Transcription downloaded from https://sermon-library.fbcmustang.org/sermons/103615/rejected-by-men-chosen-by-god/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] If you would open with me to 1 Peter chapter 2. We're continuing our trek through this book.!

[0:30] Rejected by men, chosen by God. Rejected by men, chosen by God. And again, these believers weren't just facing some awkwardness.

[0:43] They were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. Some of them were losing their lives simply by claiming the name of Christ. And if they weren't careful, that rejection, that opposition could snuff out their joy.

[0:59] It could completely get rid of the joy and confidence they had in Christ. And so Peter's writing to encourage them to rejoice even in their sufferings.

[1:10] And he does that tonight by coming back to the idea that they are chosen. He opened his letter with this, calling them elect exiles, those who are chosen by God.

[1:22] And he does it again here in our passage a couple of times as we'll see tonight. They are chosen by God even though the men around them, the people around them, are rejecting them.

[1:36] And if they can remember, if they can call to mind that God has chosen them, that God has selected them, that God has saved them, if they can remember that in the pit of suffering, then they will remember that God loves them and accepts them on their darkest days.

[1:55] And we as Christians today need these truths as well. We need these truths just as much as they did. We're not facing persecution to the extent that they were.

[2:07] But if you are confident that whether in life or in death you belong to God, that will give you joy, that will sustain you through your most difficult days.

[2:18] That will give you a hope that trials can't touch. That will give you peace even in the midst of chaos. Knowing that our Father loves us and sends us into a lost world should color the way we view our entire life.

[2:39] Knowing that God has saved us should give us confidence in the face of trials. When I was six years old, any six-year-olds in here? Okay, good, because you should be in Awana.

[2:50] But when I was six years old, back in the day when you went to birthday parties at McDonald's, anyone had a McDonald's birthday in here? Okay, a few of you, yeah. Play place was legit. And so I was at like a younger cousin's birthday party or something.

[3:05] So I had a younger sister. She was about four when I was six. And so most of the kids there were about four or five. Well, repeatedly, these kids are coming down the slide crying.

[3:17] And they're like, someone bit me. And so there's this five-year-old up there biting everyone in our birthday party. He wasn't a part of the birthday party. He was an outsider. But so kids are coming down crying.

[3:29] And this mom is over there like, yeah, he's in a biting phase. And we're like, he's five. Like, what's going on? And so finally, kids keep getting bit. And then my little sister comes down the slide crying.

[3:42] And she had gotten bit. And my dad goes, go get him, Joey. And I'm like, dun-da-da-dun-da-da-da-da-da. Like, going straight to the top, about to mess this dude up.

[3:52] And I get up there. And I'm like, the fact that my dad was commissioning whatever was about to happen gave me all the confidence in the world. And I was like, hey!

[4:03] I was six, so I didn't say it like that. But I was like, are you biting people? And he, like, takes off down the slide. And I chased him all over McDonald's. And it did fine. But that confidence, knowing that my father said, go get him, Joey.

[4:18] I didn't care what I was about to run into up there. If it was a 30-year-old dude, which would be weird for a number of reasons, I was going to give it my all. And even to this day, if I get sad, I just repeat the words, go get him, Joey.

[4:29] And I, no, that part was made up. But that's something of what Peter is strengthening these Christians with. You are suffering.

[4:41] You're going through immense difficulty. But you were chosen by God. And you aren't just chosen by God. You're chosen by God for this. You're chosen to endure suffering well.

[4:55] And to be a witness to the truth in the midst of it. And if you know the gospel, if you know these truths and have them planted in your heart, you will have hope that surpasses all of your trials.

[5:08] And so we'll cover our text in three portions tonight. Number one, desire the word. Desire the word. It's in verses one through three. And I'll read those for us.

[5:18] Peter says, So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

[5:38] And so just to remind you about where we ended last week, Peter said, That's the command to love each other.

[5:49] And then he reminds them, You've been born again, not with something perishable, but with the word of God. And since God himself cannot change, his word will never pass away. And so because you've been born again, because God's word never perishes, and because you're commanded to love each other earnestly, therefore or so, put away, and he goes on to list, five sins.

