1 Peter chapter 2 verses 11 and 12 is our text. 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 see your good deeds, while speaking against you as evildoers, they may glorify God on the day of visitation. Let's pray. Father, how thankful we are that we can gather this morning on the Lord's day in celebration of your triumph in Christ, that you now speak as King to your people through your word. And we would pray, as we always do, for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. These are spiritual truths that can only be discerned on a spiritual level, and so we pray, O Father, that the Holy Spirit would open up our eyes and unstop our ears and even move in our hearts and even as Tina read, that we would be spoken to this morning. The God who speaks in Genesis, in creation, is the God who speaks to His church in regeneration. And so, Father, we ask that we would hear from You this morning, not merely from some pastor, but as Paul said to the Thessalonians, that we would hear God speaking, the Word of God. as the Bible is read and preached and applied, and has been prayed multiple times, O Father, that as your Word is announced and proclaimed and declared, that you would call your elect in, that the sheep would hear Christ beckoning them to come to Him, to cast all of their cares and unload all of their sin and their guilt, and they would find in Him a sufficient Saviour. So, Father, speak to us this morning and transform us from one degree of glory to another by the Spirit as we look upon Christ in His face and see Your glory, we ask in His name. Amen. Please be seated. As I was reading through the Gospels this week, Jesus said that those who come to Him will become like Him, that the student or pupil will become like the teacher. And I couldn't help but think, when preparing for this message, of what we were working through last summer, namely the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus, ascending this mountain as the new Moses, with the new, as it were, declaration to God's people, the new covenant by which they were to identify themselves Jesus says some very interesting things that I think Peter is replicating for his audience decades later. Listen to Christ on the Sermon on the Mount. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its saltiness or taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out. and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but rather on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others. so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. And of course, Jesus is preparing his people to walk in his steps, which Peter will get to later on in chapter two. But Christ came into the world to be a light to the world, and then those who identify in him by repentance and faith. Those who become a part of his family and a part of his household then are to follow in his steps and to be a light to the world. You are a city on a hill, shining lights so that others may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. And verse 11 in 1 Peter 2 is sort of starting a new section, but it's still reminding us of where we've just come from. Yes, whenever you see the word beloved or you see that verb I urge, it's starting now the practical application of all that was just spoken. And Peter has just declared upon all those who have come to Christ that they're a spiritual priesthood, a holy priesthood. And they are to be about now serving God. And they're to now bring others into God's house. They're to now represent God to the ends of the earth as a light. And they do so as they preach the gospel. Look at that in verse 10. Once you were not a people, quoting Hosea chapter 2, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Why? Yes, for forgiveness of sins, but back up one verse. Now those who had received mercy were now a chosen race. And that's the same word that Peter's going to use in our section. You're a chosen people, a chosen ethnos. And you now go out to the ethnos, or the ethnoid, to the nations. And you do what? You proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of those dark nations and into his marvelous light. So now you go out and you announce glad tidings. You proclaim forgiveness of sins in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But as we've seen all throughout the Bible, that we don't just proclaim with our lips, we also proclaim with our lives. We declare God's excellencies as we preach the gospel, but we also display his goodness with our lives. And that's what Peter's getting at, because as you go out preaching the gospel, people are going to say all kinds of ill things against you. That's just what happens. John chapter three, verse 18. Darkness hates light. And rather than come to the light, they would rather slander and malign and persecute you. And so here are faithful Christians suffering. What are they to do now that they are the off-scouring of the earth? They are the laughing stock of a culture. Do they retreat? Do they isolate? Do they form a little community to maintain their purity? No, says Peter. As a holy priesthood, you continue to preach the gospel, and when they slander you, When they say all kinds of lies against you, you continue entrusting yourself to God. And you commend the gospel that you've preached with your lips by living wholly with your lives. You don't retreat from it. You actually continue steadfastly in it. And you commend the power of God to transform a life by shining as light through your good works. So