1 Peter 2:11-17 Disconnected but not Detached

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church of Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsack. It is part of the series, Ready for the Storm in 1 Peter.

If you would like more information on Recast Church, visit us at www .recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Living Stones and the Church's Shared Life

Well, good morning. Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the Lead Pastor here, and I want to start off just by saying thank you for gathering together as God's people this morning a couple weeks ago as we were going through 1 Peter.

The text was reminding us that we are, as we gather together, we are like living stones being built up together to be a household for the dwelling place of God. And so that's something that's amazing, an amazing spiritual reality, certainly not a physical reality.

We're not all stones, but an amazing spiritual reality that this church, that as we gather together, we are parts of a whole thing that God is doing here in our community, and I love that. Just a couple of announcements as we get started, a couple of reminders.

There's that connection card you received when you walked in. It's called a connection card on purpose because it is a way to connect. So if you're here and you're feeling any semblance of disconnection from the church, you're like, I come in, I sit down in a seat, I take in a service, and I leave, and I'm kind of wondering, does this church do anything else?

That connection card is the avenue to figuring that out. So there's some places that you can check boxes, say, yes, I'm interested in a Recast 101 class where I could learn more about what Recast stands for, and a little bit of the history, and kind of our core values and things like that.

There's a place for you to say, yes, I'm interested in small groups, all different kinds of check boxes there. There's a place for you to put down prayer requests there. And then one key line on there is, if you're willing to share with us, it's your email address.

If we don't have an accurate email address for you on file, then you're not getting what we send out each week. The primary mode of connection is that eCast that we send out each week with different connections and links and activities.

You can take advantage of that. We only send out one email a week. And so that's available for you. And again, you can unsubscribe yourself from that at any time. So it's not like you're getting married to the church by giving us your email address or something like that.

You can, if it becomes burdensome for you in your inbox, I know your inbox can get full and stuff. But you turn those connection cards in in the black box that's on a table there underneath the clock back there.

And then any offerings you would choose to give this morning also go in that black box. We don't pass an offering plate. We've provided an envelope for you if you choose to give. And that's back there.

If you don't use that envelope, we can just recycle those and slide those in another worship folder next week. And so there's a place to recycle those right next to that black box back there as well. And so if you don't use that, rather than letting that just go in the trash bin, we can reuse that if you're not going to use that or put anything in it this week.

And then remember that any offerings that are marked expansion fund go towards our eventual goal of moving out of this facility into a facility of our own. I'm very, very grateful. And I say this often, but very, very thankful for the schools allowing us to use this room in this facility for our church.

But at the same time, it is our goal to eventually put up a building on the property that we purchased out on East McGillan between the railroad tracks and the horse farm there. We bought 12 acres out there about a year, a year and a half ago.

Maybe it's two years ago now, something like that. But anyways, we bought that property and we are raising the funds to be able to actually break ground on a building out there. And I would say we're about a quarter to somewhere, about a third of the way to what we need to have in the bank in order to break ground.

That would, of course, be pending the vote and approval on an actual loan to take on the balance. So that's kind of where we're at right now. If you mark expansion fund on either the envelope or in the memo line of the check, it goes specifically to a fund to build though.

All right, I do appreciate your generosity. And the church has been very generous. Our finances are doing well. And you can see the financial report that is posted in the e-cast as well each week. But also generosity just in noticing the shoeboxes that have been returned back there.

I'm just very grateful in a very short turnaround to have so many shoeboxes of toys and gifts for those that are living in poverty in other countries around the world. That all of those represent a child that's going to actually have Christmas presents as a result of the generosity of you as individuals.

So I want to thank you for that Operation Christmas Child, engagement in that and involvement in that. And those will go out this week. Obviously, it takes a while to get them shipped to places that they need to go to be able to get there in time.

So thank you for all of you who have taken part in that. And when's the latest, Carissa? When's the latest that those boxes can be turned in? Okay, anytime between 9 and 12 at Matawan Community Church is a local collection site for those.

So all of these are going to be taken over there. But anytime this week through Friday. Okay, just call. You can call them. You can Google them or look them up and get their contact information. But 9 to 12, any day this week, you can drop those off there.

