If you have your Bibles with you, you can turn with me to our text for this morning, which is found in 1 Peter chapter 2. We just touched on this last week in our message there. Last week we were talking about God's sovereign rule over the governments over the earth and our role under government. I meant to acknowledge my debt to David Coffin, particularly, who a number of years ago did a series of messages on the Christian citizen living under the rule of this world and under the rule of Christ. Edmund Clowney, there are others that I could name as well whose work has been very helpful to me. And I needed to acknowledge that because the work of sermons, I'm sure you understand, is as much about collecting thoughts and remembering things and organizing things learned as it is about And I think that is a part of this just blunt original thought, which was also a part of that message. As I said last week, this morning we want to consider how we are to live in a land that very recently has begun to express real fear of the future because a political We live in a place where Christians are facing increasing hostility to the ethical demands of the gospel, and there is increasing resistance toward those who would live in the world and culture with a gospel-centered perspective. How do we live? How do we respond in such a place? So turn to 1 Peter chapter 2. We begin at verse 11. Hear the word of God. 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. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it is to the emperor as supreme or to the governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Pray with me, please. Father, we open your word together this day, knowing that apart from the work of the Spirit, whom you have given to us, Lord, we will be deaf to these words. We will not understand. So, Lord, lead us and direct us. O Spirit open our ears and hearts and teach us this day we ask and pray in Jesus name. Amen. My first job my first real job out of seminary took Dale and I to an Episcopal church in a very wealthy suburb west of Philadelphia. That put us in a social, in a theological, in a liturgical milieu that was way beyond anything we had grown up with and in. It didn't take us long to find ways to upset people, because we didn't understand the culture. We really didn't know it. But you know, you want to succeed. It's your first job. You want to fit in. And a little over a year, after we started there, I should have figured it out, you know, just a little more quickly. The Christmas party was finally, well, it wasn't the final thing, but it should have been kind of the final thing. We drive up, we're down along the river, and up on the hillside is this Frank Lloyd Wright-esque creation overhanging the hillside, you know, with the with the bridge of the Enterprise, you know, just sort of hanging over the thing there, and all these well-dressed, well-coughed people milling about in an Episcopal church, which meant sherry was everywhere, and we weren't people who drank, you know. And, of course, Dale is nine months pregnant. Looking just a little different from everybody else at the party. We felt like aliens. We just really didn't fit in. And that became evident in many more ways over the next two years. As I said, I should have had the clue by the Christmas party. In 1 Peter, Peter writes to the people of God who are not going to fit in so well with the world around them. They're facing persecution. He is urging a life that stands as the direct antithesis to the spirit of the age and the spirit of the world. I think Peter would have landed here today in our culture, in our situation, and understood it very, very well. And so he writes, as he says back in chapter one, to the exiles, the elect exiles of the dispersion. He wasn't writing just to one particular church. He is writing to the whole church, acknowledging that we're in a foreign land. How are we going to live there? I don't really have anything profound to say to you this morning. I'll probably not say anything that you haven't heard before. But what is here in the Word of God is the only thing that will truly honor the Lord, show forth His grace, His mercy, and love. It is the only thing that is going to speak to a world and a culture that is in the grip of fear and death. Peter calls us to a life that is set apart in Christ. And so again, just getting us into this letter, because we're diving in in the middle or in the middle of chapter 2, he tells them first of all that they are, we are, God's people. Back in chapter 1, he says in verse 18, you know that you were ransomed, you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish. or spot. You are a people redeemed, ransomed. A little later in chapter 2, he tells us that we are those who have tasted that the Lord is good. Down in verse 3, we're God's people. And with that, of course, comes a new identity. Paul would express it in Ephesians, chapter 2, when he says we are to remember that we were at one time separated from Christ. alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. We were once alienated and hostile in mind, Colossians 1.21, doing evil deeds. Alienated from what? Well, alienated from God, alienated from His kingdom. But now, he says, Ephesians 2.13, now in Christ, you who once were far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You are God's people. So Peter can declare so beautifully in chapter 2 at verse 4, as you come to him, 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. You are being built up as that spiritual house. And he goes on and says in verse 9, 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, now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy. So