“Aliens and
Strangers” 1 Peter 2:11-12 June
5, 2011
SCRIPTURE INTRO: We’re studying 1 Peter this summer.
The
theme of this letter is Christian suffering.
How as a Christian, you can live in such a
way that the troubles, pains,
and sorrows that inevitably come, don’t
crush you, but make you better.
Peter
introduces that right away in his letter.
The theme verses are 6 and 7:
“In this you
greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief
in all kinds of trials. These have come
so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined
by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when
Jesus Christ is revealed.”
There
it is: Suffering, grief, trials—refined
by fire—praise, glory and honor.
Up
to this point in the letter, Peter helps Christians deal with suffering
by reminding us of our relation to God.
Reminds
us that we are God’s chosen people,
that we have a place in the church of God,
that we have a calling as a kingdom of
priests.
Now,
his attention shifts, and he helps Christians deal with suffering
by reminding us of our relation to the
world.
How
should we relate to the society around us, to the governments of the world,
and in particular, how should we respond to
the world’s rejection.
Remember,
Peter was writing to Christians who were suffering persecution.
He tells them: First, know who you are in Christ, your
relationship with God.
Second, know who you are in the world, your
stance toward the world.
He
says that you have to see yourself not as belonging here—
but as an alien and stranger.
INTRO: One of my best seminary friends is a man named
Paul Billy Arnold.
Several
of you know him. He’s preached here
before.
Even though his name doesn’t sound Indian,
he is a native of Bangalore, India.
From
the first time I met him, one of the things that endeared him to me
was how much he talked about going back to
India.
It
wasn’t that he was homesick. He
thoroughly enjoyed his time in America.
In fact, even though he had never traveled
outside India in his life,
he fit in here immediately. He got the jokes, he got the politics.
There
were some Southern seminarians who introduced him to SEC football
the first fall he was there and he became a
huge fan.
He could have stayed in the US if he had
wanted to.
He could have easily gotten a pastoral
position in any number of churches.
But,
from the very beginning he made it clear he wasn’t staying.
He talked about India. And how he loved his country. And his plans to go back.
His heart and his future was in his
homeland.
And
everything he did—his studies, his degrees, his new friendships, connections—
were done with a view toward India, and the
work God had for him there.
In
this passage Peter calls Christians “aliens and strangers.”
He’s already called them this twice before
in the letter.
These
two Greek works, translated aliens and strangers, are more properly defined:
“One who lives in a place without
citizenship.”
“One who comes from a foreign country into a
city or land to reside there for a
time along the natives.” Reason sometimes translated “pilgrims.”
So
the idea is not permanent aliens.
People who come to another country and never
leave but never become citizens.
And
it’s not the sort of foreigner who knows he’s returning so he keeps to himself.
Only speaks his own language, lives in an
enclave of other foreigners.
Instead
it’s a foreigner who lives among the natives.
He gets it.
He speaks their language. He’s part of their community.
But
he knows and he’s planning to return to his homeland.
That’s
what made me think of Paul Billy when I read this.
What
does it mean that Christians are aliens and strangers,
sojourners and pilgrims in world?
Peter
wasn’t the first to speak this way about believers.
Remember
Jacob’s confession before Pharaoh: “The
days of my pilgrimage . . .”
He was saying, this world is not my
home. He got that from Abraham.
David
called himself an alien and stranger even though he owned property,
and had a family and a position in the
world. He was a king, for goodness sake.
But in Psalm 39 he speaks of himself this
way by way of expressing the
brevity of life and that there is nothing
permanent to hold on to in this life.
So
this is an old theme in the Bible to describe the life of faith.
Peter
takes this status of believers and develops it.
Since we are pilgrims passing through. Since we have another home country
that we are looking forward to and getting
ready for, that ought to change the
way we live.
It ought to change us morally and ethically.
As
believers we must take our ethics, our way of life, not from this world,
but from our true homeland.
That’s
Peter’s point: To live as a stranger and
alien means that your life
is going to be different morally from the
lives of people who are shaped
by the culture and values of this
world.
Our
lives are to be lived in consistency with that other world,
that heavenly country, which is our true
home and to which we are heading.
And
there is such a difference between these two worlds,
that they produce very different lives among
those who belong to them.
Peter
could have gotten to the same lesson in other ways. He could have said
that the Christian life is a response to the
grace of God. Live as a saved person.
He
could have said again, as earlier, Be holy as God is holy.
Instead he used this. Think about your true homeland. Where you are returning.
