INTRODUCTION
• VIDEO CLIP
• SLIDE #1
• As we live in this world, do we have any obligation to the world around us?
• Since we are called to serve Jesus, what is our obligation as temporary citizens of this world?
• I think we all have people in our lives that we would love to see come to Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I know we lament the direction that the world is headed.
• We live in a world that can easily mold us into it’s’ image. If we allow that to happen, can new really have an effect on those around us for Jesus?
• How do we have a real affect those around us for Jesus?
• We need to do something that can be very uncomfortable for us, CHANGE!
• Change can be intimidating and challenging because of the very nature of what the word means.
• The word “change” means to “become of make different.”
• If we walk, talk, act, and live like everyone else in the world, what is so different about that? Why would that attract people to Jesus?
WE are going to look at three areas of change that each of us needs to focus our life on this morning. These changes need to be considered because they will have an affect not only on ourselves, but on those around us, for ETERNITY.
Let’s turn to 1 Peter 2:11-12 together.
SLIDE #2
1 Peter 2:11(ESV) 11Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. Change your mind.
• As we delve into this verse we see that Peter loves and cares for his readers to the point that he is urging them to listen to the counsel he is giving to them.
• The word “urge” paints a picture of passionate pleading. What is being shared through the text is important for many reasons but the big appeal to the readers and to us is twofold.
• First, we as Christians, we are sojourners in this world which means that we are foreign settlers who temporarily reside in a strange house. This world is not our home! We are citizens of heaven!
• Secondly we are called exiles. This implies that we are visitors who tarry for a time in a foreign country but who will be shortly traveling on to our true homeland.
• Since where we currently reside is temporary why would we get engrossed into where we now are?
• If we are going to be different than the world around us it starts with changing our mind. We need to have a different mindset than the world around us.
• SLIDE #4
• Romans 12:2(ESV) 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
• The way to keep from being conformed to this world once we belong to Jesus is to allow our minds to be transformed or changed to the mindset of Jesus.
• 2 Corinthians 10:5 explains it this way.
• SLIDE #5
• 2 Corinthians 10:5(ESV) 5We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
• Taking EVERY thought captive to obey Jesus is the ultimate! It takes prayer, practice and perseverance to do that.
• In our passage, Peter urges us to ABSTAIN from the passions of the flesh.
• “Abstain” means to not permit the mind to show ANY hospitality when such desires seek a place to stay.
• We are called to constantly hold off or keep distance from those prompted desires instead of seeing how close we can get to them.
• In the Bible times this phrase we translate “passions of the flesh” dealt with the area of sexual sin. In the Bible though the term was expanded to cover other areas.
• SLIDE #6
• Galatians 5:19-21(ESV) 19Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21envy,£ drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
• When you put together abstaining and fleshly lusts what you get is this. We are told we are not to permit the mind to show any hospitality to any of the fleshly lusts. We are not to allow anything that motivates sinful behavior an opportunity to keep residence in the mind.
• Sometimes the thoughts come into the mind through the prompting of the Satan, but we can control whether or not they stay there.
• We are also given a good reason to ABSTAIN from fleshly desires. They wage war against our souls. We are in a spiritual war with Satan.
• Satan tries to prompt us with passions of the flesh; our spirit tells us we should ABSTAIN from those thoughts.
• The war spoken of here is not hand to hand combat but rather a planned military expedition against a planned military target or objective.
• The passions stirred by the Devil are part of his carefully planned effort to thwart what God is trying to do with His people.
• The next area we need to change is found in verse 12.
• SLIDE #7
• 1 Peter 2:12(ESV) 12Keep 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.
• SLIDE #8
II. Change your conduct.
• We are told to keep our conduct among the lost honorable. This boils down to having conduct that reflects the fact we are Christians.
• The problem comes when one tries to have proper conduct without changing what is in their minds.
• This is what the Pharisees did and Jesus called compared them to whitewashed tombs that looked good on the outside but inside were full of dead men’s bones. (Matthew 23:27)
• The word for “honorable” means not only good, but lovely, fine attractive, winsome.
• We are being asked to make our way of life so lovely, so fair, that it will positively attract admiration from those around us.
• It has been said the best argument for Christianity is real Christians, but on the other side, the worst argument for Christianity can be Christians also.
• We are all advertisements for Jesus. Do people want to buy the Jesus we represent?
• We are to hold up and exemplify an attractive lifestyle. WE are given some reasons to keep our conduct honorable.
• We are given three reasons for us to maintain excellent behavior:
o We are strangers and aliens
o Fleshly desires are not good for our soul
o The influence for good we can have on the world around us.
• If we act and react as those in the world do, we will not really reflect to God we serve. Being like everyone else around us is not going to attract people to God.
• We are also told to keep our conduct honorable so that when we get accused of evildoing our actions will show the falsehoods not to be true.
• The early church faced a lot of rumors concerning their behavior. They were accused of many things because of their meeting at night, they were accused of being cannibals because of the Lord’s Supper and a whole host of other things.
• In Rome, Nero was able to use this to his advantage when he made Christians scapegoats as he tried to shift the blame for the burning of Rome from himself to some one else. (Tacitus, Annals, 15:44; Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars p 250) (Quoted from Gareth Reese 1 Peter notes)
• I remember when people from Cambodia came to my hometown in the late 70’s. People were afraid of them and they were not always treated well because people did not know or understand them.
• Peter says the world will not understand Christians, they will think things about us that are not true. The best way to change their minds is by maintaining excellent behavior.
• Let us conclude by understanding that if we change our minds and conduct, which means we are changing our world, then we can…
• SLIDE #9
III. Change their world!
• When the world sees we are not hypocrites, they will quit accusing us of being one. When they see the church caring for them, they will not say we are just about money.
• Real faith exhibited in the world will win a lot of hearts. People want to believe, they just need to see it in us first. Our actions will out-weigh false views.
• Instead of listening to rumors, those without Jesus will see your conduct and will then see your true heart.
• Here is the progression of thought.
o The lost people were slandering the Christians as evildoers.
o The good deeds of the Christians would prove these accusations to be untrue.
o The good lives and hearts of the Christians would convict the lost of their sins and slander along with their need for Jesus. (This is implied)
o Finally. The lost will become converted to Christ and then would glorify God!
• Being saved would allow them to truly glorify God at His return!
• Peter specifies the time when the Gentiles will glorify God as "the day of visitation".
• Some take this to refer to final judgment; others take it as a reference to a time when the Gentiles would give the gospel a favorable hearing and be converted.
• Peter seems to have reference to a time of blessing rather than a time of judgment, and the view is preferable which holds that he refers to a time of the spread of the gospel among Gentiles when they would give heed and turn to God.
• Either will work. Needless to say that our life will affect the lives of others for or against Jesus.
CONCLUSION
• Are we going to sit back and allow people to drown in their sins while we do our own thing or do we love them enough to allow Jesus to make a real difference in our life?
