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. 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 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, or 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 e -cast 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.

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'd 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 and 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 the 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, any time 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 any time this week through Friday? Okay, 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.

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, does that sound 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.

So for the next 30 or 40 minutes or so, we're gonna be going through the

Word of God, and so I do ask that you please have your Bibles open to 1 Peter chapter 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 juices 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 partway 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, or if you just open and say, boy,

I just need to hear something from 1 Peter chapter 2. It's like coming into the middle of a love note, right?

I mentioned that it's like 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 1

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 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 1 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, okay?

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

Christians from the Roman Empire, the Jewish persecution looked like a poodle, okay?

So there's some, there's a storm that's coming. 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, and our culture and our society saying everything's going bad, and I'm not, but I want our,

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 okay 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 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 1 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 costs 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're, 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, 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, he's a fisherman, hardened of nights working on the, on the lake and, and probably, you know, thick -skinned, literally thick -skinned, 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 in 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, it'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, 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, 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 for the short term, 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 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 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. 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, that's just a, it's 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 your conduct, 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 gifts 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? Just, 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. Well, then 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. If the main reason I'm doing good is so that others would, you know, glorify me, but doing good to glorify

God is an awesome thing and there should be some sense in which they see that. The second thing that this verse implies, it anticipates some misunderstandings and kickback from unbelievers.

Do you see that in verse 12? Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers.

What? Some are going to be quick to malign us in this world.

You notice that? In Rome, it was the Christian's fault that Rome burned. I don't know if you knew that or not, but historically

Rome caught fire and lost a lot of buildings and people died and it became the

Christian's fault and they were the scapegoats for it. What kind of things give Christians a bad rap?

Think through that. Like, as I was reading that, I was kind of like, well, do people hate me? Do they malign me? Do they, you know, call me an evildoer?

I don't know if they call me that specifically or not. I kind of hope not and as I look at my life and as you look at your individual lives,

I hope you're kind of curious about that too. Would somebody call me an evildoer? That seems like a strong statement.

We do get a pretty bad rap if you think about it. Every time a pastor falls to immorality, it doesn't matter if it's local or not, every time a pastor falls to immorality, every time there is a child abuse case in a church, every time there is a situation of embezzlement in a church, or every time that a person with a fish on their bumper cuts someone off in traffic, we're all held guilty.

Have you noticed that? It's those Christians again and it doesn't take much.

In this sense though, let's reverse that for a second. I mean, we can talk about how unfair that is to stereotype people or whatever to take what happens at one church and bring that over to all churches.

So, you know, there's a church that the pastor built a 1 .7 million dollar home. I don't know if you heard that in the news, but it's kind of like, and I know what

I'd do if I had 1 .7 million dollars. Build a building for our church, you know what I mean? So then

I've actually heard conversations. I've had to deal with conversations here locally.

That's in a different state that that happened, but I've had to deal with situations here in our local coffee shop talking about a pastor that's hundreds of miles away and how pastors are just in it for the money.

Really? Really? That's what it's about? Okay, that's new to me.

So, are you getting? I mean, what happens out there easily gets in here. Even in small town

America, it gets to us, doesn't it? But let's think about the flip side of that. We ought to consider how deeply connected our behavior is to every one of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

It is connected. My life, my choices affect you.

And in that sense, I'm completely comfortable, and I think it's fair for me to say my life is not mine.

And I think in these terms, my life is not mine. It's God's, and it's ours.

My life is ours in the sense that what I do has an impact. Does what I do have an impact on Recast Church?

Absolutely. It's not just mine anymore, but it is ours in Christ.

And so we ought to think through that carefully. And that's not just because I'm a pastor, but what you do, what you do also affects all of us.

Some will speak of us as evildoers because of the behavior of some of us.

That's just the reality of life together, of being united together in his church. Is that comfortable? No, that's not great, but that's reality.

That's the way that life works, and we roll with it. But lastly, this verse implies that those watching your life know that you belong to Jesus.

For them to be able to glorify God for your good deeds means that they know that you do what you do because you belong to him.

And some, the text says, will be counted among those who glorify God on the day of judgment, the day of visitation when

Christ comes back. In other words, there are some who will be grateful to God for you at the return of Jesus because they have been one to the truth through your deeds and your actions.

Is that an awesome thing? It's a glorious, beautiful thing that some could be there on that last day glorifying

God. Why? Because they saw the good in you. They saw something different in you, and they recognized because, again, the only way they can know that it has anything to do with God is by words, okay?

