INTRODUCTION
„X SLIDE #2
„X Aliens in a strange land, strangers, citizens of heaven, children of God, saints, chosen ones, holy ones, beloved of God.
„X These are but a few words the bible uses to describe the Christian.
„X Many of these words paint what seems to be an impossible standard for a person to live up to, SAINT? Holy One? Chosen One? Child of God?
„X It can be tough for us to live up to the standard God has called us to , but as we will see this morning, there is great reason for us to try to live for Jesus in this land to the best of our ability with the help of The Holy Spirit!
„X I would like to show you a brief clip from the movie ¡§The Alamo¡¨. In this clip Jim Bowie is sitting around the camp fire as Davy Crockett explains how hard it is to live up to his legend.
„X DVD Chapter: 8 Start Time: 0:57:18 End Time: 0:59:05
„X Crockett is a living legend to the men of the Alamo. While he recognizes that deep down he is just "simple old David," he also knows that the soldiers identify him with the man who rides the lightning. His power comes from that association, and he no longer is free to act as he will because others depend on him to be more. They look for him as a source of courage -- they are watching to see if he is the real deal. (www.movieminsitry.com)
„X Since we are called to serve Jesus, what is our obligation as temporary citizens of this world?
„X As we live in this world, do we have any obligation to the world around us?
„X Throughout 1 Peter, Peter is trying to encourage a persecuted group of believers to stay the course and recognize their persecution is but temporary.
„X Today we are going to look at how we are to deal with the world around us. We must be careful not to get so heaven minded that we forget what we need to do while we are here.
„X Let¡¦s turn to 1 Peter 2:11-17 as we begin our look at Citizen Christian. The first area of obligation we will look at is:
„X SLIDE 3
SERMON
I. THE CHRISTIAN AND HIS CONDUCT IN THE WORLD. (11-12)
„X What Peter is about to share is important, he starts off by calling his readers, beloved then he urges them to do what he is going to ask of them.
„X The word for ¡§urge¡¨ means to plead with, beg, implore. He reminds them once again of their temporary status on this earth as a subtle reminder that they have a higher calling to answer to.
„X Peter is about to urge then to do two things concerning their conduct in this world.
„X The first one is: CLICK 3
„X They are urged to abstain fro the fleshly lusts. The word for abstain means to not permit the mind to show any hospitality to something.
„X Fleshly desires are usually used in the sexual context, but during bible times it had much broader meaning. SLIDE 4 Galatians 5:19-21 is an example of the scope of the term.
„X When you put together abstaining and fleshly lusts what you get is this. We are told we are not to permit the mind to show any hospitality to any of the fleshly lusts. We are not to allow anything that motivates sinful behavior an opportunity to keep residence in the mind.
„X Sometimes the thoughts come into the mind through the prompting of the Satan, but we can control whether or not they stay there.
„X Men, we are not blind to beauty, when a beautiful woman passes by your eyes, do not let Satan play with you. Appreciate the beauty and go on, do not let thoughts build in your mind.
„X Peter tells us these fleshly lust wage war with against our soul.
„X Why do you think that would happen? The war spoken of here is not a hand to hand combat; it is a planned military exercise. It is much like Delilah¡¦s plans for Samson in the Old Testament. The fleshly lusts are a planned military expedition planned by Satan to ruin your life!
„X The second thing we are urged to do is to: SLIDE 5 Keep your behavior excellent.
„X We are given three reasons for us to maintain excellent behavior:
1. We are strangers and aliens
2. Fleshly desires are not good for our soul
3. The influence for good we can have on the world around us.
„X The word for excellent means not only good, but lovely, fine attractive, winsome.
„X We are being asked to make our way of life so lovely, so fair, that it will positively attract admiration from those around us.
„X It has been said the best argument for Christianity is real Christians, but on the other side, the worst argument for Christianity can be Christians also.
„X SLIDE 6. We are all advertisements for Jesus. Do people want to buy the Jesus we represent?
„X The early church faced a lot of rumors concerning their behavior. They were accused of many things because of their meeting at night, they were accused of being cannibals because of the Lord¡¦s Supper and a whole host of other things. In Rome, Nero was able to use this to his advantage when he made Christians scapegoats as he tried to shift the blame for the burning of Rome from himself to some one else. (Tacitus, Annals, 15:44; Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars p 250) (Quoted from Gareth Reese 1 Peter notes)
„X I remember when people from Cambodia came to my hometown in the late 70¡¦s. People were afraid of them and they were not always treated good because people did not know or understand them.
