Now, if you're able, please remain standing, take your Bibles and turn to the book of Galatians, Galatians, chapter five, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Galatians, chapter five. Our first scripture reading is going to be verses 16 through 24 of Galatians, chapter five. And then from there, we'll turn to our sermon text in First Peter, chapter two. As we come now here, as you have your Bibles open before you, as you're just listening, let's give careful and diligent attention. This is God's inerrant word. But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you as I warned you before. that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And now let us turn further in the New Testament to Peter's first letter. We're going to be reading verses 4 through 12 of chapter 2, but our sermon text really this morning is just verses 11 and 12. We looked at verses 4 through 10 last Sunday. This morning, let's read together 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 4 through 12. And let's continue to give this attention. This is God speaking to us. As you come to Jesus, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 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, for it stands in Scripture. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe. But for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Amen. Please be seated. Now let's seek the Lord's illumination on His Word. Let's pray. Holy Spirit of our God, we believe that this is Your Word, that You are the one who speaks in Scripture. And so we pray that as we sit now to consider it, that You would fill us, that You would give us understanding. Like a flashlight in the dark, that You would illuminate our minds, that we may understand what You are saying to us in Scripture. and that it may sink into us and bring light and joy into our lives. This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, saying together, Amen. I'm smiling because I've been thinking about the opening question for a couple of days and it makes me chuckle. I told my wife the other day and she laughed too. So I want to start out with a question for the men, the boys. Men, boys, how many of you want to be beautiful? and no one raises their hands. But I want you to think about that for a minute. That sounds really bad at first. No man wants to admit to wanting to be beautiful. But what if you're talking about a beautiful Baseball game. That was a beautiful game. How many of you like beautiful games? No, that's not too bad. Or what if you're looking at a piece of work that you've done, whether it's intellectual work or physical work or a home improvement project or a car. Some of you like to work on cars and you say, that's beautiful. Now it doesn't sound so bad, does it? You see, the word beautiful, really, if you look it up in the dictionary, it simply means of a high standard or excellence. And kids, if you're paying attention, this is the first answer on your kids' questions on the outline. For those of you kids who are visiting with us, what we do is we have questions on the sermon outline. And the job that you have is to write down all the answers and quiz your parents on the way home to see if they were paying attention. So beautiful simply means excellence. And what we are looking at here in the book of first Peter is is is an excellent reality. Last week we talked about how how God rescues people who are ruinous and and sinful and rebellious and selfish people like all of us. And He, through the work of Jesus, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, through His life, His suffering and His glory, He makes us new and He brings us into His family and He brings us into the church, which He describes in verses 9 and 10 as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession that we may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us. So we're talking about this beautiful or this excellent reality that we who were once walking the other direction, we who once shook our fist at the heavens, God has brought us graciously, humbly and made us His own and made us new. And this is a big theme in the book of First Peter. Those of you who've been with us for a couple of weeks know that this is a consistent thing that Peter does. He starts out by talking about what God has done for us and in us. And only after that, he talks about how we are to live. And he's going to do that again now in our text this morning. He comes to verses 11 and 12, and having just talked about what God has done in verses 4 through 10, now he tells us in verses 11 and 12, this is how you are to live in response. And some of the language here may at first be off-putting to us, sojourners and exiles. We may read that. And especially if you're not super familiar with Christianity or you're maybe new to this or just kind of exploring it, you look at that and say sojourners, exiles. Boy, Christianity sounds really dreary. Some of us, more than one family in our congregation actually, I know yesterday we're experiencing some grumpiness. Our family was and we met some friends who also said they were experiencing grumpiness and sometimes we can get like this. Christianity is grumpy and dreary, sojourners, exiles. But that's not actually what Peter says here this morning. Peter is actually telling us something quite different and I want to challenge you to think about this as we go through. What if Christianity is actually the most excellent life possible? That's what he says and I have to unpack it. That's what he's saying. And so we're going to look this morning at these two verses at why the Christian life is the most excellent human life possible. And the outline is really simple kids your parents better remember this one. Why the Christian life is the most excellent human life possible, one, because sin is really bad, really, and because holiness is really beautiful, really excellent. Let's unpack this now, this morning, starting with why is sin really bad? Notice first the language that Peter uses here. This is foundational. In the beginning of verse 11, he says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles. First thing you have to note to really understand what's going on in this text is who Peter's talking to. He is talking not to everybody in the world. He is talking to those who have experienced the work of God. He's talking to those who have been transformed already. He's talking to those who, according to verse 3 of chapter 1, have been born again to a living hope. To those, according to verse 3 of chapter 2, who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He's talking to those