Otherwise, they think you're just a great person, and boy, I'd like to be more like them. But until words are shared that I do what

I do because Christ has won my heart, because God is living through me in Jesus Christ, however you can phrase that and word that in a way that they can understand, they just think that it's you.

So already in these first two verses, Peter is setting out a paradigm for the next couple of chapters about our engagement with the world.

We are to be separated from the world in terms of evil, but we are to be vitally attached to the world in regard to good.

How do you walk that pathway between the two cliffs of over -involvement and under -involvement?

By recognizing that the detachment from the world is in regards to evil. The engagement in the world is in regard to good.

You hear that? How do I keep in the middle? Keeping in mind that I am here to do good, but I am to be disconnected from evil.

Our function in the world, our calling and purpose is vitally connected to the way we live. God has left us here as Christians, left us here as Christians as his ambassadors to this world.

And what Peter says next is potentially one of the most countercultural political comments to his culture.

I, you know, you guys have been here for a while, you know I don't talk politics, the text talks politics.

We're going to talk just for a minute about politics. The storm of persecution from Rome is about to literally light up the night with flames.

And Peter says, be subject to every human institution, whether the highest human authority that is at his time the emperor or the governor sent out by him.

But even this obedience and submission to the government is not without purpose. Believers are to be subject to the authority over them.

Why? For the Lord's sake. In other words, that you might have a testimony, that you might be seen as a good citizen.

In our context, a good citizen of what? A good citizen of America, a good citizen of our community, a good upstanding law -abiding individual who follows authorities correctly in our community.

I got to point this out here. Who is he talking about here in this context?

Well, timing -wise, I mean, I did some historical research. There is one of three emperors that we think that Peter was talking about.

I mean, one of these three is accurate. One of these three is the dude, either Nero, Caligula, or Claudius.

All three who had a horrendous reputation for killing Christians.

Started under Nero, or started under Caligula, carried forward strongly through Claudius, and heightened under Caligula as a man who had it out.

These guys, I'm looking around for kids who might understand this. He actually lit up his gardens with living torches.

Christians. That's how he entertained guests at his dinner parties.

Caligula, an evil man. And what is Peter saying here? Honor him?

Whoa. How is that possible? For the

Lord's sake. Peter takes for granted that the primary role of the government, the primary role of the government is to punish evil and reward good.

The protection of civil society should be the primary interest of the government. We know that it isn't always that way.

And I want to confess that as I read that, as I read him talk about honoring the leader, honoring those over us,

I'm tempted to look for the American principle in this context, in this text. Certainly, Peter meant that we are to submit as long as everything is going okay, right?

As long as our government is treating us fairly, we can just kind of keep rolling with it. Certainly, he is saying we can rebel and revolt if leadership begins to get really bad, right?

Is that what the text says? I don't find it there. I didn't find that American, wonderful American principle in here.

Occasionally, I have to ask myself this question as I'm reading the text, as I'm thinking through my life. Am I an

American Christian or a Christian American? Which one is the noun and which one is the adjective?

Which one is my essence and which one is kind of like, you know, kind of explaining that essence a little bit?

Like, am I a Christian first and foremost that happens to be born in America, or am

I an American who just happens to be a Christian? Think that through. I'm grateful for my country, but I'm always first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ.

It is a question of priority. Will I take what Scripture says and adopt that, or will I try to read

Scripture through the lens of my political persuasion? And all of us are challenged on that. Peter says the way we interact with our civil leadership from police to local government, including building inspectors, to the way we interact with legislation and administration at the state level, all the way up to the federal government, all the way up to the

White House, reflects on Jesus Christ. For his sake, be subject to the government over you.

I want to just talk about this for just briefly, and I just want to clarify this. In this past election,

I refused to put a political sign in my front yard. Now, some of you did, and that's okay, and I'll explain that here as I go.

I believe that I have the freedom to post my opinions on my lawn. I believe that I have that freedom.

Do we have that freedom? We do. We can post our opinions on our lawn, and that's fine. But I do not ever want anyone to feel like you have to think like me or vote like me or be in my political persuasion to come to my church.

I don't want it to be about politics. And I think this is different for you guys and for me.

When you put a political sign in your yard, people drive by and think, oh, that family supports fill in the blank.

But for some people, when they come and they pass my house because they know who I am and they know that I'm the pastor here, do you know what they say when they see that sign in my yard?

Oh, I guess recast church stands for fill in the blank.

Do you hear the difference? And I don't want that. You can vote yes.