„X Peter says the world will not understand Christians, they will think things about us that are not true. The best way to change their minds is by maintaining excellent behavior.
„X When the world sees we are not hypocrites, they will quit accusing us of being one. When they see the church caring for them, they will not say we are just about money. Real faith exhibited in the world will win a lot of hearts. People want to believe, they just need to see it in us first. Our actions will out-weigh false views.
„X Davy Crockett was larger than life, he had quite a legend to live up to, people were depending on him.
„X Christians are associated with Someone bigger than themselves. But He is not a legend, He is God. Sometimes we may be tempted to "drop over the wall" in order to serve what we might think are our own best interests. We should not do it. Those who are identified with Christ never know who is watching. You may be the only representative of Christ that some people know. We should never betray by self-serving actions the Kingdom we represent. Others are looking at us to see if Christianity is the real deal. We can only give courage and comfort to the extent that we live up to the image -- the image of Christ. (www.movieminsitry.com)
„X Slide 7
II. THE CHRISTIAN AND HIS RESPONSE TOWARD CIVIL AUTHORITY. (13-16)
„X CLICK 7. We are called to submit to the ruling authorities. The word ¡§submit¡¨ denotes as voluntary submission for our own benefit.
„X During Jesus day there were people who openly opposed the government, they were known as Zealots. Simon, one of Jesus apostles was called Simon the Zealot (Matt 10:4)
„X It is hard for a royal priest to do the work God has called them to do it they are crossways with the ruling authorities. We will have a hard time functioning if we are labeled ¡§anti-government¡¨
„X We are called to submit to the ¡§King¡¨ or in our case ¡§President¡¨ and to all those who represent his power and authority right down to the local authorities.
„X This does not mean we cannot work within the system to change things, but as Christians our life should not be just about politics. I am political as the next person, but politics is not going to save people or change their hearts, only Jesus will do that.
„X We do not have to submit to laws or authority which contradicts God. SLIDE 8 In Acts 4:19 and 5:29 we have Peter himself defying the ruling authorities because they were out of sync with God.
„X We are told we are to submit for the Lord¡¦s sake. Jesus is the motivation for civil obedience. Once again, this does mean that we cannot work to change things like abortion or gay marriage, or civil rights, we just need to work within the given system to make the changes.
„X The job of the civil authorities is to punish the evil doers and praise the righteous!
„X Sometimes as in the civil rights movement, more drastic action was needed, but our first call is to submit to the ruling authorities as Jesus Himself did (Matthew 17:24-27). Slavery was a common thing during Jesus ministry, yet He did not encourage rebellion, He told them to be better slaves. Then hearts would change about slavery.
„X SLIDE 9. We are also told not to abuse our freedom. There may be many things that are LEGAL, but we need to remember we are representing Christ.
„X I remember reading Kurt Warner¡¦s Book ¡§All Things Possible¡¨. At one time he played in NFL Europe. They played for Amsterdam. In that society EVERYTHING is legal, but Kurt knew that even though it was legal to do just about anything, he knew his citizenship in heaven would not permit him to do many things.
„X SLIDE 10
III. THE CHRISTIAN AND HIS ATTITUDES TOWARD OTHERS. (17)
„X In verse 17 we are given four groups of in which we are instructed as to how our attitude should be.
„X First we are told to: SLIDE 11. Honor all men. This means that we are to look at all people as precious, especially those who have not given their lives to Jesus. They are special to God, He does not want to see a single person lost.
„X We are to despise no person, we are to not be prejudice toward others.
„X Secondly we are called to: CLICK 11 Love the brotherhood. This means that not only are we to love our brothers and sisters in the church, but we are to love ALL Christians everywhere. People in churches throughout the world are our brothers and sisters in Christ also!
„X CLICK 11. We are called to fear God! This is not a horror movie type fear or a fear of punishment, it is a respect of God and who He is. When we respect God, we will listen and learn from Him!
„X Finally we are told to: CLICK 11 Honor the King. For us this would be the president. For me this has been hard depending on who is president, nevertheless, we are called to honor our leader whoever it is.
CONCLUSION
„X As Christians, we never know who is watching us, we have an obligation to live up to the person we serve.
„X Even though our citizenship is not here, we want to live in such a way as to attract people to the gospel.
„X Each one of us is a billboard for Jesus. Once again, is the Jesus we are selling one people want to purchase?
„X Let us make it our goal to be a person other people want to be like, let us make sure we are doing all we can to reflect the God we serve. Let us all grow together in Christ and see what happens as we try to take the world by storm!
