1 Peter 2:11-17 “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.”
Last Sunday, Pastor
Kyle continued in our church’s sermon series through the book of 1 Peter. He
made an observation that the older we get, the longer we are alive and the
longer we are a Christian, the grayer we see in the world we live in. When we
were younger, things seemed so much more black and white then they do today. The
Bible is clear on moral issues, but we are talking about social issues that we
deal with daily now. Today, our gray issue is a global pandemic and we are
living through a new set of circumstances that none of us have ever experienced
before. Two factors contribute to the grayness. First, this pandemic has
devastated human lives, reeked financial havoc on economics and actively
causing a mental and emotional strain on everyone. The second aspect of this is
that it landed in a presidential election year in the United States of America.
So, things would be contentious enough without an epidemic. So, instead of
being a nation together to over a crisis, coronavirus has just become another
issue that creates social division.
We see good
Christians differ vastly about how governments and politicians should be
handling this current situation. We all want to move forward, but have
different opinions on how to do that. We shouldn’t mind if someone sincerely
believes something and wants to share about it with their friends and family. That
is what makes America a country of freedom and liberty. We are encouraged by
our Constitution and our democratic republic process to vote our consciences
and social descent when we disagree. That is a freedom that we should never
take for granted. The issue is when we over simplify the situation at hand and,
especially, when we demonize one another in the process.
There is a way
to express one’s views about situations without disparaging each other. All
people do not have to think the same way because people are diverse here as in
any population in the world. There are situations where individuals come to incredibly
different conclusions, often citing the same sources and facts to their
destination. There are a few questions for us to handle today. (1) How are we
to handle it when Christians, who are going to spend eternity in Heaven together,
disagree with each other here? (2) How are Christians to respond to government
and political leaders when we disagree with what they are telling us to do? (3)
When do we let issues go and when do we fight? What is worth fighting for?
1 Peter 2:11-12 “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.”
The Apostle
Peter says two important facts that every Christian needs to remember. (1) He
reminds us that we are sojourners and exiles on planet Earth. We long for
permanence on this side of Heaven, be we are only here for a little while and
just passing through. This is not our home and we don’t belong here because our
citizenship in in the kingdom of Heaven and we are ambassadors here for Christ.
Even though we don’t belong here, we are here for a reason and that reason is
to lead those who do not know the Lord in the gates of Heaven through faith in
Jesus Christ. (2) The Apostle reminds us that every Christian is witness to
Jesus. A Christian witness is a Christian’s most powerful evangelistic tool to
reach this lost and dying world and advance the kingdom of God. So, always keep
in mind that our witness is our testimony.
Another way to
put it is that our witness is the evidence that we are in fact Christians. In a
court of law, a witness is someone that testifies to the truth. A credible witness
is a powerful thing. A key aspect of every Christian’s individual witness is
that our conduct among the world is honorable. Who was Peter referring to? He
isn’t referring to Believers, but to the pagan, unbelieving world. What he was
getting at was that the way we treat those who do not share our faith will have
a direct effect on what those people wind up thinking about our faith.
Let’s continue
Pastor Kyle’s message on “gray areas” in the next post.
In Christ,
Brian
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