You might have voted yes. You might have voted no on the bond proposal. You can be a Christian and vote either way.

You can adore Obama or you can loathe his policies and still be a

Christian either way. That's the only time, I think that's the only time

I've ever mentioned the president in my sermon. I hope that I don't get it subpoenaed now.

But I do not think you can simultaneously, hear me carefully, I do not think you can simultaneously disrespect the president of the

United States of America and do what Peter is telling us to do here.

I don't think you can talk about him, you can joke about him in disrespectful terms and put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

Are you hearing me? We as Christians need to be extremely careful about where our priorities lie in relationship to the world around us.

But this is the will of God that by doing good, the text says, by submitting to authority that God has put in place, by being respectful and following proper political activities, we're going to get there in a second, we can put down the criticisms that Christians are a bunch of evildoers, are opposed to everything.

Now let me say say carefully here that my statements are very open to misunderstanding. I mean I recognize that and that's one of the reasons

I try to avoid politics any in any way shape or form up here is just that it's very easy to misunderstand.

We live in a very different political environment than Peter did, don't we? We don't have an emperor, for example.

We don't have a supreme authority who has the final say. We have the legal right built within our system to dissent, right?

Can we disagree with the president? Absolutely. And that's part of our political climate, part of our political freedom.

Praise God for that. We can petition our legislators. Please don't hear me suggesting that God's plan is your withdrawal from political life.

Quite the opposite. I am saying that a respectful, submissive engagement over and against a belligerent and disrespectful animosity is what

God desires of his people. Vilifying people who have a different political perspective from us can be very damaging to the cause of Christ.

Would you agree with me on that? Certainly some political issues are indeed moral and cannot be reconciled with a biblical worldview, but Peter isn't here telling us how to try to vote.

So what's the difference between a respectful, submissive engagement and a disrespectful animosity?

Well, let me just, a belligerent disrespectful animosity, let me just suggest to you on a very extreme front, one might in a respectful and submissive way go out and march against abortion.

Might go and picket an abortion clinic. Might go and volunteer their time at alternatives in Kalamazoo.

Might do some productive things that within our culture and our society are appropriate towards addressing that moral and equally political issue, right?

What does belligerent disrespectful animosity look like? Those who would go and kill an abortion doctor.

See the difference? Pretty severe difference in what we can do within the bounds of our government to dissent and do what is right versus going out and killing someone.

We are to live like a people who are free. Well, wait a minute. Peter takes this next step and he goes radical with this concept.

We are free. We are no longer slaves to sin. In other words, as you're walking that pathway and one is over engagement and one is under engagement, you're free to walk anywhere you want on the path, okay?

You can go anywhere you want. You can just go right over the edge if you want. You are indeed free. You are no longer slaves to sin.

You can say no to it. You are no longer slaves to the state. You are no longer slaves to the law.

Wait a minute. No longer slaves to the law, so can't you? I mean, you could kill an abortion doctor then, right? I mean, what?

Well, the free gift of God's grace has genuinely, really, authentically, honestly set you free.

But we are not to use our freedom as a cover for sin. No Christian can ever bring themselves to justify their sin on the basis of the cross.

Rather, quite the opposite. The freedom Christ bought us at the cross will motivate us to put off the passions of the flesh.

We have received our freedom and we immediately were placed in the role, we adopted the role of bond servant.

What's the difference between slave and bond servant? This is a beautiful picture in the Old Testament. The Christian life in the middle of the

Old Testament law is explained for us. How can we be both set free and at the same time be servants of God?

The law says in Exodus 21, 5 through 6, I'm going to read this for you. This is an illustration that Paul loved to use.

He never even referenced it one time, but he used the word all the time. He often called himself a bond servant of Jesus Christ.

What's a bond servant? You ever asked yourself that? What does he mean when he says that? Here we're told in the text to be servants of God.

Let me find it here. Verse 16, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover -up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Exodus 21, 5 through 6 says this, but if the slave plainly says, you ready for these next words?

I love my master. I will not go out free.

Then his master shall bring him to God, to the doorpost of the temple, to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

The bond servant is one who upon being set free says,

I know the goodness of my master's house. I know the kindness that has been extended to me.

I have seen him as nothing but loving and generous and life out there on my own does not look as good as life here in my master's house.

I willingly submit to be your worker for the rest of my life.

Does it sound like a sound similar or familiar to anything that's happened in your heart and in your life?

I willingly say I'm yours because I recognize in being set free what a glorious beautiful love has been bestowed on me.