Ready for the Storm: Why 1 Peter Feels So Current

All right, this morning we're going to be back in First Peter. And as I study the New Testament, there are times when it comes so close to our culture. It's like I'm studying and what I'm reading just seems to apply so much that it almost gives me chills.

It's like what they dealt with 2 ,000 years ago is something that can be translated right away into our modern times. And there's very little that needs to be studied or understood for it to apply directly to us.

And it's a confirmation to me of a couple of things. First of all, that there's nothing new under the sun, right? The types of things that humanity has faced has been pretty consistent. But second of all, the way that humanity has responded to those things has been pretty consistent.

So there's a consistency in the way, to some degree, in the way that we roll and the problems that we face and then the way that we struggle through those problems and those issues. So for me to illustrate kind of where we're going this morning, let me ask you how many of you have thought about politics or political concerns within the last two weeks?

Go ahead and raise your hand if you had something political on your mind. The text is actually going to address some political concerns. How many of you have ever asked yourself how involved you should be in civic life?

If you asked yourself that, you've considered that question or you've considered maybe in a more broad sense how connected you should be to this world as a follower of Jesus Christ. Have you considered that?

How connected is too connected? How connected is connected enough? I mean, didn't John, didn't the Apostle John tell us to not love the world nor the things of this world? And so how much should we love the things around us and the world around us?

Another way to ask it is how withdrawn is appropriate for a believer in Jesus Christ? Well, Peter this morning is going to help us navigate what I'm going to call a narrow ledge, like a land bridge between two cliffs.

Any of you afraid of heights? Any of you afraid of heights? The idea or the notion of walking a tightrope across, you know, the Grand Canyon or something, that sounds scary to you? Or the notion of just kind of like walking a pathway that has a sheer drop on either side?

A little bit, like even just the thought of that? My family has been blessed by generous friends who now for 13 years running have offered to allow us to stay at a home that they own down in Tennessee, right bordering, the property that they own actually borders the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

And so it's just a gorgeous place. They own basically a mountaintop, a second home for them, so they generously let people in ministry use it. It's been an awesome thing. And it's down, like I said, in Tennessee.

And we have just grown to love as a family hiking through the Smokies. Have any of you ever been down there before? It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. Gatlinburg, not so much. If you've been down there, you know what I'm talking about.

That's not the pretty side of the Smokies. The pretty side of the Smokies is getting off the beaten path, hunting for waterfalls, looking for salamanders under rocks, seeing black bears up in the trees and that kind of stuff.

And we love that as a family. But occasionally when you're hiking down there, we try to find new paths every year. And occasionally you come around a bend and there's an open spot where you begin to walk on the pathway and you realize that's a pretty sheer drop to the right and that's a pretty sheer drop to the left.

Now, this isn't Rocky Mountain kind of trails where it's just a sheer cliff, but there's trees. But you're like, man, if I go down, I'm going to hit every tree on the way down. That's not going to be too comfortable.

And of course, when my kids were younger, that's where I began to develop a kung fu death grip. Okay, you know what I'm talking about? It's like the kids are like, wait, you're hurting my hand. I'm like, yeah, but it's saving your life.

We can get the circulation flowing later after we clear this part of the path. But right now, you are not going to feel your fingertips. Okay, and if we have to cut off a finger, that's okay. But are you getting what I'm saying?

I mean, with that narrow pathway where there's a cliff on either side. And I want to suggest to you that the Christian life is like walking that kind of path. Where there's a fall on either side, if you go too far over this way, uh-oh.

If you go too far over this way, uh-oh. On the one side is a drop of what I'm going to call withdrawal and isolation. A removing yourself from the world so far that, have you ever heard the phrase, so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good?

Have you heard that phrase before? That's a real threat to not us as individuals and us as a church as well. It's possible to become so isolated, so holy, so much better than the world in our estimation that we don't want to stain ourselves by connecting with those heathen folks out there.

That's the one cliff on the one side. On the other is a cliff of over engagement to a degree where we have unhealthy connection with this failing and falling world where we engage in evil, where we adopt evil practices or where we go so far as to actually engage in sin for the cause of the gospel.