[6:14] And he tells us to put them away. And this isn't a put away like what we do with Christmas decorations. Anyone have to help with Christmas decoration? Tear down the sad part of Christmas. But anyway, you put them in a box, throw them in your attic, and don't think about it.

[6:28] You put it away. But this is different, because when we put away Christmas decorations, the plan is to get them back out next Christmas. Whereas with these sins, we're getting rid of them.

[6:42] Peter's commanding us, don't put these in the attic, put them in the dumpster. Get rid of them, send them away, and never bring them back out again. And he lists here five sins that they're to put away, or to put to death.

[6:57] He says all malice, or literally just all evil. This is kind of an ill will, or a hatred toward someone else.

[7:10] And I think these are specifically in the context of the church. Because he said love one another earnestly in verse 22. And so here, these are sins that will tear apart that unity, or tear apart that love.

[7:22] They'll rip away at the fabric that holds the church together. He says put away all deceit. That's all lying, any deception of any kind, get rid of it.

[7:33] And hypocrisy, or we could describe it as fakeness. And hypocrites are what they called actors back in the first century. So they didn't have these movies back then where you could see people's faces very well.

[7:47] They just had amphitheaters. And so you could be super, super far away from the actors on stage. And so they'd put on a mask to give you some indication of the tone, or who this character was that they were playing.

[8:01] And so actors were called hypocrites. And so the way we use that word now is by people who wear masks. We're describing, you know, you pretend to be one way. You put a mask on to give a sense of who you want us to think you are, but actually you're someone different.

[8:18] And so this is fakeness that is all throughout churches today. This kind of hypocrisy, pretending to be something you're not, thinking of yourself as more righteous than others because, yeah, you've got some sins, but they're not as bad as what other people do.

[8:35] And it's kind of, we can justify our own sins, but look down on the sins of others. And that's what the Bible would call hypocrisy. And Peter says, you've got to get rid of that.

[8:47] Put that all away. He mentions envy. This is desiring something that belongs to someone else. And envy usually shows up in the question, well, why didn't I get to do that?

[9:01] How come she gets that reward? How come he gets to do that? I wasn't invited to do that. Those are the kinds of questions that envy asks.

[9:12] And he says, and all slander. And slander, what Peter literally says, is speaking evil. Get rid of all evil speaking.

[9:22] And so slander is kind of running someone down with your words. You're talking bad about them, typically not in their presence. You're just trying to ruin their reputation to someone else or to another group of people.

[9:36] And we can slander in a lot of different ways. One way is to assume someone's motives. Okay, so you see someone do something or you hear about someone doing something and you try to give a reason why they would do that.

[9:50] So if Luca leaves some trash in his chair and someone's like, I bet Luca did that because he expects us to just do everything for him and he's so lazy. That would be assuming his motives.

[10:01] Luca, it's not personal. You're just an example. That would be assuming someone's motives for something that they did. And that can lead to slander and certainly thinking evil of them in our hearts.

[10:14] Slander can look like airing out or repeating someone's worst moments. So you can be talking about someone and be like, yeah, but remember the one time they did that and something they did on their worst day or something they're ashamed of constantly repeating that.

[10:28] Now, sometimes you do need to speak up. You do need to speak the truth about people. If you or someone else are endangered by someone else doing something evil, it's okay to speak up.

[10:43] It's okay to tell that to someone else. So just because we're speaking poorly of someone or speaking about someone doing something bad does not mean we're automatically slandering them.

[10:55] Does that make sense? And so when we deal with sins in the church or we need help with a situation, telling someone about something isn't necessarily slander.

[11:10] So what's the difference? Slander doesn't have the goal of restoration. Slander doesn't have the goal of fixing the problem. Slander is just, I'm gonna tell you this and I'm just gonna walk away.

[11:23] I want you to hear what so-and-so did or said and that's it. Whereas dealing with problems biblically sometimes does require us to repeat things and talk about sin with the goal of restoring them or fixing the problem.

[11:39] Does that make sense? Is that a clear distinction? Okay. So he says put away all slander. And so all five of these sins, thinking about them together, they do not promote this love for each other that we should have and is commanded by scripture in chapter one, verse 22.

