There's something said in churches in America, and I'm sure you've heard it here too, that Christians, as Christians, we are in the world, but not of the world. We are in the world, but not of the world. I don't know about you, but I've heard people say, there's a verse in the Bible that says that, isn't there? Apostle Paul? Well, no, nothing that explicitly says that, that exact wording, but certainly the idea is very much present. that we as God's people are in the world, but not of the world. However, tonight, there's an important preposition that I want to add to that phrase, and that is for the world. We are in the world, not of the world, yet for the world. All three of the passages that we read, Deuteronomy, Matthew, and 1 Peter, which is the one we will be concentrating on, they all speak to this reality. And if we do not keep that last preposition in view for the world, I think our ability to fulfill the great commandment to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor of ourself is going to be greatly hindered. And the hope that I have is that we will be convinced that our love for God is inextricably tied to our love for neighbor, and our love for neighbor finds its motivation in our love for God. See, if our not being of the world is only directed toward God, or frankly, our self-preservation, then we are actually not loving God as He would have us to love Him, because He's placed us in the world for the world, and that is why He does not want us to be of the world. So first, let's think about what is meant by the world. We are enjoined again and again in the Bible to not be of the world. But what is meant by that is that we are not to be shaped, we're not to be molded by the dominant narrative, the dominant ideas, the dominant motivations of the world, of that part of society that does not acknowledge God or the truth of his word. But what the Bible teaches is that there is a purpose behind our not being of the world. It's that we might be for the world. I think it would be helpful for us to consider how the expectation to be in the world but not of the world came to be. Now, prior coming to Scotland, I learned that in Glasgow there are two old firm football teams, the Celtics and the Rangers. I also learned that when they come to watch a football match between the two of them, they have to enter and exit through other entrances. They have to sit on either side of the pitch. In fact, in the neighborhood where Barbara and I live, Ranger fans, that's the neighborhood they're allowed to gather in before they head towards the stadium where it's going to be. Now, why is that? Well, because there's enmity between them. Now, whatever the root of that is, is it religious, is it social, whatever it is, but the reality is there's two distinct groups of people there, and there's enmity that exists. And I think that's a helpful illustration for us, for our understanding our relationship to the world. Because, believe it or not, there are two distinct peoples in the world and there's enmity that exists between them. By enmity, I mean hostility. We know where the source is. It's in the fall. God makes Adam and Eve. He puts them in the garden. He says, listen, it's all available to you except one, one, one, one, one tree. And along comes the serpent, deceives the woman. The husband buys into it. And the next thing you know, they have fallen. And what does God do? He sets a curse upon the serpent, and what does he say to him? I will put enmity, I'll put hostility, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his heel. Now there's two sets of people in that pronouncement. The distinction is made between the ones who are aligned with the woman, as it were, and there are those who are aligned with the serpent, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent. That distinction is made, and that separation exists throughout the entire biblical narrative. There's always a distinction between those who are aligned with the offspring of the woman and those who are aligned with the serpent. And what the phrase, in the world but not of it, intends to convey is that we, as God's people, are to maintain that distinction. There's a world living in unreality, living as though the God doesn't exist, living as though they can create their own reality, define themselves as how they want to define themselves, including everything about them. And while we very well might have lived like that ourselves prior to coming to Jesus ourselves, the reality is that now that we are Christians, we are distinct from the rest of the world. Listen to what John says in his first epistle. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, it's not from the Father, but from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. You listen to that, and it's easy to see how we say as Christians, as God's people, we are in the world, but not of the world. But let's turn to 1 Peter. Let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 2, because I think when we do, what we're going to discover is that there are indeed two sorts of people in the world, those who belong to God and those who do not, and that there is enmity between them. But unlike the situation with the old firm teams, Amazingly, God does not want us to be entering and exiting by different entrances. He does not want us to not mingle with them, to sit next to them, to have something to do with those who are loyal to the other side. God actually wants his people, his team, his club, if you will, to be mixed in among the others. For he wants us to be in the world, in the midst of the world, because he has a purpose for us. 1 Peter is a letter written by the apostle Peter, and he intended that it would