Could we do that? So do you see how there's a balancing act? There's a pathway through life that's not very easy at times for us to discern. And I think we've all seen that. So as we dig into 1 Peter this morning, listen for the balance.

Try to listen for the pathway as he weaves this dialogue or monologue really of this pathway that he's talking about for his people, for these elect exiles that he's talking to. How do we navigate this tricky road?

How do we remain disconnected enough without becoming completely detached? So God gives us his desire for us through the Apostle Peter. So 1 Peter 2, 11 through 17, turn there, navigate in your app, whatever, over to 1 Peter 2, 11 through 17.

If you don't have a Bible in front of you or you don't have a device to call it up, if you would just raise your hand, somebody will be bringing Bibles around here. Is there someone who's got somebody?

Would you be willing, Sean, just to grab Bibles if anybody needs one? It's just very helpful. To have the Bible in front of you as that's our outline. We're going to be referencing it a lot as we go through.

So if you just bring a Bible. And then if you don't have a Bible at home, just take one of those off the table and take it home with you. Not very often that you get given permission to steal something from the church, but you can just grab one of those and take it.

So we want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God. Follow along as I read 11 through 17. Recast, this is the very Word of God for us this morning. Beloved, I urge you, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage 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. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him, to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship before God this morning. Father, I rejoice in the opportunity that we have to gather together as your people to hear from your Word, to sing praises before you.

Father, I pray that you would be honored and glorified in our presence this morning. Father, that we would come with eager hearts, attentive to what you desire to communicate to us. Father, and not just in knowledge, that we would not walk out of here having heard a lecture where we've got some more information, but Father, that we would be moved in our spirits to recognize that your call from your Spirit is to a changed life, to some different way of thinking, to some different way, and that we would be transformed as coming in contact with you.

And Father, that even now, as we have an opportunity to assemble together and lift up our voices in unison together, that we would take strength and courage and encouragement to walk with you throughout this week because we have gathered together with your people and had an opportunity to declare even to one another in these songs how awesome and glorious you are.

And it's in your awesome and glorious name that I pray. Amen. Thank you very much to Josh and the band for leading us this week. I know they put a lot of time and energy into that, so we're very grateful for them this morning helping us to step before the throne of God and worship him.

The Christian Life Between Withdrawal and Over-Engagement

So for the next 30 or 40 minutes or so, we're going to be going through the Word of God. And so I do ask that you please have your Bibles open to 1 Peter 2, verses 11 to 17. I know some of you maybe got here a little late and didn't know what the passage was, or you lost your place.

But jump back in there. Have that on your lap. And then remember that whatever it takes to kind of stay focused and keep your attention. And so if you need to get up and get more coffee or more donuts or juice is available there.

If the seat that you're sitting in gets uncomfortable, you're not going to distract me if you get up and stretch out in the back or whatever. Restrooms are out in the hallway. Women's on this main floor.

Men's upstairs. We ask that you use the bathrooms that are on this end. So go out the doors to the right and take advantage of those if you need them. Let's set the stage because I mentioned a couple weeks ago that if we come in part way through a letter in the New Testament, a lot of times what we tend to do is we read devotionally through the Bible.

And so you end up just getting like the last chunk of it. If you just open and say, boy, I just need to hear something from first Peter chapter two. This it's like coming into the middle of a love note, right?

I mentioned that it's like if you got if you got a love note from your spouse, you wouldn't just read the last three verses, right? You wouldn't just jump into the middle of it and take whatever the second half says and ignore the first half.

And so context really, really matters. And especially when we get later into first Peter, we can lose sight of the fact that he's already said, I'm going to tell you a bunch of things because you're followers of Jesus Christ, because you have a relationship with him.

So that if you take only the second half, you'd go, well, it looks like there's just a bunch of rules. It looks like the Christian life is just a bunch of do's and don'ts. It looks like there's a bunch of things we have to take off and a bunch of things we have to put on and all this kind of stuff.

But he's been very abundantly clear that everything that's come before has been intended to be encouragement towards living in a world that can be hostile to us. In context, Peter has encouraged his readers that they have been chosen by God, even though they've been rejected by the society around them.