[11:57] And so we need to put these sins away and that's not a one-time act, unfortunately. We have to do this every day. We need to put these sins away continually. Okay, verse two. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation.

[12:19] Now, Peter's not like insulting these people. He's not like, oh, you're just cute little baby Christians. Like that, no. He's saying we as Christians should desire the word like a newborn desires milk.

[12:34] And anyone had a newborn sibling before that you remember? Were they like super chill and never made noise? Eek, no. Yeah, they get fussy. And so Peter is saying, just like that newborn cries out for milk, we as Christians should strongly desire the word.

[12:54] And he doesn't say the word here. He just calls it the pure spiritual milk. But he's just come off of talking about the good news of the word at the end of chapter one. So by context, we know he's talking about the Bible or God's word.

[13:09] And sometimes we go places as a student ministry or you go places individually. You go somewhere that you expect or hope the word to be preached, the word to be taught.

[13:19] And if it's not, we can all get a little bit fussy. Like, he didn't teach well. Wow. That's a good thing. We should have a desire and expectation for the word to be taught to us.

[13:33] And so, you know, if Pastor Michael just showed up one Sunday and was like, eh, Bible, not today. We should throw a little fit. You know, like, what are you doing? Like, give us the word.

[13:44] And so Peter is saying this longing, this desire should be the mark of Christians. So he says, long for the pure spiritual milk. Now, if you are indulging in the five sins that he just talked about, you're not going to properly desire God's word.

[14:05] And so I talk to a lot of people in our church and in our student ministry who struggle with a desire to read the Bible. They say, I know I should read the Bible.

[14:16] I'm just not. I know I should read the Bible. I just, I can do it for a few days and I just don't have the desire. And a question that can be uncomfortable to ask, but that I try to ask is, is there any sin in your life that you're allowing to just flourish?

[14:33] Because if you were to, for example, these five sins, if you were to allow those to grow in your heart, your desire for the word is going to be muted. And so in order to long for the word properly, we need to be putting away sin.

[14:47] And so if you're not desiring to read the word and you're a Christian, figure out why. And it's a good place to start just asking, is there any sin in my life that I'm allowing to go unchecked?

[15:01] And he says that by it, so by this word, by this milk, you may grow up into salvation. And so the word of God matures us and maturity is essential in order to receive salvation at the end of time.

[15:16] Now, we as Christians are saved, but there's a fuller aspect of salvation that's yet to be revealed to us. We will see Jesus face to face. And in order to make it there, in order to stay faithful to the end, we need the word of God in our lives.

[15:34] And I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of someone who's malnourished, someone who's not getting enough food, not enough nutrients. It's a sad thing to see. But there are so many Christians who are spiritually malnourished.

[15:48] They're going around and they know the Bible, they believe the gospel, they love Jesus, but they're just not getting what they need. They don't know how to feed themselves. And so they don't, they feel like they should be more joyful.

[16:01] They feel like this life is more frustrating than they anticipated it to be. They're not as happy as they had thought they would be following Christ. And much of it can come back to this.

[16:11] They're not taking in the word regularly. So I would encourage you, read the Bible. Just pick it up and start reading. You can start in the Gospel of John.

[16:22] If you need help with that, please feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to help you in any way. In verse three, he says, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

[16:33] And so he's saying, the way you'll long for the word, the way you'll continue to walk faithfully in it, is if you know the kindness of the Lord. If you've experienced his kindness and love to you, that will make you long for his word.

[16:48] And now, Kagan read Psalm 34 earlier. This is a quote from Psalm 34 that Peter incorporates into his letter. But as I mentioned last week, when the apostles quote the Old Testament, they're not just like, oh, this is my favorite verse.

[17:02] I'm just gonna plop it there. And so actually, Psalm 34 kind of informs all of this letter. And so if we look at Psalm 34, he quotes it later in chapter three.

[17:14] But what is the theme of Psalm 34? When the righteous are suffering, they can be confident that God will deliver them from their troubles.