be read through a series of churches, a kind of circular letter that's going to be passed along. And in God's gracious providence, here we are. Here we are in Stornoway, Scotland, talking about this letter. Well, Peter's intended audience appears to be Christians who have suffered or are suffering persecution due to their faith in Christ. And he writes to bolster their faith, urging them to remain faithful and holds out before them the hope that we have as Christians that Christ, the chief shepherd, will return to gather his sheep to himself. And what's important to note is that the audience that he's writing to is a mixture of both Jews and Gentiles, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Yet despite that mixture, as we read, he uses imagery and language from Israel's history to describe all of it. Jewish believers and Gentile believers, they're all the covenant people of God. As Paul says elsewhere, we Gentiles, we Gentile believers, we have been grafted into the redemptive vine that God has been growing since he planted that gospel seed back after the fall. And this is important to note because it emphasizes the not of aspect of our existence. Israel, Israel was a set apart people, a holy people chosen by God to be his own from all the peoples of the earth. And that was emphasized by the laws that God gave Israel, which they were to obediently follow. As one commentator explains, Israel was called to demonstrate her holy status and separateness from the nations, even down to what she ate at mealtimes. In this way, the clean, unclean food distinctions would have symbolically reminded Israel of her election from the nations. And if we go back to the passage that we read, listen to how, again, how Peter describes this church made up of Jews and Gentiles. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own position, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Now, if you have a cross-reference Bible and look, you'll find out that he is drawing from lots of language having to do with God's relationship to Israel and what God declares about them. See, Israel was a distinct people, God's own. And the church, we are a distinct people, God's own. In fact, Paul goes so far as to say that the church, made up of believers, both Jewish and Gentile, we are the true Israel of God. So Peter, in his letter, having established their identity, he goes on to exhort those he's addressing. And this we will see, that they are in the world, but not of the world, yet for the world. But we're going to take them in the order that Peter gives us. First, that we are not of the world. Look at verse 11 of 1 Peter 2. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which 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. Sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which war against your soul. Now this speaks then of our not being of the world. And it does so in two ways. One, we might say positionally, and the other way, experientially. And let me see if I can explain what I mean. He says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles. Now, can there be two words more than these that capture what it means for us to be Christians and not be of the world? What's sojourner? A definition, it's someone who temporarily stays in a place who's moving through the land. And we as Christians, we are sojourners because this world is not our true home. We have a place reserved for us in heaven, a place that Jesus is preparing for us. Here what Peter says at the opening of his letter. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. See, we are not of the world because we are sojourners passing through to our true home. That's why we can be called exiles, as Peter does. Again, dictionary definition of what's an exile. A person who lives away from their native country, either from choice or compulsion. A person who lives away from their native country, either from choice or compulsion. See, as long as we live on this earth, we are living away from what has become for us, by God's grace, our native country. If someone says to you, where were you born? And you say, well, I was born in Scotland, I was born in France, I was born in China, I was born in Nigeria, I was born in the United States. You're saying that's your native country, even if you don't live there anymore. You're a native of that country. And Christians, we profess that we're born from above, that we're born again by the Spirit of God, that we have a new native identity. not just born of Scotland, but born of heaven, where our Redeemer lives and where we will be when our sojourn is over. So since we have not yet arrived, we might say that from our passage in Peter, we are positionally not of this world, that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, our true home, and that's one day when we will be with him. But also from this passage we are called to be experientially not of this world. What do I mean? What does he say? I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Later on in this letter, he urges them to walk in that kind of holiness that we're called to. He says, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of his time in the flesh for the duration of our sojourn, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. And then he says this. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles, the non-covenant people, people who are true or Gentile, who are now in covenant relationship with God, for the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatry. With respect to this, they're surprised when you do not join them in that same flood of debauchery that they malign you. See, what he's saying is that we are to experience this world differently than we would have if we remained numbered among the offspring of the serpent. If we were not part of the true Israel, if we were not aligned with the seed of the woman, we are to experience life in this world differently than if we had remained only as the offspring of the serpent. And now, as Peter says, by God's great mercy, we have been made natives of heaven. Therefore, we are to live no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. And as he indicates, our former brothers and sisters of the offspring of the serpent, they might not get it. They might mock us for no longer going after the same thing that we might have gone after had we remained among them. But nonetheless, we are being transformed by God's spirit in order that we are indeed conformed to all that God calls us to be. Yeah, so as sojourners in exiles, we are not of this world. We're not of this world positionally, because we are in Christ, that's where our home is, but also experientially. We're living differently than people in the world live, and we ourselves might have lived were we not seated with Christ in heavenly places. So, we're not of the world. However, Peter indicates that we are in the world, and he does so with a word, a preposition, that comprehensively expresses it. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorably. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. What's it mean? What's the definition of among? It's to be surrounded by, in the company of. See, there's no old, firm, ranger, celtic separation here. And despite the enmity, we are meant to be among those who are at odds with God. Do you remember when Paul was writing to the Corinthian church that there was somebody in there who was doing something that they need to deal with, to put him out, as it were, of the church? And he writes this, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Now, if we stop there, we would say, right. I'm not going to have anything to do with sexually immoral people. In fact, I'm going to go into some religious community and just hang out with people who I know are sexually immoral people. And in fact, I think I'll build a cabin on the side of a mountain somewhere so I really don't have to deal with anybody so I can remain myself, remain holy and pure. But that's not what Paul says. Because what he goes on to say is this, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. We are to associate with the sexually immoral of this world, the greedy, the swindlers, and the idolaters. But note the phrase in which that preposition comes, among, occurs in Peter's letter. He says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles, again, those who are not part of the true Israel, not in covenant with God, keep it honorable. Now, that is no small challenge. If you read the history of Israel, you know that they were supposed to be a distinct people who followed God's laws and yet consistently they were drawn away, drawn away. As we read in the language of Deuteronomy, the Belepior incident, if you go back if you're not familiar with that, where they were drawn away and committed sexual immorality and God struck them down, those who were participated in that. At the very beginning of Israel's journey to the Promised Land, when Moses was up on the mountain getting the law of God, what were they doing? They were participating in pagan worship at the foot of the mountain. And that was just a foreshadowing of the struggle that Israel had in maintaining their distinctiveness. Time and time again, they are drawn away from God and his law to become indistinguishable from the nations among which they lived. what was Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, you name the prophet. It was calling them back, calling them back. Israel, you are in the world and you are of the world. Now God warned them over and over again that blessing would result from their obedience, from their obedience to his will and curses would result from disobedience. So there was even plenty of motivation arising from self-preservation alone for them to heed God's word and live under his rule. But the allure of the world for Israel was too great. They were shaped, molded by the dominant narrative, the dominant ideas, the dominant motivations of the world and that part of society that does not acknowledge God or his commandments. How can this happen to the church? It can. It can happen to the Church. It most certainly has and most certainly can. And when the Church has not taken care to maintain its distinctiveness, it ends up affirming what the world affirms despite the fact that what the world affirms is expressly against God's will. One obvious contemporary example is when those going underneath the banner of Christianity affirm a notion of sexuality that is absolutely contrary to what God expresses in the Bible. And there are some who travel under the banner of Christianity in the United States that somehow think that politics is going to bring redemption, deliverance. And so they look to a man currently who has absolutely no grounding in the morality of the Bible, and you throw their lot in. They just become another voting block. In many respects, God is saying, you're in the world, and you're of the world. They forget the fact that God says it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. See, what Peter and Paul are calling us to is not disassociation with the world, but distinction from the world. Yeah? Not disassociation with the world, but distinction from the world. We are not of the world, but we are in the world. And by in, we mean among. Working with, befriending, serving, and associating with those who are in the world with us. But we do so, and here's the challenge, while maintaining our distinctiveness. And wasn't that what prompted Paul to write as he did? I don't expect people in the world to act any differently, Paul is essentially saying. I don't expect them to act any differently than they do. But if someone is in the church acting in ways that are indistinguishable from the world, and that they are doing things contrary to what God expects, you can't associate with them. The church must maintain its distinctiveness, or as Peter says, its honor. So we're in the world, not of the world. but we are also for the world. That's why we maintain our distinctiveness. Peter tells us it's for the world. Listen again to verse 12. 