He used the phrase for them, elect exiles. Elect according to the plans of God, chosen by the one that matters most, but rejected in the worldly sense by those around them. They had already been kicked out before.

At this point in history, the Jews had turned up the heat on the Christians at the time where first Peter is being written. And the Christians had dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. Now, we can see in the book of Acts that early on in the church, the church started where?

Does anybody know the city where the church began? Jerusalem is the place where the church started. And then it spread out from there. And one of the main reasons it spread out from there is that there was a massive persecution of the Jews and they began to kill Christians.

And so they spread out. And it says in the book of Acts, they took the gospel with them wherever they went. Well, where did they go? Most of them fled to the Roman Empire and little did they know that they had run from the poodle into the pit bull's pen.

OK, and it's not to say that the Jews were. I mean, it's by contrast. I mean, somebody kills you, they kill you, right? They can't kill you more than they killed you. And so the Jews were killing Christians, that's for sure.

But in light of what was coming down the pipeline for the the Christians from the Roman Empire, the Jewish persecution looked like a poodle. OK, so there's some there's a storm that's coming. And that's why the sermon graphic Ready for the Storm is just this notion, this idea that there is indeed a storm coming for the church.

As Peter is writing these words, he identifies it's on its way. It's already begun, but it's going to get worse. And I want to suggest to you, I am not those of you who have been here for a while. I've been preaching for five years now.

You know that I'm not a fear monger. I'm not looking for an opportunity to get a barb in in our culture and our society saying everything's going bad. But I want us to be prepared. I want us to be ready.

I want us to be ready for the storm in the sense that I see a lot of cultural storms brewing around us right now. And the fact of the matter is the only group that I can identify so far in the media that it is OK to be intolerant of is anybody who says this is true.

This is worth basing your life on. And right now, as far as I can identify as a person who is trying to follow the news and trying to keep a hand both in the word and in the culture, are you guys relating to what I'm saying?

Have you identified that to some degree? The most unpopular thing you can say is I believe the Bible is literally true. It is the word of God, and it is worth me basing my life on. And people go, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

You're one of those kind. You're getting what I'm saying? And so I think there's a lot of potential for a storm. I'm not a prophet. I'm not getting up here. To scare you or anything, but I'm just saying we need to contemplate and consider these things that Peter is saying.

The reason I chose this text is because some of the things that I see. And so we're going through first Peter intentionally because I wonder, I wonder, are we ready? Are we recast church ready for the storm?

How many of us would be here if it cost us something to be here now? Granted, it cost you time, gas money to get here and all that. But what if what if it affected your job? What if gathering together as God's people actually was something that was going to cause you problems in your workplace or in your neighborhood or in the culture at large?

Think through that. So Peter has encouraged the believers. Step one, encourage them that their salvation is a glorious act of God. If you have nothing else but your salvation, you have a lot. That's kind of what he said at the beginning.

If you have salvation in Christ, you have what matters most. And he's then encouraged them to conduct themselves in line with their adoption into the family of God. He's basically said, well, you have been born again to a living hope.

Born of who? Born of God. And so you are like adopted into his family. So take on the family values is kind of where he went with us. He said, be holy, be set apart as your father is wholly set apart.

And Peter begins our text this morning by showing his affection for these believers, his love for them. How many of you know Peter? You know Peter who's writing this. You know him to some degree. Maybe you don't raise your hand because you're kind of like, well, wait a minute.

Got to get the, got to get the gears spinning. But you, if you've read any of the gospels, if you watch the movie Son of God, you saw Peter in there. You know, I think you know more about him than you'd probably give yourself credit for right off the bat.

But does he seem like a touchy feely kind of guy to you in the pages of scripture? He's always brash. He's direct. He's to the point. He opens his mouth when he's not supposed to. He's got foot-in-mouth syndrome.

Always saying, you know, he's the one who is rebuking Jesus and calling him out. I mean, how many of you would want to be in the, in Peter's shoes when he rebukes Jesus and tries to correct him? Good idea, right?

