Shine, Jesus, Shine (1 Peter 2.11–12)

Peter challenges believers to be engaged with the world, but to abstain from sinful desires and to live such good lives that those who oppose them may see their good deeds and glorify God. Christians are called to be different from the world and to show a good ethical behavior recognizable by others. Even though the world may accuse them, believers must continue to shine the light of Jesus and lead lives that honor God. This is the pattern for Christian living that Peter sets out in his epistle. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 11 and 12, the Apostle writes, Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans, that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. Let us pray, dear God, thank you for this opportunity we have had to study your word, or we have to study your word. Thank you for the privilege that we have had to sing praises to your name, to sing about your mercy, to sing about the beauty of the church, the church your son has redeemed with his blood. Thank you that this is no ordinary gathering, but it is a gathering where we are meeting with the creator of the universe and the redeemer of the world. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for this privilege. We thank you, God, that your Holy Spirit is among us speaking to our hearts, challenging us of our sin, but also of our self-righteousness. We pray that at this time you would soften our hearts so that we may be receptive to your word. We pray that our eyes would be open so that we will see your glory and honor you. We pray that we would not be slow to hearing, but that our ears might be open so that we hear the promptings and the word of the Holy Spirit. May your spirit speak at this moment, and may we be humble receptacles of his word. We ask for these things, Lord, in your precious name. Amen. This morning we are continuing our study on the first epistle of Peter. So, if you have missed many of the sermons, which some of you might, we encourage you to visit our website, cbclogport.org, and you can listen to many of the sermons. They are posted there, and you can learn a little bit more about our church, too, there in the website. The title for today's sermon, as you can see on this slide, is Shine, Jesus Shine. How many of you know a little song chorus with this name? As a matter of fact, every now and then we sing that song here. The point of that song is that Jesus is the light of the world, but unlike the song where Jesus shines his light directly to us, in today's sermon, we will talk about the light of Jesus being shown on others, not directly, but through us, his disciples. At the beginning of today's service, I read to you from Matthew 5, from the Sermon on the Mount, when the Lord Jesus was preaching to his disciples. In one of those verses, he said to his disciples, in the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. In this case, the light of the disciples is Jesus. Jesus is the light. So the disciples are challenged by the Lord to shine their light. So today, when I say that the sermon is Shine, Jesus Shine, I am thinking of the work God does through you, a disciple of Jesus Christ, through those who have belief in him. One of the disciples who heard these words was the Apostle Peter, in the Sermon on the Mount. And as we will see this morning, he never forgot the challenge the Lord gave him. Even though he will not use Jesus' exact same words, in the next major part of his epistle, this one which we're studying, Peter will challenge his readers to shine the light of the Lord by leading their lives in an exemplary way. In fact, in verses 11 and 12, which again, we just read of this chapter, which by the way, is the introduction of the next major section of this epistle, which goes all the way to actually chapter 3, verse 12, Peter will encourage us, he will encourage us all to live in such a way that those who oppose us, those who are antagonistic to the gospel, those who are antagonistic to Christ, will have no valid arguments against us, against Christianity, against the Lord. Instead, as they witness our humility and our righteousness produced by God's Word and by his Spirit, as they witness these things, these, if you want to put it this way, this high ethical way of living, they will be compelled to also follow Jesus and to glorify God. That is the point of this passage. So, this is my challenge to you this morning as we look at this passage. May the way you live, may the way you talk, you think, you act, may the way you live silence your critics' arguments and drive them to glorify God. This is so important and it is the heart really of the next big chunk in Peter, which he will introduce in these two verses. So, we'll be coming back to this idea. But this is so important. You see, sometimes we get involved, Christians, in debates with our mouth, in discussions. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is the Christian and who is not, because sometimes our debates become very uncivil and we get nasty and unkind. Yes, we might be doing our best to speak the truth, but we do it in such a manner that it's hard to differentiate who is a Christian and who is not. There is nothing wrong in speaking truth and in challenging the faulty arguments of other people, but Peter's argument in the text we are going to read is that the way to challenge the arguments of others, of those who oppose to you, to oppose Christ, those who oppose the things of the faith, should be challenged not so much with the things you say or write, but with the way you live. And that is the point of this passage. So, that's my challenge to all of us, which is the challenge that Peter gives us. May the way you live silence your critics' arguments and drive them to glorify God. And that is the end goal of our lives, that people would become worshippers of Jesus. As I just said, verse 11 of chapter 2 introduces a new section in this epistle. However, if