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. They may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Peter has already acknowledged in this letter the suffering his readers have gone through at the hands of those among whom they live. And he has urged them to not lose heart, to persevere, to not lose hope. Now he calls them to live honorably among these people. That is to maintain their distinctiveness so that those who had previously been persecuting them will see the genuineness of their faith and the life that it produces and actually be convinced that life in Christ is better than life outside of Him. And how is that change of heart to be expressed on the part of those people who are observing us as followers of Jesus? By their giving glory to God on the day of visitation. Now there's some debate whether that visitation has to do with they themselves are converted or when the Lord Jesus returns. But in either way, in either way, they're giving glory to God because they have had their eyes opened to see that Christians in their midst are not to be persecuted, but praised. And this has served to lead them to desire the life that they see Christians living, a life lived to the glory of God, which provoked others to give glory to God. I can testify in my own life, my living among Christians, even in one's family house for several months as an unbeliever, and observing their life and experiencing their generosity, went a long way towards silencing my previous mocking of born-again Christians. In fact, when I went home from that time and was riding with my then sister-in-law at the time, and she made some derogatory comment, she's now a Christian, but she made some derogatory comment about born-again Christians, and I said, well, I don't know. I saw them in action as they loved Barbara's mother, as her mother was very ill. I saw them in action as they prayed for her, as they bidded her and stood by her side in the hospital. And when I was sitting at home with these Christians around the table, you know, they never once directly confronted me, you need to repent. What they did do is talk about their faith in Jesus with joy. Oh, that was a real praise the Lord today. And I'd roll my eyes like this. But the reality is they were living out their faith before this pagan's eyes. Because of them, at least in part, I will give glory to God on the day of visitation, both now as God is with us and also on that day when Jesus returns Yeah, so we are in the world, not of the world. We are not of the world, yet we are in the world, among the world. For what reason? For the world. Let's try to answer two questions in conclusion. Why would our genuine, God-honoring lives be appealing to our neighbors? The second question, how are we to become such compelling people? Why? Well, I'll suggest that that answer as to why we being genuine, God-honoring lives would be appealing to our neighbors is because we are living as how human beings were created to live. See, when the fall happened, it cut Adam and Eve, not just off from God, it cut it off from themselves, who they were, truly, as God had created them. See, we human beings were made to love God and live by his wise counsel. And instead, we chose to love ourselves, listen to the unwise counsel, the one who hated God with all of his being. And when God redeems a person, he promises eternal life, but he also presents them with life in the here and now as it was meant to be lived. Let me suggest something. Jesus was the only normal human being who ever walked on the face of the earth. He was the only normal human being who ever walks on the face of the earth because he lived fully God and fully man and as a man He loved God with all of his heart, soul, strength, and mind. He loved his neighbors himself. He didn't walk in doubt. He didn't walk in fear. He didn't bark or push back at God's commands. He rejoiced in the love that he had for his father. That's how we were created to live. Jesus was the only normal human being. He walked a normal human life. but ours, tainted by sin. Oh, don't we have a struggle with that? But yet, if we were like Jesus, we'd be free, we'd be liberated. We would actually be living as we were created to live, because Jesus was free of all the malignities that plague us as human beings since the fall. And see, the more we yield to normal human life, the kind that Jesus lived, the more we communicate to our neighbors that loving God and bringing glory to him is how we were meant to live. And for those with eyes to see, it's compelling. The challenge, of course, is to embrace that identity, embrace that reality, embrace who we truly are as image bearers of God. and to resist all of the temptations that come along that says, you know, I just, I don't want to follow God. There's just part of me, I'm gonna just put my trust in something else. And you know, we struggle with that, even as Christians. As much as we like to think we're on the way, we know that on the way we can drift. But Jesus never wavered from what