Guarding Our Witness (Part A)

We are encouraged to move forward nonetheless, to come to church, to get that much better at being the Christian that we claim to be. So I want to be above unholiness. I want to be above my own lust. But another part of me does not. The sinful nature that will be with me till I leave this life will not leave me alone.

It must be dealt with straight on. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of First Peter.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in First Peter chapter 2 as he begins a brand new message called, Guarding Our Witness. Verse 11, First Peter chapter 2. Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works which they observe glorify God in the day of visitation. Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Well, I've entitled this morning's consideration, Guarding Our Witness. But as I was reading it, the thought kept coming to my mind, submission. I'll stick with my plan, but I'll sneak in the other one.

Well, it won't be a sneak snuck in now, but I'll get it in there because it belongs to the text and it's necessary for us. Many in the days that Peter was writing this letter disliked Christians for a number of reasons. None of them, of course to Christians, were very good reasons. Some of them, for example, were because the Christians were not engaging in immorality like they were. In fact, the Christians were pointing out that their behavior was immoral, that it was harmful, that it was not good for them or anyone else. Then there were the idolatrous practices that the Christians stood against just by being Christian.

That did not go over well either. So Peter takes opportunity with this letter in the midst of persecution to encourage the believers to live as believers in the face of persecution. Which you can understand, there would be a temptation to retaliate, to not adhere to the tenets of our faith as handed to us by Jesus Christ. And so he says to them, guard your witness for Christ.

That is your weapon to come against the work of Satan, to reach lost souls. Guard your witness. Do not allow your lower nature to defeat your higher nature. That is, of course, the new man, the new person in Christ. He says abide by the law, otherwise we have lawlessness.

And you will play into the hands of your accusers and they will, by their own civil laws, persecute you even further. And so he hands them just cause to reject the temptations of the devil and cling to the beauty of the faith. Peter has discussed already separation earlier in this letter by being, again, born from above, born again, again begotten. Separation by birth, separation by belief, the things that we believe.

And then, of course, separation by behavior. Believers of the truth are supposed to do something with the truth, surprise. I mean, it's not just a philosophy, I agree with God's ten commandments, I'm just not interested in doing any of them. If you're going to claim truth, the truth of Jesus Christ, then the life that's going to take it all has got to set its sail in that direction. In verse 11 now, he read, he says, Beloved, I beg you, as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul. Beloved, a term of endearment. Beloved, I beseech you. Unfortunately, I think the New King James translators should have used the word beseech rather than beg, because to us beg has other meanings also. But the Greek word and the proper application of this English word means to encourage, to beseech them, to push them forward. John Wesley, that powerhouse of Christianity from the 18th century, he and his brother, Charles Wesley. John Wesley said this of the members of one of the earliest Methodist societies, that he doubted that they had been made perfect in love because, listen to this, they came to church to enjoy religion instead of to learn how they could become holy.

Is that not powerful? I mean, does that not move the mind when you hear that? Why do I come to church? To check a box? Because I'm forced to?

Or whatever? Or is it because I want to obey God, and in so doing, I draw closer to Him in spite of my failures and struggles and repeated events in life that are very unpleasant and very unholy. We are encouraged to move forward nonetheless, to come to church, to get that much better at being the Christian that we claim to be. So I want to be above unholiness. I want to be above my own lust. But another part of me does not. The sinful nature that will be with me till I leave this life will not leave me alone.

It must be dealt with straight on. Paul agrees with Peter. Paul wrote, I beseech, and see there, the translators used the word I think they should have used, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Now, if you've been a Christian for decades, you know that while the Christian life does not get easier, you get better at it, but still it is a struggle all the way through. And can I tell yourself, I've paid my dues. I'm not going to fight so hard anymore.

No. We have to remain fresh as though we were just coming to Christ again. And that's going to take work at some point in your walk, even if there's nothing challenging you. The flesh is as such that it will not cooperate.

Any chance it gets to disturb the peace, it will take it. And so the ever-present difficulty of melding the holy with the unholy, the holy word of God with that nature of mine, that is not holy. So he says, Beloved, I beseech you.

Beloved, I beg you. Now Peter is an apostle. He has more authority than Moses had in this sense. He commands authority of Gentiles as well as Jews who believe in Christ.

It's a broader authority. And as much authority as he has, he does not attempt to command them. He encourages them. I beseech you. I beseech you to obey the Lord. Why not command them? Why not say, I command you to follow Christian principles, the Christian life, the commandments of Jesus Christ? Well, because certain moral acts cannot be achieved through commandment. It has to be voluntary.