we are going to properly understand the argument of the epistle, before we proceed with our exposition of this major section, a brief review of what we have been talking all along up until this time is necessary. Very brief, in the section before, if you remember, after Peter described the life of hope Christians enjoy as a consequence of their new birth in Christ, even though they are suffering persecution, as he described this hope that we had, Peter emphasized the manner in which the believers are to relate to their brothers and sisters in Christ. So, in the verses we just studied, yeah, he talked a little bit about the world, but his emphasis was on the fact of how believers are to relate with one another. His focus was the church. Remember, we are a holy nation, a royal priesthood. We are basically this temple in which every believer is a living stone. So, as he describes this theological truth, Peter is challenging the believers to love one another, to learn to relate in a way that honors God. That was his emphasis. The apostle encouraged his readers, both in their relationship to God and to other believers, to love one another and to grow spiritually. In this exhortation to believers, Peter mentioned the world scantily, seldom. The only few times he mentioned the outside world, his purpose was only to describe the world as a source of tribulation, as the vehicle of an alien lifestyle and as the arena for making known the mighty deeds of God. That's pretty much what he said when he spoke about the world. However, in this new section of the epistle, that is going to change a little bit. Now, Peter is going to provide specific instructions as to how believers are to relate to the outside world. Before, we were focused on how we ought to live with one another as brothers in Christ, being persecuted and attacked by the world. But now, Peter is going to challenge us how we have to relate with the outside world. After all, we live in this world, how we are to function. Yes, Christians may be a chosen people in a holy nation, distinct and separated from the world. However, they are not and they should not be disengaged from the world. Christians are meant to be actively involved with the outside world. Thus, in the remaining verses of the epistle, the apostle is going to outline guidelines as to how we are supposed to do this. In other words, Peter is going to teach us how we must shine the light of Jesus. And he's going to do this in two parts. All right? The second part actually goes from verse 13 of chapter 3 all the way to verse 11 of chapter 5. In this second part, Peter will speak more directly to specific crises that might test the faith of believers. His instruction will be very much concerned with what to do if you should suffer for what is right. In the first part, however, which we are starting today, he's going to consider the character Christians ought to have as they go about with their daily lives. He will do this between verses 12 of chapter 2 and verse 12 of chapter 3. You don't want me to preach this entire section in one single sermon, because you don't want to stay here until 6 in the afternoon. So this morning, we will only look at the introduction of this section, which concerns verses 11 and 12. In this introduction, Peter sets the pattern for Christian living. He's going to give us a general pattern, and then he'll go into the specifics of the relationships. He'll talk to believers in general. He'll talk to slaves. He'll talk to masters. He'll talk to husbands. He'll talk to wives. And we'll look at that patiently in the weeks ahead. But today, we are going to look at this introduction where the pattern is set. Indeed, in this very brief introduction, Peter will challenge us to go outside the church walls, to put it this way, and to get engaged with the world. The first thing we're going to do, therefore, is to examine the challenge for Christians to be engaged with the world. That is, he's going to challenge us to be engaged with the world. That might not be obvious for you, because you're just reading this passage, but I have studied, and I have paid attention to the argument until the end of the epistle. And Peter wants very much that Christians are engaged with the world. He writes, Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. But then he says, Live such good lives among the pagans, that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see the good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. We are not supposed to remove ourselves from those who do not believe Christ and live them to their own. We're supposed to be engaged, but to be engaged in a proper manner, to live in such a way that they would be attracted to the things of God, and they would respond in faith. Now, as we examine this exhortation, there are two questions I would like to answer. Two questions. The first question has to do with the content of the challenge. What are believers to do in their engagement with the world? What are you to do as you ponder how you are going to relate to the world? I read many years ago an argument by a secular sociologist, not Christians, and this sociologist was doing a study of rural Christianity. And in her assessment, this is not a Christian person, in her assessment, she said that rural Christianity is mostly white, she says, mostly middle class. They are very, they are, they have their, they're sort of comfortable. But the one interesting thing that, that drew her attention was that they formed their own community, she said. They have their own schools, most of them homeschool. They have their own libraries, they have their own phone book, and they have their own, things like that. When this Christian wants to, to know, to get something, an item or something, a good, they go to the Christian phone book to find a Christian store and to buy from the Christian people. I think she, she was right on a few things, but not on everything. So, but it was