who, according to verses 9 and 10, have been brought into God's family. So what Peter is going to do, and this is foundational for the rest of this text, and in fact it's foundational to understanding Christianity. Christianity is not moralistic. Do you understand what that means? Christianity is not just another religion that says, do this, do this, do this, do this. Be a good person. Be good for goodness sake. That's not Christianity. Christianity says, God is really good. God will save us. We are worse than we think. And when God saves us and when He embraces us through the cross of Jesus Christ, He starts to change us and it's because of what God has done that we get the strength, the power, the desires to live a different life. And so Peter is making it clear here that he's going to give some commands, right? Abstain, keep your conduct, but it's all predicated and based on this, what God has done. Peter is not ordering non-Christians to act like Christians. He's no expectation. that they would want to, or that they would be able to. He is speaking to those who have been transformed, and He is urging us to live consistently. He says, if you've been transformed, if God has done this great work for you and in you, then live like it. And this is Peter's pattern. This is the pattern of the New Testament. This is the pattern of the Bible. This is Christianity 101. What God has done, who God is, transforms how we live. Christianity is not if you perform a certain way, God might like you. Maybe if he's having a good day, if he's not having a grumpy day. God loves us. God has done this and this and this to save us. And therefore, on the basis of that, Because you have been accepted, therefore you live. Completely different from any other religion. And so this foundational point must stand. This must sink in. If you want to understand Christianity, in order to understand Christianity, you must start by experiencing what God has done. I was speaking to a friend just this week, and we were talking about the difference between Christianity and other religions. And I said, Christianity is not fundamentally about what you do. but about who you trust, Jesus Christ and what He has done. Foundational point. Now we do go on in the rest of verse 11 to talk about how we are to live. Peter says, Sojourners, exiles, I urge you to abstain from the passions of the flesh. This word abstain, we know this word, maybe we don't use it often. How many of you have used the word abstain this week? Abstain means literally to have a way, to have at a distance. The Greek word is a compound of the preposition away and the verb to have. To have a way with it. To distance yourself. To distance yourself. He says, abstain. Distance yourself from the passions of the flesh. Those of you who have been around the Bible or have heard the Bible before, you know, we get very familiar with this kind of phraseology. Do you realize how counter-cultural this is? How completely opposite of the way society thinks this is. It's phenomenal. Our culture today, and maybe for a long time, but especially now in our days, tends to say this. If X, whatever X is, if it's natural, it's acceptable. Follow your heart. Do what you want. Be your own person. In fact, there's a recent movie made for kids. And I tell you, my family enjoyed it somewhat too. My kids enjoyed it too. But in one of the songs in this movie, the following words were sang. It's time to see what I can do, the song says. To test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. This is in a kid's movie. And like I said, my kids enjoyed the movie otherwise, but I'm listening to that song and going... quietly in my head. This is the voice of our culture. Our culture says this. If it's natural, it's acceptable. Do what you want. Just blindly follow your heart wherever it leads. Peter is telling us that is the worst thing you could do. To blindly follow your heart is the worst thing you could do. Because our hearts are deceitful. I want you to think of a very real example, familiar example, even to many who are not raised or super familiar with Christianity or the Bible, the example of Cain, one of the first human beings. Cain has a brother. His brother's name's Abel. Cain and his brother bring sacrifices to God. God had told them how to bring sacrifices, and Abel brought the sacrifice the way God said. Cain decided to kind of do his own thing, to make it up as he goes, and he brings a sacrifice, but his own kind of sacrifice. And God says, Abel, good job. Cain, not so good. Cain gets angry, the Bible tells us. It says, Cain was very angry and his face fell. And it says, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do well, in other words, if you do what I tell you, wouldn't that be acceptable? Will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, He says to Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. So God knows, Cain, you're angry. Do not just blindly follow your heart. This is not going to be good. What does Cain do? Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. The message of that story, the message of Peter, the message of the Bible is that we cannot simply blindly follow our hearts. The heart is deceitful. And I don't know how many of you have had these sorts of sad experiences, but how many here today, again, I don't want to know the details and you don't want to share it, but how many of us can testify in our lives that there have been times when we've just kind of done what we felt like doing and it has been an absolute disaster? Right. In fact, there's a novelist by the name of Rebecca West and she once said, if the whole human race were lying in one mass grave, you know what the epitaph on that tomb would be? It seemed like a good idea at the time. We cannot simply blindly indulge every desire we have. That's not healthy. That is not good for people. Imagine living in a world where everybody literally did whatever they wanted all the time. Where there was absolutely no restraint. Can you imagine that world? Disaster. And so Peter is telling us that simply indulging in whatever feels natural is not the best way to live. It's a road to destruction. And that's what he brings up there at the end of this verse. He says, these passions of our flesh, they wage war against your soul. The word there, wage war, literally means performing military service. The Greek word there is stratuo, right? The word from which we get our word, what? Strategy. depending on how you pronounce it, strategery, right? That sort of thing. He says these things that seem so natural, that seem so innate, are actually plotting our murder. And again, this is