Turning your Bibles with me, if you would, to First Peter, Chapter 2. I'm going to read the final paragraph of First Peter, Chapter 2, verses 11 of the section, I should say, verses 11 and 12. 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. When we think of this term that Peter uses to begin with here, that of sojourners and exiles, in some translations, pilgrims, what comes to mind is being dislocated from our circumstances to which we are accustomed. It is to be removed from that which is comfortable. I can't think of any illustration more powerful than one that's been in front of our eyes this entire past week. Having grown up in Southern California, as you can imagine, I remember my fair share of earthquakes. In fact, Amy and I went through that earthquake in Northridge in 1994, which was 6.8 in magnitude. And people used to ask me, how do you describe it? I say it's like being put in a cardboard box and thrown down the hill. That's the only way that I could describe what it was like to go through that earthquake. And yet, it pales in comparison to what people in Haiti went through this past week to the point where we see the images before our eyes of people who are completely dislocated from their normal circumstances. We've all been horrified by the images of the dead strewn throughout the streets, piled up like garbage to be burned. That's hard to imagine how those folks must feel. Their homes have been demolished. They've been cast out into the streets with no home, no food, no comfort, no place to rest their weary heads. In fact, some of you may have seen the short interview with the president of Haiti and they asked him what's happened and he said, the palace has fallen down and my own home has been destroyed. And the reporter asked him, where are you going to sleep tonight? And the president of the country said, I don't know. It's hard to imagine what these folks are feeling and yet, In a sense, we recognize that many of those people are aliens now in their own country. They're wandering about like strangers. They're strangers to the only way of life they have ever known. Now, in this passage before us, Peter speaks of us in the same terminology, using these same kinds of words as being sojourners or aliens and strangers. But with a major difference, those suffering in Haiti have nowhere to go, literally. But we have been redeemed by Christ. There's not only a definite destination. To where we're going, as I spoke of last week of Pilgrim's Progress having to do with the pilgrimage of our Christian lives, that there is a definite destination in contradistinction to so much religion in our culture today that's just wandering around on a so-called journey. Peter speaks here of a definite destination to which we are headed. And we have a definite manner in which we ought to prepare to arrive at our destination. Now, in these three verses, then, my hope for you is to discover, I'm sorry, these two verses with me, these three things. The person of our destination. The purity of that person. And the praise that God receives when we finally are United together with that person. Now, what do I mean by this? In fact, you might ask, what person are you speaking of? The person of our destination. Peter doesn't speak here of a person, does he? He says, beloved, in fact, I urge you as sojourners and exiles and so on. your first reading of this, you might be tempted to think that this is about us. It's about our destination. It isn't about a person at all that I speak of. And that's certainly the idea that you would get, for example, if you were reading this in the NIV, which happens to have, I believe, a very bad translation of the opening parts of this verse. The NIV, has Peter saying in verse 11, Dear friends, I urge you as sojourners. And if you read it like that, then you would be tempted to think only of your own journey rather than the destination and the person who is waiting there at the destination that makes the journey worthwhile. I must tell you, as I said, I think this is a very bad translation and here's why. Much of what Peter has been talking about in this context up to this point in the book has to do with God's work of redemption sovereignly and then our mystical union because of God's sovereign work of redemption in causing us to be born again by the spirit of God. He has united us together with Christ. He has made us to be one with Christ as a church and as individual believers. In fact, just in this very chapter, you can recall that Peter has been talking about the fact that we are spiritual stones being built up into a holy temple in which we serve as royal priests, because even though we were not a people of God, Because of Christ and his work on our behalf, indeed, we have become the people of God through his son. Peter speaks here of our being built up together into this mystical temple, if you will, this spiritual temple as living stones to offer up praise and worship to God. The word that Peter uses to begin this paragraph that the NIV translates as dear friends is agapatoi. Now that's the same, comes from the same root word as the word love that you know, agape, the same connection. And agapatoi literally translated means something like you who are loved or the beloved. Now let me tell you why I think this makes such a tremendous difference in our reading of this text. Believers who are beloved in Christ and to Peter as well, for sure, but to simply to take this as something like dear friends, I think, misses the entire flow of Peter's message to this point. Peter is not simply talking about heaven in these verses. He's talking about the day of visitation, to be sure, at the end of this paragraph. He's speaking of the day of Christ when Christ will return. But he's talking of more than just our destination