It comes over time and struggle. He is fully aware of this. Some, some other Christian commandments can be commanded. The church can say, we command it.

You don't interfere with the service, for example. That is not too much to ask of someone. There are those things that we can be told to do and we can abstain from them. Then there are those other ones that give us a difficult time. And so certain acts must be voluntary.

They must be voluntarily obeyed. And he is sensitive to this. God does not trample free will.

But he does. He does hold it accountable. And thus, the mercy of God for where we're not strong enough to obey. God, God has made this mercy that defends us from our own sinful nature. He says, as sojourners and pilgrims. That's a heartfelt plea in that. He says, I'm encouraging you as people that are traveling through this world. His heart is in this. A reminder that we're passing through this life as Abraham passed through Canaan.

No permanency here. 1 Peter, he says this in verse 17 in the first chapter. He says, and if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. And so there he says, if you're a Christian, then your time, the time of your stay in this life, there's a conduct that you're supposed to adhere to that the world does not.

In some areas they do, but overall they do not. It's interesting, I referenced Abraham. The Hebrew. The Hebrew essentially means a stranger. That's what Abraham was. That's what we're supposed to be. Pilgrims, not profiteers.

Those who are traveling through and we are on our way to a specific destination for a purpose. Hebrews 11, 13. The writer of Hebrews refers to the Christians who had died.

He says, all these died in faith, not having received the promises, having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them and confessed them that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They embraced it. They took hold of it. They brought it close to their heart, to their bosom, to their chest. That they were not part of this world.

They did not give them license to act as though they were Martians or someone that's just out of their mind, not at all, quite the opposite. Strangers passing through, belonging to a different place that has different ways or customs about it. Different rules and a different ruler. And that's what makes all the difference for us. Because hell is a different place, different ways are going to be there, different rules are going to be there, but the ruler that will rule over us in heaven, he will not be there as he will be with us in paradise. Hebrews 13, 14. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. If we lose sight of heaven, it diminishes our service. The thought that we're going to get something at the end of this is not wrong in and of itself.

If it's not abused, of course I want to go to heaven. In this life, we have pictured for us from the scripture what the world is all about. By the way, the nations of the world, the nations without Yahweh, how they functioned. Egypt, for example, Babylon and Assyria. You look at the history and the character of those lost empires and you discover there's a pattern that shows up. Egypt sets before us the remarkable wisdom of the world.

I mean, for how long have men looked at the pyramids and said, how did they do that with the ancient tools that they had? It is the home of the world's culture in that regard. Babylon, that is the seat or the cradle of the occult and cults. The religions of wickedness of the world are represented by Babylon. Alexander Hislop's book, Two Babylons, traces it.

He documents it. He goes all the way back as far as you could go through various writings pointing to the origins of cults and the occult in this world coming out of ancient Babylon. And then there is Assyria. Now, if you know the history of the Assyrian empire in the days of the kings of Israel, you know they were a vicious bunch.

They would skin alive those who they caught and drape their skin over the walls or out in front where the enemy could see so they could terrorize them. They did many such cruel things. Assyria represents the mercilessness of warfare in this world. It is a model of cruelty from the scripture.

Peter is saying, you look at that. You look at Egypt and her culture. Babylon and her false religions.

The Assyrians and their cruelty. And you Christian must say, I am not a citizen of that. That is not where I'm going.

That is not what I am about. I am in the midst of these things preaching light and love. The salt of the world. The light of the salt of the earth. Light of the world. Be a lot of salt to salt the world.

The ocean has tried it and just can't pull it off. Alright, I've cleaned up that mistake that you listened to. Fundamental rule is to make the other guy seem like it's their fault. He says, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. The body becomes a hiding place for evil passions. Evil means harmful. That's why it's evil. It's not just, well, God's saying, you know, I just put it in that category. As you put, you know, plants in certain categories.

You know, this one is an evergreen and this one, that's not what... Evil is bad stuff because it hurts people. And when it is not put in its place, it takes sometimes a while before a generation realizes how wicked it is.

And this would account for cycles in human history combating evil. And so he says, abstain from these things. Why should a preacher pass over such a sentence from God's mouth to man?

Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Because we know how hard the fight is and each one of us has to go through it. We cannot skip over such words. We must not. This is the battleground for us.

This is where the fight remains. That's why Paul said, oh, wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? How do I get out of this body of flesh, the lower self? And he defaulted to Christ. He thanked God for Jesus Christ who brings mercy and goodness and grace. It adds up.

