08-23-09 How To Silence The Enemy

Our study of 1^st Peter

has brought us to the “how-to” section of this remarkable letter.

After using the first half of the letter

to provide us with the tools we need for the job,

giving us vital knowledge about our future,

and about our true identity through Christ,

and about our crucial role on this earth,

Peter then uses the last part of his letter

to show us what our lives will look like

if we are correctly applying the principles he’s just given us.

And what he says to us in this last section of the letter

is all the more remarkable

when we remember that Peter’s target audience

is those fellow Christians

who are under attack from the society around them

because of their faith in Christ and their identification with Him.

What he’s offering us

is the perfect pattern for proclaiming the Good News

in a society that’s strongly resistant both to us and to our God.

Sound familiar?

We are not yet seeing Christians executed for their faith in Christ in our society,

though it is happening in some parts of our world,

but we are certainly now living in a society

that views us as the great enemy to the health and progress of our society as a whole.

We simply could not find a more relevant document to study

than this 1^st Epistle of Peter.

And what we’ve seen so far

is certainly not what we might have expected.

Rather than laying out for us

a blueprint for infiltrating the power structures of our society

with the hope of changing policies or political leadership,

what he gives us is very, very close to home,

in fact so close to home

that at first glance we may find it hard to see the significance of what he’s saying.

But let me guide us back into this passage

and show you in his own words

why Peter is saying what he’s saying.

OK, last week we spent our time looking at Peter’s opening call to us in 1^st Peter 2:11,

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.

Then, in the next verse he simply lays out

the heart of everything he does in the rest of his letter.

He tells us exactly where he wants to take us and why he wants to take us there.

He says,

1PE 2:12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

From there he moves right into the very practical how-to instructions he wants to give us,

but then, just to be certain that we didn’t miss

the crucial principal upon which this whole thing is built,

in verse 15 he reinforces it one more time when he says,

1PE 2:15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

OK, there’s a whole bunch of stuff happening in these two verses,

so let’s walk our way through them one step at a time.

He begins by saying, Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles...

And if you’re not familiar with this word “Gentiles”,

let me give you a little background.

Originally this word Gentile was used by the Jews

to refer to everyone else in the world who was not a Jew.

In the Jewish mind

the world was divided into just two groups of people - Jews and everyone else,

or Jews and Gentiles.

But once Christ established His Church,

and the early Christians recognized, virtually from the very beginning,

that God was in fact calling to Himself

a distinct, separate, utterly unique group of people,

what Peter called, a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,

both Paul and Peter soon borrowed this Jewish - Gentile concept from their own Jewish heritage

and transplanted it into the family of God.

Seeing what God was doing

as He called people to Himself from every race and tribe and nation,

they understood that the human race was indeed made up of just two distinct groups of people.

But those groups were not Jews and Gentiles,

but rather Christians and Gentiles.

It’s obvious that Paul was doing this in his 1^st letter to the Corinthians

when he was talking with them about a correct response to the idol worship in which their society was immersed and he said,

1CO 12:2 You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the dumb idols, however you were led.

That word “pagans” is actually this same word “Gentiles” that we have here in Peter’s letter.

What Paul says literally is, You know that when you were Gentiles, you were led astray to the dumb idols, however you were led.

The translators correctly substituted the word “pagans”

because it’s clear that Paul is using the word to describe his readers before they were Christians.

And now here in 1^st Peter 2:12 Peter is doing the same thing when he calls us to Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles...

By the way, does that bother you - this two distinct groups mentality?

Does the idea that the entire human race is divided into just two groups - Christians and non-Christians,

or God’s people and those who are not God’s people,

does that idea offend you?

Does it seem as if such an approach

is highly divisive and unprofitable for the progress of society as a whole?

Does it seem as if it would be far better

to view the entire human race

as being made up of millions of people

who are each finding their own personal path to the same goal -

many paths, each one equally right, equally valid,

all leading in the end to the same God?

Some are Christian,

some are Hindu,

some are Moslem,

some are New Age,

some are just nice folks promoting peace and love and tolerance,

but as long as we are all sincere in our devotion

we’ll all end up safe in the arms of God in the end.

If that sounds ever so much better to you

than does this whole narrow Christian/non-Christian thing

then you have been well trained by the society in which we live.

And I will certainly agree

that, when correctly presented and understood,

this whole Christian message is profoundly offensive to the human race.

But it’s not offensive for the reason we think.

It’s not offensive because it divides the human race into Christian and non-Christian,

it’s offensive because it demands from us

the one thing everyone of us enters this world

determined in spirit that we will simply never give.

It demands from us

that we choose to bow before our Creator God on His terms.

