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[3111.70 --> 3114.16] It says sojourners and exiles. |
[3114.16 --> 3123.10] Or maybe you're old enough or of a particular generation to remember the King James Version that says strangers and pilgrims. |
[3124.02 --> 3124.88] But here's the point, right? |
[3124.96 --> 3132.20] Being loved of God, beloved of God, being his beloved puts you in a relationship with God. |
[3132.20 --> 3142.04] And being in a relationship with God changes your relationship to the world and changes your relationships in the world. |
[3143.08 --> 3148.58] No longer do you feel at home here, completely comfortable and settled. |
[3148.58 --> 3153.22] Instead, Peter says, you are a foreigner. |
[3153.62 --> 3154.90] You are an exile. |
[3155.70 --> 3162.50] Because you are loved of God, you love what he loves and you love the way that he loves. |
[3163.82 --> 3169.86] And when you do that, that will make you a stranger and an alien in the world. |
[3169.86 --> 3182.02] Because you are loved by God, because you love what he loves and you love the way that he loves, you will be strangers and aliens, foreigners and exiles in a world that doesn't know him. |
[3185.00 --> 3194.94] I want to be bold with you this morning because the time is coming and has now come when you too will have to be bold about it. |
[3194.94 --> 3209.30] Because if your life isn't foreign, if your life isn't strangely incomprehensible or uniquely different, if you don't seem to be at least a little bit weird to those people in your life or work or school or neighborhood, |
[3209.82 --> 3214.16] what are you really basing your life on? |
[3215.26 --> 3219.34] Who or what are you really being defined by? |
[3219.34 --> 3229.70] If you look and act and sound exactly the same and have the same hopes and dreams for your life, are you really any different? |
[3230.62 --> 3234.32] And if you're not different, what's the point? |
[3237.04 --> 3242.26] Like I said, a time is coming, and maybe it's already come, when we will have to decide. |
[3242.26 --> 3254.16] In a post-Christian culture, in a time of secular paganism, meaningful, committed, gospel-centered, Jesus-exalting, God-glorifying Christianity, |
[3254.36 --> 3257.08] we'll not be able to hide in the mainstream. |
[3258.42 --> 3266.66] Instead, we're going to have to stand against the flow of culture and the tides of idolatry, whatever form it's going to take in today's world. |
[3266.66 --> 3277.54] The reality of living as exiles in the world is this new reality for us. |
[3278.26 --> 3280.90] And that's what Peter is urging us in. |
[3280.98 --> 3281.16] He says, |
[3281.28 --> 3290.88] I urge you, beloved, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. |
[3291.84 --> 3293.22] And so hear that, right? |
[3293.26 --> 3294.48] There's more identity language. |
[3294.48 --> 3301.42] Beloved, foreigner, exile, and now warriors. |
[3302.90 --> 3304.26] You are at war. |
[3305.08 --> 3307.00] And it's a war for your soul. |
[3307.12 --> 3308.74] It's a war against sin. |
[3309.86 --> 3312.90] I want to acknowledge here that this probably isn't politically correct. |
[3313.84 --> 3317.02] And this maybe offends your modern sensibility, |
[3317.36 --> 3322.28] and this definitely contradicts the social value of tolerance that is so common in our world today. |
[3322.28 --> 3324.14] But you are at war. |
[3324.28 --> 3327.32] To be a Christian is to be at war. |
[3327.54 --> 3330.16] But, and I'm going to slow down, |
[3330.94 --> 3332.98] and I'm going to lean in, and I'm going to ask you to lean in, |
[3333.20 --> 3334.56] because I want you to listen carefully. |
[3335.36 --> 3338.38] You are at war, but, and here it is, |
[3338.90 --> 3343.22] first and foremost, you are not at war against a political ideology. |
[3343.22 --> 3348.50] You are not at war against a cultural morality or against a cultural immorality. |
