your soul, is heading to salvation in Christ. We have been born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. Through faith in Christ, more precious than gold, you are receiving a salvation that can never perish spoil and fade.
The Nazarenes, the Christians of Mosul Iraq, are giving up their gold jewelry at the checkpoints to ISIS. They keep the most precious thing they have in this world: their faith. And so they keep their eternal soul.
Your souls are being saved, they have been purified, Jesus is looking over your souls, and you must entrust your souls to God.[1] But in chapter 2 verse 11, Peter says, there is something hostile to your souls, that wars against your souls. Something you carry with you. And that is your fleshly lusts. Fleshly lusts war against your soul. And you and I must abstain from the fleshly desires that war against you. We must keep away from them.
The biggest fight each one of us has is not with the enemy out there. The enemy out there, even the devil himself, only comes at us for short bursts. Resist him, and he will flee from you. The world and all its stupidity can be shut out and turned off and silenced. But in the quietness of your own heart, in the privacy of your locked inner room, your fleshly desires still war against your soul.
Now, how do you keep away from something that you carry with you? Here is the difficulty. We are in the flesh, in the body. We are fleshly. Yet we are to keep away from an aspect of what it means to be in our fallen body and our fallen thinking. How do we do this?
The war and battle language is a key. We need to fight against whatever evil thinking or attitude or impulse emerges in us. We need to take the fight to our fleshly and sinful attitudes. We need to challenge them and be hostile to these fleshly lusts.
First thing we need to do is identify them as fleshly lusts. What are the sinful lusts we need to abstain from?
One of the most prominent things Peter warns us about as works of the flesh are seen in our attitudes which overflow into words. Evil thoughts lead to evil words. From the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Look at 1 Peter 2:1:
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. (NIV)
Malice is hating people and wanting to undo them. Deceit is tricking people, deceiving people, lying to people, to get what you want. Hypocrisy is pretending to be something that you are not: friendliness when you actually hate someone in your heart; giving the appearance of holiness when you are caught in sin. Envy is getting jealous of others, angry about others being given prominence. It is coveting and wanting what others have. Slander is wrongly undermining and undercutting someone else by your words, speaking untruths about someone else. The flesh is in your mind and comes out of your mouth.
Again, look at how we are told to use our words in 1 Peter 3 verses 9 and 10. Flick over with me to 1 Peter 3:9-10:
9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. (NIV)
The way we speak and use our lips matters. We must not bite back and have hateful speech.
Do you think you would swear at someone who you saw scratching your car on purpose? Would you bless them and wish them well and pray for them? What about a home invader? Would you bless the home invader who comes in with baseball bat and gun?
What about a terrorist, would you bless a terrorist who gave you the choice of giving up your house and everything you own, and leaving with your life, kids and the shirt on your back, or beheading?
You can imagine how hard that is for the Assyrian Christians of Mosul, Iraq, at the moment. We don’t hear about this very much in our media. But life has been very difficult since 2003 and the US invasion. There were 1.2 million Christians in Mosul in 2003. Up to a few weeks ago there were 30,000 left. Now all reports are there are zero Christians there in Mosul, Iraq. One Catholic Priest said there was one disabled women who stayed because she couldn’t leave, and they threatened to cut her head off. They were all given the choice of flee, or be killed. In fact, 8 converts to Christianity were crucified. Yes, crucified. Christians had their houses, their gold, everything of value taken by the checkpoint guards. And the western Media is almost silent. They were only allowed to flee with the clothes on their backs. It wasn’t stealing because it was all under their law. Their books and pictures were burnt, their churches given over to become mosques.[2]
Would you bless? I must admit, if the past is anything to go by, I would be angry and bitter, and be tempted to say a few things. Would I bless? Would I pray, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’? That’s the difference between me and Jesus. And I’m the one that needs to change.
I figure I might as well start learning to turn the other cheek at home. If I feel offended by my wife or kids, why don’t I practice just taking it, and not paying back? Not defending myself, not yelling, not getting angry, not sulking. That’s hard enough, really. And they love me… still. It is hardly enduring the confiscation of your property. Nor is it crucifixion or beheading, which our brothers and sisters around the world are having to face.
I’m sure there are many things I would disagree about with them. I am a Reformed Protestant and they are, in the main, Catholic. But they are suffering only because they bear the name of Jesus Christ. And we need to be prepared to do the same. Have mercy, most merciful Father. Strengthen us and them by your Spirit to live up to what we’ve already attained.
Instead, we are called to the priestly ministry of chapter 2 verse 12:
12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (NIV)
Peter literally speaks of the beautiful ‘lifestyle’ of the Christians (avnastrofh,).[3] It is an attractive, beautiful, and fine way manner of living. It is a good lifestyle that will lead to good works. And your good works will be so obvious that they will be undeniable. Your faith saves you. It is more precious than gold. But the outcome of your faith, your works, will save others. Your good lifestyle, your good works, will be part of the process God uses in bringing others to faith.
Note that Peter doesn’t say, ‘Living a good lifestyle will save you from persecution.’ Peter doesn’t say that. Look at the first comma in verse 12, though they accuse you of doing wrong…. (NIV).
Living a beautiful life style will NOT save you from false accusations. Opponents of the gospel will still slander you. Your name might still be dragged through the mud by some enemy. People may still speak badly about you, no matter what good you do. In fact, you doing good may actually attract exactly the opposite response. You actually do good. But those from the nations around you actually speak of you doing evil.
We see this throughout bible history. Job is the most righteous man on earth. Yet his three visitors spend almost 40 chapters relentlessly persecuting him, accusing Job of sin. Daniel only does good to his rulers in Babylon. Yet it's the lion’s den for him. Mordecai saves the life of the King. Yet Haman wants him and all the Jews dead. You stick your head up over the parapet to do good and your love of Jesus will earn the ire of your enemies, and your enemies will accuse you of doing evil.
