Always Be Prepared to Live What you Preach
1 Peter 2:9-17
When I used to fly in anti-submarine planes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans
there were times when the flying was somewhat dangerous because of weather. We flew
through some pretty nasty thunder storms and even typhoons. On one particular occasion,
my crew and I were flying around the Indian Ocean looking for suspicious shipping
activity, much like the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the weather started to deteriorate. So
we headed back from our base, which was on a small island 1,000 miles south of India,
1000 miles east of Africa, and 1,000 miles northwest of Australia – it’s name was Diego
Garcia. On the right side of the island there is a runway. And not much more really. As
you can see from the picture. By the time we got back, the entire island was socked in
and we couldn’t see a thing. And the tower didn’t have the sophisticated gear available
these days to guide the plane down when there is zero visibility. As a matter of fact, it
had nothing but runway lights. We were short on fuel… we had to land. There was not
another runway for hundreds and hundreds of miles. So I pulled out a map of the island
and fired up my radar and painted the coast line with it. Our only chance was to try and
see the coastline with the radar so that we could make an educated guess as to where the
runway was. We came in low and I held the map up next to the radar screen trying to
compare what I saw with the map, and finally when I thought things matched up, I told
the pilot to set the plane down, and sure enough we were right in the middle of the
runway.
I tell you this story because like the radar that saved my crew on Diego Garcia,
our characters are like radars pointing out the reality of God and guiding people to where
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they can be safe. If our characters look like Christ’s character, they point toward Him –
they show people what He looks like. They direct people to the safe harbor of the Lord.
But what happens when the radar is faulty? What happens if our character does
not represent Christ? People get misdirected and end up thinking that we don’t know the
real way to God, or that our experience with Him is not real. And I can understand that
thinking. If our lives don’t look any different than the lives of people who aren’t
Christians, then why should anyone believe what we say or be motivated or drawn to
Christ because they see something in us that they don’t have?
Our passage this morning directly addresses this issue. In 1 Peter 2:9-17, Peter is
going to tell us two things: one, we are to represent Christ in our world; and two, the way
we do that is by proclaiming the excellencies of God and living excellent lives. I’m
going to call that speaking the truth out loud and living the truth out loud.
Let’s look first at the fact that we are to represent Christ – verses 9-10 of 1 Peter
2. 9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A
PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of
Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
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for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you
had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.
Peter, in essence, is saying that we are God’s people now, and the key expression
is that we are a royal priesthood. As I said a couple of weeks ago, a priest is someone
who represents God to man and man to God. By using this phrase, Peter wants us to
understand that we are to translate the things of God to mankind. We are supposed to
stand in the gap between God and mankind and declare the love of God to people.
I have mentioned over and over again that one of the ways we represent God to
our world is through our characters. The more we act like Christ, the more we think like
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Christ (as we saw last week), the more we love others like Christ, the better priests – the
better representatives, we are.
One way that the Bible gets this idea across is to use the metaphor of clothing
ourselves with Christ. Galatians 3:27 says, for example, “For all of you who were
baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” This means that we have Christ
covering our entire lives. When God sees us, He sees Christ covering us with His
forgiveness. It also means that, like clothing, it’s the first thing people are to see when
they look at us. They are to see Christ.
Have you ever tried to put clothes on a young baby that doesn’t understand what
it is you’re trying to do? I remember when our children were little and my trying to get
clothes on them. It was a wrestling match. Those little arms had a way of disappearing
just when you were ready to try and put them through a sleeve. And those little feet could
kick!
God is trying to clothe us with Christ, but like little babies we don’t always
understand what He is trying to do or the process. But the older we get in the Lord, the
more we understand and the more we cooperate. As our girls got older, they cottoned on
to what clothes were all about and pretty soon they would put their arms in the sleeves all
by themselves. That’s what we are to do – start learning how to cooperate with God’s
work in making us more like Christ.
But we should also remember that the process, at first, doesn’t feel natural and it
isn’t pleasant. Let me illustrate. When I was younger I used to teach and coach tennis.
And one of the first things that you always have to teach is how to hold a tennis racket
[illustrate with an actual racket]. When someone picks up a racket, it’s natural to hold it
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like this. But that grip is not a good way to hold a racket. It means that you have to bend
your wrist and elbow in awkward ways in order to hit the ball back in such a way that it
doesn’t fly up in the air. Inevitably, when I would show the proper grip to people and
make them try it, it wouldn’t feel natural to them. And some flat-out rebelled and refused
to hold the racket the way I taught. But those who cooperated learned that after a given
period of time, the new grip actually felt right and they played better tennis.