[17:27] That's what Psalm 34 is about. And that's really what Peter is encouraging his readers to believe. Your suffering, be confident that God will not only deliver you from suffering, but use your suffering for your good.

[17:42] And so have you seen that the Lord is good? Do you long for God's word? Do you read your Bible? Growth in Christ isn't just a duty.

[17:56] It should be a delight for us. And so when it's not, and we all go through seasons where it's a difficulty, we need to figure out why that is. So secondly, we must follow Jesus.

[18:11] Follow Jesus. And we get this in verses four through 10. So we saw desire the word. Secondly, follow Jesus. Verse four says, as you come to him, or more literally, coming to him.

[18:29] So this is an act of continual faith or following Jesus. Now, who is him? Well, we find out that he's just referred to the Lord in verse three.

[18:40] That's a quote from Psalm 34. In that verse, the Lord is Yahweh. The Lord is God. And so Peter is saying, as you come to the Lord, as you come to him, but then he goes on to describe Jesus.

[18:56] And so Jesus is him, both in this text and as the kids say, he's him. But anyway, thanks Luke. So that landed flat.

[19:07] That's okay. My confidence is in Christ. So verse four, as you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious.

[19:23] So it's interesting here. Peter is saying that Jesus is God. Jesus is Yahweh. He is divine by applying Psalm 34, 8 to Jesus.

[19:38] But he also calls Jesus a living stone, which seems completely contradictory because how can a stone be living? Stones are inanimate. Jonathan, that means like they don't talk. Okay, so they're inanimate.

[19:51] So how is it that Jesus can be described as a living stone? It's through his resurrection. He is the rock.

[20:02] He is the stone that the church is built upon, but he is alive and he gives life to those who draw near to him by faith. And so this living stone was rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious.

[20:18] He's rejected by men. He was crucified. He was completely rejected by the Jews. They listened to his teaching, they saw his miracles, and they put him to death.

[20:33] He was rejected by men, but in the sight of God, he was chosen and precious, or chosen and honored. And so not only was he crucified, but the Lord honored him and showed that he had chosen by raising him from the dead and causing him to ascend back to heaven to the Father's right hand.

[20:53] And so the resurrection that Jesus died and rose again proves that Jesus is God's Son. Jesus is the one that his Father loves.

[21:08] And verse 5 says, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

[21:26] And so we, by faith in Jesus, are made just like him. Jesus is described as the living stone, and we who believe in him are turned into living stones.

[21:39] As we follow him, we become like him. What's true of Jesus is true of us. We'll never be the divine Son of God, but the way that the Father glorifies him, we will share in that glory by following him.

[21:54] And while we'll share in his glory, while we'll share in his honor, that also means we'll share in his rejection. Just as he was rejected by men, we shouldn't expect anything different.

[22:07] We as believers, will not be at home in this world. We won't ever be in step with where the culture wants us to be if we're trying to be faithful to the word of God.

[22:22] So just as Jesus is chosen and honored, so are we. But just as Jesus is rejected by men, we will be too. And he says, we're being built up as a spiritual house.

[22:35] This is a reference to the church. And so spiritual doesn't just mean non-physical, but means filled by the Spirit and dwelt by the Spirit. Now remember that there are several churches receiving this letter.

[22:48] He wrote this letter out to multiple cities, multiple regions in Asia Minor, and yet there's only one house. And so there is one church of God.

[22:59] There's one universal church. And yet there are several local assemblies of that one church as they meet together to study God's word and to worship him.

[23:12] And wherever the church is, God is there. It's a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

[23:27] Now what are spiritual sacrifices? sacrifices? We don't offer animals up to God anymore. What does it mean to offer a spiritual sacrifice?

[23:38] Well, to summarize this, it can just be summarized as anything we do to serve Christ. And so whether that's greeting people at the door, showing hospitality, whether it's teaching the Bible, or helping someone understand the gospel for the first time, anything we do for the glory of Christ is part of this spiritual sacrifice to God.

[24:02] And he says, verse 6, for it stands in Scripture. And he quotes Isaiah 28. Behold, I, this is God speaking, am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious.

