Sermon Tone Analysis

I Peter 2:11,12

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Introduction

One year our son Jonathan wanted to go to a school dance.

We had been reluctant to let the children go, but we chose on this occasion to let him go.

As he prepared to go, we instructed him to remember who he was.

Our older son, Joel, took it upon himself to help.

He went out into the garage and after a while of hearing noises from the garage, he came back in with a large wooden cross made of 1x2’s and a string around them.

He put the cross around Jonathan’s neck and instructed him to wear it the whole time.

Of course he didn’t, but the point had been made that as a Christian, he needed to remember that he belonged to Christ and that knowledge should make s difference in his behaviour.

One year when our daughter was about in grade 8 or 9, the subject of evolution came up in class.

She was very vocal in her faith and was not afraid to stand up and challenge the notion of evolution and suggest the possibility that God created the world.

After the class, another girl who was also a Christian came up to her and thanked her for being so bold and confessed that she did not have the courage to stand up for her faith.

This morning, we will continue to study I Peter and look at I Peter 2:11,12.

Let us read these two verses.

Earlier, we were reminded about our new birth and our inheritance.

Last week, we were reminded that we are a people belonging to God.

Beginning with these two verses, the remainder of the book presents a series of very practical and relevant words on some of the specific details of what it means to be the people of God in this world.

Being a Christian, Waltner says, “has to do not only with mental assent, but with trusting to the point of building a lifestyle in congruence with Jesus Christ.”

That is what these verses and those which follow, are all about.

Peter addresses his readers as friends and urges on them the importance of considering and living as God’s people in this world.

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I. From Another Planet

In many areas of the world, people are required to carry an ID card.

For example, France requires every person over 18 years of age to carry a personal ID card at all times.

In Belgium, a similar rule applies to all over 15.

Every West German 16 or older must possess an identity card or a passport.

The ID is also popular in Israel.

In that nation, composed mostly of immigrants, many of whom were “stateless,” the card has taken on a positive association symbol of citizenship.

If we were required to carry a citizenship card, what country would we identify as our true home country?

The whole book of I Peter deals heavily with this idea.

Repeatedly, as people who live on earth, we are identified as strangers in this world.

I Peter 1:1 says we are “strangers in the world.”

In 1:17, we are encouraged to “live as strangers.”

In the passage we are looking at today, we are identified as “strangers and aliens.

These two words mean approximately the same thing.

The first word means a resident alien.

This is a person who has taken up a longer term stay in the country in which he is living.

He plans to live there for a long time, but retains his citizenship in the other country.

The concept was known in the Old Testament where Israel lived as strangers in Egypt for many years and even later while living in the promised land, David says in Psalm 119:19, “I am a stranger on earth…” My mother was a resident alien when she lived in the US.

For all of the 13 years that she lived there, she never gave up her Canadian citizenship.

The other word is similar, but is often used to refer to someone who is not staying as long.

It refers to someone who is just passing through another country, someone who is a sojourner.

Such a person may travel in the host country, use the resources of the country, but is not planning to take up long term residence.

This is what we are on earth.

Whether we live on earth for a short or a long time, we do not really belong here.

As long as we live on earth, we have this awareness that this is not really our home.

Who we really are is also declared in this letter.

In I Peter 1:1, we are identified as “God’s elect.”

In 1:2-4, we are identified as chosen of God, newly born of God and having our inheritance in heaven.

In the passage which we looked at last week there are powerful identifying words, which link directly to what we are talking about today.

Larry helped us understand that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and as our title for the whole series identifies, “a people belonging to God.”

            From what the Bible tells us, we would have to put heaven as our place of true residence.

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II.

Living As Aliens I Peter 2:11a

            But, we live on earth and that isn’t easy!

One writer says, “Christians are only temporary residents on earth and must not let their lives be shaped by its interests.”

What are the challenges of being heaven’s citizens living on earth?

There are two opposite problems which arise because we are strangers and aliens.

One problem is that we might be tempted to become too much a part of the foreign nation.

On one Simpson’s episode, Apu, who is an East Indian grocer, is tempted to act fully American in order to avoid deportation.

Later he is ashamed about giving up his cultural values.

We struggle with that temptation.

How is that a temptation for us?

Do we struggle with identification with the world?

What do we compromise, what do we lose when we are too closely identified with this world?

The other and opposite danger occurs when in identifying closely with heaven, we are misunderstood.

How can we live and witness in this world when it doesn’t understand us and even sometimes persecutes us?

We try to do our best and yet, people just don’t get it.

Peter addresses both of these concerns in these two verses.

!! A. The Battle For Your Soul I Peter 2:11b

            In verse 11, Peter addresses the temptation to identify too closely with the world when he says, “abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.”

!!! 1. Sinful Desires Which War Against The Soul

            What exactly are the sinful desires which war against the soul?

Or “fleshly lusts” or “passions of the flesh” or “bodily passions” as different translations have it?

I suspect that the first thing that comes to mind is sexual sins and that certainly is part of it.

Then, perhaps, our mind might turn to such things as stealing, lying and the rest of the ten commandments.

This too would be a correct application.

But as I read this, I wonder if that is the complete answer to the question?

Particularly when we look at the phrase “which war against the soul,” I have a suspicion that we had better take a deeper look at this.

In the book, “Imitation of Christ”  Thomas a Kempis says, “Do not covet that which it is not lawful to have.

Do not have that which may entangle and deprive you of inward liberty.”

I was struck by this second sentence “Do not have that which may entangle and deprive you of inward liberty.”

It makes me ask, what do I have that entangles me or deprives me of inward liberty?

There is a story of two monks walking in a drenching thunderstorm.

They came to a stream, and it was swollen out of its banks.

A beautiful young woman stood there wanting to get to the other side but was afraid of the currents.

In characteristic compassion, one of the monks said, "Can I help you?"

The woman said, "I need to cross this stream."

The monk picked her up, put her on his shoulder, carried her through the water, and put her down on the other side.

He and his companion went on to the monastery.

That night his companion said to him, "I have a bone to pick with you.

As monks, we have taken vows not to look on a woman, much less touch her body.

Back there by the river you did both."

The first monk said, "My brother, I put that woman down on the other side of the river.

You're still carrying her in your mind."

It is easy for us to identify obvious physical acts of sin, both sexual and otherwise, it is not as easy to identify those things which war against the soul.

Jesus taught this idea in the sermon on the mount when he taught that murder went much deeper than actually killing someone.

He taught that even words of anger and hatred were as bad as murder.

The reason he made this identification was because he knew that hatred, anger and the expression of it wars against our soul.

The soul is not simply our inner self, but according to the Hebrew concept it is our true self, our whole self in relationship to God.

It is the same word which is used in  Matthew 10:39 when Jesus says, “whoever would save his life (soul) will lose it.”