[3348.70 --> 3352.54] You are not at war, first and foremost, against flesh and blood. |
[3352.88 --> 3356.42] You are at war with your sinful desires. |
[3357.28 --> 3357.38] Right? |
[3357.44 --> 3361.16] Your war is first here, and it is second here. |
[3361.38 --> 3365.46] And really, only after you lose this war and this war in your heart and in your head, |
[3365.46 --> 3367.32] and you act on those sinful desires, |
[3367.44 --> 3370.62] does your war move out of here and into the world? |
[3373.20 --> 3377.48] The problem is that so many of us, so many of you, |
[3379.08 --> 3385.46] especially if you lived and came to formation in the 20th century, |
[3386.26 --> 3390.84] did so in a time when we could talk about a Christian culture. |
[3390.84 --> 3391.62] Right? |
[3391.68 --> 3396.16] When the only real religious divide was whether you were Protestant or Catholic. |
[3398.06 --> 3400.00] Now, sure, by the end of the 20th century, |
[3400.14 --> 3404.14] atheism has sort of emerged into the upper echelons of society, |
[3404.26 --> 3406.58] but the average person, if not a Christian, |
[3406.82 --> 3409.84] was still likely a theist or a deist, |
[3409.92 --> 3411.66] or at most, they were an agnostic. |
[3413.54 --> 3416.62] And because that was the dominant sort of cultural milieu, |
[3416.86 --> 3420.28] the dominant cultural context in which so many of us came up, |
[3420.28 --> 3424.44] and so many of us lived for so long, for generations, for centuries, really, |
[3424.98 --> 3427.10] we could presume belief. |
[3427.40 --> 3432.20] Or at minimum, as Christians, we could presume a sympathy for belief. |
[3433.30 --> 3437.24] And it's out of that context that rises things like the culture wars. |
[3438.20 --> 3438.36] Right? |
[3438.42 --> 3442.56] That rises things like the sexual revolution of the 60s and into the present, |
[3442.66 --> 3445.40] and the purity movement that happens in response. |
[3445.68 --> 3446.56] And let's be honest, right? |
[3446.56 --> 3449.42] When that wasn't enough of a war going on around us, |
[3449.44 --> 3451.86] in the evangelical church, we created our own wars. |
[3451.94 --> 3453.06] We had worship wars. |
[3454.02 --> 3455.30] Of all the things to fight about. |
[3456.76 --> 3461.50] But this is what happens when you take the war against your own sinful desires |
[3461.50 --> 3463.32] out of your heart and out of your head |
[3463.32 --> 3466.26] and project it onto a culture around you, |
[3466.84 --> 3469.88] especially onto the unbelieving parts of that culture. |
[3469.88 --> 3474.32] But our context has changed. |
[3476.32 --> 3479.06] So many of us operate as if it hasn't. |
[3480.94 --> 3482.46] Maybe we lost the culture wars. |
[3483.78 --> 3487.20] Maybe the sexual revolution won in a war of attrition. |
[3488.56 --> 3492.38] But in our post-Christian, 21st century, progressive and liberal world, |
[3492.64 --> 3494.30] the war isn't out there. |
[3494.64 --> 3495.48] It's in here. |
[3496.46 --> 3497.38] And it's in here. |
[3497.38 --> 3504.78] When was the last time that you fought against the sin in your life |
[3504.78 --> 3506.02] like you were at war? |
[3508.80 --> 3512.70] Instead, we sing Simon and Garfunkel, |
[3513.16 --> 3514.80] Hello, darkness, my old friend. |
[3515.80 --> 3518.00] We make friends with our sin. |
[3518.46 --> 3520.16] Now, that reference might be too old for some of you, |
[3520.24 --> 3521.38] so here's another one. |
[3521.42 --> 3522.80] Avi Kaplan, right? |
[3522.90 --> 3524.54] I know darkness and it knows me. |
[3524.66 --> 3526.32] I know my sins and they know me. |
[3526.32 --> 3527.32] Right? |
[3529.08 --> 3534.08] We so easily become complacent in and with our sins. |
[3534.24 --> 3536.78] Or, if not complacent, we become cynical, |
[3537.02 --> 3539.36] believing that there's no way that we can overcome them |
[3539.36 --> 3541.00] or there's no way that they can be overcome |
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