[24:17] Same words Peter used in verse 4. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. And so, God is saying that I am laying a foundation stone in Zion.

[24:30] I am choosing someone who's chosen and precious and I'm planting him as the first stone laid in this building that I am making. And whoever believes in him, whoever trusts in him, will not feel the shame of being judged.

[24:46] They will conquer with him. They will be honored and chosen alongside him. And Peter says in verse 7, so, the honor is for you who believe.

[24:58] If you believe in Jesus, you share his destiny. If you believe in Jesus, you will share his status as someone who is loved by God. He says, but for those who do not believe, so for the unbelievers, and he quotes Psalm 118.

[25:14] The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and, verse 8, quote from Isaiah 8, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

[25:27] And so, the way Peter is describing the rejection of Jesus is that God was, he chose Jesus. He sent Jesus to earth to be the Savior and the Jews looked at him and said, he's not what we want.

[25:43] He's not what we need. And in buildings, the cornerstone was the first stone laid of the foundation and it had to be perfect. It needed to be perfectly level because it set the lines horizontally and vertically for the building.

[25:57] So the other night, I was sitting on the carpet with my kids and there were some Cheerios on the ground because there's always Cheerios on the ground at my house. And just in case you were wondering and got hungry, but I started stacking these Cheerios up and I got like seven Cheerios high.

[26:10] So I was impressed by the stack. But anyway, for the first Cheerio laid, I needed like a flat Cheerio or else the tower would just start leaning and it wouldn't get that high. That's what builders were looking for in a cornerstone.

[26:21] It needed to be a stone that could be stacked on. It needed to be perfect. And the builders, the Jews, looked at Jesus and said, you're not what we want. And Peter is saying by quoting the Old Testament, that stone that they threw out, God used as the cornerstone.

[26:40] And not only did he use it as a cornerstone, but these Jews, they stumbled over it to their destruction because they failed to believe in the one whom God sent.

[26:51] And he says at the end of verse 8, they stumble because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to do. This is a shocking statement that Peter makes.

[27:06] So what were they destined to do? Which part were they destined for? Were they destined to stumble? Or were they destined to disobey the word? And some view this as like you have to choose one or the other.

[27:19] They view it as simple cause and effect. So they disobey the word. Therefore, they were destined to stumble. This would be like in math class. I've mentioned math like two weeks in a row.

[27:29] I need to stop. I'm a nerd. But anyway, if you don't follow the rules of math and you don't solve a problem correctly, you're destined to get the problem wrong.

[27:41] Right? Cause and effect. That's how some people view this verse. I think the best way to understand it is they were destined for both of these things. They stumble because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to do.

[27:56] Both their stumbling and their disobedience or their unbelief are all destined by God. And this is absolutely shocking to us.

[28:08] This makes us very uncomfortable very quickly when we think about the implications. So, why did Peter write this? How would this be comforting to suffering people?

[28:24] What this shows us is that all the evil in the world is under God's control. Even the crucifixion of his son, the most evil act in human history, was a part of God's plan.

[28:45] And so, the unbelief, the plotting of the Jews as wicked and sinful as it was and as responsible as they are for their sins, God is the one who planned this.

[28:58] And so, whatever evil these Christians face, whatever they go through, whatever suffering they endure, God their Father is the one who orchestrates that.

[29:10] And so, this truth that at once makes us really uncomfortable when we think about the implications of it is also our only source of comfort in the chaos of this life.

[29:21] That God is sovereign over every single detail, including the wicked act of the death of his son for the sins of his people.

[29:33] And he says, verse 9, but you, as opposed to those who disbelieve, those who disobey, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

[29:50] And all of these descriptions are borrowed from the Old Testament to describe Israel. And so, the church is the vehicle through which God blesses the ends of the earth.

[30:02] God had promised that Israel would be the ones who are a blessing to the ends of the earth and the church is brought into that and the church is the one who takes God's blessing to the ends of the earth.

[30:14] This doesn't mean Israel is permanently cut off, but it does mean the church is brought into these promises that he made in the Old Testament to Israel. Now, for what purpose?

