Live Such Holy Lives

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.

1 Peter 2:12

Do you meet that standard? Do you live such a good life that even though people want to slander and attack your faith, they can’t find anything bad to say about you? Do you live such a good life that even those people who do falsely accuse you, over time have to admit that they were wrong?

Let me put it a different way. Do you live your life in such a way that your testimony about Jesus is believable? You see, how you live your life often determines whether or not people are willing to listen to what you have to say at all.

There are few things in life more frustrating than having to listen to someone who is just as clueless as you are explain to you what you ought to be doing. Have you ever had that experience? Someone who doesn’t know a lick about cars trying to tell you what they think is wrong with your car. Or someone who doesn’t know a lick about farming trying to tell you how to run your farm. Or someone who has never had a kid trying to tell you how to raise yours. Have you experienced that? No one likes that.

In the same way, people don’t want to listen to somebody tell them about God unless they’re first convinced that you know what you are talking about. And the way you convince them of that is by living such a good, holy, hope-filled life day after day after day that when the time comes, they want your opinion.

I hate to say it, but I think there are many believers who could go share Jesus with a friend right now, and it wouldn’t much matter... because those friends have seen how they live. They’ve seen that these Christians don’t live holy or hope-filled lives. Why would they listen to someone who claims to have the answer, but lives the same way they do? Nine times out of ten… they won’t. Very often, living a holy life when you think no one is watching, is the unseen but necessary preparation to being able to share the gospel effectively and reach people for Jesus.

So, let me encourage you to live in such a way that people are inclined to believe you when you share the gospel with them. Adorn the gospel with your life! That is what we are called to do, to live such holy lives that they give us opportunities to share the gospel and that they render what we share believable. Do that!

What if We Believed?

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous

and his ears are attentive to their prayer,

but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (I Peter 3:12)

What if we really believed this was true? How different would our lives be?

If we really believed that God's eye was watchful over the righteous person to prosper and protect them, then we would strive all the harder to make ourselves righteous. The fact that salvation is based on grace does not mean that wickedness and righteousness amount to nothing any more. It does not mean that our righteous and holy God suddenly stopped caring about just judgment and righteous rewards. No! Grace should drive us toward righteous living, not away from it. Grace sets us free to obey God. It doesn't give us a license to sin (Romans 6:15). But so many treat it that way. Righteousness still matters, believer! It still counts for something! As the psalmist says, "The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all (Psalm 34:19)."

If we really believed that God's ear is tuned to listen attentively to the prayer of the righteous person how would it change the way we live? How would it change the way we pray and who we ask to pray for us? This verse states that God is more apt to hear and answer the prayers of the righteous person. Has God been ignoring your prayers, believer? Perhaps there is a reason. If you will not listen to God and heed His instruction by obeying His commands, then tell me why the Almighty should bend His ear to listen to you and heed your requests? That isn't likely to happen, but as James says "the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:16). 

And if we really believed that the Lord sets His face against those who do evil to punish and oppose them, then we would all shutter at the thought of willfully disobeying Him. We would finally know why Scripture calls blessed those men who "do not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers" (Psalm 1:1). We would know why the psalmist set his heart to delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2). And perhaps we would for the first time begin to see how important the instruction of God's Word is. For it is a lamp to our feet and a light to guide us down the paths that lead to eternal life (Psalm 119:105). If you turn aside from it into wickedness, "you can be sure that your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23).

So read this verse one more time, and this time...believe it!

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous

and his ears are attentive to their prayer,

but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (I Peter 3:12)

Slave of God

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.

1 Peter 2:16

Many translations of Scripture wrongly translate the word at the end of I Peter 2:16 as servant. We are familiar with the concept that we are God's servants, aren't we? In church we have heard quite a lot about being a servant of God. But the word "slave" hits us differently, doesn't it? The idea that we are slaves of God feels stronger to us and it is. 