It has nothing to do with our accepting a doctrinal belief system,

or that we submit to some prescribed moral code or system of worship.

Only one Person in all of history

has claimed to be God in human form...

JOH 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

JOH 14:9 Jesus said to him, "...He who has seen Me has seen the Father...

Only one Person claimed for Himself

the absolute authority to give eternal life to whomever He chose.

JOH 10:27-28 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.

And only one Person in all of history

claimed that He and He alone

was the only way for a person to find their way to God.

JOH 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

And only one Person in history proved His claims

by predicting His own resurrection from the dead,

and then pulled off His prediction.

ROM 1:4 ...who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord...

And when we correctly hear the Christian message

what we will hear will offend us to the extreme

because what we will hear

is not our God asking us to clean up our life

or to live by a higher standard

or to be more tolerant and compassionate and caring.

What we hear

is our God asking from us

our personal submission to Him on His terms.

“Lord, if you want my life, just as it is, you can have it.”

ROM 10:9 that if you confess... Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved...

It’s certainly true that, if we choose that submission,

He will begin to make profound changes in our lives,

but the real sticky point about Christianity,

and the thing that makes it so offensive to all of us

is not the exclusiveness of the message,

it’s the submission thing.

It is the fact that we must allow God to write the rules in His relationship with us,

which, of course, is the one thing the human race has been determined not to do

since the very beginning.

And it is this submission thing

that has made the proclamation of Christ

so offensive both in our own culture

and in the 1^st Century.

Give us a religion - any religion that makes us look good,

that keeps us in control,

that shows the world how good or righteous or faithful or pious we are

and we’re fine.

But proclaim a message of submission to a living God,

a message of repentance,

a message of our desperate need for the grace of our God poured out on us,

a message in which all glory goes to Him and all crowns are laid at His feet,

a message in which the only offering we can ever bring

is a heart overflowing with gratitude for His undeserved kindness and unmerited grace,

and the human race recoils at the thought.

I am the master of my own fate,
Only I decide the outcome, I
Relinquish the choice to no one's weight,
Causing no questions of how or why,...

Happiness comes at only one rate,
I am the master of my own fate.

Welcome to the heart of the human race.

It’s no wonder that the Christian’s clear proclamation

of the message of repentance, and submission, and daily dependance

upon a righteous God

has not always been received well.

It puts us so out of step

with so many of the things

our society believes we must have for success and happiness.

Which brings us back to Peter

and his instructions to us

about how we can get the non-Christians around us

to look honestly and openly at what God is really offering us through Christ.

And so Peter says,

And here is his great defense - let them see your life.

Let them see what kind of person

your God is reshaping you into.

Now, Peter gets into the specifics in the verses that follow,

talking with us about our attitudes toward governmental structures,

toward our employers,

toward our families - our wife or our husband.

But even before we get into the specifics

it’s not hard to see the difference between the true life of Christ within us

and the type of things generated by so many of our religious systems.

And I know that what I’m about to say here

may concern some of you,

but I think too often deeply sincere Christians

have been deceived into believing

that faithfulness and courage can best be demonstrated

through bolding proclaiming to our society

the things we are against.

We are against gay marriage,

we are against abortion,

we are against drug abuse,

we are against pornography,

we are against...

And I am...

I’m against all of those things

and a whole lot of others as well.

I’m against a society that has elevated careers and financial success above our children.

I’m against a society that flings our young people into a river of moral sewage

and then criticizes them when they get covered with filth.

I’m against a culture in which personal rights are valued more highly than moral integrity,

a culture in which the name of our Creator

is nothing more than a meaningless bit of profanity.

I’m against all of those things and a whole lot more,

but the great tragedy of so much of the church today

is that too many Christians

sincerely believe that our high calling as Christians

is to boldly proclaim all those things we are against

and then view all those who disagree with us as the enemy.

But when Peter talks with us

about the truly effective presentation of Christ

to a culture under the domination of Satan

he doesn’t tell us to boldly proclaim the changes

that we believe others should make in their lives,

he tells us

the we should let others see clearly

the changes that God is making within our own lives.

Let them see what God does

in the lives of those who come to Him.

And what if that changing process

isn’t going real well in your own life right now?

What if there are major unresolved issues in your walk with the King?

What if your career, or your hobbies, or your financial success, or your status

is still more important to you than your marriage or your children?

What if your life is still driven by some unresolved addiction

or your reputation in business dealings

is that of a person who will use anyone or anything for financial gain?

What if right now who you are

looks very little like the Lord whose name you bear?

Well, then for now focus on your own growth issues

and say as little as possible about your God.

