When Holiness Becomes Obvious (1 Peter 2:11-12)

Holiness is not a personality type, and it is not a private hobby for the overly serious. Peter calls it warfare. When 1 Peter warns Christians to abstain from fleshly lusts, it is admitting something we all feel but rarely say out loud: the battle is not only “out there,” it is inside us, and it does not take days off. 

We walk through 1 Peter 2:11–12 with a simple framework you can actually remember. First, holiness starts with who you are: God’s beloved, yet also an alien and stranger here, posted as an ambassador. That identity keeps you from trying to earn love through performance, and it keeps you from hiding in a safe bubble that avoids unbelievers. 

Second, we get painfully practical about what you avoid. Abstaining is ongoing, and Peter describes the flesh as running a strategic campaign against your soul. We talk about “guarding the gates” of your senses, what it looks like to stop handing your eyes and ears to temptation, and why “lightening up” is the wrong move when Scripture says wake up. 

Third, holiness becomes visible. Excellent behavior and good deeds are not about polishing a reputation, they are about building a bridge so someone can finally ask why you live the way you do. If you care about Christian living, spiritual warfare, sanctification, and everyday evangelism that feels natural, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you want to live out this week.

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Transcript

Series Wrap And The Call

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He talks about putting away malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, sensuality, lust, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, abominable idolatries, and don't miss the fact as I rattle that list of huffies writing to Christians. Maybe you're thinking, why in the world would Peter ever have to warn Christians to abstain from any of that kind of old way of living? Beloved, has it ever occurred to you holy living is nothing less than a declaration of war. Today we complete our series of studies in 1 Peter chapter 2, which we have entitled In Pursuit of Holiness, and we purposefully use that language in pursuit simply because no Christian ever arrives. No Christian masters holiness. No Christian can claim perfection. But that isn't to suggest a free pass either, by the way. The genuine Christian longs to grow and advance in holiness. Part of the challenge or the problem is the fact that there are so many different definitions of holiness out there. What does it mean to be holy? What does it look like? What do you do? What do you not do? I can tell you I'm living today entirely differently from the perspective that I had when I was a teenager and a younger adult, and in fact have abandoned the world of the perspective that I had been given. But what does it mean? Is it a set of rules? Is it boxes to check off? And if you check them off well enough, then well you're you're doing better than others. What does it mean? I was I was sent this by a few people over the years. A humorous story has been out there for a while, but I thought it illustrated it well. One pastor tried to get this across to his congregation and this particular list of sins, and it backfired. He was personally convinced it was a sin to drink and eat anything made out of chocolate. I'd never gone to his church, I can tell you that right now, just for that last one. But he decided that to give a visual demonstration that would kind of add, you know, that punch, that emphasis to his Sunday sermon and teach his congregation a lesson they'd never forget. So as he began his sermon, he placed four worms into four separate jars. The first worm was put into a jar of alcohol, the second worm was put into a jar filled with cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a jar of chocolate syrup. And the fourth worm was put into a jar filled with rich, clean soil. Then the preacher, you know, axed eloquent and he preached away at these vices. And at the conclusion of his sermon, with you know quite a dramatic flourish, he showed the congregation by placing those jars back up on the pulpit, the dramatic results. The worm in the alcohol, dead. The worm in the cigarette smoke, dead. The worm in chocolate syrup, dead. As an aside, I'm sure it was smiling. The fourth worm in the good clean soil, alive. So the minister asked his congregation, what have you learned from this demonstration? A little old woman in the back raised her hand quickly and said, as long as you drink, smoke, and eat plenty of chocolate, you'll never have worms. I think she