Peter has laid it out. Do you know who you are? Once alienated and separated from God, once strangers to God, aliens to Christ and to his grace and goodness, but you have been brought near by the blood of Christ. and you are a chosen people, being built into a spiritual house. He speaks to the people of God, chosen, precious, a holy nation, but he speaks to them, as we come to our passage, as sojourners and exiles, or as strangers and aliens. Different ways that you can translate those words, but all of them very clearly pointing to the reality that this isn't home. You're exiles here. You're aliens. You're sojourners. You're just passing through. We're citizens of another land. Our citizenship is in heaven, Philippians 3.20 tells us, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We await an inheritance that is kept for us in heaven. an inheritance, Peter says 1 verse 4, an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. So we have a new king, we have a new head, a new ruler who rules over us and all the kings and rulers and authorities and the powers of this world and of the heavenly realm as well. We're citizens of another land and so we are passing through This one. We're like, we're Israel, we're the Hebrews in Egypt. 400 years, exiles in Egypt. We're Judah in Babylon. That was only 70 years for some of the people. But that's what Jeremiah was saying in chapter 29 of Jeremiah. No, you're not coming out in the next six weeks. So settle in for the long haul. Settle in. You're aliens and strangers in this place. What kind of impact will you have? Make the best of it. We don't know when we'll be leaving. So live as lights in a dark land. We're like Israel in the wilderness. We're sojourners. That wilderness experience, by the way, runs through the entire scripture. You understand that. It was not just the 40 years in the desert. That wilderness experience was to be a way that we understand how we live in this world. To live as sojourners, to live in the wilderness longing for, looking for, moving toward our true home means that hardship is going to be a reality. And living in the wilderness is going to require real dependence upon God. We're sojourners. We're aliens. We're exiles. And as I pointed out, children, Exiles and aliens don't fit in very easily when they're in a land that is not their own. They speak a different language. When we moved north of Boston, we spoke a different language. We were Theranos up there. And, oh, did the kids laugh at the way we said things like car or Boston, you know? We didn't know the language. Rob and I have talked about and have prayed for Spanish to become for him a heart language. By that, I mean a language that the congregation to which he ministers, when they're in the depths, when they need to turn to prayer, when they're struggling, they go back to that native language. It's their heart language. It's like Dale's grandmother who lived in this country for 60 years, I think. And in the last few years of her life, she had grown up in Santiago, in Chile, and left before she was 20, I think. Married a North American, Pennsylvania Dutchman, if you can imagine that. But for all those years, lived in that English-speaking setting, and in the last few years, resorted completely to the Spanish. It was her heart language. What's our heart language? It's not going to be the language that the world around us understands. It's not that our vocabulary is going to be all that different. By that, I don't mean that we're going to always speak in Christianese. You know, we're going to talk about the autographer. We're going to talk about the being saved and you know, all the words that we use that are, you know, Christian kind of thing. No. No, what I mean is we're speaking the language of the scriptures, not Hebrew and Greek, the language that God shares of his grace and his mercy and his love and his goodness and his faithfulness and all these glorious words that other people around us would only, you know, they hear the words and they sort of have the meaning. But in terms of what we're really saying, they don't understand. We don't speak the same language all the time. We have different customs and habits. So we stand out from the culture. We're never going to be, we shouldn't be, let me put it that way, we should never get too comfortable here. So that this culture and that language and those habits and customs become the ones with which we are comfortable and happy. where nothing bothers us or causes us to grimace, where we become inured to the sliding morality, the increasing violence, whether it's in the arts or media or in the culture itself, where, you know, it's just a part of what it is and it doesn't even bother us or affect us. We don't even think about it anymore. We should never fit just right in this land. Because it's not our home. We should always be uncomfortable. So yes, some of our vocabulary will be different and the jokes that are funny to others we won't find funny. And attitudes and prejudices and racism are the things that we move away from. Because the more intimately we know Christ, the less we will feel at home here. We aren't going to fit in. And you know that's okay. It really is. Because what Peter points us to, I think he's fleshing out in this the reality of Jesus' prayer in John 17. That though we are in the world, we would not be of the world. And so he says in verse 11, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which war against your soul. Now, if you're following the notes, you probably noticed that I put down in that first point, A, that you're waging war against