interesting that in her assessment of Christians, basically, she concluded that Christians live in this bubble. They have intentionally removed themselves from the rest of society. And this was years ago, this was an old article, this was in the 90s. I don't think she was completely accurate, but it was a pattern that was observable. We were not called to remove ourselves from the world, but to be different in the midst of the world. So, as Peter then talks about this, he will answer this question, what are believers to do in their engagement with the world? As I said, there are two, now there are two answers to this question that Peter provides. One of the answers is stated negatively, and the other positively. Negatively, Peter challenges us to abstain from the sinful desires that characterize the world. Dear friends, I urge you, he says, and then he proceeds to abstain from sinful desires. This was shown to us that those who are disciples of Christ, those who have experienced new birth, and are living stones of his holy temple, do not have the luxury of compromise. If it is a luxury. You do not have, as a Christian, you do not have the luxury of compromise. We are a chosen people, and a holy nation. We have been separated from the world, and set aside for the worship of God. We are supposed to be different from the world. We are supposed to be holy. We are supposed to renounce the pagan lifestyle that brings shame to our father in heaven. We're supposed to abstain from the sinful desires. It's interesting, he doesn't just say from the sins, but he talks about this sinful lust, this temptation that the world offers, which becomes very enticing. Sometimes Christians feel that they are at a disadvantage for, oh I wish, I wish I could, I could do that. Number one, you can do whatever you want. Is it convenient to you? That's the question. Some of you, I don't know, maybe you've been enticed by drugs, and by the hype that you might get, and you might enjoy that, but as Peter says, later they wage war against your soul, and you know how terrible it is to get out of them. But Peter challenges us negatively, yes, we should engage with the world, but as we engage with the world, we must abstain from the sinful desires that characterize the world. We live in this world, but we are God's chosen people. We are a holy nation. We are to manifest, to portray, to showcase the holiness of God. And that's no boring thing, let me tell you. Sometimes we think of Christianity, of this boring lifestyle. Do you think I'm boring? You've got to come party with me sometime. We Baptists like to party here sometimes, with lots of food. We're constantly on a diet because of that sometimes. But you know, Peter challenges us not only negatively, but he does it positively, and this is the second part of these questions. How are believers to engage, or what are they to do in their engagement with the world? Well, positively, Peter tells us that we are to show a good ethical behavior recognizable by the world. There is, everywhere there is importance. I thought about that. We are to show a good behavior, ethical behavior, recognizable by the world. Just as we don't have the luxury of compromise, neither do we have the safety of disengagement. As Christians, we must neither compromise our faith, nor get disengaged from the world, even if it means danger or suffering. In verse 12, he says, live such good lives among the pagans, that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us. We're challenged to live as the most righteous people on the face of the earth. We are challenged to have the highest of standards. We are challenged to do that which is right, even if we suffer by it. There will be people which will accuse us, or persecute us, that they would think we are sort of nonsensical at times. But that should not discourage us from doing the things that honor God. We don't have that luxury, and that's okay. We must be engaged with the world, even if it is dangerous, because, as we will see very soon, it may so happen that some antagonists will believe. This seems to be the implication of Peter's words. He says that some will see our good deeds. Now, for a person who does not believe in the gospel, and who might have a different worldview as to what are righteous standards and what are not, there has to be some sort of agreement between Christians and us, and them. Because if they're going to see your righteousness, and they are going to recognize, okay, that is righteous, then they have to have some sort of understanding of what is right and what is wrong. It is true that the world will increasingly grow in a way that what is right they will call wrong, and what is wrong they will call right. And we see that today, nowadays. Sometimes it's not so much of conviction, it's more because of convenience. You don't want to be politically incorrect. You don't want to be mean, and you just don't want to get into the trouble or the difficult situation of that. So, it's convenient just to call some wrong right and some right wrong. But, even in such corrupt of a society, by the way, this is the society where they are living, okay? You might think we have gotten worse. You haven't lived in the first century of Roman Empire, when the emperor himself is sleeping with many men. And when masters are raping their slaves, the wives of their slaves, this is the context in which Peter is writing. It is a terrible context. But even in such a crook society, there are some elements of commonality. Why? Because every human being bears the image of God. The image of God might be defaced, but it's nevertheless there. Sometimes we don't make such a big deal about the image of God. It's not the point of my sermon here. But just to give you a parenthesis, a lot of people who study Genesis 1 has missed the point, what is the point of Genesis 1. They think that the point of Genesis 1 is that the earth was created in six days, or in 24 hours, or some