got the point pretty well, don't you? But when you ransack the scriptures to find traces and evidences, clues, explicit statements about holiness, you discover it really isn't a list of boxes you check off. You can check off those three boxes and have a wicked heart. You discover that holy living is as much about saying yes as it is to say no. So if you'll open your Bibles back to 1 Peter and chapter 2, I want to dive in today at the point of how he effectively defines holiness. This has been his theme. It serves sort of as a bookend in this discussion. And what he's going to do is give us what I'll just sort of describe as three elements. Let me give you the first one and then we'll dive in. The first element in holy living relates to who you are. Relates to who you are. In fact, you skip this, and you will head down a joyless path of despair and performance. I want you to notice how he begins at verse 11, where we pick up our study. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 11. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts. Let's stop there for a moment. Peter's going to describe you and me three different ways. And I want you to notice, in fact, circle perhaps these terms, but the first one is beloved. This is who they are to God. Beloved. Now, if you were with us in our last study, Peter described the church with these wonderful terms taken from the nation of Israel, applied to the church. You also are this holy nation. You're this chosen race. You're this royal priesthood. You are this people of God's peculiar treasures. He wants to display you. And then he goes on to tell them, you once weren't a people, but now you are. You weren't under mercy, and now you are. You are this chosen decision, this faithful, covenanted people. You're not a whim, you're not a fancy, he isn't fickle, this isn't puppy love. This is a commitment forever. You're his beloved. Beloved is this honorable title for everyone who belongs to Jesus Christ. Now listen, Peter rightly starts here because it happens to be the foundational principle, and beyond that, the incentive and the joy that causes us to want to respond with holy living. We are his beloved. We don't pursue holiness because God hates us. We don't pursue holiness, so God will love us. We don't pursue holiness because he's going to really like us if we do a good job this week. We better pursue holiness because he's got a club ready and we miss it. Whack. We pursue a life of holiness from the perspective of wonder and amazement and joy that God would say of us, you are my beloved. So start there. Peter is urging us also, he's encouraging those he additionally calls other terms, notice aliens and strangers. That's also who we are. Don't forget that too. In fact, another incentive then in holy living is to remember the meaning of those words. They appeared before, we'll review them in a moment, but it's a reminder you you don't belong here. As you pursue holy living, you're really pursuing the kind of life to which you belong. You don't belong to earth. You don't belong here. In fact, the word alien, literally wouldn't be translated, means alongside the house. In other words, this isn't really your house. It refers to people living in a place that isn't their home, true home of origin. We refer to them today as resident aliens. A lot of discussion going on about those people, right? And there are many here today like that. Maybe you're here, you know, you got a work visa, you're over here to get your PhD from NC State or Duke. If you couldn't get into NC State, but you're here to study, and once you finish that degree, you gotta stay with me. Yeah, you gotta be quicker. You're gonna leave. Uh it's a long-term stay, but you really belong to another country. In the meantime, you're an alien, you're a resident alien, you're a long-term visitor. Now, the other word he uses here, you'll notice in your text, is the word stranger. It's a similar word, just a little different nuance. It refers to someone who is staying briefly. They've come over from another country and they're just gonna stay ever so briefly. Maybe you've done that, you've done a missions trip, or you've traveled. And you go to this country and you're not gonna be there long. In fact, you're not going to adapt to anything. You're not gonna try to adapt, you know, your digestive system to that food. In fact, you're probably gonna avoid it. As I do when I travel, I just eat a lot of rice. Maybe a little butter, a lot of rice, please. You're you're not gonna get acclimated to even a schedule. You know your body's not gonna catch up to that six-hour difference, that nine-hour, maybe even a