A slave belongs to the person who owns them. They are his property. Just a few verses earlier I Peter 2:9 describes us this way: "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession..." Every believer belongs to God. We are His possession. We were redeemed from (or bought out of) slavery to sin. The purchase price was the precious blood of the Lamb (see I Peter 1:18-19). And having been purchased we now belong to God. We have gone from being slaves to sin to being slaves of God. 

This should be obvious enough to us in Scripture, but it is often missed. If you need further evidence of this truth just think of how often Scripture reminds us that Jesus is Lord for the believer. In fact, confessing Jesus as Lord is required for salvation. Romans 10:9, says "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in you heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." If Jesus is Lord, then that makes the believer His servant, or more precisely...His slave. 

Are you "living as God's slave?" That's what I Peter 2:19 commands you to do. Are you directing your own life, living to fulfill your dreams and accomplish your goals, or do you think of yourself as God's slave who is free only to obey your Master and live to please Him? That may sound harsh and out of step with your concept of God, but I assure you that your greatest good and your deepest joy will be found not in living for yourself but in living to please your Lord. So surrender your life fully to God and seek to live in His will. Don't consider His commands to be optional for you and don't consider yourself free to do anything but obey Him. Live as God's slave.

Sojourners

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.

I Peter 1:17

If you call on God as your Father, (that is if you are a Christian, then be reminded that He will one day come to judge men. His judgment will be fair and impartial and based on your deeds. Therefore, you should live your life on earth in the way that a stranger, an alien, a foreigner, or an immigrant might live temporarily in a foreign land.

The idea presented here is the opposite of the melting pot idea that America was built on. It's the idea of an alien who does NOT take on the customs and behavior of the country in which he now lives but continues to live like he is from a different culture and country. He knows all too well that he is only sojourning in this strange land and that he will soon return to his home country, so he lives as a representative of his home country in this foreign place. He is an oddity and a constant source of bewilderment for the people of the land where he now lives. But if he were to change to fit in with the people of this foreign land for the short time he is here, then he would spend a much longer time being an oddity and a bewilderment to the people of his home country when he returns. And that would be truly sad for a person to return to their home country and to be so changed that they end up living as a foreigner in the place where they should be most at home. 

So this passage warns you to have a reverent fear of the coming Judge and His judgment. Fear Him and avoid taking on the customs, behaviors and attitudes of this world. Live as a citizen of Heaven. If you fail at this, then you should expect to be judged when the day comes.

This means, among other things, that the believer should live a self-controlled and holy life. The way you talk should be different from non-Christians. The way you spend your money should be different. You should read different books and watch different TV shows and listen to different music. You should have a different attitude and way of treating people. You should even eat and drink differently (i.e. in a more self-controlled way). Every minor detail about how you live your life ought to be in line with the gospel and focused on Heaven. Perhaps verse fifteen puts it best. "Just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do..." 

So be holy friends. Be like Jesus. Be strange. Be weird. Be odd. Confuse people and make them ask questions about why you are so different. And whatever you do, do NOT live like everyone else! You don't want to get to heaven and be unrecognizable as a Christian because you became so much a worldling.

The Sword vs. Prayer

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

Acts 12:1-5

This is a dangerous time for the church. The last time Rome aligned itself with the Jewish religious leaders against the church it ended with Jesus' crucifixion. That was 11 years ago and around this same time of year. Once again the great superpower is pandering to the desires of its political base in Jerusalem. Herod Agrippa I has already beheaded James. Now Peter sits in prison awaiting a certain execution. It was against Jewish law for anyone to be tried or executed during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. If it wasn't for that, Peter would almost certainly already be dead. And once Herod has dispensed with Peter, what is to stop him from killing off the rest of the apostles too? What can the little community of believers do against the armed might of Rome?

The church finds itself facing a big problem. What will they do? Where will they turn?

First, let's look at what the church didn't do. They didn’t attack Herod. They didn't raise up arms to try to overthrow Rome. They didn’t start a petition or go to Herod and beg. They didn’t take up a collection to start a Peter Defense Fund or to try to bribe Herod with. As far as we know the church took only one action... 

The church prayed.