of heaven. He is speaking of the return of Christ and our meeting with Christ when he comes in power and great glory. Now, this word beloved. It's very important. It is key, in fact, I think, to understanding what is going on here and and how Peter will implore us in these verses to consider not only where we're going, but how we get there, our journey as well as our destination. But the destination begins with this understanding, beloved. You are beloved of God. You are loved by God in Christ Jesus. We need to understand the power of this word that Peter is using in order to understand how we ought to conduct our lives, how we ought to live our lives in the here and now in the present. We need to understand what God has done. and how that transports us to the future, looking forward to the coming of our blessed savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, where does that language come from? Well, I think the Puritans had a tremendous understanding of where that kind of language came from. In fact, when they preached about the church, they often preached from the Song of Solomon because they understood that our experience in this life has to be melded together in our minds with what God has done in betrothing us to our blessed husband to be our Lord Jesus Christ, our beloved one, the one that we love because he first loved us. So I was thinking about this, my mind went. To Song of Solomon, chapter two. Let me just read this passage for you, which I believe captures the essence of this very well. This. The husband's betrothed wife says. My beloved. Responded and said to me. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one. and come along. For behold, the winter is past. The rain is over and gone. The flowers have already appeared in the land. The time has arrived for pruning the vines and the voice of the turtle dove has been heard in our land. The fig tree has ripened its figs and the vines in blossom have been given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one. And come along. Oh, my dove. In the clefts of the rock, in the secret place of the steep pathway, let me see your form. Let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet. And your form is lovely. Now, if you've ever been in love, you know that language is the language of love. It's so much more than just dear friends. It is the language of a husband speaking to his wife. It is the language of a betrothed husband, an engaged husband who is passionate about his love. And he speaks to her with such gentleness and sweetness. And over and over again, he says to her, come along and be with me for the time of the storm has passed. When Pete spoke a few moments ago, rightly so, of the storm in which we are currently engaged. in which we are currently experiencing in our land and in this world, as the world again, as in the days of Noah, seems to fill up again with the hatred of God and with violence. We hear those words of comfort. We hear those words of Christ to our souls that, yeah, that day is going to be passed soon. The storm is going to be passed and then the fig tree will be ripened. Then the flowers will yield the full bloom and the fragrance, which is so beautiful and so wonderful to our senses. That's the day that we're looking for. When we understand what Peter says here about our journey, we have to understand it, our pilgrimage in this context. Beloved ones, the ones that I love, the ones that I look forward to being with on the day of my visitation when I come for you. That's the setting for our journey. It is a setting of love, a story of the love of the Savior for His people. Why are we able, as Peter puts it here, to live as aliens and strangers and to abstain from fleshly desires? Why? Why can we wage war against those fleshly desires which wage war against our souls? Why are we enabled to do that? To live that kind of pilgrimage? It is the love of Christ. For our souls beloved. Christ loves us so very much, just as a young, passionate man loves his bride to be. He woos us and he bids us to come. He speaks to us so sweetly and tenderly. Come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy laden. Yeah, you heard the law read this morning, and if You heard it rightly. If you are prepared by the spirit of God to rightly hear the law being read as a condemnation against our sin, then rightly you are crushed underneath the tablets of the law in the recognition that our sin is indeed very great and very vile before God, which is why we say first this morning, holy, holy, holy. because we recognize how great is our sin against the holiness of God. And yet, when we hear the law read, we praise God that we have a church that believes very much not just in reading the law, but concluding with the gospel in which Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. You are burdened down by the weight of sin upon your soul. Each day you experience the burden of sin and temptation in your lives, in your journey, in your destination. It's not just the journey of feeling like we're growing close to one another and growing closer to heaven, but it is, in fact, because we are able to feel the weight of the law against us that brings true comfort to our souls. The true comfort to our souls is the gospel. Come to me, all who are weary and burdened and heavy laden, for I will give you rest for your souls, the Lord Jesus says to us. He says, as our husband, you're my beloved. I love you so much. I'm really, really longing for the day When we're going to be together. And I'm going to take you into myself. This love of Christ, how beautiful. It is the foundation of understanding our journey, our pilgrimage. I mean, let's face it, there are many, many days. It would be just so much easier to just give in to the temptations of our