twelve-hour difference. And and you're not gonna adapt to the clothing fashion. You know, you stick out, you don't dress like anybody around you, and that's okay. You're there only briefly. You're a visitor. Stranger is the word that represents that. Peter says, This is who you are. Now, that doesn't mean you don't care about the neighborhood. That doesn't mean you don't care about the culture. It doesn't mean that that uh you you really aren't interested in in doing anything with those around you. No, there's another aspect of this in other passages. Obviously, one of them we've talked about in this study is that you're an ambassador. You have been assigned to this post, this embassy post, where you represent in your world the interests and the character and the nature and the message of the king of your country. You miss that balance, and you miss the assignment. Some people say, Well, I was just gonna forget the world and I'm just gonna be isolated and I don't care. And then others get too weighed down. There's a balance here. In fact, I think we struggle more with isolation than anything else. I I like the way one author put it, who said the Christians need to resist becoming what they termed rabbit hole Christians. Describe them as in the morning they pop out of their safe Christian homes, hold their breath, stay out of sight as much as possible at school or work, scurry home to their families, and then head off to church activities and Bible studies, and finally end the day praying for the unbelievers they've safely avoided all day. Just because we are temporary doesn't mean we are to be isolated. We're salt. That means we get sprinkled out into the community. So Peter's describing a balance here in this holy pursuit. We don't avoid the world, we don't run from the world, we don't hide from the world, we engage the world. We allow Jesus Christ and as his ambassadors to transform the world through the gospel we deliver to the people in our world. So, if I can be real practical here, who are you telling? Who are you inviting out to coffee? What about that classmate of yours that never seems to have any friends? So invite him out afterward for coffee. A couple crispy cream donuts. See, that's the initiative. You're actually on assignment. You've been appointed by God to peddle that one. This is who you are. I like the words of one author who said, Who is it that God has brought into the traffic pattern of your life? There's a reason for that. So the incentive to pursue a holy life includes an awareness that we are temporary residents. We're briefly passing through, but we are on assignment. And underneath, under girding, whatever we do is this incredible thought that we are his beloved. Secondly. Not only is there the foundational element of holy living, which is who we are, the second element has to do with what we avoid. Verse 11, again, beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts. Now we don't really need a lot of commentary on that one, do we? Abstain from fleshly lusts. The verb abstain means to hold oneself back. It has to do with, again, another balancing act between dependence on the Holy Spirit and doing due diligence. Withholding yourself from stuff that pulls you into the undertow that will sweep you back into the old way of living. It implies an idea of tension of something difficult. In fact, the tense indicates that it's ongoing. It's not going to let up. In fact, maybe you've come to faith just long enough to realize that rather discouraging truth, that Christianity isn't going to get easier. In fact, you've discovered if you're old enough in the faith that Christianity is impossible. In practical terms, to live a holy life as believers includes both total dependence, and then you have a text like this that says, by the way, what are you withholding in your life? What is it that you're saying no to? What would you say no to last week? You're going to have to say no again. From what are you abstaining? Let me apply it even more directly. This isn't a comprehensive list, but I'm going to prop my feet up and it's sort of okay. There are some books and magazines that you ought to be saying no to. There are some television programs and movies that you should be saying no to. There are some video games you shouldn't play. You just ought to be saying no to. There are some places that you shouldn't go. There are some relationships you should be discouraging instead of encouraging. There are some sites that you shouldn't see. There are some things you're using with your time that might not be bad stuff. It's just a waste of time. See, in other words, pursuing holiness will always involve