If
that sense of your true home is clear and powerful, it will produce a living
expectation that will make you want to live
the life that is already lived there.
Two
points. Remember you are an alien and
stranger . . .
1. In
the fight against your sinful desires.
2. In
the witness of your good deeds.
MP#1 Remember you are an alien and stranger in the
fight against your sinful desires.
“Dear
friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from
sinful desires, which war against your soul.”
Through
the ages, Christians have made several mistakes
about what it means to be an alien and
stranger in the world.
One
mistake that crops up from time to time is that it means you should make
some kind of visible difference between
yourself and the world.
For example, having a particular hair do, or
wearing unusual clothing.
There’s
a man who sometimes passes through Cullman wearing a robe and a
beard like Jesus. Maybe you’ve seen him.
I’ve
never talked to him, so I don’t know exactly why he dresses like he does.
But I’d be willing to bet he would say
something like this:
My way of dressing is a witness to the world
that I’m a follower of Christ.
I’m different, I’m a stranger.
And
he certainly does look strange. It gets
your attention.
You can’t help admiring his conviction and
his guts in doing that.
But
there’s nothing like that in the New Testament.
Peter and all the other apostles dressed
like the people of their day.
Peter
says that the first way Christians are set apart as aliens and strangers
is that there is a fight, a war going on
inside of them.
It’s a fight against sinful desires that
wage war against your soul.
Every
single one of you who is a Christian here this morning
knows what Peter is talking about. If you don’t, then you aren’t a Christian.
It’s as simple as that. To be a Christian is to be a person who knows
the fight.
Spiritual
warfare. The bitter struggle that goes
on in every Christian’s life
between your sanctified heart, your new
self, your restored conscience—
and the desire to sin that remains in your
soul.
You
want to be holy man or woman, don’t you?
Of course you do.
A person full of nothing but love for God
and your fellow man.
You want to be a credit to Christ. You want
to adorn the Gospel with your life.
You
know what is good. You know what God
wants.
But far too often the things you want to do,
you don’t do.
And the things you do not want to do, those
are the things you do.
Peter
doesn’t say much at all in this verse.
He just says you should fight.
There are these desires that rise up within
you—
they attack your faith, your purity, your
holiness, your faithfulness.
Peter
just says: Fight them.
This is very often the way it is in the
Bible. It just tells us to fight.
It doesn’t explain the command.
It doesn’t give specific instructions or
tactics.
It just orders us into the field.
That
very simplicity teaches us that what God wants us to do is usually obvious—
God wants us to say No to this and Yes to
that. And we know it.
We are simply to do what is pleasing to God.
And
we are also taught by this simple instruction Peter gives that what is really
involved here, the real issue, is not
methods for resisting temptation but
a resolve to do right and be obedient and
loyal to Jesus Christ.
It’s
not that the Bible doesn’t give us strategy and tactics to resist sinful
desires.
It does.
Two implied this verse. But even
so, the fight comes down to this:
Will I or will I not do what I fully know to
be the will of God or
will I do what my sinful desires incline me
to do?
What
are some strategies and tactics? Peter
hints at two.
1. First, the battle starts at the level of your
desires. With what you dream about. The Bible often says that that whenever
possible, avoid the occasions of temptation.
Remember what the father tells his son in
Proverbs about the wayward wife—
“Don’t go near the door of her house.” Her words will trap you.
“Flee
youthful lusts,” says James. There is
that great example of Joseph
doing that very thing when Potiphar’s wife
propositioned him.
He didn’t stand around and discuss it with
her—he ran out of the house.
Charles
Spurgeon once said that the answer to many temptation
is a good pair of legs and the king’s
highway.
But
as many of you know, as good as this advice is, it only pushes the issue back
a step.
Because a deeper problem is that we want to be tempted.
We want to get as near to sin as we can,
telling ourselves that we’ll be ok.
That’s
why Peter’s words here are so profound.
Even before fleeing temptation, it has to
start by resisting the very desire.
If you are entertaining desires that damage
soul, strategies won’t help much.
Dreams, desires, fantasies—they can weaken
your soul. Fight them.
3. Here’s Peter’s other contribution. Remember you are an alien and stranger.
This
world is not your home. You are soon
leaving this place and going to your
true home, that better country, that happy
land where pain and sorrow is no more.
Where the lion lays down with lamb, and
sower overtakes the reaper.
Peter
says use the reality of your brief time here to fight the good fight.
Just three years of seminary and then I’m going
back home.
I
had a sober reminder of this a few days ago.
