Word of Salvation January 2012

 

‘No’ to sinful desires; ‘yes’ to good lives! John de Jongh

(Sermon 5 in a series on 1 Peter)

 

Text: 1 Peter 2:11-12

Reading: Galatians 5:16-26

Songs: My heart is filled with thankfulness; You rescued me; 441; 210; 241

 

Sermon Outline

 

1: ‘No’ to sinful desires!

I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world

 

to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

 

 

2: ‘Yes’ to good lives!

Live 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

 

And so: As citizens of heaven, abstain from sinful desires, and live good lives.

 

 

If you read through 1 Peter to this point, something that might occasionally come to mind is the story of Pilgrim’s Progress. From the beginning of the book Peter has described his readers, and all believers, as ‘God’s elect, strangers in the world’ – pilgrims living in a land not their home, just passing through.

 

If you’ve ever read Pilgrim’s Progress, you’ll remember that Pilgrim has a burden on his back that he can’t get rid of. The only way is to go the cross of Jesus Christ. And so he sets off. And fairly quickly in the story he reaches the cross and his burden is removed.

Then the rest of the story is Pilgrim making his way from the cross to the Celestial City – the heavenly city of God. And along the way he comes across a range of experiences and people who try to distract him and sidetrack him, and sometimes succeed. But each time he eventually finds his feet back on the path. And finally makes his way to the city.

 

And it’s simply the story of the Christian life, isn’t it?

We hear the gospel. At some point we find ourselves at the cross. And our burden of sin is taken away by God through faith in Jesus Christ.

But the rest of life is still before us – our journey to our heavenly home. And whatever places or experiences we meet before then are only ever a passing through. We’re pilgrims, living on this earth, living out this life, but on our way to our true heavenly home. And like Pilgrim, we meet our fair share of challenges, temptations, traps, diversions, and side tracks, that try to distract us.

Our challenge is to live our life as pilgrims, keeping our feet on the straight and narrow. Not seeing this sinful world as our home. Just passing through.

 

Point 1

And so Peter again writes, ‘Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world.’

It raises the question of whether we really do see ourselves as aliens and strangers in the world, doesn’t it?

 

Maybe elections for government are a good test. Why do you vote the way you do?

Many Australians vote Labor because they’re labourers or trades people. They believe Labor best represents their interests against oppressive employers out to exploit them.

Many Liberal voters vote that way because they’re professionals, or employers. They believe Liberal best represents their interests against employees who only want more money for less work.

And many people who vote for a small party are possibly just sick of both major parties. Maybe they vote Greens because they want another party to have the balance of power. Or maybe they vote Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party because they just want a party that hopefully will improve their recreation and lifestyle.

 

Why do you vote the way you do?

As a pilgrim passing through as a citizen of heaven, do you vote for the party that you believe best represents the principles of heaven? Do you vote CDP or Family First because all their candidates are Christians standing for Christian principles? Do you vote Liberal or Labor because they have some committed Christian candidates that you hope will exert Christian influence through their major party?

Do you vote for another party for well thought-through, God-honouring reasons?

Are you just thinking like the average Aussie; or are you thinking like a Christian pilgrim? Do you really see yourself as a stranger in the world, living by a different code?

God, at least, calls us, to think, and live, as aliens and strangers in the world.

 

Which means that he also calls us ‘to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.’

 

You probably know that for a lot of people nowadays ‘abstinence’ is a swear word.

Should Australians abstain from sex outside of marriage? If not because they’re Christians, at least because it can lead to unexpected pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV AIDS, and other consequences and complications? The reality is, more and more people say abstinence is just outdated. They say we just need to protect against the unwanted consequences.

 

Should Australians abstain from recreational drug use? It’s illegal, addictive, it destroys lives, it can ruin your health.

But again, more and more people say abstinence is plain old-fashioned. They believe that harm minimisation is the way to go. In their minds, we just need to protect against the unwanted consequences.

 

But God’s effective answer for many of these kinds of moral and ethical issues in life is simply abstinence. He calls us to stop whatever goes against his nature and will; stop whatever would harm us, or others. We are allowed to say ‘no’ to these things. We should say ‘no’. We can decide for his holy and healthy alternative.

 

Peter here calls believers to abstain from the sinful desires that war against our soul.

He’s thinking about any desire, impulse, lust, selfish attitude or act, that goes against God’s nature and will.

We read before from Galatians 5. And you see there a whole list of the kinds of things that Peter is thinking about.

Paul mentions some things in the area of sexuality – immorality, impurity, and debauchery. He’s thinking about any sexual expression outside of marriage.

He mentions commitment to other gods – idolatry and witchcraft.

He mentions sinful attitudes toward other people – hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy – anything that doesn’t put the good of others before ourselves.

And he mentions hedonism – drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

And Paul’s warning there is that those who choose to live like that won’t inherit the kingdom of God. They’re demonstrating by the fruit of their lives that they’re not God’s children.

 

I’m sure that none of us are completely free of all these things either. And so the question is whether we want to abstain from these things the way God wants us to – whether we’re striving for that, or whether we’re preferring to live that way, against God’s will. Are we growing increasingly holy as God is holy, or don’t we care?