You see, the heart of everything Peter is saying to us in this letter

is that the world has an absolute right

to judge the value and validity of our message

on the basis of our quality of life,

and the test of our life

is found not in our proclamation of the things we are against,

but rather in our willingness to submit to the authorities God has placed us under

and in our willingness to love those He places in our lives.

And if we do that,

as we do that

Peter tells us that those who at first view us as the enemies of society

may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation,

and that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

Wouldn’t you love to do that...to silence the ignorance of foolish men?

And isn’t it nice to hear Peter use those words - ignorance and foolish men?

I really do understand that -

I understand that urge

when some arrogant intellectual is spouting their philosophy

to want to say, “You fool! Do you have any idea how ignorant you are?”

Of course the heart of Peter’s whole message here

is that the only way to silence such people

is through our lives,

but it helps to hear Peter using those words.

And then, just a couple more observations here

before we close for the morning.

The first is just to emphasize

that it is not our belief system or our doctrine

that we are called to display before a lost world,

it is a changed life.

Not a perfect life,

not even close,

but a changed life - a life that works.

Look at what it is

that we are to make visible to world around us.

...on account of your good deeds, as they observe them...

And obviously these are not “good deeds” as defined by church people,

these are “good deeds” as defined by pagans,

by those whose first impulse is to slander you as evildoers.

And what do they slander us for?

When non-Christians talk about Christians,

when the entertainment industry or the media talk about Christians,

what sort of criticisms do they bring against us?

We’re narrow-minded,

we’re judgmental,

we’re obsessed with MORAL VALUES,

we’re intolerant of those whose lives don’t measure up to our standard,

we’re hypocritical - preaching a standard we never live up to ourselves.

They expect from us

everything they expect from God - judgment and condemnation.

And what Peter is telling us

is that we have the incredible opportunity

of demonstrating to them

what our God is really like.

“Well, I know he’s sort of religious,

but I’ll tell you he’s the best worker I’ve ever had -

he get’s to work on time,

his attitude is great,

and I know I can trust him.”

“I’ve never met anyone who seems to genuinely care about other people like she does.

My kids just love playing over at her house. I don’t know how she does it.”

And here is the great wonder

and the great calling of the life we are called to live on this earth -

we are called to live lives of remarkable personal moral integrity

in a world that is morally corrupt to the core

and yet to do it in a way that does not project judgement or condemnation

onto those who have not yet met our King.

And we do that first of all

by allowing our God to rebuild the moral foundations of our own lives,

and then by simply, honestly loving those He brings to us,

accepting them just as they are right where they are,

knowing that it’s never our job to change them,

but rather to do what we can

to make it easiest for them to find the only One who can change them - Jesus Christ.

A little over a month ago

there was a front-page article in the Anchorage paper

about Jacob Larson, a 22 year old young man

who drowned while swimming in the Susitna River.

In an obvious attempt to sell more papers,

rather than researching the facts carefully,

the paper chose to write the article in a way that strongly implied

that Jacob Larson was either drunk or high on some drug

and either fell or threw himself into the river in some sort of mindless stupor.

As often happens when selling papers is more important than journalistic integrity,

they once again got it wrong.

He was neither drunk nor high on drugs.

He and several of his friends were swimming

and had decided to float down the river to their camp site.

Jacob, or Deuce as his friends knew him,

wore extremely thick glasses.

Without them he could hardly see.

He didn’t have them on when he was swimming

and without realizing it

he got out a little too far into the current

and before he knew it he couldn’t fight against it.

As far as I know they never did find his body.

I know this because Deuce’s best friend and one of his swimming companions that day

was a young man I’ve known well for a number of years.

They were both a part of a young homeless segment of our Alaskan society.

Many of those within that group have had brutal childhoods,

leaving them emotionally scared in ways that drove them to the fringes of our society.

I mention Deuce’s death

because two days after he drowned

I heard a knock on our door and found my young friend standing there

along with three of his traveling companions.

All of them gave off strong indications that they had been on the road for some time.

One of them was Deuce’s ex-girlfriend.

All four of them came into my office

and for a few minutes we talked about Deuce’s death

and the pain that comes with the loss of someone you love.

As they were leaving

the girl stopped and with tears streaming down her cheeks

she said, “Your friend has spoken so highly of you so often, I just had to meet you.”

I have to tell you that discovering that I am highly thought of in that segment of our community

made me think I must be doing something right.

And then just one other quick observation.

Peter tells us that with each of those “Gentiles” that we encounter

there will come what he calls the day of visitation.

What he wants us to remember

is that with every person on this earth

God is seeking ways of revealing Himself to them

and each of them will have their own personal day of visitation -

a time when God shows them Himself

in a way that calls them to make a choice about Him.

And our role is to live in such a way

that when that day comes

they will want to choose Him

because of what they saw in us.