We have previously considered
(i)
1 Peter 1: 1-12, the FOUNDATION for holy living - our calling and election by God.
(ii) 1 Peter 1 :13-25, the MOTIVE for holy living - be holy because your God is holy
From 2 Peter 2:1-12 we will now consider THE PRIMARY CONTEXT in which we are called to be holy – the Christian community – the church. The key text here is 1 Peter 2:4,5.
When God calls His people out of this fallen, sinful world, He not only calls them to belong to Himself but He also calls them to belong to His body, called here ‘a spiritual house’ - the church. This pastoral letter, addressed to the exiles in the dispersion is written not to an individual, but to a community of God’s people in these territories mentioned here.
By way of extension, this letter is for the church in all ages.
Our primary thought now is the fact that God saves His people to belong to a spiritual house, in which they are called to serve as a holy priesthood, in the context of an unholy world.
In the history of the
Christian church there have been numerous attempts to form holy communities apart or separate
from an unholy world. These were known as monasteries. While the
idea of separation is central in the Bible, we find that God separates His
people for the purpose of sending them back into the world as born again
believers and as witnesses to the work
of God. Leonard Ravenhill says, “The greatest miracle that God can do today
is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him
back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”
That point is clearly made in the Great Commission which
Jesus has given to the church in Matthew
28:18-20. God calls and saves His
people out of the world, and then commissions them to go back into that world
to proclaim the gospel to men and women in the world, alienated from God by
virtue of the fall. The church is not a
monastery in which people retreat into holy huddles, waiting for the coming of
the Lord. No! God calls His holy people, to proclaim the gospel far and wide
because God loves this world! (Jn. 3:16). For this reason He gave His
Son, that ALL who would believe should not perish.
In practical terms God then calls you and me to proclaim the gospel
where we are, in season and out of season, using our abilities as best as we
know. Christians are called to do this in
the midst of a very messy, unholy and hostile world, such as the world of
Peter’s exiles in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia was.This world in which we live today, this global village now so open and accessible and reachable through so
many means, in this world we are called to be God’s faithful witnesses (Rev. 2:13). To this world God has given
the church a commission to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world [Matt 5:13-16]. This letter from Peter
is written to the community of saints living in unholy, worldly communities, “living”, as Paul writes to the
Philippians, “in the midst of a crooked
and twisted generation, among whom they must shine as lights in the world.”
[Phil. 2:14].
And now we shall consider the premium way in which the
church’s evangelistic impact may be seen
and felt in the world… which may surprise you!
LIVING AS GOD’S HOLY COMMUNITY
(1
Peter 1:15,16 ; 2:5,9)
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected
by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living
stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
1. The Importance Of Bearing Credible Christian Testimony: 2:1-3; 11-12
Peter reminds these churches that in the eyes of a watching
world they would need to bear a credible testimony. 2:11,12 makes that point clear: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the
passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct
among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as
evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of
visitation.”
Before Peter dwells on the glory and the holiness of the
church, he provides us with some reality therapy. Life in the local church can
be challenging! A profound poet once wrote,“
To live above with saints we love, oh Lord that will be glory. To live below
with saints we know, well that’s a different story!” You laugh … but unholy living in the
church is a severe hindrance to the credibility of the gospel witness to the
world. That is why Peter makes this
appeal in 2:1-3: “So put
away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like new born infants, long for the pure
spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have
tasted that the Lord is good.
No true Christian can remain the way they were once
they have been born again through
the living and abiding Word of God [1:23].
Our Salvation includes our sanctification. Sanctification is an inevitable
accompaniment of our salvation, just as fruit are the proof of a healthy tree.
Jesus reminds us that a healthy tree
cannot bear bad fruit [Matt. 7:18].
Here are some things that make churches, called to bear fruit for the glory of
God diseased: malice, deceit, hypocrisy,
envy, slander. These things are not only church killers; they kill the
effective witness of the church! So we
find here that the apostle Peter with his God given wisdom firstly deals
with some fundamental
spiritual diseases which rear
their head in the church as
she lives in an unholy world (2:1), followed by a
prescription which will ensure the steady progress, growth and health of the
church in 2:2.
Note then in 2:1 that God’s holy people should put away (apothesthai –strip off) all malice (kakia – evil) and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. What a perennial source of trouble these destructive attitudes are, and how they hurt the testimony of the church. These spiritual diseases tend to invade the church from time to time, and they come from within the church, and they are linked to the passions of our former ignorance (1:14) and from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers (i.e. our culture!) (1:18). This needs a remedy!