others will go to millions of years, whatever. That's not the point of Genesis. Genesis is not to answer the age of the earth. The point of Genesis is that God created everything, and that the epics of his creation is human. It's men. Why? Because it is only when he talks about men, when God says that he created in his own image, that is the epics of God's creation. And what is the importance of that? The importance of that is that you, as a human being, are distinct from the rest of creation. You're special. By the way, I didn't discover this, I just heard this as I was studying and learning this. And if you don't believe me, that the other passage that talks about creation in the New Testament makes it very clear. John 1 in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Everything that is came through him and for him. But how does that story about creation in the New Testament end? And the Word became flesh. You know how I know that humanity is the epics of God's creation, because it bears the image of God. It's because God became one of them. This is a parenthesis, and this is why I am a staunch pro-life. Pro-life from the day of conception, till the grave. Till the grave. Not just for the little babies, but for those who are at disadvantage situations. We need to be that. But why do I go into this parenthesis? To say that, even though certain people might have been in such a state of corruption, they bear the image of God, so they still have some notion of what is right. And Peter is appealing to that. He says, live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds. Even though they might be corrupt, they can tell when you're being righteous. Even in their confused state of mind of what is right, they can see when you've been righteous. And they can also see when you're a hypocrite. So, we must be engaged with the world, even if it's dangerous, because it may so happen that some of them will believe. This seems to be the implication of Peter's word. He says that some will see our good deeds. That is, there are things in the world that even fallen and unbelieving people recognize as being good. Yes, their morality might be contaminated, but they still bear the image of God, and thus are able to sometimes differentiate good from wrong. So, if we live in a way that honors God, it is possible that people will realize that we are genuinely good people, and they will want to imitate God. Because they'll crave to have something that they don't have. They're missing. That is why we must remain engaged with the world. May the way you live silence your critics' arguments and drive them to glorify God. The second question I would like to answer under this first point. Boy, I'm still in the first point. Well, the second question relates to the reason Peter provides to justify his exhortation. The question is, why are believers to engage with the world in this manner? That is, by avoiding these sinful desires and by living such good lives. Why are you to engage with the world in this manner? Well, we have just answered that in their engagement with the world, believers are to negatively abstain from sinful desires and positively show good ethical behavior. But why? Why go through the trouble of doing that? Why? I mean, isn't it boring? Isn't it? You know, it's not as much fun, right? That's what I thought. That's going to the party and getting drunk with my friends. That wasn't as fun. Well, why go through that trouble? Well, I believe Peter again provides two answers. And the first answer is, because Christians, because sins wage war against our soul. We do not realize how terrible sin is. We do not realize what a wicked master sin is. Sin is an enemy, according to Peter, whose goal is to destroy our soul. In these words, Peter is humanizing sin, so to speak. He is portraying sin as this general, this immovable and angry and wicked army that is there, or gladiator, if you want to put it, that is there to rip you to pieces, to go wage war against your soul. And it is interesting that he works it, that it's there to destroy our soul. That's interesting. Why? Because our soul is our very being. In the scriptures, the soul is the very seed of life. Our souls are the essence of who we are as persons. When we indulge in sin, we are corrupting our identity, which by the way, has been upgraded, if you are a Christian. Don't forget that identity is integrally connected to the work of God in us. If you were here last week, you would remember that I said that as a Christian, you cannot talk about your identity without talking about the action of God in you. The relation of God with you, and the purpose of God for you. The biblical understanding of human self-identity is radically God-centered. God made us who we are, so that we might declare the praises of Him, Peter told us a few verses ago. So when we indulge in sin, we are disfiguring, so to speak, the beautiful face God has given us. Sin might be pleasurable, but it wants to destroy us. Sin might provide a very ethereal, short-lived pressure, but it is that, ethereal and short-lived. And sin is a wicked despot, a wicked master. It wants to destroy us. It wants to remove any vestiges of God in us. Let us not let sin destroy our lives and our communion with God. Hey, you are a sinner, much like I am, and you suffer the wages of your sin. You suffer. It's wrecked your marriage. Maybe your children hate you, or they are wrecking their own lives. It's ruined your body with all the drugs you've put on it. Or maybe you haven't gone that way. Maybe you've gone to the successful life of making lots of money, and you have your second home, and your third car, and you have all of these blessings. But your kids are destroyed. The wife is leaving you. Your husband doesn't want to see you. You have all this wealth. Go pay for it. We'll see how much you can get back. No matter in which bracket of society you are, sin is a wicked master. That's why Peter tells us to abstain