They prayed! They realized that only God could save. and they turned to Him, and Him alone, for help. This passage pits the power of the world against the power of God. Rome vs. the church, the sword vs. prayer. In verses 6-11 we find out that prayer prevailed and the power of God carried the day as an angel rescued Peter from prison. 

Make no mistake, the same war that was being fought in this passage is being fought in your life day-by-day. You aren’t fighting against Rome or the sword. You are fighting against someone else. The Bible tells us that you have a supernatural enemy, an accuser, a deceiver, named the Devil. According to Peter, this enemy is out to devour you (I Peter 5:8). He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He is watching and waiting for you to slip up, to stumble, so he can attack. That means that as long as we live in this world, we will be under attack. 

If you aren’t facing some type of crisis today, then you will be tomorrow or next week or next month. If we call ourselves Christians then we must be certain that we know how to respond to these attacks. Our first response must always be to go to God in prayer. We must be firm in our conviction that God alone controls our fate. He alone can save us. So let me ask you, are you praying? Are you lifting up your situation to the Lord and asking for His help? If not...you really should be. 

Atonement

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

I Peter 2:22-25

To be honest, I don't fully understand the weight of my sin. My generation makes "atonement" for our wrongs by saying "Sorry" or maybe "Please forgive me if I hurt you." We don't really comprehend the cost of our individual sins or the connection between those sins and death. For God's people who lived under the Old Testament sacrificial system the cost of sin was very personal. Today we often discuss this Old Testament practice with confused looks on our faces, even sometimes putting it down, but it really was a brilliant way for God to teach His people about sin and atonement. 

When an Old Testament Israelite sinned he couldn't just throw a half-hearted "sorry" out to God. He went out into his field and found a young animal without defect or blemish, and he took it to the temple. There he symbolically laid his hand on the animals head most likely as a sign of the transfer of his sin to the animal. Then he killed the animal with his own hands before it was burnt as an offering to the Lord to make atonement for his sin. Imagine how real the cost of sin was to him in that moment. He had looked the animal in the eye, laid his hand on its head, and killed the animal- probably by slitting its throat- with his own hand. All of this was a God-given object lesson in the seriousness of his sin. Praise God for patiently teaching His people!

I'm not saying I want to go back to this system of atonement. The truth is that the blood of animals can't atone for sin anyway. (Hebrews 10:4) The whole system was a sign, pointing out the penalty for sin and pointing forward to Christ who is the true "lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world." (John 1:29) What we have in Christ far exceeds what they had. Yet because we did not see Christ's death, it is all too easy for us to look at our sin cheaply. We are tempted to view Christ's sacrifice on the cross as universal at the expense of it being personal. In fact, it was both. Christ wasn't only the lamb who came to take away the sin of the world, but He was also the one who "bore our sins in his body on the tree." (I Peter 2:24) He bore your sin. He bore MY sin on that tree. The fact that Christ, though perfect, died to make atonement for our sins is a concept theologians call substitutionary or vicarious atonement. In other words, He took your place. He paid your penalty. His blood was applied to the dust of this earth. The very dust from which man was made, to which we will return and that also bears with us the marks of our sin from the Fall. (Romans 8:19-23)

This all has very practical import for how we live now. We dare not look at God's forgiveness as being cheaply attained. We dare not take our sin so lightly as to throw half-hearted apologies at God in our nightly prayers. Rather, we should repent of our sin with tears and mourning knowing the true cost of our atonement. That is not to say that we should fear somehow failing to atone for our own sins. We know that Christ alone has purchased our forgiveness, so we repent with confidence that we are forgiven by the blood of Christ. But knowing how precious that blood is ought to drive us to repentance that includes truly hating our sin. 

One thing more.  In a spiritual sense (but a very real sense nonetheless) because Christ died as our representative, you and I died to sin on that tree. Therefore, as I Peter 2:24 says we ought to truly die to sin and live for righteousness. Romans 6:1-14 says in part:

"How can we who died to sin still live in it?... We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin....So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."