the flesh. Well, no, wait a minute, waging war against the soul. No, what I'm talking about there is that we recognize that the battle is for the soul. And so we need to wage war against the flesh. Peter's not talking about a dichotomy between the flesh and the soul, that somehow the body is bad and the soul is good. No, he's talking about that which perishes and that which remains. And that which perishes, the flesh, is going to be not only the physical sins of the body, but the sins of the mind and heart as well. It becomes very clear a little further on in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verses 3 and 4. we can see. For the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. Idolatry is not necessarily a sin of the physical body. If we turn to Galatians, back in chapter 5, We read at verse 19, the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, and then 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, we can sin with the body in all of our faculties, not just physically. I think the culture to which Peter and Paul wrote was every bit as corrupted and despairing as our own. The moral and intellectual climate in which they preached and taught the gospel was no better than that in which we live today and with which we must wage war. Because it's not, it's the heart where the battle is really taking place. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this? that your passions are at war within you? James 4, 1. We think it's the culture. Somehow we have to turn against and fight against the culture. Well, yes we do. But that culture is driven by hearts, by the hearts that are captured in sin. At the passions that are at war within them. And we will fight the same battle. So that We hear Peter when he says that we are to abstain from the passions of the flesh, physical and mental, which wage war against your soul. We wage war against the flesh because it wages war against us. So how do exiles and sojourners live in this foreign land, knowing that apart from the grace of God in Christ, we too would be succumbing to that war against our soul? How do we live in the world but not of the world? As I said, I don't think I'm going to say anything shocking and new and like, well, I never thought of that before. What does Peter tell us? 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. He will tell us that we are to live before God by doing good, and so put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. because we live as servants of God. We're called to live the good life. That word, by the way, good, kalos, is the same word used for both our good conduct and our good deeds. And I think there's a reason for that distinction. And that word means beautiful. It means useful, morally good, noble, so we can translate it, honorable and good. We're to have beautiful conduct in the world. How are we going to speak against the fear? How are we going to show something different? How is it that we are going to share who we are and what really matters in this world and in the world to come? By our beautiful conduct. Paul, I think, helps us tremendously in understanding this. We exhibit the life of one who has been made a new creation, whose actions, as well as our thoughts and desires, our words, our attitudes, our perception of those around us have been and are being overtaken more and more by the Spirit of Christ. So Paul in Colossians tells us to put off the deeds of the flesh. And how does he tell us to put on? He says, put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and his beloved, his dearly loved, the same language that Peter is using of us, what is that conduct going to look like? What is beautiful conduct going to look like? Compassionate hearts. Kindness. And I think that means toward our enemies as well as toward our friends. Humility. Toward those in authority and those who have no authority. meekness and patience, bearing with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive. Above all these, put on love. Beautiful conduct, if it's driven by compassionate hearts and kindness and humility. and weakness and patience. That's what we're to bring forth. Conduct that's driven by these. Conduct that's going to reflect Galatians 5.22 and following. The fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It's picturing what our conduct should be like in the world so that our speech is always gracious. We know the right thing to say always. That's who we ought to be. The world looks at us and says, man, these people have a really wonderful time together and nobody's drunk. As a matter of fact, they're not even drinking. It's different. You begin to feel like an alien when there are coarse jokes starting at a party or a meal or something. or at work. You see, that good conduct shouldn't require, it shouldn't often require, let me put it that way, it shouldn't often require sacrifice on our part. By that I mean it ought to be who we are, compassionate, kind, humble, gracious, gentle, loving, It's just what flows out of us because of whose we are and who we are in Christ. It should become for us essentially second nature because we are taking on the nature of Christ by his grace and power. Beautiful deeds, and I would make the distinction, often require sacrifice, I think, on our part. Because beautiful deeds are going to be the deeds of a servant of God, as he calls us in verse 16. If we're going to serve, it's going to mean sharing our goods, our time, our lives. It's going to have an impact. on what I'm doing, and what I want to do, and where I want to go, and how I want to do things, and what I want to do with my money, and on and on and on. Those