I was talking to a friend and he
told me that a man I knew had died just last
week. I was very surprised,
because this man was my age, and once a
colleague of mine, a PCA minister.
I
asked what happened and he said that two months ago he was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer and it took him very
swiftly.
It
shook me, and when my friend left, I went back to my study and began to think
about this man who had died so young. He was once a very gifted minister.
He was intelligent, artistic, he was a
tremendous teacher, he was very serious
and had a sharp wit, but people were drawn
to him.
For
a number of years he was a campus minister and college kids loved him.
Year after year he had the largest college
ministry in our denomination.
Then
he left that and planted a church. And
the Lord blessed that.
It flourished, and he became a model and
mentor to other church planters.
Then
he became infatuated with a married woman in his congregation.
And in spite of the pleadings of his many
old friends in the ministry,
he divorced his wife, and left the ministry,
and after a year or two of rigmarole,
the woman divorced her husband. They got married. Four months later he was
diagnosed with cancer. Two months later he passed away.
I
was thinking about him and this passage was just ringing in my mind.
I
wondered, what if God had spoken to him in a vision before all this?
My
son, you’re an alien and stranger, and in just three short years pilgrimage
over.
You’re going to climb the last hill and
cross the last river, and there before you
will be the new Jerusalem. And the holy angels will be shout at your
arrival.
And the great cloud of witnesses will look
over the walls and cheer.
And
Jesus Christ himself will come out of the gate and look you in the face—
and welcome you with a kiss, and you’ll
enter the halls of feasting.
Son,
just three years and you’re going home.
If
he had that vision, what would he have done?
I
believe he would have continued to fight.
I believe he would have continued to fight
his sinful desires.
I believe he would have continued to fight
to love his wife.
I believe he would have continued to fight
to be faithful to his calling.
Even
if he was bloodied and exhausted he would have said—
Just three short years and I’m home.
Please
don’t misunderstand me. I have no doubt
the brother is with the Lord.
He finished badly, but our salvation rests
on God’s grace, Christ’s perfection.
I
don’t understand how heaven can be a place of peace and joy, and at the same
time we have to look Jesus in the eye and
give an account for things done in body.
That’s another sermon.
Here’s
Peter’s point—Remember, this world is not your home.
You’re on your way to the heavenly
country. Remember that every day.
Remember that when you get tired and sinful
desires offer rest and ease.
Remember that when you are suffering—and
fight the good fight.
MP#2 Remember you are an alien and stranger in the
witness of your good deeds.
As
I said a moment ago, through the ages, Christians have made several mistakes
about what it means to be an alien and
stranger in the world.
Some
Christians have said it means withdrawal from world.
Most famous example monasticism. Let’s pull away into a separate community.
Think of the cloistered nuns down at the
shrine in Hanceville.
They never leave. Spend whole time praying and doing devotions.
Once
again, that’s admirable. I wish I prayed
a tenth as much as they do.
But
Peter says in the very next verse that he fully expects us, Christian aliens
and strangers, to live our lives in full
view of the unbelieving world.
“Live
such good lives among the pagans that, though they may accuse you of doing
wrong,
they may see your good deeds and glorify God
on the day he visits us.”
That
means you’re going to be rubbing shoulders with and working with pagans.
They
are going to see your life, see your good deeds.
Your acts and words of kindness, your
generosity, your patience.
They are going to see the way you treat your
spouse, see way treat enemies.
By those good deeds, you show them what a
citizen of heaven looks like.
And
even if they don’t like you for being a Christian, those good deeds
will be a witness to them that will one day
compel them to glorify God.
When
I was called to Christ Covenant and really started preaching regularly for the
first
time, I ran into a dilemma early on. My
dilemma was this:
I
believed that preaching should only motivate people by grace, not guilt, not
fear,
not shame, not obligation or duty, not
rewards.
It
should always and only be about what Christ has done for us and our loving
response to his grace. Love and delight responding to grace.
At
the time, I read John Piper’s book Desiring God and some other books of his,
and he emphasized this same approach.
Only
right obedience, love in response to grace.
So that has to be the only motive.
The
problem for me was, that the more I read the Bible, and the more I tried to
put what I was reading into sermons, the
more I saw other motivations.
I
saw the Bible motivating Christians by fear, not unholy terror, but godly fear.
Fear of giving an account of your life,
talents God has given you.
Fear of the consequences of sin here.
Paul
says that some members in the Corinthians church got sick and some died
because of sins committed against each
other.