I'll say it again. Yes, as a holy priesthood, we declare. That's what they did in the Old Testament. They would teach Israel, who would then teach the nations. Hopefully, they would teach them to declare God's excellencies with their lips. But oh, how much of the Old Testament dealt with displaying And some churches, they like to sort of go to one or the other. Churches that always are declaring but never displaying. And as Spurgeon says, making a world full of scoffers because they do not practice themselves what they preach. Or in the language of Romans 2, all day long, the nations blaspheme God because the Jews preached but never practiced. And so Peter says, if we are to be a faithful priesthood, We declare, yes, the gospel with our lips, but we also display and demonstrate its power through a transformed life. We're not just a priesthood, we're a holy priesthood, set apart for God, by God, pulled out of the nations for the nations. Ephesians 2.10, why have we been saved? God has predestined us for what? Yes, salvation, I get it. That's 2.5, but 2.10 says also for good works that we should do what? Walk in them. Why? To bring glory to our Father in heaven. Titus 3, yeah, verse 9 and 14, that these good works are beneficial to believers, but also to the world. And so do you want to be a city on a hill? Do you want to be a light to the nations? Do you want to be a holy priesthood? It requires not only preaching the gospel with your lips, but also living it out with your lives, even in the face of persecution and slander and reviling. If you're in 1 Peter 2, just let your eyes glance down a couple verses to 15. A lot of you are thinking, what is God's will for my life? Should I move here? Should I marry him or her? How many children? Should we move to this location and buy this house? I don't know, but I do know what verse 15 says to a Christian community that is being tempted to maybe compromise because the world doesn't like them, because light hates darkness. Listen to Peter, and we'll get at it next week, but I just want to show you What Peter says in his letter, for this is the will of God, that by doing good, he doesn't just say by preaching the gospel. If you preach the gospel, you will bring about the scorn of this world upon you. Go out proclaiming, Jesus saves, Jesus alone saves. If you go out and repeat what Charles taught in Sunday school, that no one is good, no, no one, that you're dead in your sins and the best you have for God apart from Christ is filthy menstruation rags. See how that fares with you. Go out and say Allah does not save because he is a false god and a demon. Go out and tell Hindus that Jesus alone saves and there's no other name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved. Go and say that to your nice, well-meaning Mormon friend or Jehovah's Witness. Tell them that and see how they respond. This is the will of God, that by doing good, yes, preaching the gospel, but doing good, that word is so important, doing good, that you should what? Put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Look at chapter three. Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? So we're out preaching the gospel and doing good, and sometimes harm comes. Should we stop doing good to diminish the harm? Do we just sprinkle a little bit of incense for Caesar so that they'll let us worship the way they say we should? These are heavy things to think about. Do we compromise to diminish the mocking or the persecution? These are questions the elders thought about. Please hear us. We're going to look at the text next week, but do we keep the church open? Do we keep doing kallos, good, even if it brings upon us mocking from the public? These Neanderthalic Christians who don't understand a virus, why would they keep gathering? Because God says we should. Let them laugh and scoff and mock and ridicule and slander us. We are going to keep doing good. I got lost. Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good, but even if you should suffer for doing what is right? Not just suffering for preaching, suffering for doing what God says is right. Going back again to Matthew 5. Blessed are those who persecute you for my sake when you do righteousness. You will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but rather, in your hearts, sanctify, set apart, holify Christ the Lord, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Why? Having a good conscience so that if you are slandered, no, no, no, no, no, so that when you are slandered, Those who refile your good behavior, there's that word again, good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. Oh, we're not done yet. Chapter 4, verse 2. Go on living for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. And we saw that in 2.50. For the time has passed that suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in all of these sins. Verse four, with respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they what? Malign you. But they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached, even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, here it is, they might live in the spirit the way God does. They might be saved and glorify God. When Christ returns on the day of visitation to separate the wheat and the chaff, the goats and the sheep, the elect and the non-elect, when Christ comes to visit in judgment and salvation, they will glorify him because Christians had the resolve to keep preaching the gospel in the face of persecution and keep doing