good deeds are going to have an impact on us if we're going to do them. Not because it's your job, though it may be, but because God is concerned for the weak, the helpless, the oppressed, the widow, and the orphan, and the lost, the sojourner, and the destitute. Peter distinguishes between good conduct and good deeds because we can do good deeds with really bad attitudes. I can go to the nursing home because I feel guilty, because I should have done it before and I didn't. I can go to the homeless shelter because I want people to see me caring for the poor. I can do all the dishes after the Thanksgiving dinner and sending everybody away because I want to be able to be the martyr who did it all for them. I can do my chores at home and my responsibilities grumbling and complaining in my heart and under my breath and maybe not even so much under my breath the whole time. I don't know why I have to be doing this. Somebody else is going to hate this. Doing my good deed. You can finish your homework with as little effort as possible because you know, you already know more than the people who have signed this dumb thing anyway. You know, we can do quote-unquote good deeds of things we ought to be doing with really bad attitudes. We want our conduct to be driven by compassion and humility and kindness and a love for the truth. If you think you can hide your inward sour conduct and still manage to produce a good deed, think again. We are to do our good conduct, our beautiful conduct, and our deeds of beauty, our beautiful deeds, are to be done, he says, among the Gentiles. That is, so that the pagans will see it. 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. We may be aliens and sojourners here, but this is where we're living. This is where we are. And like the exiles in Egypt and the exiles in Babylon, it's where they were. And so they needed to live showing forth the light of the grace of God in their lives. They will see it. They may still speak against it. Your good may still be evil spoken of, I think is how the King James puts it. And it happened in Peter's day. Suetonius, one of the noblemen under Nero, supported Nero's persecutions because These Christians were, quote, a class of people animated by a novel and mischievous superstition. So even their good was spoken of with evil. Peter knew that that persecution wouldn't be limited to gossip and lies about them. It would take his life. And Peter's. And James. And most of the other apostles. and many since then. And it's still happening. The good works and the good deeds and the good conduct and the beautiful conduct and deeds of God's people are taken and spoken of very evilly. Yes, it's still happening. But Peter tells us ultimately that the charges won't stick. Their good deeds would be seen. Their witness would not be lost. Because even if they won't acknowledge it now, they will glorify God on the day of visitation. When Christ returns, when they must acknowledge that beautiful conduct and that beautiful work that reflected Christ at work in his people, and they must, to their condemnation, acknowledge it. that beautiful life should become for us a way of life. So that it isn't an effort to show forth good conduct and beautiful deeds. Then we can live in submission, not only to those human authorities and rulers, but more importantly in submission to our Savior and our Lord, living truly as servants of God. So the challenge for us then If we're going to speak to a culture around us that is fearful and opposed to us in many ways, if we're going to speak to them, how do we engage that culture? Will the world see our good deeds and feel the blessing of our beautiful conduct in Christ and so glorify God now? Maybe. Not all will acknowledge it before that day, but where will they see it? Where will they see that submission? Well, one is going to be in the submission to authority, which is what we talked about last week. It's an interesting word that talks about our submission, verse 17, be subject for the sake, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution. Actually, it says every human creation, every human creature. and so it's obviously it points us to the Emperor and the Governors and things of that nature, but Paul will talk in Ephesians that we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Today we have a very negative idea, negative connotation of what that submission means. It did not have such strong negative connotations in biblical times and in the languages of the day. There is a sense that one in authority, you know, that there is the one who is in authority and gives orders and they're to be followed. If you think of Mark chapter 8 or Matthew chapter 8, I'm sorry, when the centurion comes to Jesus and he wants Jesus to heal his servant. And Jesus says, yes, I will come. And he says, you don't have to. I'm a man under authority. I understand this. I'm given orders and I do them. I give orders to others and they do them. If you say the word, you have that authority. So there's that sense. But it means to arrange your life under the guidance and the authority of another, hence that idea of submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. It's not blind obedience as the limits that we talked about last week, demands of authority or or an individual cannot overrule the demands of the Lord. And so we learn to submit, to order our lives under those authorities, to arrange our life under the guidance and authority of another. How do we engage the culture? Will they see our good deeds and bless? I don't know if they'll bless, but they need to see them. Consider Care Net. Here's a ministry that is working