[30:25] Why are we these things? Well, he gives a purpose here that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[30:40] Why do we have this identity? Why has God saved us? Why has God built his church? Why has God put us into the church for the purpose of proclamation?

[30:51] He's already called us to be holy. That's the church's primary calling, but the reason the church is on earth still is for the purpose of proclaiming the good news, the excellencies of God, the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[31:07] And again, darkness and light themes take us back to Genesis 1. Darkness was over the face of the deep and God said, let there be light. light. He's done that for our souls as Christians.

[31:20] And he says, so just a question before we move on. Do you proclaim him? Do you talk about him? Do you point people toward the gospel?

[31:32] This is one of the functions of the church. Are you participating in that? And we have a phenomenal example of someone who does this in our student ministry.

[31:44] It's Jenna Johnson. You saw her on the drums tonight. She's right there. Say hi, Jenna. So Jenna has such a heart for sharing the gospel with people. A number of years ago for her birthday present, she asked her parents to give her like a hundred gospel tracks so that she could go share the gospel with people.

[32:04] That's an example of what the church is to be doing. Now, we've got different gifts. We've got different personalities. So some of you are like, that horrifies me. Not the gospel, but talking to someone.

[32:17] And so we all have different gifts and different personalities, but we are called to proclaim the gospel of who our God is and what he's done. So if you need help with that, Jenna's a great one to talk to about strategies and things like that.

[32:30] This is what the church is on earth for. And in verse 10, once you were not a people, but now you're a God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

[32:44] And he's quoting from Hosea here. That was one of our Bible and scramble questions. But Hosea, he was really living out a spiritual lesson for the nation of Israel.

[32:57] And so he had an unfaithful wife, just like Israel was unfaithful to God. And God tells him how to name his kids. And he gives them some interesting names. The name of the first one is Not My People.

[33:10] Anyone know someone named Not My People? Hopefully not. And then the next one, he names his son No Mercy. And so the Lord is living and teaching through Hosea and his family, saying, Israel, I chose you, but now you're not my people.

[33:31] Israel, I had shown you mercy, and now you will not receive mercy. And at the end of Hosea chapter two, he talks about the mercy that he's going to show to the house of Israel.

[33:42] And he says, say to Not My People, you are My people. Say to No Mercy, you have received mercy.

[33:53] He's calling them back to his promises, and here Peter applies that to the church. Once we were far off from his promises, once we were strangers to the mercy of God, but now we've received mercy.

[34:04] Once we were at home in this world, and now we are elect exiles in this world because we are God's people through Christ. And lastly, number three, live faithfully.

[34:18] Live faithfully. So desire the word, follow Jesus. Number three, live faithfully in verses 11 and 12. Peter says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

[34:38] And from this verse on, the rest of this letter is very heavy with commands. We haven't had very many commands so far in this book considering how many verses we've covered in the first few weeks, but that's about to change starting with verse 11.

[34:54] So many commands throughout the rest of the book from this point. And there's also a shift from loving one another within the church to how we should relate to those outside of the church.

[35:06] And so he calls us to love one another earnestly inside the church and now starting in verse 11 he focuses on the church's relationship with those in the world. How we're to act in front of and treat those who are outside of the kingdom of God.

[35:22] And he says, I urge you as sojourners and exiles is how he's described them all the way back from the opening verse of this letter. He says abstain from the passions of the flesh.

[35:34] And in chapter 114 he had described these things as the passions of your former ignorance. And so these sins, these lusts, these desires are any fleshly sinful desire that's contrary to the holiness that God has called us to.

[35:52] God's called us to be pure, God's called us to be holy, which means set apart from the world. And these fleshly desires that are within us need to be abstained from, need to be put away, need to be put to death.

[36:08] And so it's interesting that as Peter turns now to the church's relationship to those who are outside of the church, he doesn't describe this as a battle against our enemies outside the church.

[36:21] He doesn't describe the world as enemies, enemies, but he does say there is a war going on. There's a war being fought with Satan, as he'll describe later in chapter five.

[36:32] There's also a civil war going on inside of us. And so the Bible does not call us to look down on the world. The Bible does not call us to hate the people of the world, but there are some hellish desires in us that we need to put to death and abstain from.