2:2 The remedy is that we are to put off these things, and instead we are to long for pure spiritual milk, which helps us to grow up into salvation. The antidote to is to grow up, as we feed on that holy means of grace - the feeding upon spiritual milk – the Word of God. Incidentally,Martin Luther said that three things were formative disciplines in a Christian person’s life: Prayer (ORATIO), Meditation (MEDITATIO)– the feeding on God’s Word, and Trials (TENTATIO), and they are all found here in Peter’s letter. Peter exhorts us here,"feed on that spiritual milk, that you may grow up into salvation, and to grow out of the passions of your former ignorance." He finishes this thought with an allusion to Psalm 34:8. You are obliged to do this, he writes, "if you have tasted that the Lord is good.”(2:3). The fact that God has been so very good to you is a great motivator for us to live good. Our primary responsibility in having received such great grace is that we must make it work in terms of a positive testimony to the watching world. With these important observations behind us we now can give attention to our key text.
THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH
IN AN UNHOLY WORLD (1 Peter 2:4-12)
2:4,5 As
you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen
and precious, you yourselves like living
stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The Church in which we are called to live out our holy lives is built on the Living Stone, the Cornerstone who is Christ. 2:6[1] is a quotation from Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22. Jesus applies this to Himself, and so does Peter. Please take note that a holy Church is not built upon tradition, or a denominational label or a certain culture, but she is built upon Christ. Christ is her identity. Isn’t it strange that so many Christian churches are known for their many distinctives and activities, but so few are known by their Christ-likeness. Christ is identified with His church as a living stone (2:4), and a cornerstone (2:6) that vital bit of masonry that holds everything together. He is rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious (2:4). Though the world does not own Christ, He is owned by the church. The church derives her identity from this Living stone. But the church is not only a spiritual building. Something happens in that spiritual building! The Christian church is constituted as a holy priesthood (2:5b) to offer spiritual (holy) sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
That statement must have rocked the Jewish establishment.
The role
of a priest[2] in the OT was limited to an appointed order - the Levitical priesthood.
No unauthorised person would have ever dared
to interfere in their holy duties i.e. to facilitate between God and man
in prayer and in the bringing of sacrifices for the purpose of making
atonement.
This old system is abolished by Christ our High-priest, who
as Offeror and Offering has become the perfect sacrifice for sin. He
has brought us near to God once and for all. Everyone that believes
in Christ can now approach God, and in that sense every true
Christian is inducted into the priesthood “to
offer spiritual (holy) sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ.” In fact, everything
that the Christian does is an offering to God.
Your entire life is an act of holy worship. "Present your bodies," said Paul, "as a living sacrifice to God" (Rom. 12:1). And the church engages in holy worship, and so,
when outsiders come into her midst, they
see this beautiful picture of a holy, worshipping congregation, they declare, “God is really among you.” (1 Cor. 14:25). United, holy worship, is one of the most powerful (and often most neglected) tools of witness of the church. We need to work at being a holy community. God has called us to be holy, and He has enabled us to be holy.
In 1 Peter 2:9 we
read of the things to which the Christian is a witness: “…that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvellous light. Once you
were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received
mercy, but now you have received mercy. The world must hear this. The gentiles must
hear this. Their foolish slander must be
silenced when they see this church proclaiming and living out the gospel of
Christ. That is our PRIME witness! A holy church in an unholy world is God’s
primary evangelistic method. No
amount of thoughtless and prayerless evangelistic schemes and plans and activities will bring people into the kingdom of God. It cannot, Every other evangelistic activity flows from that.
So the call then is to live such holy lives in this unholy world, with the help of the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, that this unholy world can do nothing but glorify God. This is also what Jesus said:
"Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good
works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
Here then is our challenge. It is by the holiness of our
daily life and conduct as a believing community, and as individuals in that
community that we make attractive the Lord Jesus Christ to those who do not
believe. Amen!
[1] See also Matthew
21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17 ; see also
Isaiah 8:13-14
[2] the Latin word for priest is pontifex, which means
bridge-builder; the priest is the man who builds a bridge for others to come to
God; and the Christian has the duty and the privilege of bringing others to
that Saviour whom he himself has found and loves.( William Barclay)
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