flesh. There are many hours when every one of us, if we're honest, we doubt whether or not the Lord Jesus is ever going to come back. And we fear what may happen in our country, in our home, with our job, whatever it might be. We are full of fear because we don't really long for that day the way that our Savior does. It would be so much easier just to quit, wouldn't it? There are so many occasions when we wonder, is he really coming to take us home? It's been so long. Is he really going to come as he promised? That's why, as we look at the next part of this passage, I put this in my own words to try to describe this, but in the journey We don't trust in our own strength. We don't trust in our own ability to get us there. Rather, we trust in the purity and the promise of the person who calls us to this journey. Before we get to be with Christ, we realize we're still here. We're still in this earth. We still live our lives from day to day. And as Peter puts it, we're at war every day. We go to war when we wake up. We go to war when we lay down at night. We are at war every moment of our lives. Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, every now and then they get a break and they go back to their barracks and play video games, talk to their family on the phone, watch a movie, eat some food, get some sleep. They get a little break from the war. Peter says here, in our journey, there really is no break. You know why? Because as we looked at last week, because of the darkness out of which we have been called. And Satan reaches up out of that layer, out of that darkness, and desires that none of us should be let go. And so, he wages war against us every moment, unrelentingly, He hates that we have become regenerate. He hates that we have been snatched out of his dark kingdom and been given to the kingdom of God's glorious Son. And so he wages war against our souls. And we're bombarded, let's face it, we're completely surrounded every day of our lives with the pleasures of this world. with which wage war against our soul. Now, some of you may have heard of Plato, a Greek philosopher who argued essentially that, well, that which is spiritual is good. That which is of the flesh, now that's evil. And you have this picture that, you know, our life is sort of like riding along in a carriage and on one Front of the carriage is a white horse and on the other front of the carriage is the black horse. The black horse represents the flesh, which is material, and the white horse, that which is spiritual. Now, the white horse is good. Black horse is bad. That's what Plato said. Plato was essentially a dualist. He believed in two realities and spiritual and and material. And the two should never meet because one is good and one is evil. Now, that's not what Peter is saying here. How do we know that? When God created the heavens and the earth, what did he say? What did he say about his creation? He says it's good. It's good when he created man, he says very good. When God created the heavens and the earth, he pronounced them to be good. Material is not evil. So what is it that Peter means here that The pleasures of the flesh, literally the pleasures of our members within our members wage war against the soul each day. Well, we recognize on account of the pollution of sin. that the world is filled with corruption. In fact, the scriptures bear witness to the fact that the world is inhabited by legions of demons that have as their singular goal, it seems, to corrupt the flesh. Because I suppose their deepest, sickest desire is to make mankind in their evil, rebellious image. So it seems That the devil and his angels look at the flesh and lust after it because they want to corrupt it. They want to bring it down to their level. Which is why there's so much commingling of demonic forces and the flesh all through scripture. Now, this is why I think the whole of scripture testifies to the fact that the warfare that we experience is, in fact, very real. It's not just a game. It's not virtual reality. It is reality. It's taking place before our eyes every day, all around us. We really are waging war. We're involved in that war. As pilgrims, as aliens and strangers, it is a pilgrimage of warfare. Of fighting against Satan's corruption. Every day. Thomas Watson said. Before this union with Christ. There must be a separation. The heart must be separated from all other lovers. As in marriage, there is a leaving of father and mother. Forget your own people in your father's house. So there must be a leaving of our former sins, a breaking off the old league with hell before we can be united to Christ. Ephraim shall say, what have I to do with any more idols? Or as it is in the Hebrews, with sorrows we leave. Those sins which were looked on before as lovers are now sorrows. There must be a divorce before there can be a union. I believe that this is, in fact, a good reference or description of what we often call progressive revelation, excuse me, progressive sanctification. There are two aspects of sanctification, to be sure. When we speak of sanctification, we normally speak of progressive sanctification. We grow into the image of Christ, that we are washed with the water of the word so that we might become like Christ. And that is the progressive nature of our sanctification. That is what Peter speaks of here principally. But there is also a definitive sense of sanctification. I've spoken to that in the last few weeks as I talked about the fact that we are the possession of God. We have been set apart as a very peculiar people. That we have been set apart as a holy people unto God, and that is the definitive nature of sanctification. We are sanctified in Christ just as we have been justified. We will be complete and holy and pure when we stand before him because of