You are so kind and merciful and generous and I will be yours. Paul loved to call himself a bond servant of God.

The bond servant is one who has seen the kindness of the master and has decided to stay as a servant of that master.

Having been set free, he chooses to stay. Martin Luther summed up this portion of scripture by saying two things that sound contradictory until you explain it.

The first thing he said is a Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none.

Subject to none. Then he went on to state in the next sentence, a Christian is a perfectly willing servant of all, subject to all.

In other words, you don't have to serve anybody but if you are in with Christ, you want to serve everyone.

If you're getting it, then you will serve others. If you recognize what

Christ has done for you, willingly submitting as a bond servant. We've been set free by Jesus Christ but we are not to let our freedom, the text has become a cover for evil.

I honestly don't know which side of the cliff, which cliff claims more people in our church today, in the church in America today.

I've been a part of churches that were so fearful of the world that they really aren't at all connected with society and culture around them.

They're afraid that if they rub shoulders with Christians that the sin is going to rub off on them.

They do plenty of good works and those good works will never be seen by the Gentiles because those

Christians are hiding out doing good works for each other. But I've also felt what it's like to be tempted to swing the pendulum the other way, into freedom that could easily be a cover for evil.

Swing the pendulum over into things that, boy I don't know, that's kind of a a gray area and it's starting to look more black and white.

How many of you know that it would be more comfortable to just have things black and white? Do you know what

I'm saying? Would you love it if scripture just listed out, was like a flow chart, an extensive, awesome, glorious, massive flow chart.

You could search, it was searchable, that would be beautiful if you could search for your specific issue and then it would tell you if this happens and this and yes if this and no if this and and then all of that and then you just spit out what your response would be.

Would you sign up for that? Some of you are like yes and some of you are like what is he talking about because you're not as organized and you're just kind of like what,

I don't, that sounds horrible. Horrible. There's no freedom in that. Awesome. But that's not the way that life works and so we know how much we live in the gray area between things.

Should I watch this show? Shouldn't I watch this show? I don't really know. People at work are talking about it so if I want to engage them in conversation

I maybe I should watch it just so that I know what's going on but then your motives get a little bit warped and it's kind of like well maybe

I just want to watch it because I like it or maybe I just want to fit in or are you getting what I'm saying in that? It can be confusing what our motives are.

And so the line of the Christian life weaves its way on this edge between two cliffs somewhere between no dancing and going to raves every night, okay?

Somewhere between those two is the line for you. Somewhere between no playing cards and running the tables with your pay with your paycheck, right?

Somewhere between those two. The line runs through every single cultural issue. Somewhere between don't drink and getting drunk every

Friday night, okay? And just use that one illustration, that one topic for our culture to kind of go well that right there is a beautiful illustration.

Like when are you drunk, right? Have you ever, I've had people ask me that since I've become a pastor.

Like when are you drunk? And so then the part of us that's afraid of getting soiled by the culture goes, okay no drinking, okay no drinking, no just don't touch it and then you won't have to worry about it.

Well that's kind of like shy of what Jesus did and said. I mean he was actually accused of being a drunkard so it's kind of like how could you kind of go, could

Jesus be a member of our church then? You know and you kind of could go there, right? But so are you seeing that drunkenness a sin?

It's wrong, it's not good. But having a beer, is that a sin? Is that wrong? Is that, no not according to scripture, not according to the bible

I read. And so do you see how it's these two edges, these two edges that are so easy to fall off.

And to be quite honest, those of us, I think it kind of depends on how you were raised. You know what kind of family you were raised in. Whether it was the kind that's like get as far away from the world and things of the world as possible.

Or it was just like hey, you know parents were buying beer for you or whatever. It's just like, I mean well, you know what

I'm saying? So where, how were you raised? Where did you come from? And that's going to have an impact on the way that you think about life and the way that you roll, right?

And so some, well and the fact of the matter is some of you who might have been raised in a family where they bought the beer for you might actually go the other direction and go well that didn't work very good so I'm going to be, there's all different kinds of ways that we respond to things, right?

Scripture does not give us comprehensive checklists and flow charts. I think it's a beautiful thing.

Scripture is really good at giving us the principles by which we make decisions and live our lives and live out the freedom of Christ in a world where we have the opportunity to do good to our society and our culture, engaging them where they're at.

At the same time, being mindful and monitoring ourselves for the evil that we recognize we are prone to do.

Abstaining from that, keep far, and some of you, just to tie that loose end up, some of you abstaining from evil and the passions of your flesh looks like never going in a bar, looks like never having beer in your refrigerator, right?