the teaching of all the Scripture, that Satan will often pose as a friend. They appear as an angel of light, but that he prowls as a lion. Peter says later in this letter, we'll get to it in some weeks. He says, be sober minded, be watchful your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, like a roaring lion, sorry, seeking someone to devour. And who is Peter talking to here? Again, I must underline this. He's not standing on the housetop talking to the world outside, he is speaking to the church. to grown-ups, to children, to men, to women, to those who are older, to those who are younger. And He is saying, look, if you simply live your life based on what you feel like doing at any given moment, you're being a fool. You will destroy yourself. You will destroy others. It's like running downhill. How many of you have ever run down a hill? Well, you start to make some momentum, right? You know, this is fun. I am fast. I am running downhill. How easy is it to stop when you're running downhill? Not so easy! Unless you lose your footing and then... Peter's saying, look, following the every desire we have. It's like running downhill. It may feel really good. You've got momentum. Look how fast I am. He says, but at the bottom there's a cliff. And you're not going to be able to stop. He says, these things wage war. against our souls. And so these natural desires that we have these rebellious desires the desire to do what I want rather than what God tells me is good. He's saying basically put it like this. He said rebellious desires are not baking us muffins. They're building our coffins. Sin promises heaven but in reality it pulls people into hell. And that other reading that we read from Galatians before we turn to 1 Peter, listen again to what he says. Paul says, Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual morality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these. He says, I warn you, as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the question that I have for us is why would anybody want to live like this? I mean, you look at that list again and say, are any of these things that I really want to get involved with? How many want to wave the flag for idolatry and sorcery and enmity and say, boy, if we could just have a society full of enmity? No. No. Who wants to live like that? Who likes being in a group of people where there's constant rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy? Who wants to live in that world? Why would any of us want to live that way when there is a better way? Peter is setting out before us, firstly, the warning that sin is really bad. Let us not be deceived. To blindly do what we want may feel natural. It may feel like a party, but it's a funeral party. Now maybe today we're here and we say, boy, I feel like I've been sliding on gravel this week. I feel like I've been sliding downhill, like I've been running downhill. How can I escape? How can I, how can I resist sin? You know, I don't want to do this. I don't want to live this way, but it's really hard. How do I actually make progress? And this is the thing that Peter is going to bring up to us now in the next verse. He said, Sin is really bad, but holiness is really beautiful and really excellent and really powerful. Look again now at verse 12. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good works and glorify God on the day of visitation. Now, you may read that and say, I don't see that. I don't see the how to. I know there's a problem, wage wars, passions of the flesh, bad. Verse 11. How do I actually make progress? You have to understand what verse 12 is really saying. Here in the English that I have, it says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles. But the Greek word there is just a little bit different. It is the word keep. But literally, it's keeping. Keeping, do you understand? There's a difference between, it's not a command. It's a, English majors, any English majors here? It's a participle. It means, it's talking about a contrary activity. It's putting it side by side. Abstain from the passions of your flesh by keeping your conduct among the Gentiles. Literally, beautiful. Excellent. What he is saying here is very important. That if we really want to make progress against the bad things that we see in our lives, we have to not simply say, those were bad, but we have to expel them, to push them out with things that are good. To abstain from the passions of the flesh. We replace them with the fruit of the Spirit. Paul talked about that in those verses we read. He said, walk by the Spirit and you won't gratify the desires of the flesh. Walk by the Spirit and you won't gratify the desires of the flesh. Why not? Because they're against one another. They fight. They can't cohabitate. And so if you cultivate the fruit of the Spirit, the good things that He lists, and He gives us a list, you will thereby expel and push out the bad things. Thomas Chalmers, a Scottish Pastor theologian back in the 1800s he put it so well, and I give you the quote there on your outline So you can take it home and think about it. He says such is the grasping tendency of the human heart Talking about our inner being that we must have something to lay hold of we're always Grasping and clutching for something you think about it. He's just telling the truth Life is always for something. You are always living for something. Maybe it's a goal. Maybe it's something. Maybe it's an object, a thing, a relationship. We're always living for something. The heart is always going after something. He says, the love of the world cannot be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world's worthlessness. It's not enough to say bad things are bad. He says the heart is not so constituted. The only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one. The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one. And to bring it all down to 21st century language. by the love of what is good to expel the love of what is evil. That's what Peter is saying here. Literally, let me read this to you the way you would translate this. Literally says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul, keeping your conduct among the Gentiles excellent. You want to get rid of what is bad. You want to make progress against it. You cultivate. You foster what is good, what is excellent. And that's the second thing we need to see. We need to understand that when he's talking about the way of following Jesus, that it's not a dreary, dull, grumpy way of life. It is an excellent way of life. