To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout the earth, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance. You are invited to come to the Wednesday evening prayer meeting and pray. (8:30 PM EDT Wed., Oct. 17, 2001)

"I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." Is this teaching starting to sound familiar? Chapter 1, verse 13 says, "Be self-controlled." Verse 14 says, "Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance." Verse 17 says, "Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." Chapter 2 verse 1 says, "Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind." And finally, verse 11: "As aliens and strangers in the world, abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." Does Peter think these things are important? Does God think they are important? It sure looks like it!

Peter gives the reason -- one reason -- for abstaining from sinful desires in verse 12. It is so that the pagans may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. In the rest of his book, he is going to tell us more about how to live our lives before the pagans, but, for now, he is speaking in general and all-inclusive terms: "Abstain from sinful desires." Before I say more about that, though, I'm going to go back to verse 11.

When I started to write this message, I looked to see what several expositors had to say about these verses. I want to pass along what John Wesley had to say about the meaning of the word "aliens" and about the phrase "strangers in the world." The Greek word translated "aliens" in the NIV literally says "those who are in a strange house." Also, the Greek word translated "strangers in the world" literally says "those who are in a strange country." The strange house you live in is your fleshly body. So, abstain from the desires that are in the house of your fleshly body. The strange country is the world, as the NIV translators have brought out -- "strangers in the world." So, abstain from the desires that are in that foreign country, the world.

Abstaining from the sinful desires of the flesh and of the world is not a casual thing. It's like fighting a war. If it was easy to do or an automatic thing for believers, Peter wouldn't be telling you to do it. He wouldn't need to. But he does tell us; and we need to listen. If you are wondering why you are having so much trouble abstaining from sinful desires, maybe it's because you don't realize that you are in a war. A war is not supposed to be easy. Also, this is not an individual battle. If you try to fight alone, you will lose. This is a battle we must fight together. God designed it that way.

Now to go on to verse 12 again: "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." The pagans that Peter is speaking about are those who are all around us and have not accepted the gospel. They want to accuse us of wrongdoing because they want to reject God. But, if they are unable to find anything wrong with our lives and are unable to accuse us, they may begin to fear God and be convicted of sin and finally be able to glorify him on the day he visits us. Verse 12 literally says "in the day of visitation" (see NASB). I think the "day of visitation" is the "day of the Lord" that Peter refers to in 2 Peter 3:10 when he says, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief." It's the day of judgment and salvation.

In order to fight the battle with the enemies that are attacking our very souls, we have to share with each other what it is we are struggling with so that we can help each other in the battle. Because of pride or shame, we want to keep our struggles to ourselves and try to overcome by ourselves. Pride is one of the things that belongs to the fleshly body in which we are presently living. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). God does not let pride succeed. James says, "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed (James 5:16)." I said earlier that God designed it so that we would have to fight the war together. He also designed it so that we will win. We are healed by the wounds of Jesus (Isaiah 53:5) and by his blood we are cleansed of all unrighteousness. Because of Jesus, we will all glorify God on the day he visits us -- and if we live such good lives among the pagans that they can't accuse us of wrongdoing, many of them will glorify God along with us.

Pray for us to be able open our hearts to each other and confess our struggles, temptations and sins to each other and pray for each other -- and without any hint of gossip, but with absolute purity. Also, pray for God to show us battle strategies that we can use to gain victory. Don't you want to have victory -- and for us to finally rejoice together with Jesus? I do.

Come and let's pray for each other as well as for the whole church. Come and encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Love them.

Love in Christ,
Dean

PS: If you absolutely can't make it to the prayer meeting, send your prayer requests back to me by e-mail and we'll pray for them.