Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Peter 2:11-17

Have you ever felt like you wore a target on your back?

Like wherever you go at school, work, etc., your classmates, coworkers, teachers, or managers were suspicious of you, waiting for you to misbehave and finding ways to criticize and make your life miserable?

It’s not easy to live under that sort of scrutiny, to handle that sort of pressure with ease.

Yet this is the very kind of pressure that Christ himself experienced, so we should not be surprised when we experience the same uncomfortable challenge.

That’s why when we choose to follow Christ, we don’t often receive an enthusiastic response from people close to us when we tell them what we’ve done.

A wife tells her husband, or a girlfriend tells her fiancé that she’s put her faith in Christ, and it’s not uncommon for husband or fiancé to respond not only with an unenthusiastic grunt or general indifference, but with a sarcastic, snide remark or even with an expression of frustration or anger.

“Why’d you have to go and do that?”

The same is true when sharing our newfound faith with colleagues, classmates, and friends.

In fact, a good way to get people uncomfortable or uneasy with having you around is to let them know that you’re a follower of Christ.

As we face the scrutiny of a godless world, we cannot prevent nonbelievers from criticizing and scrutinizing our lives, but we can avoid giving them legitimate reasons to do so.

As John Maxwell says, “Life is difficult – don’t make it harder for yourself.”

And as others say, “You can’t stop a person from aiming at you, but you don’t have to give them ammunition!”

Knowing that nonbelievers are generally suspicious, uncomfortable, or upset with people who follow Christ, we should not be angry, agitated, or bitter against them.

We should be motivated to live more Christlike, honorable lives before them instead.

In the passage we’re looking at today (1 Pet 2:11-17), Peter begins to talk about this very situation, and he will explore it for a while from various angles in the passages that follow.

Overall, he challenges us to not grow frustrated or weary with being criticized, scrutinized, mistreated, or misunderstood by nonbelievers.

Instead, he challenges us to do better than accept this situation as the norm but rather to embrace it as an opportunity to represent Christ well and to encourage nonbelievers to become believers and to begin following Christ as well.

Let’s take a look at how we should behave towards nonbelievers even when they misunderstand and mistreat us for following Christ.

Every follower of Christ is an outsider in the world.

By calling believers “sojourners” and “pilgrims” (“foreigners” and “temporary citizens”), Peter drew attention to two realities that we have to accept:

People of any nation are generally suspicious and unwelcoming to foreigners and temporary citizens from other nations.

This is not a positive quality but one we can agree is true.

If you want to empathize with how nonbelievers feel about us, it’s this way – like we don’t belong and that we are threatening their normal way of life.

We are, in fact, temporary citizens of this life.

This is not something we should deny, neither should we insist that we be treated otherwise, nor should we make feeling at home in this world and being accepted by this world a priority.

We are permanent citizens in God’s future kingdom.

So, nonbelievers aren’t all wrong when they feel as though we don’t belong.

We’re outsiders like our Lord.

Because we are only temporary citizens in this world, we should “refrain” or “remain distant” from “fleshly lusts.”

These lusts are “strong desires motivated by selfishness.”

These are the very desires that this world appeals to and builds upon through its marketing strategies, social pressure, philosophies, and economic systems.

Peter tells us more about these desires in 1 Pet 4:3-4:

For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.

Since nonbelievers pay such close attention to us, we need to exhibit a good testimony.

In reliance upon Christ, we must live honorable lives of integrity, honesty, responsibility, and kindness.

Why?

One good reason is because nonbelievers are looking for us to fail, to be hypocritical, and to prove their theory that Christianity is a farce.

Peter says, “they speak evil of you as evildoers.”

Notice he says not if but when, indicating the general certainty and predictability of this response.

Many of us know that Nero accused the Christians of burning down Rome.

But did you know that nonbelievers commonly accused first-century believers of many bad behaviors, such as cannibalism, incest and immorality, poverty and low social class, self-righteousness, atheism, insurrection, being a cause of anger from the gods (explain)?

Though we cannot prevent false accusations (Christ himself was accused of insurrection), we can certainly aim to minimize the amount of true accusations they can make.

Our public behavior is our greatest outreach tool.

Our behavior should do more, though, than merely reduce the amount of true accusations of wrong doing or the examples of hypocrisy in our lives.

Our behavior should persuade people to come over to the other side.