 

 

If we do want to increasingly abstain from things like these, that we’re struggling with, how do we go about it?

 

The answer is as simple as the gospel message itself – repentance and faith. Repent from whatever sin it is – decide that you don’t want to live that way anymore. And believe that God can give you the power to break those old sinful habits over time. And then look to the Holy Spirit for the strength that you need.

Paul, in Gal 5, and similar passages in Romans and other letters, reflects that too when he writes, ‘live by the Spirit and you won’t gratify the desires of the sinful nature.’ Through repentance, and faith, drawing on the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we have all we need to break those old sinful habits and patterns over time.

 

Point 2

And then the call in v12 is that we live such good lives that though non-Christians might accuse us of wrong, they might see the good we do, and glorify God on the day he visits us.

 

The reality in the Roman Empire at the time that Peter wrote was that committed Christians did quickly stand out like sore thumbs. The book ‘How Christianity Changed the World’ shows you why. In a whole range of areas of life, the principles and lifestyle of committed Christians was drastically different to the life of the average citizen.

 

The Roman Empire generally saw human life as cheap. Abortion was common. Unwanted babies were left outside city walls to be taken by wild animals during the night. The sick and elderly were literally abandoned in the gutter rather than nursed back to health and cared for.

But Christians saw life as valuable, to be nurtured, protected, and saved.

 

And while the average citizen saw any sexual expression as relatively normal, from adultery and homosexuality to the absolute depths of depravity, Christians taught and lived sex within marriage only.

 

While the average citizen only cared for others if there was something in it for themselves, Christians began to love others selflessly, even people they didn’t know.

 

While the empire generally only provided places of healing for recovering soldiers so that they could go back to war, Christians started taking sick they didn’t even know out of the gutters to nurse them back to health in their own homes, eventually starting hospitals for them.

 

And while education was only generally for free male citizens and not the majority of the population, Christians started to teach anyone and everyone who was interested so that they would be able to read their Bibles.

 

And on and on it goes. There is no doubt that Christianity relatively quickly changed the world for the better in a whole range of areas. In those early years, Christians stood out head and shoulders above the general population.

 

And of course God still calls us to do the same today. As our society increasingly sinks back into the depravity of the early Roman Empire, we are called to live such good lives that non-Christians can’t help but notice. As Paul describes it in Philippians 2, ‘without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life’.

 

As Peter continues on from these verses, looking at how Christians should live in society, he actually follows lists of virtues that are very similar to the pagan lists of virtues of his day. He is calling Christians to be exemplary citizens in those virtues that even a depraved society still recognizes as honourable and admirable.

And we need to do the same.

 

On the other hand, the pagans also accused the early Christians of doing wrong – because in other things they were so different that their lives were opposite to what was considered normal.

 

And so the early Christians were accused of being ‘atheists’, because they wouldn’t even give lip-service to the emperor as a god. They were accused of committing crimes like murder, incest, and cannibalism during church services, because they used expressions like ‘love feast’, ‘brothers and sisters’, ‘eating the body’, and ‘drinking the blood’. The early Christian apologetes had to defend Christianity against these kinds of claims, and explain that Christians were law-abiding citizens, explain what these terms actually meant.

 

And isn’t it much the same today? Increasingly, our society sees immorality, selfishness, materialism, hedonism, pluralism, tolerance, political correctness, and all of these kinds of things as normal. And so the natural outworking of that is that committed Christians are seen as the intolerant ones, vilifying other faiths, overriding the freedom of others because of our over-active conscience.

 

But in the face of that, God calls us to live such good lives before our society that though they accuse us of doing wrong, they might see our good deeds and glorify God when Christ returns.

Jesus said it before Peter in Mt 5, ‘Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.’

 

In the Roman Empire that’s exactly what happened. Within 300 years of Jesus’ ascension, the gospel had turned the Roman Empire on its head. And it has continued to do the same to the world as a whole ever since. Under Emperor Constantine, in 324 AD, Christianity had grown from a small band of 120 people in Acts 1, to becoming the official religion of the entire Roman Empire. And from that time on, it has only continued to influence and shape the accepted beliefs, values, morals, and behavior of especially the Western World. And now, over the last 60 years, we have also seen it increasingly do the same in the other continents of the world.

 

It’s true that especially during the last 60 years we have also seen a decline of the gospel in the West. Why God is permitting that we don’t exactly know. But his call on us is still the same, ‘live such good lives, that though [society] accuses us of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God [when Jesus returns].’

 

Conclusion

So, how are you doing at that? Are you hiding your light under a bushel so that no one can see your Christian example? Are you compromising your commitment to Christ – just living like the average Aussie non-Christian?

Or are you living a clear Christian example before your non-Christian friends, neighbours, workmates, and whoever else you come into contact with. Are you wanting to do what those early New Testament Christians did?

And then, by God’s grace, be used by him, to play your part in turning our society on its head through your faithful witness to the gospel?

 

Amen