[36:51] This is where the battle is fought as individual Christians. We must abstain from these sinful desires. These can be sexual desires, these can be physical desires for stuff or money, these can be pride, any spiritual desires like that.

[37:11] Any and everything that is out of step with the holiness that God has called us to must be resisted. Why? Because they are waging war against your soul.

[37:23] we cannot be passive. We cannot say, yeah, I know the sin is bad, but it's not that bad. This war, this desire, wants to take your soul to death.

[37:39] And it must be resisted. It must be fought against, even if it costs you everything. It's waging war against your soul, waging war against your life.

[37:51] Peter says, remember, you're not at home in this world, you're not at home in your sinful desires, resist them and be faithful. And in verse 12, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, or literally beautiful, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

[38:18] This word for honorable, as I said, could be translated beautiful, could be translated good. It's actually the same word that's used in Genesis 1. God saw that it was good.

[38:29] It's this word in Greek, honorable. And so we need to live a beautiful life. We need to live an honorable life, an upright life, a good life in front of the unbelieving world.

[38:40] Again, not in a hypocritical way of like, hey, we don't have any problems, don't look. it's a way of saying, we follow Jesus, and you can investigate our lives, you'll find some sin, but we've been washed in the blood of Jesus.

[38:57] We love each other as a community, and so we need to keep our conduct honorable among those who are outsiders. Now it's interesting because he's writing to Gentiles, these are Gentile Christians, and he's reminding them, you're like Israel now, you're God's chosen people, and those who are not are outside, and they're now described as Gentiles, but keep your conduct among them honorable.

[39:19] Why? So that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Christians were actually viewed as evil influences in Rome, they were actually viewed as the cause of calamity and catastrophe.

[39:39] Why? Well, they were pretty much viewed as atheists, in Rome. Rome had a pantheon of gods, they had so many gods they worshipped, whereas these Christians said there's only one true God.

[39:52] And so Rome viewed them as a cause of disaster in their cities and in their nation. And so if a certain god or goddess is angry at them, well, it's because these Christians aren't worshipping this god properly.

[40:05] And so they would speak against them as evildoers, they would slander them. And so Peter is saying, make sure that when that happens, they can't find anything in you that's worthy of blame.

[40:18] Make sure you don't give them any ammo in this war. They're going to try to find fault with you, they're going to speak against you. Make sure your life is lived honorably so they can't find anything when they come at you with their words.

[40:34] And in fact, when they look into it, they may see your good deeds and glorify God. And similar to Jesus' words in Matthew 5, 16, where he says, let your light shine among men that when they see your good deeds, they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.

[40:54] And what's the day of visitation? Excuse me. Well, it's unclear exactly. This can be described as the day of salvation or the day of judgment throughout the Bible. But whichever way that word goes, unbelievers will give glory to God because of the church.

[41:10] Whether that's in their judgment and God gets glory in showing his wrath, or in their salvation he gets glory in showing his mercy. And so let us remember that our lives as believers follow the trajectory of Jesus' life.

[41:24] If we want to be glorified with him, we need to suffer for him as we follow him. There is no crown in heaven without a cross. in this life. But when we suffer for Jesus, we must remember he also was rejected by men.

[41:40] He was chosen by God but rejected by men and we should expect the same. And so if you're rejected, if you're humiliated or embarrassed for claiming Christ, it's because you're chosen by God that you will be rejected by men.

[42:00] because you're elected by God, as verse 1 says, you will be in exile in this world that does not know God. But you cannot serve two masters.

[42:12] If you want the world to accept you, follow the world. But if you want to stand with Christ, you will face rejection from this world, but you'll receive the honor and the status of his beloved son before the father.

[42:27] if you follow Jesus, the cost will be high, but the inheritance will be eternal. Let me pray for us. Our father, we thank you so much for your word.

[42:39] I pray that we would desire your word and long for your word knowing that it's only through your word we can grow up and receive and walk into salvation on the last day when your son Jesus Christ returns.

[42:53]  And I pray we would long for that day and the hope of that day would sustain us through suffering and difficulty here and now. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.