within the confines of the law, okay? And there is pressure on them, you know, there's pressure to try and shut them down for one reason or another. But the work is compassionate work, isn't it? You talk about beautiful conduct and beautiful deeds. They recognize and they acknowledge the fear and the trial that these women are facing. And they're not standing there with a placard telling them that they're condemned for their sin. Instead, they're providing the support that people need to make wise decisions. And they'll care for them and watch over them through the pregnancy and after. as well. They're not seeking to condemn, but to come alongside in truly life-giving ways. The challenge for us in engaging the culture, I think, is how we copy a model like that. For those, say, who are struggling with same-sex attraction, is there a welcome that says, we can love you and work with you and see you find the grace to move through this. And so many other things that we could name in that as well. We don't drive away the single mom or the woman who has had an abortion, declaring them unredeemable and sinful. No. We do the exact opposite. We come to them with compassion, with the word of Christ, to bring life. And so we can't be afraid to confront the other sins that we have in the culture around us with the same compassionate offer of forgiveness and grace and support so that we might see the fruit of repentance. It's going to be a challenge. But Peter, beginning at chapter 1 of chapter 3, says, you know, he points to the husbands that are won over by the beautiful, the good conduct of their wives. Will we see others won over by our beautiful conduct? Let me also say we live in a fallen world. It is headed for destruction. I understand that. I do not have the view that the world is going to get better and better and better. No, the kingdom of darkness is growing and fighting steadily, but the kingdom of Christ is growing as well. Yes, we live in a foreign culture. in a fallen world. Is our response to condemn it, and so remove ourselves from it, to be completely apart? I believe that would be an utterly unbiblical attitude and conduct on our part, so that we no longer have any influence on the arts or the sciences. that we forget trying to take on the great challenges of the age, whether it's food for the world, or sustainable energy sources, or human trafficking, or the problems go on and on and on. We are not going to answer them by secluding ourselves in our communes. And the only time we come out of them is to put on our placard to walk downtown and say, the end is near. That's not what Peter is calling. It's not what the Word of God is calling us to. Yes, we live in a fallen world. But the problems of this world right now are our problems. And we will show what can be done when we live apart by grace from that sin-bound world. So instead, instead of condemning the world, we critique it. We critique it by our proclamation of the truth. We set forth the gospel in our good conduct and in our testimony. We critique it by our unwillingness to join in the activities and the attitudes of the secular world. Again, in Chapter 4, Peter says that they are surprised when we don't join them in their flood of debauchery, because we can't. And we needn't. So we step out of conversations that are not honoring. We don't watch movies that don't give glory in any way to God, that lead us instead to fire up the passions of the flesh. We might not read books that everybody else says we ought to read. We don't join in in the gossip or repeat it. Instead, we're standing with the oppressed, and I admit that can get tricky to understand who the oppressed really are. But we fight the right battles. We engage the culture and seek its renewal and transformation through Christ. We seek to be a blessing to the culture, to this foreign land in which we live. It's the only way we're going to reach it. It's the only way we're going to speak to it. We can't accommodate ourselves to the culture. Peter is clear about that. We are aliens. We are strangers. We are passing through. We're sojourners. And so we present in our lives and in our actions, our conduct, our demeanor, and our engagement, we present the fruit of a life that is at rest and at peace with confidence in God. to take care of us in this life and in the next. So let the world see our beautiful deeds. Get a glimpse of what beautiful conduct really is. So they might actually come and ask for the reason for the hope that we have. And so find that same life. Let our lives be distinct from the world around us, living as sojourners, passing through aliens with citizenship in a world to come. Let us live with such grace and confidence, such compassion and kindness that we might very well be surprised when Jesus says, as he did in Matthew 25, come, you who are blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him saying, do you remember this? Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothed you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And he answered, truly I say to you as you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. The point is we aren't going to see such conduct, such good conduct as special or extraordinary. It's just the expression of who we are as those beloved of the Lord, sojourners and aliens in a foreign land, may it just be who we are. Heavenly Father, pour out your Spirit upon us that we might know who we are, not fear our alien status in this world. But live, Lord, with such good conduct and good deeds that the world around us must take notice. May we be that people, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.