good, even though they were slandered. See, this is the temptation, to either stop preaching the gospel or to stop doing good. And Peter says, no, no, no. That's not what holy priests have been commissioned to do. You have royal priesthood, that God has given you his royal authority to make disciples, preaching and living in a manner worthy of the calling to which we've been called. So let's quickly rip through the text. Verse 11, beloved, beloved. Some translations have dear friends. That's just too weak. Agapetoi. It's the word that the Father uses of the Son at His baptism and transfiguration. My dearly loved Son. And in Christ, you are dearly loved by God. But also dearly loved by Peter. Different translations will say, my beloved, as if Peter the Apostle's beloved, which is true, but ultimately he's reminding them that they are deeply loved by God, even when they're being maligned and slandered and ridiculed and mocked and persecuted and even martyred. What shall separate you from the love of God in Christ? Not even death. Not even death. Shall persecution or distress or tribulation? None of these things. You're more than a conqueror in him who loved you. So Peter, before he starts getting into the application of these priests, reminds them, you're dearly loved. God loves His temple. He loves His holy nation. He loves those that are His possession. He loves His people. He loves those whom He has mercy on. You're loved. Now out of that status and identity, go out and likewise love. In this new section, which actually goes all the way to chapter four, verse 11, 2-11 to 4-11, it's easy to remember. Peter's now dealing, how do we live in the midst of an unbelieving world? We have seen how we live before the Father and how we live in his house with brothers and sisters. Before the Father, we are to be holy like the Holy One who called us is holy. Chapter one, verse 50. And then we saw later in chapter one that those of us who have come to Christ and had our souls purified in this obedience to the truth, it says now we are to love one another with a brotherly love from a pure and sincere heart. So we walk holy before God, we love holy in community, and now we live rightly in the eyes of the world. We do good works. How are we to live? How do you live at work, irrespective of where you work? How do you live with your neighbors? How do you live before a government? How do you live within your house? How do you live? wherever God has placed you. Well, that's what we're gonna spend the next few months looking at. But if you're a Christian, before you live, understand you are loved, beloved, not just dear friends, deeply cherished loved ones by God and by his people. I urge you, whenever you see that verb, I urge, it's getting into practical application. Paul does it all the time. I am urging you. It's a discipleship word, para kaleo. Para, to come alongside, kaleo, to call. And so it's like Peter's coming alongside these suffering Christians. They need to be discipled, they need to be encouraged. I'm coming alongside you and I'm teaching you, but not just teaching you, I'm urging you, exhorting you, compelling you, begging you to translate. Why would Peter beg the church to live rightly? Because Peter has seen the glory of Christ, right? Chapter five. He says here, I have been a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed. Peter's seen the glory of Christ, and now he wants the church to live for the glory of Christ. Beloved, I am urging you. Not just true for the people back then, but the present tense would say, it's just as true for us today, as if Peter, as it were, could come alongside you and say, I am encouraging you. I'm calling you. to do something. Well, what is he calling this community to do? Really one thing, but I'm going to break it up into two for the sake of tidiness and the ability to remember the message. But there's, as Peter often does, has one main verb that he's always linking to participles. His main verb is urging. He's urging you. He's urging you to abstain. But before you get to abstain, look at what it says before then. I urge you as. Peter's always using that Greek particle, hos. He doesn't say I urge you to abstain. I urge you as sojourners and exiles. You're different people. It's just another way of saying that God has set you apart for himself. And yes, you're rejected by the world. That's what happens when God calls you to himself. Out of his electing grace, he calls you. Those who are elect inevitably will be the reject of the world. And he's saying now that there's a different standard of living. There's a different constitution by which we live. You no longer take your orders from the world. from whatever the culture says is hip and cool and acceptable. You go back to the word of God and he's reminding them that they're sojourners. That word is in verse 17 of chapter one. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, here's that word, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your sojourning. What does sojourning mean? It just means that you're here for a short time and this is not your permanent home. You can go and read that in Hebrews chapter 11. Just like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, that they were sojourners in exiles, but they were looking to a homeland whose builder and maker is God that has everlasting foundations that cannot be destroyed by the things of this world. So now live, that's what Peter's saying, I'm urging you to live as though this world is not your ultimate home. That's the danger. Some Christians are tempted to live as if that's all there is, and they use their money as if all there is is the now. So, street wheelers, this comes to mind, and I am watching the clock. I love old Mustangs. As an unbeliever, I always wanted a 67 Mustang. Still do. And the girl said, Daddy, maybe you can get that. I said, well, first, we gotta kick you out because Mustangs don't hold five girls. But I also said this, and please don't take this as bragging, but I said, but Daddy's become a Christian now. And I can either use my money, or the money God has entrusted to me to buy a 67 Mustang, or we can continue to support missionaries. Okay, don't take that as self-congratulation or boasting. I'm just saying, these are things I think about. I said long before Daddy was a Christian, I could have had a lot of these things. But now I have a different mindset. I use my unrighteous mammon, like Jesus says, to make for myself what? Friends of eternal habitations. I'm thinking of the big scheme, the long game, if you will. And so Peter's saying, live as though you're just visiting this world. Par oikos is the word. Again, para means to come alongside, right? Remember? I urge you, I come alongside you and call. Then he uses another. He's alliterating like a good pastor. Parakaleo, paroikos, parapidemos. Paroikos, sojourning. It means oikos is a house. That's the world. and you're just outside the camp, like Hebrews 13 says. You're living here, but you're not in it. You're beside it, you're alongside it. Don't live as though you're in Vanity Fair. Live alongside it to pull those out of Vanity Fair. Too many Christians, they're like Lot. Remember? He starts looking, and before you know it, as we saw so tragically when we worked through Genesis, here is Lot sitting at the gate, fully identified with the world, not living like a sojourner. forgetting that his citizenship was where? In heaven. That's the danger with Christians. If we identify and begin to live like the world is all this is, we will not be a light. We will not be salt. If salt loses its saltiness, it is no good. So he's saying, I urge you to live differently because you are different. This world is not your inheritance. The new heavens and the new earth are your inheritance, which we saw in chapter one. So he's urging us as sojourners, as exiles. And you can write it down, but what came to mind was Jeremiah 29, where the prophet is now instructing the exiled Jews who were taken out of Jerusalem and into Babylon, how should they live? They should pray for the shalom, for the peace and prosperity. They should work, as it were, in Babylon for the good of Babylon. And the ultimate good of Babylon is not beautifying its statues and identifying, but being radically different with God's Torah, his law, being a different people in the midst of a corrupt generation. Light in darkness, holding firm to the trustworthy where it is taught, praying. for their well-being, not moving out and forming little sub-colonies that they might maintain their purity, but rather following Christ who came into the world to overcome darkness with light. But the Jews were not, as it were, to buy long-term investments in Babylon because it was only for 70 years, a short-term exile. Right before Jeremiah's exile, he buys land in Israel. in Judah to remind him that though you're going there, that's not your ultimate home. It's the short time. Okay, I don't know why the song kept going through my head. We're here for a good time, not a long time. I would say we're here for a holy time. It's a short time. Might be 70 years here, but ultimately the new heavens and the new earth, that's your eternal residence. Now live like it. Invest into heaven. Lay up your treasures in heaven. Live as though your permanent residency is in heaven. While your feet still trod upon the earth, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. And so what Peter's doing, and this is a very helpful exercise. So you want to display God's grace outwardly and publicly by your good deeds. And so we think outwardly, we need to be outward. But before Peter gets to outward, he deals with inward. Okay, we're going to see that there's a war going on. And most Christians think the war is out there. And it is, but before the war is out there, you know what Peter says? The war is in here, in the heart. But there's passions. They've declared war on you. You're enlisted 2 Timothy 2, by Christ, into God's army, immediately. All of those friends have turned on you. The flesh, which just you coddled, he's now turned on you. The flesh is your foe. And the world, which once adored you, now hates you. and the devil now prowls seeking to destroy you. And so you need to understand, if you want to be any good to a world out there by doing good works, it starts with your heart. You're no good out there until you deal with the problem in here. And a lot of Christians think that, that the problem's always out there, and it is. But so many Christians are trying so hard to change institutions and to change laws, and that's not inherently wrong. But Peter says that you're a light and people glorify God, not by voting in Christians. Now there's nothing wrong with voting for the best candidate, I get it. But he says in the midst of a perverse and crooked generation, shine like light by doing good works. Occupy yourself with good works, but before those good works come out, he says you need to actually deal with something within. He says here to