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable or beautiful. The word there is literally the word beautiful. It means excellent. When we talk about repentance, again, repentance gets a bad reputation in the church. Well, I've got to stop doing all this stuff that's fun and I've got nothing else to do but read my Bible. No. I mean, reading your Bible is a good thing. But repentance is turning from what is bad to what is better. We're turning from divisions, enmities, rivalry, sorcery. to things like love, compassion, delight, enjoying good things without making them into God things. This is not a dreary, wimpy way of life. Listen to how the book of Hebrews describes some people who lived for Jesus. And you tell me if this sounds dreary or grumpy to you. And what more shall I say? The writer of Hebrews says, For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Does that sound like a dreary, grumpy life to you? No, it was glorious, exciting, perilous, dangerous, maybe terrifying, but not dreary. God's way is not just right. It's better. Living for Jesus is true life. True life is not living like animals. Just doing whatever feels natural. It is living for what is excellent. We don't live for what feels good, but we live for what is good. And what effect will that have? Look at the rest of verse 12. So that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Peter says that if you who are Christians would learn to live this way and would cultivate this sort of life, not everybody is going to be persuaded. Not everybody is going to become a Christian, but some, some will. Some in seeing your life, We'll see the beauty of it and recognize that the way they are living is not just wrong, but inferior and they will be drawn. Tell me more about your God. One of the commentators on this passage said the following, he said, Peter's hope was that unbelievers will be compelled to admit that the lifestyle of believers is morally beautiful and this admission will bring them to saving faith so that God will be glorified on the day of judgment, what Peter calls the day of visitation. He goes on to conclude the good works of believers are intended for mission. Sometimes Christians struggle and say, well, I can't be a missionary. What can I do? You could start by living an excellent and beautiful life before outsiders so that they may see. Sincere Christians, this is another question on the kids. This is another one of your questions. Sincere Christians are like fireflies on a summer night. When we are living for Jesus, our lights shine with a luminous goodness. And Jesus talks about this. He says, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. In a dark world, believe it or not, God will actually use your life if it shines to draw some out of darkness to that light. And it's because of that. It's because of this truth that Peter is going to go on to warn us, and we'll see in the following weeks, that we need to be careful to live in such a way that nothing obscures that light. When he talks about submitting to human institutions, to the emperor, when he talks about servants and masters, when he talks about husbands and wives, all of it is based off this. These two verses that we've studied this morning are the heading. And then he's going to give us three examples. And I want to just ask you this morning, we're not going into all those examples this morning, but based just on what we've said today, what better way to live is there? Kids, you should be thinking about this. You're growing up. You have to decide what your life is going to be about. Those of you who are a little older, but still maybe not living independently, you have to think about what does this mean? What is my life really for? Those of us who are older, who have made choices in life, who have done some distance, and maybe we wish some of those roads we hadn't walked. Nevertheless, this morning, what is my life going to be for? What better life is there, my friends, guests, this morning, than to live for the glory and enjoyment of God and for the good of other people? You tell me a more excellent life than that. A life where it's not all about me, where it's about what is good. The glory of God, the delight in good things, and the good of other people. The last thing I want to say this morning is that we need to remember, as we're thinking about these things, we need to remember eternity. Peter ends these verses on that note. He speaks of the day of visitation. I'm not going to argue with you this morning to try to persuade you that there is an end to history coming. The Bible tells us that God has put eternity into the hearts of every human being, that we all know. that an end of life is coming, but that after our life ends, we don't end, that we meet God. The Bible says that that's already built in. We know that. And so I simply encourage you to consider what we've said this morning, that the most excellent life there is, is a life that is lived in and a life that shines with the light of eternity. The life that comes from having a living hope, being connected to Jesus Christ, the living God, the one who died and was raised by faith. Do you have this life? Do you desire it? It's not something you can gin up in yourself. The Bible's very clear. It is not what we do that saves us. It is who we trust. And even in living this life, the strength that we find to live this life shining, it's not something we do of ourselves. It says God works in us, and therefore we bring it out. But if you're looking for it or if you need more of it, if you need the strength to live in this shining way, Where do you go? To whom do you go? Why not go to the One who said this? The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Who said that? Jesus said that. Let us go to Him. Amen. Let's pray. Our gracious God. Our God who does not deal with us as we deserve, but a God who is better to us than we can imagine. We've gathered here this morning from different places, different lives, different backgrounds. And you call us to to really consider what life is all about. Is it about simply living for what we feel like doing, what we think might be good, what feels good, or is it about living for what is good? God, give us the understanding, the clear thinking to see that life is not about living like an animal, but living for what is excellent, for what is beautiful. Give us the faith to find that beauty, not in of ourselves, but in Jesus Christ, the glorious one. And then give us the strength by your spirit to shine with that light. Work in us. that which we may work out to Your glory, to our joy, and to the good of people made in Your image. This we pray in the name of Christ, saying it together, Amen.