his blood, which washes away our sins. That is the definite nature, the definitive nature of sanctification. And yet, in recognizing that, we don't deny that there is a process. that there is a progressive nature in which we are becoming like Christ, in which we are being molded by the Father to look like him. And so we recognize that what he said before, what Christ said before he left, that he's gone to prepare a place for us in his father's house and he's coming back for us. And what we're doing is waiting for him as we walk through our lives together, just as Pilgrim and faithful walking together in Pilgrim's Progress. We know that at any moment Christ might appear around the corner. and lead us to our eternal home. We don't know when that moment is going to be. And so we recognize that we must prepare. We must prepare our minds for action, as Peter said earlier, to gird up our loins, to be ready to go at any moment in time, to prepare our lives as if Christ were going to return. And in that process of preparation, there is this definite sense of progressive sanctification. As the author of Hebrews thought about this in Hebrews 11 in relation to those who walk by faith, he said, all these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they're seeking a country not of their own. And indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, all they desire, they long for. A better country, a heavenly one, therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. It is a divine perspective and allow me to say I believe a mark of our growing maturity in Christ to think about our condition in this world as it truly is. It is a temporary condition. It is a temporary condition in which We are being prepared by the grace of God to be fit for our husband and that city that he is preparing for us. Finally, Peter says. We long for Christ and we wait for him, and as we do that, we look forward to the praise that God will receive on the day of Christ's visitation. In light of Christ's coming for us, Peter says here, we ought to keep our conduct among the Gentiles honorable. Now, it's interesting if you're using the King James, reading the King James this morning or you read it before these verses, you might wonder why this verse is translated as conduct or behavior when the King James says, keep your conversation honest or honorable among the Gentiles. Now, the reason why this might seem strange to us is very simple. We just don't understand how they use the word conversation in the 17th century when the King James was translated. Listen to this definition, or at least one of the primary definitions from Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary, which was much closer to that time. He says that Conversation is the general course of manners, behavior, deportment, especially as it respects morals. In the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, the aim of the wicked is often to cut down the righteous in their way, in the way that they go. In the Old Testament, The metaphor for our conduct or our morals was often the path or the way in which you go. It is your way of life, the way that you live your life. And that's certainly the idea that is present here. John Brown, in his commentary on 1 Peter, says, He exhorts them further to adorn their profession by an honest conversation or honorable way of living. Their conversation in every turn, every instance and every action of their lives ought to be honest, that is good, lovely, decent, amiable and without blame. And that because they lived among the Gentiles, people of another religion and who were in veterate enemies to them who did already slander them and constantly spoke evil of them as evildoers. A clean, just, good conversation may not only stop their mouths, but may possibly be a means to bring them to glorify God and to turn to you when they shall see you excel in all others and in good works. They now call you evildoers. Vindicate yourselves by good works. This is the way to convince them. There is a day of visitation coming wherein God may call them by his word and his grace to repentance. And then they will glorify God and applaud you for your excellent conversation. When the gospel shall come among them and take effect, a good conversation will encourage them in their conversion But an evil one will obstruct it. Now, in the last part of this passage, which we examined before before this paragraph, Peter reminded us, as I said earlier, that we were called out of darkness. into God's marvelous light, you remember that we ought to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. You may recall if you were here last time that his excellencies, as it is used in that context, really speak of God's moral excellencies, his purity. That God is a morally perfect God. And so. Not only to speak of the moral excellencies of our Savior, as Peter does later in this chapter, in fact, let me just go ahead and and read those verses for you, starting at verse 21, for to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself. To the one who judges justly or rightly. So we look to our savior, we look to the one who is coming to our betrothed husband, And we have for us the example of how we ought to live our lives, even if we are reviled. And let's face it, it's easy to apply that today and it's going to become easier. Because the more you speak for Christ and the more you uphold the truth of God's word, the more that it seems the culture around us and the people of the world today are going to revile you. You hate monger who speak of one way of our Lord Jesus Christ, who say that there is such a thing as sin and filthiness and rebellion against God and that men that do such things are subject to the judgment of God, just as we are apart from Christ. Now, when you