abstain, apeko, okay? And so he's gonna talk about echo, holding on to something and letting something go. You miss it in the English, right? That's why you give your pastor three weeks off so he can go and nerd in Greek texts. But he uses the word echo twice, one here in the negative and one in the positive. And the first is the negative, that word abstain. It means to hold away from, keep your distance from. From what? from the passions of the flesh, or more accurately, from fleshly passion. So, to abstain. I kind of like that translation and I kind of don't. Because to abstain just sort of means just like, let something go. So I can sit in a bar and abstain from drinking. That's not strong enough. Right? I can sort of, as it were, go to a, I don't know, some kind of big celebration where girls are scantily dressed, and I can abstain looking. It could mean that, but I think it's so much more. Hold away from, withdraw away from, not from the culture out there, because you're light and salt, right? Christians are like, I gotta get away from the culture, and Paul says, or Peter says, you gotta get away from those fleshly impulses. So not just say go to the bar and this is not a sermon on drinking. But I'm just saying there's a difference here between abstaining and staying away from. Run. Hold them from a distance. Keep them away. You know what happens? So here's me throwing the wife under the bus again. If there are snacks in the pantry on a Saturday night, They're in my gut. So I can say, I'm going to abstain from them. You know what the best way for Ryan to abstain from eating a whole thing of dried mangoes? Them not even being there. So what is the best way to abstain from these things that result with fleshly passions? Stay away from things that excite them. That sounds legalistic. The things that excite the world? They do it. But you're a stranger here. You're an exile and sojourner, a foreigner. Stay away from those things. I don't know what those things are for you. It might be Amazon. It might be YouTube. That's me. It might be running with the wrong crowd. I'll hang out with them. I'll just abstain from sin and blasphemy with them. I don't know if that's what Peter's saying. I think he's saying, hold away, stay back from the passions of the flesh. And this just reminds us that even though we have been redeemed inwardly with a new heart, that there's still, until Christ returns, a now and a not yet. There's a war going on. Actually, I want you to go back. I know we preached on it about five years ago back. In Galatians 5, Paul deals with this. that there's a part of us that has been objectively redeemed and is incorruptible, right? We have purified our souls by obedience to the truth, right? And so there's a purification within the soul. And yet within our personage, we still have a fleshly component that has not yet been redeemed and won't be redeemed fully until we receive a resurrection body. Some of you, that's a lot of theology. Come and talk with me after if that's confusing, but there's a battle within the Christian. When you were not a Christian, there was nothing redeemed. You had those fleshly impulses dominating you to which you were enslaved to. Your soul gladly loved those things and did those things. Unredeemed soul in unredeemed flesh, but in God's mercy, we're born again inwardly. There's a first resurrection, I take in Revelation 20, an inward regeneration, John 5. We're born again, and yet our flesh is still unredeemed, and so Paul is saying, like Peter, there's a battle. I wish there wasn't, but in God's wisdom, there is. And if you want to do good to your neighbor as you preach the gospel and live a godly life, you need to recognize that there's a war going on inside of you, Christian. You have to recognize it. Someone's forgotten that. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires, epithumia, same word, lusts, desires, passions of the flesh. Same language. Listen to this in verse 17. 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. And if you're writing notes, Romans 7, 23. Here's the apostle himself, a wretched man that I am. There's a huge arm wrestle match going on within his soul. The good I want to do? I find that there's an opposition to it. A law in my mind that wants to honor God and yet a law in my members that wants to do what is easy and convenient and acceptable in a God-forsaken culture. You just need to come to terms with that. There's a battle. which is why Peter says earlier, yearn for the pure pneumatikos, spiritual milk. Sarcikos, fleshly. Pneumatikos, spiritually. What are you feeding? Are you feeding the flesh or are you feeding the spirit? There's a war going on. You need to be killing. Those sarkicos, those fleshly impulses, those fleshly lusts, those fleshly desires. And how do you put them to death? By feeding the spirit, do you see it? You can't feed them both, you gotta feed one. It's like those weeds in my yard. If I'm not, you know the best way to keep your lawn from having weeds is? Yes, spot treat them, have a healthy grass. There's all those bald spots in my backyard where my dog peed. Drives me nuts. Beautiful dog has wrecked my backyard. But you know what grows up in those dead spots? Weeds. If there's healthy grass there that I'm fertilizing and watering and meticulously caring for, weeds have a hard time. So care for the grass. care for your soul, feed your soul with the pure spiritual, pneumaticus, milk, the word, where Christ feeds you with his grace. We feed on the milk