it was he was called to be. And that's how we're supposed to be. And if Jesus is compelling to people, we can be compelling to people because we are in Christ and Christ is in us. We can actually be transformed. We can actually be something new. We can actually live life closer and closer to how it was meant to be lived. How are we to do that? How will we become such compelling people? I'm gonna suggest three things. First, his word. God has given us his word so that we human beings can know what constitutes a life lived as it was meant to be lived. It's there for us in black and white. It's embodied, incarnated in the person and life of Christ. We need only to read it, to digest it, so that God's word, and not the world's word, shapes us and molds us, provides the dominant narrative, the dominant ideas, the dominant motivations for our lives. Remember, what is the world? It's all of that. But God has given to us in his word the very things that we need to know that might transform our understanding of how it is that we are to live. in how it instructs us what's going on. Just where is God leading everything? We find that in His Word. So we cannot hope that we'd be compelling people if we're not listening to what God has to say in His Word. But it's there for us to listen to and the Spirit of God to bring us understanding. And that leads us to the second thing, indeed, his spirit. See, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in each of us. Now, think about that. Just stop and think about that for a minute. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us as believers. Isn't that extraordinary? He brought Jesus back to life. And the spirit dwelling inside of us is meant to bring us from our death and trespasses and sins to life. That same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us. And he is at work transforming us into who we are in Christ. What does Paul write? Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. The Spirit of God dwells inside of us. We've not been left orphans, Jesus says. It was better for him to go away, because then the Spirit would come and dwell within us. He would be with us, and we would be in him. So, how are we to be compelling? First, His Word. Secondly, the presence of His Spirit in our lives. And lastly, that you and me together, the Church. We have been given to each other to help each other pursue and maintain the distinctiveness that we've been considering here tonight. Church discipline isn't just what Paul was prescribing there in 1 Corinthians 5. There is a lot of mutual discipline that takes place before such a situation arises. We are to exhort one another, encourage one another, support one another, and at times lovingly rebuke one another so that we might be the people we have been redeemed to be. who we've been created to be and now we've been redeemed to be. We need each other in order that we might learn and encourage one another, be allies in the struggle to walk with faithfulness towards God so that we might be compelling to our brothers, to our neighbors around us. So again, We are not of the world. There's no twist about that. God and his grace has made us distinct from what we were and from what everybody else is around us. And there is hostility that exists. That's clear. But we are not of the world, but we are in the world. We're not to leave it. We're supposed to remain in it. In fact, we're supposed to be among the world. And as we are among the world, We are there for the world. And that's why we work to maintain our distinctiveness. Because as we saw in Deuteronomy, people will look and say, what a wise and understanding nation this is. And as Jesus says, you're going to be like a city set up on a hill. You're going to be like light. And when people see your good works, they're going to give glory to your Father in heaven. And as Peter says, on the day of visitation, they will give glory to God. Because they have seen how it is that we live out our lives. Now, how that expresses itself in each of us, in every circumstance that we find ourselves, is going to be as varied as the individuals in this room and as the circumstances we find ourselves in. But what is the constant? is God's Word, His Spirit, and the purpose of the Church. That is a constant that we might look to every time. And so may God grant us the grace to be indeed in the world, not of the world, yet for the world. In fact, let's flip some of that and add an adverb. We're in the world for the world, therefore, not of the world. In the world for the world, therefore, not of the world. Let's pray. Lord God, we ask your help. Lord, we are a distinct people. And in fact, what we're here to do this weekend is to acknowledge the very real distinction that we have, the distinctiveness that we celebrate together as your people. But Lord, we don't want it to remain there as an end to itself. We can see, as we've been instructed, and we've only just kind of scratched the surface of it, of how it is that you have a purpose for us, that like Israel was meant to shine as a light to the nation, so we are to shine as a light to those around us. And yet we confess, Lord, We confess that we're not very bright at times. We don't shine brightly. Too often, we're just dull and dim and completely, or at least quite uncompelling. But we pray you could change that in us. Out of love for our neighbor, out of love for you, Lord God, change us so that our walking in your will learning to live for you and for your glory will be done joyfully and will be compelling. Lord, help us to experience what it means to live the normal human life in Christ that others might see it and desire it to your glory. In Christ's name I pray, amen.