This is how Christianity works… to some degree. Doing the things that Christ
would have us do: praying, witnessing to our faith, etc. don’t feel natural. They feel
awkward and uncomfortable. But, the longer you cooperate and do them, the more they
begin to feel natural.
We see this principle in many areas of our lives. Do you remember how awkward
and unnatural it felt when you first rode a bike? I ran into a tree the first time I ever rode
solo on a bike. I also ran into a wall the first time I soloed on a motorcycle, but that’s
another story. Do you remember how awkward and intimidating it felt the first time you
got behind the wheel of a car? Or how about your first kiss? How natural did that feel?
You had to practice on your hand for the longest time… right? Or was that just me?
Clothing ourselves with Christ is a necessary part of loving God, but it doesn’t
come easily and it feels awkward, intimidating, and unnatural at first.
So let’s move on to the second thing Peter tells us: that we are to proclaim Christ
by speaking the truth out loud and living the truth out loud. First, speaking. Verse 9 of
our passage, said, “Proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light.”
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This word proclaim implies spoken words. We are to speak the truth about Christ
out loud. There must be an element of verbal communication if we are going to represent
Christ. People need to know how great Christ is, and that can be shown through our
behavior, but the complete picture of Christ must have a verbal element as well.
Otherwise, people might see we’re different, but not know why.
I know I don’t have to convince you of the importance of this. You know that it’s
important. The question is whether or not we can find the courage to actually do it. I
guess my suggestion to all of us is not to seek courage necessarily, but rather fill
ourselves up so much with God’s word and a relationship with Him that we can’t hold it
in. This is the best kind of praise. When you love God so much you can’t keep it inside,
you have to tell people about it.
For those of you who have fallen in love, when you first fell in love with
someone, did you hold it in, or did you have to tell your friends all about it? For most
people, they can’t hold it in. And the same should be true for us in respect to Christ.
The next aspect of proclaiming Christ is living out loud. Speak out loud and live
out loud. Living out loud means that we live our lives in such a way that people see we
have clothed ourselves with Christ – our character, our thoughts, behaviors, values,
dreams, they all mirror or reflect the thoughts, behaviors, values and dreams of Christ.
So to help us do that, Peter lists four things that tell us how to live out loud: first,
[Mouse Click] we abstain from fleshly lusts. Verse 11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens
and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.”
We live out loud, or in such a way that our behavior speaks loudly, by looking
foreign to the world, like strangers to it, and we do that by not pursuing the things of the
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flesh, which according to Galatians 5 include things like immorality, sensuality, jealousy,
drunkenness, etc. You know… the things we would see if we watched “Desperate
Housewives.” This side of the Fall, our very natures seek out things that are bad for us.
Overeating, overdrinking, physical relationships outside of marriage, are designed to
please our flesh, but actually, as our passage tells us, wage war with our souls, or in other
words, work to harm that part of us that connects to God. If we pursue these things, we
demonstrate to the world that we are no different than they are and that there is no power
inside of us that has changed us.
The second way we live out loud is by living excellent lives. Verse 12, “Keep
your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you
as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in
the day of visitation.”
Living excellent lives means that we live above reproach. We live lives like
Daniel in the Old Testament. He had guys just looking for some sort of unethical
behavior that they could trip him up with, but they couldn’t find anything. He lived above
reproach. If someone would apply the same scrutiny to us that the press applies to
presidential candidates, would they come up empty in respect to anything shady in our
lives? Would they find receipts from the video store that you would be ashamed of?
Would they find that we’ve told lies to people, or that we have skated around taxes?
Which brings us to the third way we live out loud: we submit to government.
Verses 13-15, 13 “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution,
whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the
punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.
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15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of
foolish men.”
Submission to government means we obey its laws. If we follow the laws then,
like Daniel, we live in such a way that we can’t be accused of wrong doing.
Now there is a caveat here. We are to obey government up unless it commands us
to do something in contradiction to God’s word. If our government, for example, were to
forbid worshipping Christ, we would have to disobey it. But taxes, and the like, are not in
contradiction to God’s word… more’s the pity!