of Christ's grace at the breast of the word, because if you're not feeding the spirit with Christ's grace and the word, you'll be feeding the flesh and all of its passions that are waging war against your soul. So Paul says that in Galatians 5, and he chronicles it in Romans chapter 7, his little autobiography, which leads again to Romans 8. Paul's struggling with living a godly life in Romans 7. What's the antidote? Be a spirit-filled person in Romans 8. Put to death the deeds of the body by the spirit. Set your mind on the things of the spirit. For to set your mind on the things of the flesh is death. Back to Peter. So the war strategy is not let's go attack the nations and condemn them. First, understand that you need to abstain, keep away from passions. That word passion's not always bad. We saw it in Galatians 5, there's good passions. Piper says we're passion factories. We just have to make sure that we're chasing and feeding the right passions. If you're passionate for the world, you'll be no use to the world. That's the problem with so much evangelicalism. They try to win the world with the world. We need to be different. He doesn't just urge us, he urges us as sojourners and exiles. We have a different diet. They're different to everything. They're waging war against your soul. Again, that's a present tense. It's not just like, yeah, think, you know, Monday, right? Those passions are not Sabbatarians. Until you take your last breath, Christian, there will be a fight, literally to the death. Just recognize it. That was a great sermon at 1230. 130, you gotta be on your guard, because they're still waging war. It's a military campaign. And they're laying there latent, like all of those seeds from all of the weeds in my yard, just waiting for an opportunity, begging for a dog to pee all over the lawn so that at the right moment, they'll spring up and defile Ryan's yard. They're there. You can't see them, but they're there. And if you're not taking care of your soul, they will grow there because they are not your friends. Love not the world, nor the things of the world. do not become friends with the world. Why? Because the world feeds those passions. It just does. It's music, it's movies, it's news feeds. Everything about the world works within the unholy trinity. The world and the devil are trying to get your flesh to act out in carnal ways and destroy your soul. You see that? They're waging war against your soul. They want to destroy you. And if they can destroy us, then they destroy our testimony. But that's not why we have been called to God. We're to go and testify with our lips and with our lives. And so, Peter's saying, abstain. So this is where the application comes in. It's good to do a little bit of an inventory. What things are keeping me from Christ? What things of the world excite me? Abstain from those things. Stay away from those things. Cut them off. That's from the Sermon on the Mount as well. What happens if you have an eye that causes you to stumble? Pluck it out. Ekbalo, throw it away. What happens if you've got a hand or a foot? Get rid of it. There's nothing legalistic about that, trust me. If you have a wife, and you struggle with watching pornography, she will not be angry that you get rid of your computer or your smartphone. I will guarantee you that. She will not say, stop being a legalist. She would say, I am worth that much that you are willing to give up something like that. Please do not see cutting off temptations. Please do not see abstaining and keeping yourself as prudish or self-righteous. It's an act of worship. So he says, abstain from those things, which hate you. They tell you they love you, but they wage war against your soul. Even neutral music. Trust me. I fell into that trap over COVID, and they're not wicked songs. But all of a sudden I got Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix in my mind, and I don't have hymns in my mind anymore. That's just not in my notes, and I'm fighting it. Why? Ryan gave a little bit of room for those old cravings. Maybe you don't struggle with that. I want to have all those hymns back in my mind. That's why I'm not been quoting hymns in my messages as much, because I've been watching too many YouTube videos that I used to listen to when I was a pagan. Anyways, you deal with those things. I don't know which passions are excited. Music, food, materialism, comfort. Oh, let me say this last thing. It's not just sexual or sort of this wanting to eat more. We think of that's what it is. Two commentators help me. It's not just self-gratification. It's also self-preservation. And that spoke to me, because we will be tempted to not just gratify our lusts with things like, say, sex and food and all these things that the world says we should have, but also with comfort and ease and laziness and complacency. We don't want to be persecuted. That's also a passion of the flesh, to compromise on your convictions so that the world will not laugh. And I'm speaking to teenagers. Maybe in the church there'll be a sub-click, or maybe with your friends, or maybe when you go to university. You believe a six-day creation? You have a brain? How did they let you into this school? And you'll be tempted to maybe waffle on your convictions. That's just as flashly as going on a weekend bender, or visiting a brothel. Verse 12, here's the positive. The negative, stay away from. That's the negative aspect of holiness. There's also an active positive aspect of holiness and witness. Keeping, there's