“Possessions Over God – Part 2” || Perception Vs. Reality || Week 3

I want to jump right back into our discussion because last week’s message was SO good! Did you enjoy that? I sure did. Let’s calm down now and join me in 1 Peter 2.

We’re going to read verses 11 and 12, which the ERV titles: “Live for God”. Here it is: “Dear friends, you are like visitors and strangers in this world. So I beg you to keep your lives free from the evil things you want to do, those desires that fight your true selves. People who don’t believe are living all around you. They may say that you are doing wrong. So Live such good lives that they will see the good you do, and they will give glory to God on the day he comes.” Verse 11 is what we’re going to explore, but I wanted to add verse 12 from this chapter for context into what Peter is saying.

My study bible, which is ESV, has verse 11 leading off by saying: “…as sojourners and exiles…” What a heavy way to lead off calling his friends instead of “visitors and strangers”. Either way, Peter is calling his readers to a righteous life in a hostile world. Christians are considered foreigners in a secular society because of their citizenship in heaven. So he’s calling the readers, which are various churches in Asia minor during that time, to be righteous and live righteously in this chaotic world. A world that’s turning to the flesh’s desires instead of Godly desires. Let’s continue.

Peter is asking these Gentile Christians to keep resisting all the evil things that the flesh encourages them to do, anything that violates their own identity. Meaning, that they might do something sinful that would jeopardize their morals, values, etc. In order to have an impact on the world for God, Christians must be disciplined in an inward and private way by avoiding the desires of the fallen nature. We think about these dirty flesh desires as something sexual. Paul writes to the church in Galatia where the desires of the flesh are much more than just sex. It also includes, in Galatians 5:19-21: “….being morally bad, doing all kinds of shameful things, worshiping false gods, taking part in witchcraft, hating people, causing trouble, being jealous, angry or selfish, causing people to argue and divide into separate groups, being field with envy, getting drunk, having wild parties, and doing other things like this…” Wow! Paul’s no fun, am I right? It’s interesting to see all things that are considered desires of the flesh. I think I would be right to say that some of them apply to us in 2020, wouldn’t you agree? Let me dive into this a little more.

We think of “being morally bad, doing all kinds of shameful things, worshiping false gods, etc.”, and think: “Duh! Obviously, we shouldn’t be bad, do bad things, worship things other than God.” Do we really take that seriously? We look at the reality of what’s forced on us in social media and we can see celebrities (possibly some we consider our idols) doing harmful things (drugs, drinking, sex, etc.) and will try to come up with a way to defend them for doing stuff that they do because of their status. We will try to defend people that are consistently showing that their morals are corrupt, their views are skewed, and their realities are out of line because we don’t want to ruin our perception of who they are to us or change our perception of who they truly can be. It’s scary to see the people we look up change for the worse in our eyes because they were the one rock that we clung tightly too, but it happens. It’s unfortunate, don’t get me wrong, because we want to hold those we “idolize” on a higher pedestal since they were the one constant during some tough and formative times in our lives. We just have to sometimes open our eyes and step outside of our selves to truly make sure we’re surrounding ourselves with a positive and righteous community. If you can’t answer yes to that, I think it’s time to evaluate some choices. Let’s talk more about these desires.

I look at these ones: “hating people, causing trouble, being jealous, being angry, being selfish, causing people to argue and separate, etc.” and I have to take a hard look at myself. I’ve committed, are committing, and will commit a variety of these. There have been times where I’ve hated someone because of something they did to people. There are times where I’ve caused trouble because of bad decisions and poor thinking. I’ve been jealous of other people’s wealth, relationships, status, etc. I’ve been angry with people for not agreeing with me or treating me with the respect that I thought I should have received. I’ve been selfish with my money and time. I’ve been a part of situations causing people to argue and separate. I’ve been through all that and never thought twice because, at the time, I never considered that sin. I caved to the desires of the flesh by arguing with each other, causing trouble, being angry at my neighbor, was selfish with my wealth and time, and never thought twice. Changes need to happen for me no doubt…but I’m sure no one reading this could say that they’ve never fallen for these desires.

We look at the headlines and our own social media and see a variety of hate, trouble, jealousy, anger, and selfishness. This will be the ONE time that I would say that these headlines and social media show us a truer form of reality. We see a variety of the aforementioned stuff come across others feeds our even our own and we don’t think twice about it. We want to cave in to this because it feels right. It feels right to make a comment on someone’s post about a serious topic. We feel right when we make a self-deprecating remark towards someone else’s stuff because we don’t have it and therefore we’re nothing. We do this because the world has made this okay in our minds. No one can do me wrong and if they do, they better watch out. We will voice our hatred, jealousy, and anger with no filter and with no regard for what others will think or feel because you’re your own person and no one can judge me. Show me a raise of hands if you’ve experienced this before! I will go full teacher on this if I have to. My point with this sentiment is to be kinder to each other and to yourself. Check-in with yourself when you experience these kinds of emotions to find out why you’re feeling this way. If you can’t come up with a rational reason, then try to let it go. If you have a rational reason, go to God and talk with him about it. Answers will ensue, even if it’s something you don’t want to hear. Let’s wrap up our discussion on verse 11.

The desires that fight against us are personified as if they were an army of rebels who incessantly search out and try to destroy the Christian’s joy and peace. Peter talks more about this in 1 Peter 4. In verses 2 and 3, it says: “Strengthen yourselves so that you will live your lives here on earth doing what God wants, not the evil things that people want to do. In the past, you wasted too much time doing what those who don’t know God like to do. You were living an immoral life, doing the evil things you wanted to do. You were always getting drunk, having wild drinking parties, and doing shameful things in your worship of idols.”

Notice I didn’t talk about partying and drinking earlier when we read what Paul said to the church in Galatia. I feel like it was meant to be to talk about it now. We have now seen both Peter and Paul talk about this, but why is this such a reinforced point. Could it be from the binge-drinking that Noah did after he got off the ark (see Genesis 9:18-29)? Could it be that they’re just party pooper that doesn’t like fun? Maybe more so the former than the latter because they would want to not make the same mistakes their ancestors made and they put a lot of value in the Old Testament teaching at this time. I think we can still talk about this today. We use things like partying and drinking to take our minds off of our own problems. While doing so responsibly and moderately isn’t wrong, in my opinion. I think during this time they may have taken things a bit too far. Peter and Paul don’t want people to not have fun, but they want people to put God first in their life and then go from there. There are still ways to have fun and respect God all that at the same time. Can’t think of any? Maybe the world has taught you the desires they want you to teach over what God is trying to teach you.

I’m done. That was a lot to cover. 2 weeks and 4 main verses have left us tired, stressed, energetic, and other emotions to cover. We’re taking a week break so I can breakdown what August brought to our ministry world, but I will be back the week after for at least 2 more weeks of “Perception vs. Reality”. Stay blessed!