When
Jesus healed the paralyzed man at Bethesda, remember he found him a few
days later and Jesus’ spoke to him very
curtly: You are well again,
Stop sinning or something worse may happen
to you.
Motivating
by shame. Do this so you will not be
ashamed before angels.
Motivating
by rewards. Paul himself often speaking
of his future rewards.
Jesus saying that if you use money right,
welcomed into eternal dwelling.
Motivating
by a sense of duty. Fight. Be a good soldier.
Children obey your parents in the Lord—for
this is right.
That
perplexed me until someone older and wiser explained it to me.
He
said that in the Bible and in the Christian life are a hierarchy of
motivations.
At the very top of the pyramid, the very
pinnacle, the great motive
that our preaching should most emphasize and
our lives most aim for,
is love and gratitude in response to the
grace of God.
Jesus
has done it all for me, I’m God’s child forever, I’m forgiven, I’m loved—
therefore, I’m going to love God. I’m going to love other people.
But
there are other motivations in the Bible, even for Christians,
and these have their place. And more to the point for preachers,
when they are in the text, you need to
preach them.
And
some motivations work better for some Christians than others.
And if one works for you, helps you lead a
godly life, use it.
Well,
this is yet another motivation.
If
you live a good life, it’s going to have an effect on the hearts of other
people.
Even people who don’t believe, even people
who don’t like you because
you are a Christian, will be compelled by
your witness to give glory to God
on the day he visits us.
There
are two opinions by the commentators about what this means.
Might
be referring to the Day of Judgment. On
that day, even the worst enemies
of Christians will be forced to confess that
the lives of Christians they knew
were right and true. In doing this, God will be glorified.
But
“the day he visits us” might instead be referring, not to the Second Coming,
but to the day of the Lord drawing near for
salvation.
In
other words, as you do good, living as a stranger and alien among pagans,
your deeds are going to bear witness. First, they are going to see the loveliness
of your life. That is going to make them have a more
favorable opinion of the
Christian faith. And finally, by God grace, they become
believers themselves.
Of
course, there is no reason why Peter can’t mean both.
This statement is general enough to permit
either interpretation.
So
here is a biblical motive. Think about
the effect your life has on unbelievers.
Do you live in a way that makes them sit up
and take notice?
Whether in your marriage and family, your
neighborhood, work, school, play.
There
is to be a marked difference that non-Christians can notice.
Who is this strange person? It’s like she’s from another country or
something.
And they will wonder, where does this come
from.
I’ve
told you this story before, but please indulge me.
My
parents have a home in a little gated community in Delray Beach, Florida.
All the units are duplexes, and my parents
neighbors are two women, lesbians.
They
live chaotic lives—lots of drama, cursing, and drug use.
Once sitting on back patio with mother, she
sniffed, I smell marijuana.
When
Adrienne, Eliza, and Will went down there for spring break in April,
mother called me and said: I want you to know that I told the girls that
my
grandchildren are coming, no marijuana, no
loud rock music, no fighting.
What
did they say? They said: Yes, Bertha.
In
spite of conflicts, in spite of the fact that they know my father is a
minister.
And a pastor at a church that has been
picketed by militant homosexuals who
have accused it of preaching hate. In spite of that, my parents have lived such
good lives among the pagans that God has
been glorified
A
years ago they heard that the mother of one of these women had died.
So mother went over and said: I’m sorry about loss. Bringing supper tonight.
They looked at her and said, Why? Because I’m your neighbor.
That’s what neighbors do when there is a
death and people are grieving.
So
that evening, mother brought them a meal—here is pork roast, rolls, salad, tea.
These women were visibly moved and one began
to weep and said—
No one has ever done anything like this for
us. Bertha, can I hug you?
CS
Lewis said: “What we practice, not (save
at rare intervals) what we preach,
is usually our great contribution to the
conversion of others.”
Do
you think about this? How you are a
stranger and alien in your heavenly deeds?
Think about it. How best can you have that effect on your
neighbor, coworker.
How can you cause him to notice the love,
kindness, integrity in your life.
Thinking
in those terms gets you moving in ministry to others
when often nothing else will.
There
are many good reasons to live a faithful, obedient, sacrificial Christian life,
and this is one, a very important one. In times of suffering, lifts your sights.
CONC:
I
am a stranger here, within a foreign land;
My
home is far away, upon a golden strand.
Ambassador
to be of realms beyond the sea—
I’m
here on business for my king.
Is
that your stance toward the world?
If so, it will carry you through hard times,
give you strength for the fight, and make
you want to live before all men
like a citizen of your true home.