Remember how Peter said in the previous verses that we are like priests and stones?

As such, we are part of a bridge designed by God to bring people over from the sin-blinded, nonbelieving side to a close relationship with him.

We are not merely to defend, fortify, and protect ourselves from the world around us (“abstain/refrain from fleshly lusts,” -).

We are to reach out into our world and into the lives of people around us (“good works,” +), tempting them with God – encouraging them to follow Christ as God and Savior as we have done.

In other words, following Christ should not be characterized by what we don’t do only but by what we do do, by the good and godly way that we treat other people, behave when we’re around people, and help or serve other people in our church and world.

Furthermore, to “see” our good works indicates that people should be able to watch us doing good works, making a difference in our communities and world for Christ.

True, saving faith is not a private, imperceptible faith.

It is faith that does good works.

Peter is not the only apostle who taught this.

James and Paul did, too.

“Someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

(Jam 2:8)

“Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”

(Tit 2:14)

“… I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works …” (Tit 3:8)

One commentator says it well: “our behavior over the long haul should be so positive that it will dismantle the negative accusations.”[1]

What is the “day of visitation.”

Some believe this refers to God’s final, future judgment when he passes a final verdict on the genuineness of our faith before granting entrance to the eternal kingdom of God on the New Earth or the Lake of Fire.

Though this is a possible translation, it’s difficult to understand what this could mean in this context.

There is good reason to believe that Peter is talking about something else, about the day when God would visit each nonbeliever with the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

If this is the case, then we should live in such a way that our lives could pave the way for the nonbelievers in our lives to believe on Christ when God convicts their hearts to do so.

This occurred for Paul as he traveled from Jerusalem to Damascus.

That day, God reached out to him in a powerful way, so Paul believed on Christ as his God and Savior, the very Christ he had violently persecuted before.

It was the good testimony of believers like Stephen, the first martyr of the church, who’s testimony had prepared Paul’s heart to eventually give in to Christ (“It is hard for you to kick against the goads,” Acts 9:5).

Our behavior towards government affects our gospel witness.

Moving on, Peter emphasizes a specific way that followers of Christ can harm their testimony for Christ – by disobeying and disrespecting government laws and officials.

This is a difficult task because government officials are often corrupt nonbelievers with little to no respect for Christ or people who follow him.

“For the Lord’s sake” teaches us that if for no other reason, we should obey government officials to uphold the innocent testimony of Christ who himself carefully obeyed the laws and officials of the government who governed him as he walked this Earth, even when they treated him harshly and unjustly.

“Every ordinance” teaches us not to pick and choose the laws, policies, agencies, and officials that we will comply with and those we will not.

The only exception to this is what Peter himself said to government officials in Jerusalem who ordered him to stop teaching the truth about Christ: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

In such cases, we should be willing to risk our comfort, lives, and reputations.

“This is the will of God” teaches us that the laws, ordinances, and policies are what God wants us to follow.

To follow Christ, we must not only follow his teachings but the laws of our government, too.

“Kings” and “governors” upholds all levels of government.

For us today, that includes local, county, state, and national authorities.

“Those who are sent by him” does not refer to God as the one who sent them (this has already been taught by Peter, though).

It refers to lower-level government officials who are assigned to their post by higher-ranking officials.

This teaches us that all government officials should be obeyed and respected, no matter how they got their position, even if they were simply assigned and delegated by another government official.

Having all of this in mind, Peter now provides us with four simple guidelines which should govern the way we behave towards other people in our lives.

As we live out our Christian lives in the Fargo/Moorhead community, with our many relationships and obligations in both the church and the world, we might feel like a clown at the circus juggling a ball, few knives, and flaming torches thrown on a unicycle.

Sometimes it seems very complicated.

With four small sentences, Peter gives some basic guidance that simplifies this challenge.

If you embrace these four guidelines, you will also align more closely with God’s purpose for your life and will also make your church more God-honoring and spiritually healthy.

Peter wrote these four sentences as commands.

He also wrote them in a customary way, intending them to be instructions from God for how to make regular decisions daily.

He also arranged these instructions as a chiasm, as follows:

> Honor all people.

>>>Love the brotherhood.

>>>Fear God.

> Honor the king.

In a chiasm, the first and last lines are parallel in some way while middle two are also a pair.

In addition, the middle two receive extra emphasis and “stand out” a bit more than the outer two.