The point is simply, are we living our lives in such a way that people can’t point
at us and say: “See, your life is no different than anyone else’s. You do the same things as
people who aren’t Christians.”
And the last thing that we do to live out loud is to live as free people. Verses 1617, 16 “Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it
as bondslaves of God.
17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.”
We are being told here not to make ourselves slaves to government, or on the
other extreme use our freedom as an excuse to live any way we want. We are to obey
government, yes, but not enslave ourselves to it. Instead we are to become bondslaves of
God. Bondslaves are slaves who have been set free, but still serve their lord out of love.
That’s how we live out loud. Our service to God speaks loudly that we love Him and that
He is in our lives. When our neighbors see a group from the church raking our lawns
together, I guarantee that is out-loud living. That service to one another speaks volumes.
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Verse 17 is a summary statement that puts it all together: we live out loud by
honoring people, treating them with respect, loving other Christians, and fearing God,
which doesn’t mean being afraid of Him, but rather living a life that respects His
awesomeness and righteousness to the point that we obey Him.
Once again, the point of all this is simply that our behavior is a direct indicator of
the truth about our lives. The proof is in the pudding so to speak. If we say one thing, but
contradict it through our behavior, then logically people should question whether or not
what we say is really true.
What we believe determines how we behave…
And
How we behave reveals what we believe.
When people believed the world was flat, they didn’t sail too far west. If you
don’t sail very far west, even if you say the world is round, then do you really believe the
world is round?
If you tell people that your life has been changed by God, and yet you are doing
something like Peter brings up that is clearly immoral, then why should anyone believe
you’ve been changed? Your behavior reveals what you really believe.
If you tell people that God is the most important part of your life and the only way
to find contentment, and then they see you pursuing the things of the world to find
contentment, they why should they believe that God gives you contentment, or that He’s
real in your life?
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Now granted, no one is perfect, and even those who don’t know Christ yet
understand that, but the question is: do they see a change in you? Is there something
about you that is different from the world?
That’s Peter’s point. If we are to be a royal priesthood, if we are going to clothe
ourselves with Christ, if we are going to represent Christ through our characters, then we
have to speak the truth out loud and then we have to live the truth out loud.
Now by way of application, I want to challenge us to do something: make
ourselves accountable for the way we speak and live out loud. And this challenge has two
levels: personal accountability and corporate accountability. Personal accountability
means that you covenant privately with someone to hold you accountable for how you are
proclaiming Christ into the world and living in the world; and corporate accountability is
that you covenant publicly before the congregation to the same two things.
This morning, I would challenge all of us to do those two things. Find an
individual to hold you accountable, and then publicly let’s do something now visually in
front of the congregation to demonstrate that we are promising to speak and live out loud.
If you want to commit to doing this, here’s what I propose. Come up here and light a
candle as a symbol that this Christmas season you are going to invite someone to the
Christmas Program, or to a Christmas gathering, or to your own Christmas party, where
you will proclaim the excellencies of Christ. Our Christmas program will be on
Wednesday evening, Dec. 8th, which is our performance for families. This will be the
performance to bring your children to. And then on Friday and Saturday Dec. 10th and
11th these performances are designed purely as an outreach event. The idea is to provide
an opportunity for people to come to church who wouldn’t otherwise come. We will tell
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the story of Christmas in a unique way, beginning with the creation of the world and
ending with the baby in Mary’s arms. We want to encourage each of you to consider
inviting someone who doesn’t know Christ yet to these events. We will have a time of
music from our various choirs and carol singing, followed by desert and then the program
itself. And I assure you, the music and drama of the program is something you will want
people to see. We will have tickets available out in the lobby after today’s service. Please
only take the ones you will definitely use because space is going to be limited.
By lighting a candle you are asking the congregation to hold you accountable to
following through on your commitment to invite someone either to the Christmas
program or to one of the other things I suggested and share your faith with them. The
light symbolizes that we are going to be a light in our dark world. When you come to the
Christmas program, these very lights will be on the tables, and you will be able to smile
knowing that one of the candles on the tables represent the prayer and commitment you
made this morning.
Don’t light a candle, unless you truly want to do this.
Let’s close in prayer and while we sing, take a moment to pray about who you
will invite and when you’re ready come forward, if you wish, and light a candle and place
it on the boxes up here on the stage. Light the candles in the back first.