from sin, and to show Christ, may the way you live silence your critics' arguments and drive them to glorify God. It's 12. I'll take five more minutes for my second point, which is the rationale for Christians to be engaged with the world. What is the ultimate purpose of doing this? Now that we've examined the challenge for Christians to be engaged with the world, let us look at this. What is the purpose? When we read verse 12, Peter tells us, or when we read this verse, he tells us that we ought to live such good lives among the pagans, and he puts a that there. That, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. The words that they may see your good deeds and glorify God describe the first rationale that Peter gives to Christians in order to be engaged with the world. And this first rationale, or this first purpose, is that unbelievers may change the wrong perspective about Christians. You see, it is not enough, I don't care what he thinks about me, I'm a Christian after all, that's their problem. That's not the attitude that Christians ought to have. You should care that they think that way about you. But of course, what they think about you should not change the way that you live so that your standards change and they are more or less morphed into their standards. No, you should care what they think about Christianity. You should care what they think about Christ. You should care what they think about the faith. And you should live in such a way that exalts the name of Jesus and brings them to reconsider that. Sometimes I feel the Christians, we don't put the work, to be prepared, to engage, because it's easy. The easy exit is to be disengaged. I've been involved in the scholarly community with science, and the easy way is just to ignore them and not to deal with their arguments. But that's not the way to deal. Then they think these Christians are ignorant. They don't even know a few things. But no, you've got to learn, engage, and show that there is actually, there's nothing between science that contradicts the Bible, if it's understood properly. And we engage, and we have these discussions, or with the social, moral issues in our society. Well, they're just so crooked. Let's just leave them to their own. No, we've got to get involved into the platforms and bring our faith. Part of the problem why the world is winning on us, if you want to put it that way, because it won't win. It's because we have retreat. Whether it's the universities, the schools, the whatever, we have retreated. No, we should be engaged. We should live in such a way that they change their wrong and warped perspective about Christ. That is why I am challenging you, may the way you live silence your critics' arguments. But just to silence their arguments, or to prove them wrong, is not the goal. That just makes you a know-it-all, who are maybe, you know, who nobody can stand. That's not the goal. That's why you've got to be humble. What's the goal? And that is the second rational, the second purpose that Peter gives us. That unbelievers may be turned into believers, and thus glorify God. Peter affirms that the end goal of living such good lives among the pagans is that they may glorify God on the day he visit us. Now that last word, it's a little challenging. What does he mean by the day he visit us? He could mean the second coming of Jesus. That if you live in such a way that you challenge the arguments of those who reject Christianity, they will glorify God when Jesus come back for the second time. That's one way to read that. I don't think that's what Peter means. Although the second coming of the Lord Jesus is very important in this passage. We have examined that, and we will do later. I think the day he visits refers to a phrase used very much in the Old Testament. When you read the book of Ruth, for example, Naomi and Elimelech leave Bethlehem, the house of bread, to go to Moab, because they saw the fields of Moab more tempting. They were beautiful fields, and in Moab there was a famine, and all that. So they live. But then Elimelech dies. Melchion and Chilion die. Don't ever name your children with those names, by the way. And the ladies are left alone. Naomi is left destitute, without anything. But the next thing, the writer of Ruth, rises. Then Naomi heard that the Lord has visited his people. Now here's not talking about the second coming there. He's talking about that God has shone among his people with mercy. He has come to them with kindness, to their rescue. God visited his people. And the psalmist writes that over and over. Isaiah, the prophet. God visited his people. So when this language is found in the Old Testament, when God visits his people, it speaks about his mercy, his loving kindness, his generosity. Here, Peter will write in a few verses later, that God is patient with the world, and that he has not come because he desires that everyone would proceed to repentance and come to believe in Jesus Christ. So, when Peter writes that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us, I think this is what he's saying. This is my paraphrase. That they may see your high ethical way you live, and they will change their perspective of you and of Christianity. As a consequence of that, they will surrender their lives to God when they hear of his mercy and of his grace in the gospel. When they have this encounter with Jesus, and thus they glorify him. That's what it means. So we are to live this way, so that unbelievers may change their own perspective about Christians, but so that as they do, they may be turned into believers, and thus glorify God. We don't have the luxury of compromise, nor the safety of disengagement. These are not my words. They come from D. A. Carson's commentary in John. But we do not have the luxury of compromise, nor the safety of disengagement. We must do both. May the way you live silence your critics' arguments, and drive them to glorify God. Thank you, and God bless you.