the ongoing activity of restraint. So if I can say it this way, holiness involves the art of saying no. Now, on a broader scale, Peter has already described some of that former way of living. Up at verse 1, we looked at in previous studies. He talks about putting away malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. Over in chapter four, he talks about these believers not going back into that which they once pursued. He describes them as sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, abominable idolatries, and don't miss the fact as I rattle that list off, he's writing to Christians. He's writing to Christians. Maybe you're thinking, why in the world would Peter ever have to warn Christians to abstain from any of that kind of old way of living? I think John MacArthur in this excellent answer on this text wrote it this way, and I want to quote him. He said this: Even though regeneration produces a new disposition with holy longing, that new life force remains incarcerated within us, precipitating an ongoing battle between the spirit and the flesh. Well put. Beloved, has it ever occurred to you then that holy living is nothing less than a declaration of war? It's war. Really? Have you ever had anybody tell you, you know, that's the kind of language where you really gotta lighten up. You're taking it way too seriously. War? Come on. Well, that's how Peter described it. Look again in verse 11, the middle part. Abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage what? War against your soul. That immaterial, spiritual part of you that reflects your mind, your character, your will, your passions, your emotions. The real you behind that face you wore in here today. The real you. Your flesh is at war with your soul. Imagine, get this. What that means is you are at war with you. The lusts of the flesh are at war with your soul. One Puritan put it this way: the lusts of your flesh are not only trying to injure your body, they're trying to pervert your desire, enslave your will, darken your understanding, and deepen within you a spirit of disobedience against God. That is the battle for the believer. And imagine, as far as Peter is concerned, here then, your greatest enemy to holy living just so happens to be you. Your flesh is constantly battling against your soul. You face a temptation and you decide, I'm gonna resist that, and your flesh says, Are you crazy? You don't want to resist that temptation. That temptation might go away. The battle is taking place inside you. I had the privilege of growing up under a biblically oriented father who would say it this way to us, four boys. He probably said it a thousand times and we we got it, and it comes back to mind when I read a text like this, where he would say, Boys, the last person you need to trust is yourself. You're the problem. I love the way D.L. Moody put it. This evangelist pastor from the 1800s, he said it this way in one of his meetings. I have more trouble with D.L. Moody than with any other man I know. Now, the word Peter uses here for war is interesting. I think it's worth noting because it sort of characterizes for us the battle. It carries the idea not so much in the first century of hand-to-hand combat, but of a first century military campaign. A strategic overarching campaign. In other words, your flesh represents a master military campaign. It is determined to fight you and to check you and to counter you every step of the way lest you gain ground in holy living. And it also means then that your Christian experience with any one particular issue is not one battle, and we've taken care of that one. It is an ongoing master campaign that you engage in every single day. It's constant warfare. And it's not going to end, by the way, until you see Jesus when you can safely hang up the armor he's told you to wear every single day. I like what another Puritan wrote in the 17th century. Little paragraph, it's hard to follow because of that old English, and I've edited just a little bit to make it a little more understandable. So follow this. He wrote: to keep a holy government that is control over thy thoughts, to have all things lie straight and orderly in the heart is constant work. The keeping of the heart is a work that is never done until life is ended. There is, listen to this, there is no time in the life of a Christian which will allow an intermission in this work. In fact, the verb tenses used by Peter Add to this truth and the ongoing drama of the warfare. You could translate it, continually abstain from fleshly lusts. They are continually waging war against your soul.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Wow.