So Peter is that kind of person who's just always really direct. He doesn't strike me as a, he's a fisherman, hardened of nights working on the, on the lake and, and probably, you know, thick skin, literally thick skin.

And he's, he's just a man who has worked a lot. And here, he affectionately refers to his, his readers, the people he's writing to as beloved. Beloved. Rather than command them, he urges them. We see a gentle side of Peter throughout this writing where he calls them.

He says, I love you. I care about you. I'm writing these things because I, I love you. And then not only that, he doesn't, he doesn't harshly and rashly command them to do something, but he is urging them and pleading with them.

Now, if I think about the difference between a command and an urging towards something. So if I command my kids to do something, I am telling them to do it based on whose will? My will. I say, I want you to do my will.

I want you to do what I'm telling you to do. That's a command, right? Whose will is enacted? It doesn't matter what your will is. I'm telling you to do it, right? So I'm telling you to come in line with my will.

Urging is a little bit different, isn't it? Urging is saying, I want your will in it. I want you involved in this decision of what I'm asking of you, what I'm suggesting to you. What I want the outcome to be is that your desire is to accomplish this thing.

Are you hearing the difference? Big difference between a command and urging someone to do something. Well, what is Peter urging? Peter wants his people to enact their will, and it is his strong encouragement that they abstain from the passions of the flesh.

Peter identifies that latent within all of us, and when he talks about flesh, he's not talking about muscles. He's not talking about skin. He's talking about a sinful side of us that is connected to this world in an unhealthy way.

The side that would pull us off the cliff of over-involvement and evil in the world. And we identify, as uncomfortable as it might be, that there is something in all of us, latent within us, that draws us towards that which is not pleasing to God.

As a matter of fact, this passion and this pull within us wages war against our souls according to this text. In other words, there's a part of you, if you're in with Jesus Christ, that's been made alive to God that relates to him, that wants good things.

Can you relate to that? Is there a part of you, can you identify a war going on inside of you? If you're breathing air, and you indeed are a human being, then you have a war. You look around at people at your workplace, look around at people.

Everyone is waging a war within them. There's something that they want that they're not obtaining. There's something that they desire. And even, I would suggest to you, more so for the Christian. Where you go, wait a minute, don't you have peace?

Don't you have, well, you have that to a large degree. You see stride, you see God doing some things in your life. But how many of you recognize what it means to hunger for more of God's righteousness, and it's just not there yet?

Can you identify that in your life? And there's a war that is being waged within us. In other words, as scary as this can be to face, the reality is that we have a sinful nature within us. That would destroy us.

Would destroy the plans of your soul if it was given free reign over you. If you just released the reins and said, go with it. I would suggest to you that one of the ways you can identify it is considering the long haul of sanctification.

The long haul of growth and righteousness versus the short term gains of the passion of the flesh. That's primarily where the war is faced for me. I don't know what it is for you. But there are things that I could obtain now that would give me pleasure or would give me joy that fight against what I know is my ultimate joy.

Are you getting what I'm saying? So that when I look at my life, I go, wait a minute. If God were to see fit to allow me to have a deathbed situation where I could go peacefully with my family gathered around me or with people gathered around me, who do I want there?

Who do you want there? And then if you backtrack and you go, that's the long haul of life. That's the long look at life going, who do I not want to marginalize? Who do I not want to destroy? Who do I want to be there on that last day with me?

And then kind of go, well, wait a minute. Then there's some short term things that need to be taken care of and need to be off the plate in order for my wife to be there and want to be present with me on that last day.

Are you getting what I'm saying? Are you seeing how some of the decisions that we make now we need to abstain from the fleshly passions that would wage war in us against the soul that longs for things to be healthy and aligned and right.

Get it? And that's what Peter is saying here for us. Abstain from those things. There is a part of every human that left unchecked would bring us to destroy everything that our soul truly loves. We would drink our way, sex our way, overwork our way, hustle our way or violently attack our way to our own destruction given free reign to our flesh, our fleshly passions.

Peter urges us, abstain. I want you. I want you, Recast Church. I want you to want to abstain from the fleshly passions. I don't want you to do it for me. I don't want you to do it because I commanded it.