Nor does Peter say that you will be praised by men in this life for your good deeds. You might never in this life hear your persecutors glorifying God or thanking you. You may never be nominated for honours on the Queens Birthday, get an AM, or AO, or Australian of the Year. We might never have a write up in the local rag, or have a Conversation with Richard Fydler, or have an Australian Story made about you.
But Peter says that eyeballs are still watching you. All these beady eyes are on you all around. The last bit of verse 12:
Though they accuse you of doing wrong they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (NIV)
First, the nations and people among whom you and I live will see. Those people of other lifestyles and other ways of living, who walk to the beat of a different drum, will see your lifestyle. In fact, they have always been watching. They are looking over your lifestyle. They watch your house, they look over your fence. They see who goes in, who goes out your door. They overhear your conversations, they listen to the way you speak to one another and about one another. They watch your kids. They notice your priorities. They observe your parties. They can’t take their beady little eyes off us, because many of them are desperately hoping and wishing that there is something better than what they’ve got, and they wonder in their heart of hearts that maybe we’ve found it. Sure, many of them might resent us now. But there are thirsty and desperate people heading to death and judgment and hell, desperately hoping there is something better, and maybe even that we have found it.
The school teachers are watching, the Catholics are watching, the muslims are watching, the workers club is watching, the postman is watching, the shopkeepers are watching, the girls at IGA are watching, the servo attendants are watching, the parents are watching, the oldies are watching, and the kids are watching. The different people groups are students of you and me.
Peter says that we should live good lifestyles so that these nations, these peoples, will glorify God on the day he visits us. In other words, non-Christians will praise God at the judgment because of the Christian’s behaviour and good works. And that will be because they have not stayed non-Christian, but they have become Christians. That is, they will have become Christians and at the judgment acknowledge that what we have indeed done during our brief time here was done in God and in and for Christ, and was truly good and righteous, not bad, even though what they said about us in this world was that we did bad. So the beauty of our Christian lifestyles serves an evangelistic purpose.
Our lives are not the gospel. The gospel is the message of the risen King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for sins and now reigns forever. Our lives are not the gospel, and you cannot live the gospel. Because the gospel’s not a message about us, but about Jesus Christ. We are not the gospel, the gospel is about Jesus.
And our lives also cannot change other people’s hearts. Only God’s Spirit can soften hearts.
But our lives can adorn the gospel and can be used by God to promote the gospel. Our lives can win a hearing for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And indeed, our good lifestyles might indeed be one of the hundred human steps that God uses to soften an unbelievers heart, so that they finally submit to Christ
This is seen again in chapter 3:1, 2, where the lifestyle of the Christian wife will win the non-Christian husband without words, when their husbands observe their wives’ pure lifestyle in fear. Again, in 3:15-16, the Christian lifestyle (termed ‘the good lifestyle in Christ’) serves to assist the witness of Christians giving an answer for the reason for their hope.
Remember, you and I may not see the happy ending in this life. Prior to our death, or Jesus’ return, you and I might only experience the non-Christian’s accusations of doing wrong. We might experience only slander and animus and enmity and hatred. The world out there may not acknowledge during our lives that we did good at all. Then again, maybe they will, and maybe you will get to see it this side of glory. I hope so. Because we all could use the encouragement in the faith that such things bring.
But think of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Stephen only ever experienced Saul as the angry young man approving of his murder. That’s all Stephen got to see. Stephen perhaps looked over as he lay dying, and saw only a violent and hateful young man, minding the clothes of those who stoned him, wanting him dead and in hell. Stephen never knew the 13 letters of the Apostle Paul. He never knew of the memory verses that God used Paul to write…. ‘Forgive as God in Christ has forgiven you’…. ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. Maybe Stephen prayed for Saul as he lay dying. And that was it.
But on the day of judgment, Paul and others with him, will declare that Stephen did good. When Stephen fed the greek-speaking Christian widows in Jerusalem, and preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, he did not deserve death. Stephen did a wonderful and fine thing. And Paul himself will declare that to the glory of God, on the judgment day. Because the seeds of Paul’s conversion were planted that day, when Stephen maintained the good confession.
And that takes me to the eyes observing what we do that we should be most concerned about: God’s. Look at the last part of verse 12:
…That they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (NIV)
‘On the day he visits us’ literally is, on the day of oversight. That is, the day of oversight, the day of God scoping us out, is the judgment day. It is God who is judging us, God who watches everything we have done, and God who will bring us into judgment on the last day. Look at chapter 1 verse 17:
Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. … (NIV)
That’s the judgment day. Look at chapter 4 verse 5:
But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. … (NIV)
And chapter 4 verse 17:
For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner. (NIV)
The little beady eyes of those around us aren’t the biggest things we need to worry about. It is the omniscient, all seeing God, who sees all our ways, who will bring us into judgment for everything, whether good or evil. Every careless word will be accounted for on that day. We all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ – yes, even the justified, those forgiven in Christ, those to whom Christ’s righteousness is imputed, even those in Christ whose home is in heaven – all of us will be judged for what we’ve done in the body, whether good or bad.
Let’s pray.
[1] Peter speaks of the soul (yuch) in 1:9, where the goal of faith is the salvation of ‘your souls’, in 1:22, where their souls have been purified, 2:25, where Jesus is the shepherd and overseer of our souls, and 4:19 If we suffer according to the will of God, we must entrust our souls to our faithful creator by doing what is right.
[2] http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/the-last-christians-flee-mosul-in-iraq/5620674
[3] Peter is the one who uses this word most in the NT. In Peter, 1 Pet 1:15, 18; 2:12; 3:1f, 16; 2 Pet 2:7; 3:11.