that word echo, right? The negative, ap, echo, getting rid of, staying away from, 12, holding onto, echo, okay? And if you're writing, you're a little circler, right? Put keep with abstain, and just say, yeah, I forget the fancy words Ryan used, but they're almost identical in Greek. They're opposites. Keeping your conduct, it's not a new sentence. Having your conduct among the Gentiles, good, literally. Kalos, honorable, excellent, beautiful, winsome. Okay, so abstain from this, let go of it, stay away from it, cling to this. To what? Good conduct. And conduct really means a way of life. And if you were to look in my Bible, I have it underlined everywhere. Peter uses this word, anastrophe, everywhere. It's not just a good deed here and there, it's a way of life. Let your way of life be beautiful. That's how I would translate it. It's not just good morally, it's good aesthetically. So that when the outsiders look, they say, he's got a beautiful way of life. She has an excellent, honorable way of life. ESV translates it. Hold on to that. Let go of things that are dishonorable, cling to things that are honorable. Keep your conduct among your fellow believers honorable. No, it says among the Gentiles. Ethnoi. You're a chosen ethnos, and you live alongside and in the midst of another ethnos. Let it be attractive. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles good or honorable. Why? so that when they speak against you as evildoers. That word evildoers seems so small to us, but that was like one of the ultimate insults you could give someone in the Roman culture. To call someone a cacopoion was like disgusting. You didn't want to be called that. That's what these Christians are being called for preaching Christ and living honorably. But they will. that they will slander you because that's what the flesh does. The darkness hates the lights and makes up every justification to live in sin, even if it means slandering those who are living godly lives as God's holy people, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, so you're as exiles, as sojourners, you will be spoken as evildoers, that's okay, they may see your good deeds. They may see them, and again, present tense. Why do I keep saying present tense? So as they see continually. It's not like, okay, here's my once a year good thing. I shoveled their, I was gonna say lawn, but you don't shovel lawns. Shoveled their sidewalks when there's snow. No, you're continually doing good to them. So that when they see it with their own eyes, they don't just hear about it, but they see the power of a transformed life, day in, day out, year in, year out, decade in, decade out. When they see this, something will happen. Look at chapter three quickly. I see that clock. So here's sort of the same scenario that Peter unpacks more specifically of how a wife is to conduct herself with an unbelieving husband, okay? And it's not just, you know, track bombing him here and, you know, like writing verses in the dust or something like that or, you know, putting, you know, a little Bible under his pillow. Okay, yeah, preach your husband the gospel, but what does Peter say? How are you gonna win him? Be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct, that's the same word, the anastrophe, of their wives, when they see. Exact same verb, same participle. They'll be won when they see your respectful and pure conduct. That your life and inner disposition matches your outward proclamation. And what has she been doing? She's been working against those fleshly lusts. That it's not merely outward adorning, it's not just external beauty, it's inward beauty of someone's feeding on the pure spiritual milk of the word. And so here we have here, As you're living in the midst of these maligners and slanders and persecutors, you're putting to death all of those fleshly impulses and holding firm to an honorable conduct, people will see. And they will commend the gospel that you preach. Not all, but some. God has his elect. And they will see, even as you maybe heard it in one of the testimonies. It's an amazing thing of how powerful A good testimony is. It's the opposite. A bad testimony has incalculable damage. A pastor commits adultery. It's like wildfire. Or he embezzles. Or he steals sermons. It's all over the internet right now. It's a terrible witness. I remember reading Charles Bridges' book on pastoral ministry. And he says sometimes when the pastor's a preach in a way, people can't hear all of his eloquence. He's screaming with his voice. And they said they can't hear his screaming voice because his ungodly lifestyle screams louder. You know what it's like. If you didn't have respect for the man preaching from this pulpit, I could have preached this sermon in Greek and you wouldn't have been impressed because you would be, this guy's a hypocrite. But a powerful testimony. is when the life corresponds to the message, and that's what Peter is saying. So keep feeding on Christ. Walk as he walked, whether it's before authorities, before your boss, within your household, continue as it were to hold fast to that honorable good conduct. Why? Because God wants to add living stones to his living temple. As you come to him, How do you come to Him? Well, I see that in chapter one. The believers came to this living temple when others were sent and preached the good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. So we go out and we're sent by Christ and empowered by the Spirit and we announce forgiveness of sins. And then we live a life that corresponds to it. And they'll act here. And they're drawn in by this testimony. And they believe as you come to him. They now become part of this temple. They now become a priesthood, and it replicates. You become a priest, and then you're sent as a priest. And then you go to the ends of the earth, and you repeat until Christ returns. Preaching glad tidings, but also living good works. I'm gonna dispel a bit of a myth and then we'll close. Whoever said it, we don't know, but it's a famous saying that is sometimes abused on one side and the other. It says, preach the gospel at all times, you've heard it. Maybe Francis of Assisi, I don't know. I'm not gonna get all nerdy. Someone said it, and it's a very popular saying within Christendom. Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words. And right away, the Reformed people trample it and trash it. There's some truth to it. The gospel is good news, but it's also to show the power of God. And if I can't live a transformed life, then I can't say that the gospel's transformed me. Okay, so they go together. Glad tidings, good works, you don't separate the two. Preach the gospel at all times and use words, but not only words. It's another famous saying that some Reformers get all stinky about. You might be the only Bible someone ever reads. No, of course they need to read the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the rhema a tutheu, the message of Christ. But they might not listen to you if they see you living as a hypocrite. If they see something commendable, they'll want to ask you about the hope that is within you, and you will be able to share that with them with gentleness and respect. And they will come. And God will be glorified on the day of visitation. I quickly just want to touch on that. What does this mean? It just means when God visits. We saw it in the book of Genesis, right? And it means this, according to Bruce Waltke and all the other commentators I read in Peter, it's when God visits to either bless or curse, to save or to judge. He just shows up. And it's used in Luke's gospel with the coming of Christ. And it's used here again for the return of Christ. Why should you preach the gospel with your life as well as your lips? So that people might praise God. It was quoted in, I forget whose testimony it was this morning, Ephesians 1, three times. Why is God elected to you? Why has he brought you to Christ? To be to the praise of the glory of His grace, to the praise of His glory, to the praise of His glory. We want to see God glorified, and so we preach the gospel to the ends of the earth, and we live the gospel before their eyes, because our great desire, like God's now, is that He might be glorified when Christ returns, like we saw in chapter four. The gospel was preached to those who died, so that now they might live in the Spirit, and they too might proclaim the excellencies. of him who called them out of darkness and into his marvelous light. I was going to quote this, but I won't. Christian and faithful go into vanity fair, they They live themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. Faithful dies, Christian cries, comes out of the city, and all of a sudden there's a new man named Hopeful. What was it that brought Hopeful into the kingdom, as it were? It was the faithfulness of Faithful, who did not revile or slander, but kept entrusting himself and doing good, because there were the elect within Vanity Fair that God would call to himself. Perhaps that's you. Come to Christ this morning. Come to Christ. He commands you to. Come to him as a living stone. And then go out as a spiritual priesthood. If you're a Christian this morning, would you commit yourself afresh, re-pledge yourself, in the picture of baptism, to good works? Not for your righteousness, but for your evangelism. Spurgeon said, a holy lifestyle is a powerful testimony and witness to the gospel. You want to be an effective evangelist? Then do good works. See, I've done my mastery with Louise. I've put her to sleep. Let's pray, and then we'll partake of the table. Father, we're so thankful. I'm so thankful, Lord, I can think in my own testimony, not only of those who preached the gospel to me, but also those who commended it. through a transformed life of sacrifice and generosity and patience and grace and love and kindness, that not only the gospel seemed true to me, but lovely. And so, Father, I pray for us as a city on a hill, as your salt, I pray that we would not hide ourselves, isolate ourselves, that we would go out into this world filled with the Spirit, putting to death those carnal, earthly, fleshly passions, and living lives worthy of Christ. Oh, Father, would you help us to be a good testimony to your grace? Father, as we partake of the table, may it feed us afresh and remind us that we are to go out and to invite others to this feast, to go into the highways and the byways, preaching and living. Oh, let our conduct, our entire life, smell like Christ, the beauty of Christ, and help us to keep our eyes on Him. This One who was put to death in the flesh for our sins on a tree, help us to keep our eyes fixed on Him, near Him, imitating Him, proclaiming Him, making Him visible. Use our Church, Father, as a great missionary entity, a great factory of of evangelists being sent out. Father, help us then, this day, to be serious about killing our sin and proclaiming your excellencies, that others might glorify you for your grace in Christ, we pray in his name, amen.