speak of these things, I guarantee you and it seems that it will only increase in intensity. that people will call you evil doers. Can you imagine that? People will call you evil doers. They're already calling you that. You're bigoted, narrow-minded, full of hate. All of these kinds of terms that are being bantied about so liberally today are all indicative of a culture that hates God, that hates all of His ways. And they hate you because you belong to him. Peter says. Beloved. You are loved by the Savior. Keep this in your minds, even when they do that, even when those who do evil call good evil. You know that you belong to him. You're looking forward to that day when he's going to return and you can live with that kind of tension in your life. You can live with that kind of hatred against the Savior, for you know it is against him and not against you, for he endured it. And he bore our sin in his body on the cross, he endured the mocking and the torture and the hatred, he was perfect. You there's good reason for you people to call you a sinner. You are a sinner. You're not perfect. None of us are. And so there are many occasions when people have room for accusation against us. But Peter says, strive, work, prepare in such a way, looking to the Savior, not of your own strength, but in his strength because of his beauty, because of what he has accomplished for you. In this definitive nature of sanctification. Because of what Christ has done, live in such a way, let your conduct, your. Life among the world be in such a way that perhaps on the day of Christ's visitation, we don't know. Listen, you don't know what impact your life will have on someone else. You know, my father once told me when he was in the Navy as a young man that there was a young man in the ship, in the chow hall every day, who before he ate his meal, he bowed his head and he prayed. My dad at that time was terribly unregenerate. And years later, he looked back and he said, you know, I believe the Lord used that in my life. to bring me to some consciousness that I was a rebel against God and I needed a savior. A little thing like that. You don't know what God will use in your life. And so Peter says, be aware of your conduct, how you live in the nation, the nations among the Gentiles, which used to be and Perhaps the Lord will use that so that on the day of his visitation, imagine that someone may approach you and say, I give praise to God because you lived in such a way that you looked like him. You showed me what he looks like, and now I love him because he loved me enough to demonstrate This love before me and your very conduct, the way that you. Conducted yourself in this. So while we live in the world, we live in such a way, no matter what other people say. Whether they mock us or deride us or even accuse us of wrongdoing, we live in such a way that we know when Christ appears one way or another, I believe, Men will give glory to God. Either they will give glory to God because they've been converted or they will give glory to God because they bow their knee before the Savior and confess that he is beautiful. And they rejected. For every knee will bow every knee and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ. The idea here is extended Even beyond that, they will acknowledge that Christ is Lord because of his own moral beauty and perfection. But they will also acknowledge that we belong to him. And for this, they will give God the glory. And I was in high school at a pastor named George Bedley, and I remember hearing him say to his children often. They shouldn't act this way or that way, and like almost all little children, They would respond to him, why shouldn't I act that way? And I still remember his response. In fact, I use it with my own little ones. He would say, because you're a Bedlian and Bedlians don't act that way. You don't conduct yourself in a certain way, not just because you have the will or the strength to do it, but because of who you are, it's because of who you belong to. And this, Peter says. is true of us. You're the beloved. Why do you conduct yourselves the way you do? Why do you prepare your wedding dress through the preaching of the word, through attending the sacraments, through the means of grace that God has established, through the love of the brethren, through the building up of one another in Christ? Why do you do these things? Peter says it's because of who you are. You're beloved of the Savior. But you're looking forward to that wedding day. You'll be united to him. Peter says, if you are, conduct yourselves, prepare yourselves in such a way, soberness. The day is coming. What a glorious day that will be. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, bow before you this day again and we confess to you, God, how inadequate we are to become like Christ. We know, God, that we are still so full of sin and the pull of the pit is so strong on our souls that we war every day against our flesh and the pleasures of this passing world. We implore you, God, To show us the beauty of our Savior, the beauty of the one of loveliness who calls us, the one whose voice is perfect, whose pitch is without flaw, who speaks to us those words of joy and love, passion. The one who tells us of the spring that is coming, the day is dawning in our hearts because Christ is the son who is risen. Lord, I pray that we would look forward to him as we live our lives, as we journey in this world, as we sojourn apart from that beautiful city to which we are called. Help us, God, to look forward and not back. To Long for the day when we too, like Pilgrim, will cross that river. And even though we sink down into the depths of death, we will be raised up together in the glory of Christ. Thank you, Lord, for that precious truth. In Jesus' name, Amen.