Guarding The Gates Of Senses

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John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, who wrote a lesser-known book called The Holy War, from texts like these, I've referenced it before, it's worth repeating. He was attempting to illustrate what Peter is encouraging and urging us onward to understand. Not to lighten up, but to wake up to this truth. And in his book, he personifies the soul. In fact, he calls it man's soul with a capital M, Mansoul. And he typifies the city of mansoul as having five gates. And those five gates are the five senses: ear gate, eye gate, nose gate, field gate, and mouth gate. And Bunyan wrote that the enemy of mansoul, whose name is Sin, he personifies sin, will come on a daily basis to attack mansoul at one of those five gates, sometimes all five. Some days he writes, sin will whisper through the ear gate some alluring message. Other days, sin will paint some alluring portrait to the eye gate. It's interesting to note in his book, Mansoul, that man's soul could never be damaged or defeated by outside attacks. The only way sin could gain a victory is if one of the five senses opened their gate.

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How true.

Element Three Excellent Public Conduct

Good Deeds That Invite Questions

Make Holiness Obvious And Close

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Paul wrote to the issue when he wrote to the Roman believers in Romans 6.13, stop presenting the members of your body to sin. And he uses a military term for that, that's used in his day for the transfer of arms, the transfer of weapons. He's effectively saying, don't give your weapons to your enemy. Stop handing them over to him. Which is another way of saying, stop opening the gate. Keep it bolted and tightly shut. Otherwise, you will be defeating yourself. Any man who will battle in that pursuit of holiness in pure thoughts, but watches some movie or some television show which depicts, and just about all of it does now, some kind of sexual content, is effectively handing his eyes over to the enemy and saying, you know, I really want to grow in my Christian life. But here I'm going to give you these for about two hours. They're yours. A woman who might listen in her commute or at her desk or in the hum to the music of our world that just, with its suggestive, selfish, sensual lyrics, you know, you just effectively find her in this analogy handing her ears over to the enemy as if to say, ironically, I want to grow in holiness, but I'm going to give you these ears for about four hours. They're yours. And then we wonder why our progress is so halted. See, Peter doesn't make it really all that complicated. It happens to be a war. And for the Christian, it is never a matter of lightening up. It is waking up. It is guarding the gate. And Peter is saying, I am urging you. I am urging you. I'm calling out to you. As the beloved of God who don't belong to this earth, watch out. It is more than just temptation. It is war against your soul. And there's no intermission. So the pursuit of holiness begins with who you are. It includes what you avoid. But then he turns it around positively. The pursuit of holiness thirdly involves how you act. In other words, holy living isn't just about saying no, it's about saying yes. Notice 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. Now let me very quickly address the idea of this day of visitation, and then I want to focus on what I want to focus on as we kind of head into the last lap. The day of visitation sounds prophetic, doesn't it? Well, I have some problems with that. First of all, this expression never appears in any prophetic Old or New Testament text. So that gives me pause. But more importantly, it doesn't fit with the result of what we see happening here. Peter is saying that as a result of unbelievers seeing your behavior and your good deeds, they're going to glorify God. That word, glorify is doxado. It gives us our word doxology. It's used more than 60 times in the New Testament, and it never once refers to unbelievers being forced to give God glory. In fact, it isn't for unbelievers. Glorifying God is always voluntary praise coming from the believer. So Peter is implying they've become believers. He's referring to people then in your world and mine who are coming to faith in Christ through the gospel they see demonstrated in your behavior and in your good deeds. This visitation, then, is the movement of God toward them in grace. I like the expression, very unique. But I'm so glad that God visited me in his grace. And he did the same for you who believe. But what did God use? This is where we want to go. What did God use to gain their attention in the first place? What was it? Well, two things. First, notice at the beginning of verse 12. Keep your behavior excellent. So that's the first. Excellent behavior. That's just the first thing they can't get away from. And the word for behavior, by the way, just has to do with your daily conduct. It isn't something special, you know, you put on for an hour or two. It is who you are daily. It isn't so much how you show up on Sunday. In fact, the world doesn't even care you're here. They're not giving you good marks because you're here today. It has to do with how you show up on Monday. That's when they get interested. And the word for excellent, Peter uses, is a rich, it's a varied word. In fact, I came across at least six different ways to translate this word to understand what it means. A little different nuances in each occasion. We're not exactly sure where he's going, but I think it could mean all of them. Words like beautiful or attractive, winsome, gracious, polite, fine, noble. Listen, the world doesn't have an answer to somebody whose attitude and behavior can only be described when they show up in the classroom or the boardroom or the lunchroom as noble, gracious, polite, fine, beautiful. They