You know yourself, you know your temptations, you know your situation and you know where you've been and you know where your parents have been and you know if dad was an alcoholic and you've seen some of those things and so you kind of go, and we keep, some of you abstaining looks different for each other and that's where we need to have wide open arms of embracing people at different levels and where they are at.

But part of these principles, we are to honor all people here at the end of our text. Honor all people, love each other in the church, fear

God, and we honor our leader. Honor as a respectful brand of love, it's not that far off of love, so that when you're talking about love those in the church and honor all people, it's not like, well, there's some crossoverisms there between honor and love.

Despite the fact that we are to love all, we should have a special love reserved for those within the household of God.

We should have a special love for one another here and a special care and a concern for each other, despite the fact that we are indeed called to love and honor all.

And despite the fact that we are to honor all, we should have a special honor for the one who has been selected as the primary leader over all of us.

In that day and age, it was an emperor. In this day and age, it is a president. But lastly,

I want to comment on the command to fear God. The only one we are ever told to fear in the pages of scripture, the only one we are commanded to fear in the pages of scripture is who?

God. We are not to fear everyone, as some of us might be prone to do.

We are not to fear others in the church. And when I say that, you know, I'm not talking about a fear like, oh, they might kill me or they might take my life or they might steal my car or something.

I'm talking about fear like, I want to please you so much. I just, all that matters to me is you like me.

That kind of fear. We are not to even fear the authority over us.

The text doesn't say fear the emperor. The text says fear God. We are to reserve a respectful awe and fear for God alone.

And I believe that that is the key to walking the line through this life. We are called to walk a very fine line.

On the one side, the danger of engaging in the evil of the world. On the other side is the danger of disengaging so much that we cannot do the good that we are called to do in our society.

Recast, I urge you, abstain from the passions of the flesh, but the will of God is that you do good in the world around you.

And for those of us who have asked Jesus Christ to save us, if you have indeed been set free and having been set free, you've recognized the kindness of your master towards you.

And if you truly have come to see that deep, deep love that God has for you in Christ, then

I'm confident that you have willingly submitted to him as his bondservant. Choosing to stay with him, even in your freedom.

Consider then as you come to communion this morning, how you are navigating the pathway of life. What do you need to abstain from that is currently a part of your life?

What do you need to put some distance between you and that thing? Non -Christians are watching your life.

And for the cause of Christ, what do you need to let go of? We are not engaged in, we are not engaged in the calling of God to do good out in our civic life.

Or we are called, we are called to engage in doing good. But in the context of honoring the laws of the land, in the context of shunning the passions of the flesh,

God reminds us that we have been set free. And at the same time, that that freedom is open to abuse.

So if you're, if you're all in with Christ this morning, come to the communion table as the next song plays with a heart recognizing the great mercy from Jesus Christ that has indeed set you free.

His body was broken for us, his blood was shed for us, and we remember that in the cracker and the juice.

And in that we remember the great sacrifice that has given us freedom. Freedom to love and freedom to abstain from our own evil passions.

And that is the pathway through this narrow gap. And that is the way we will avoid falling off of either side is a trust and independence upon his

Holy Spirit to identify for us what we need to abstain from and the good that we need to do.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the challenge from your word this morning.

Even just recognizing how easy it is to slide off of either side of this pathway in life.

And Father, there are some here who maybe feel like they are disconnected from the world too far and and they've protected themselves and isolated themselves to a degree that they just really don't have interaction with unbelievers around them.

Father, I pray that you would convict us and bring us into those relationships that you desire for us to have where we can be sharing the good with them and identifying to them what you desire to do for them as well.

But Father, then there are some of us who we recognize we've given ourselves way too much to the world. And again,

I don't even know where the majority of us lie on that. I have a hunch that many of us lie in that second category where we are giving ourselves more and more over to the world and we recognize it.

And Father, I pray that you would give us strength to abstain from the passions of our flesh that we know would destroy us if we give them all the way.

And Father, I pray that you would protect us from taking even those baby steps over towards that edge where we could slide off into that.

Father, I pray for our church. I pray for balance for us. Father, that we would indeed be known as a people who do good for our community.

Father, would you even open our eyes to ways that over this holiday season we could be blessing this community here in Matawan and the different neighborhoods where people live and all around the

Kalamazoo area and west of here. Father, wherever there is a household that is representative of you,

Father, that you would shine the light out of your goodness and your kindness and most importantly your love for the lost.