I want you to do it for you. I want you to do it because you love God and you've been bought by Him and you recognize you're a beautiful possession of His. The word abstain, by the way, is a word that has the nuance of a long way off.

It actually is a prepositional phrase type of word that's used throughout Scripture for when somebody is a long way off and they see them from a long way off and it's the idea of put some distance between you and your fleshly passions and desires and only you know what it takes to put that distance there.

You know what your specific temptations are. Some of you, I mean literally, this seems so crazy extreme but for some of you, you should not have internet in your house. You should go a season without internet.

If internet pornography is your struggle and you recognize that that's a fleshly passion that grabs a hold of your affections and wins your heart over in the middle of the night, then maybe you should just cancel your internet service for a season to put some distance to be far away from, to abstain from the fleshly passions of your heart.

Are you getting me on that? Okay, that might have got uncomfortable. I can see my people's face. All right, you know what it is. You know what it is for you and it could be gossip. It could be lying on your taxes.

It could be, I don't know what, there's a whole host of things that we know would grab a hold of us in the short term that could be destructive to us but interestingly, according to this text, verses 11 and 12, the way that they interact, being a good boy or a good girl is not merely an end in and of itself.

Now, would it be okay for him to say abstain? I'm urging you to abstain. That's a good thing in and of itself, right? That doesn't need to be a means to an end. That could just be an end in itself but it's not for Peter.

He's not saying just behave. That's it. That's all I've got for you. There's a reason actually given in the text for us to obey. Good conduct has another end and look at verse 12. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles as honorable so that when they speak against you as evil, when, takes it for granted, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

There is a reason. God has left his people here on this planet as testimonies of his power and for his glory. There are all kinds of latent implications found in this verse. First, I want to point out that this verse implies that people are watching you.

Do you realize that? People are watching you. People in your workplace are watching you. Have you already noticed that? Have you already identified that? Did you know that? People are observing you. For our conduct to be noticed as honorable among the Gentiles, and when he talks about Gentiles, honestly, it's a little bit of a stereotype word, but it's unbelievers.

It's kind of like those who don't roll with the God of the Old Testament, that kind of thing. And so he's just using it in a general sense, not literally all non-Jews, but those who would be unbelievers.

So he says, for your conduct to be noticed as honorable among the Gentiles means that we recognize that our life is supposed to be coming into contact with, are you ready for it? Unbelievers. Your life should be coming into contact with unbelievers.

If all that your life is composed of is involvement with church, and church, and church, and church folks. And Recast is specifically designed to try to help you avoid that. Now, I recognize that the system that we've put in place here at Recast of Simplicity could easily be abused.

I mean, maybe you just watch more TV with the extra time you have that you would have used, you know, been at programs. But we have a very pared down programming here. We've got Sunday mornings, small groups, and we ask you to use your gift somewhere.

That's it, right? That's all that we're asking of you as believers intentionally so that you get to know your next door neighbor. Have them over for a barbecue. Get together with them for a Christmas party.

Get together with them for some kind of a gathering or something like that. Are you getting what I'm saying in this? And it would be very easy for us to, you know, just, again, I said, I mean, I'm not, we're not policing that to go out.

What are you doing with the extra time we're giving? It's up to you to figure out how to connect with unbelievers in your sphere of influence. And we long for that. We want for that. The goal isn't that, well, okay, my church gives me, you know, sets the bar lower for time at church so that you can watch more TV or something like that.

I want you to consider that and think through that. How do you use that time? But people are watching you. I do not believe that Peter here is recommending, then, that we go on a personal PR campaign, taking out billboards, listing our good deeds in the community, right?

Is that what you should do? Individual lists of how good you are and take that to work? Boy, that would go really well, wouldn't it? That would be a reverse PR campaign. But I want to point out that it is okay.

It is okay for people around you to see you doing good. Like, I think there's almost kind of like a sense in which many churches have almost kind of pushed that aside. You don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.

You don't want anybody to see, you know, because then it's arrogance or it's pride. Well, certainly, if you're doing it for recognition, then that's one thing, right? That's a little bit out. It's starting to get out in left field.