don't have an answer to that. And you're thinking, well, wait a second, seriously, isn't this asking a lot? It is. And maybe we think that as an indication of why perhaps there aren't very many people in our culture today who are glorifying God after having watched a few Christians in the classroom, boardroom, or lunchroom. And you are being watched. Did you notice? As they observe, the unbeliever is watching you. In fact, the term Peter uses for observing refers to a personal scrutiny, that of an eyewitness. You might not even think about it. And they may not consciously think, I'm going to watch, you know, Cindy, Susie, Johnny, whatever, you know, when you show up. But they just are. In fact, one Greek scholar noted that the present tense of the participle means that this is a reference to an intense and prolonged scrutiny. Even though what happens, by the way, if you'll notice, doesn't seem to help. They're slandering you as unbelievers. In fact, their response isn't coming up to you afterwards and saying, man, you're amazing. In fact, I'm going to promote you. I'm going to put you over all the other people, and you're going to get the promotion. And no, they're slandering. Doesn't sound like we're making much headway here. They're slandering you, and we have discussed in past studies what that slander included, violation of breaking the law, even to cannibalism. Just the strange, slanderous gossip that was going around the community. That was what was happening. But behind it all, Peter's saying they don't have an answer to this as they're watching you. They're scrutinizing you. Secondly, notice good works, they're also scrutinized. That's part of the scrutiny, that they may, because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. That is, the day he visits them with his grace, opening their eyes to believe. So follow this closely. Peter isn't just interested then here in Christians making progress in holiness. No, no, he isn't just interested in us developing a good reputation. He is interested in a gospel reformation. He's interested in impact. He wants to see the church reaching people with the gospel. And it isn't going to happen unless we walk in a way that brings glory to God. Why would we ever expect an unbeliever to say, I want to glorify the God you're glorifying when they don't really see us wanting to glorify? It's the implication here. And it's staggering. If we don't care, why should they? See, he doesn't want us to pursue holiness just to pursue holiness. He wants us to make holiness obvious. Make holiness obvious. How? Excellent behavior, good deeds. Paul wrote the same way to the Ephesians, for we are his workmanship. We have been crafted, composed in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2.10. So take it outdoors. Take it out there. Paul commands again through Pastor Titus serving on the island of Crete. Show yourself in all respects to be a model, to be an example of good deeds. Titus 2.7. Don't hide it. That's what marks you to your world. It isn't how many times you went to church the previous week. It isn't how many times you checked off whatever boxes you think you ought to check off. What are you doing when you show up? What kind of behavior and work ethic are you marked by good deeds? You see, holiness then isn't just about you and me. It isn't just about the church. When holiness becomes obvious, it provides that bridge built into that area where we are temporary residents, our embassy posts, so that we can follow those deeds and that behavior with, let me tell you who I follow. No wonder the enemy wages war every day to try to keep you and me from building that kind of bridge. I was reading recently, and with this we're gonna pack it up, but this article where a Christian columnist was at the Midway airport during a blizzard. He writes, an engineer from India was sitting next to me. As we talked, I found that he was going to now have to take a bus to another airport because our flight was canceled. And he was gonna get his wife, who was expecting, to drive with her two small children, to pick him up in these blizzard conditions. So I told him, look, you know, I'm gonna go pick up a car here and I want to give you a ride to your home. He, of course, refused. You know, there's a little strangeness in good deeds at times, and he didn't say yes immediately, but I persisted, he said, and he then very grateful agreed. And as we drove, I prayed for an opportunity to deliver the gospel. I would only have this one opportunity, more than likely. In the drive, he eventually asked me, why would you be willing to go out of your way for me? And I found the opportunity. I asked him, has anybody ever done something so kind for you that it makes you want to pass a kindness along to somebody else? He nodded. I said, Well, Jesus Christ has done something incredibly kind for me. Let me tell you. What he did. As we talked, I explained the grace of God through Christ and the fact that God's grace had visited me in kindness. When I dropped him off, he thanked me, and his last words to me were, I'm going to have to do some thinking about all of this. The columnist closed his article by writing, There's no doubt in my mind that my words about Jesus Christ registered uniquely and powerfully with him because they were heard while being driven by a kind stranger through a snowstorm back to his home. That's Peter's final incentive. Holiness is about who you are, it's about what you should avoid, it's about how you act, and the result? Opportunity for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, as we walk according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh. Surrendered to the Spirit, you can understand it. Not surrendered to the flesh. People who are actually inspecting your life and mine. Did you notice how Peter is confident that some of them will come to think much of our behavior, and then as a result, we can make much of our Savior to them.