It does matter. Because all you have to do is find a Christian who gives up. And then you say, I don't want to do that. I do not want to give up.

I'd rather take my hits and struggle through it than to give up and be shot in the back and become a has-been of the faith because I quit. I don't want that. I am afraid of that.

I think every sensible soul would be. And so this is not the whole story of the believer abstaining from fleshly lust. That's not the whole story concerning us. We are vessels of honor also. There are things about us that are honorable. Many Christians are good people.

Unfortunately, I cannot say all of them. They're in a good position. Positionally, they're right with God.

Many Christians, as A.W. Tozier would say, act as though they've been baptized in lemon juice. I don't want to be that one. It takes effort, and it's worth it. It's honorable to stand against the wind. My pastor used to always say, any dead fish can float downstream.

It takes a live fish to go against the current. And that is true. We are mocked because we want to be more holy than unholy because we want truth and fact concerning eternity and not just anybody's guess. We are mocked and persecuted for this.

Well, that's just the way it is. Fleshly lust, those natural appetites that have been ruined by sin, and they plant their seeds in our minds and in our bodies. Sin is essentially the abuse of a good thing. It's anything you name. As a sin, it's abuse of something that originally was not a problem, but now is a big problem.

These natural appetites that would steal our innocence from us and become the enemies of our soul. And so, war against them, he says, war against them. The difference between a war and a battle really is this, time. A battle is, for the moment, war goes on.

It goes on. And we know, we look to heaven, we look to the kingdom to come, but for right now, it is in the strength of that kingdom, the sustained military campaign against us and us against it. Okay, the flesh has declared war against me, becoming a Christian. I declare war against you, O flesh, against my own sinful ways. These are fixed laws of life.

The higher fighting, the lower. And the way it is, we have to accept it. There are no exceptions. There's no way to get away from this. You don't need to be a scientist to prove this. You need to be a human being.

You discover this. Every believer sees combat in the soul, every one of us, self versus self. They say one of the hardest games known to man is golf, because you're really playing against yourself. How many shots will it take you to get to the 18th hole?

How few can you take to get to that last hole? The other guy really doesn't influence you. I guess he can get in your head or something, but that's why you club. You have clubs, right?

He's just messing with you. You club him. Anyway, 1 Peter, again, chapter 1, verse 9, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. That's the prize. That's the finish line.

That's what we're going for. In verse 12, he says, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. Or should our behavior ever be dishonorable?

Never. It should never be dishonorable. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble. That noble means honorable, higher than the flesh. That is supposed to be the Christian, whatever things are true, honorable, because if they're false, they're not honorable. And then he goes on to say, just and pure and lovely, of good report, meditate, concentrate, focus on those things. And so why should Christians then defend dishonorable behavior in loved ones or anyone else?

You know, the one that's going to be an advocate to the troublemaker. It's not honorable. If they're wrong, they're wrong. We take steps to correct, yes, but don't pretend that something evil is somehow to be acceptable. I know, it's a high standard Christianity, and God never apologizes. He doesn't say, you know, I'm sorry for asking you not to kill each other.

I'm sorry that I asked you not to steal or lie to each other. Thank God he doesn't do that. He tells you right out, don't kill, don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't bear false witness, without apology. And so when we come to the honorable things, if we are guilty, we own our guilt, it's called repentance. And that changes everything. When you get to someone that's done wrong and they say, I'm wrong, that shuts down.

That takes everything in a different direction now. Discipline now pulls back. Sometimes you still may have to, positions of authority, even in the home, you scale back the intensity once the repentance is clear. I am amazed at how many parents are strict with their children, want their children to obey on first command, and even, you know, other kids, they want them to obey. But they themselves don't obey. When they're in a position of submission, now we're getting to that submission bar I was talking about, because we all need it. It does not come natural to the flesh to submit. Who cares that you submit when everything goes your way? That's not submission, that's riding along. Submission becomes submission when you don't like it. Isn't that what wrestling teaches us?

When someone pins you, you don't like that. You have a choice, it's done. This belongs to Christianity, and when we begin to get our heads around this, we get stronger, not weaker. In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus said, do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.

That covers the planet, incidentally. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword, for I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against his mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and it goes on, of course, and he is saying, the dishonorable is separated from the honorable. You do not, using this word again, meld together. You are distinct.

When someone behaves dishonorably and demands that they be treated honorably, we have a problem. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross-Reference Radio. Cross-Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross-Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the Scriptures, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.