Thriving Exiles
Sermon Notes
Intro
When we hear that word, exile, it generally carries a negative connotation. Being an exile is not intended to be a good thing. The apostle John was exiled to the isle of Patmos as a punishment. Even today, people are exiled from their countries because of a crime, or maybe even because their beliefs and lifestyle is not accepted. They are forced to leave their homes and their families. The idea is basically to erase them from existence….it’s a punishment. In fact, the Latin poet, Ovid, described his exile as a “living hell.”
This can be problematic for us when we hear that as Christians we are exiles. The problem is that too often, we feel like like exiles…like life is a punishment. The Bible teaches that we are free in Christ and that Jesus’ yoke is easy, but our days still feel more like a sentence, and we’re just trying to survive. “Just give me coffee and Jesus!” “Drinkin wine and feelin fine.” “Keep calm and watch Netflix.”
But here’s the thing, Peter wasn’t referring to being an exile as a punishment. The word he used really means sojourner….someone passing through a foreign land. He wasn’t writing this letter as a tool for surviving, but as an encouragement for thriving. I think it’s important for us to understand the difference. God is not punishing us with life. Jesus already paid the price for all of our sins, past, present, and future. God isn’t keeping you here or making life hard in order to balance the scales. The whole point of Peter’s letter and this series is to help you understand that God has a purpose for you, and that being an exile is not about surviving a sentence, but stewarding your salvation. It’s two different perspectives: one is to hunker down, protect your assets, and wait out your time, the other is to get out of the cell and bring life to an otherwise dark place, because that’s what God has called and equipped you to do.
So as we study 1 Peter 4 today, I want to give you 5 ways to move from surviving a sentence to stewarding your salvation as an exile.
Look with me at Ch.4:1…(Pastoral note about Bibles and phones)
Therefore, since Christ…
Have a Christ-centered focus.
Jesus changes everything, and when we surrender our lives to him, we should begin to see things differently. If we don’t have our eyes fixed on Jesus, then we will only ever just be surviving….if that. He is our guide, our example, our strength, our hope, our everything. If you want to thrive, if you’re going to steward your salvation, then you have to be intimately connected to your Savior. Jesus is the key to doing more than just surviving.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same understanding—because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin— 2 in order to live the remaining time in the flesh no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.
The second way to steward your salvation:
2. Arm yourselves in order to live for God’s will.
I know we have some people in the congregation who exercise their 2nd amendment rights, and you’re not alone. If you’ve tried to buy guns or ammo recently, you know that they are really difficult to get a hold of. Between the pandemic, political tensions, and general social unrest, a lot of people are arming themselves in preparation for a worst case scenario. You may be in that camp, or you may think that’s crazy, but the point is, the more serious we feel the threat is, the more likely we are to prepare for what’s coming.
Here, Peter is telling his readers that the threat is very real. Look at how the sentence breaks down. Christ suffered, so you need to be prepared to do the same. Then he interjects this phrase which basically means that once you’ve died you no longer suffer from the effects of sin. But, you are still living so you have to still fight the battle. Therefore, arm yourselves so that you can live a life that’s pleasing to God.
And what exactly are we arming ourselves against? The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 to put on the full armor of God, “11 so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.”
Everyday we awaken to a battle (and I’m not talking about trying to get your kids dressed and ready for school). This is a spiritual battle, and if we aren’t prepared we will get ambushed. Notice what Peter goes on to say in v. 3,
3 For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the Gentiles choose to do: carrying on in unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4 They are surprised that you don’t join them in the same flood of wild living—and they slander you.
The danger is getting pulled back into the old way of living…following the desires of our flesh rather than the will of God. The enemy knows our weakness, and he wants to see us get derailed by falling back into the patterns of the world. Pastor Louis mentioned this last week, that too often as Christians we blend right into everyone else. According to Peter, we should stand out….even to the point of being mocked because we choose to live differently. It’s not fun to be mocked, it’s not always fun to be different. It’s way easier to keep up with the Joneses and just go with the flow. But we’re called to go against the flow, which is why we have to be armed and ready. You have to wear your helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, carry your shield of faith, and sword of the Spirit. I think of two soldiers, one up before dawn, boots polished, gun oiled, uniform in place, he’s studied the mission that lies ahead and he’s ready for battle…the other soldier stayed up too late drinking and playing cards, at the bugle call he stumbles out of bed, he can’t find all the pieces of his uniform, he barely makes it to the convoy before it pulls out, only to realize he forgot his weapon. Which one do you identify with? And if it’s the later, what steps do you need to take to be more prepared for the spiritual battle?
Let’s pick up in verse 7 as Peter gives us more insight for thriving as exiles:
7 The end of all things is near; therefore, be alert and sober-minded for prayer.
This is the third way we steward our salvation (prep work):
3. Be alert and sober-minded
Have a clear head, be on the look out and not caught up in all the things of the world, specifically because the end is near. Jesus will be returning and we don’t know when, but it’s sooner today than it was yesterday. Jesus himself said something very similar recorded in Luke 21,
“Be on your guard, so that your minds are not dulled from carousing, drunkenness, and worries of life, or that day will come on you unexpectedly 35 like a trap.
How often do we go through our days in a fog? Our minds are dulled from information overload, screen addictions,…we’re running on fumes, overworked, and consumed by the worries of life. And Jesus says it’s all a trap that will distract you and keep you off your guard. Again, our enemy wants us to be caught sleeping (or not sleeping, which is probably the bigger problem). He wants us to be overwhelmed by life because it keeps us from being able to focus and to be engaged with the presence of God.
Notice that the real issue is the need to be alert and sober-minded for the sake of our prayers. Peter says it here in verse 7 and Jesus says in Luke 21:36,
36 But be alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”
We have to remain clear-headed so that we can pray… We have a code here at City Awakening that prayer is our first response not our second. What that means is that we don’t just want to have reactionary prayers. It’s easy to pray when things go bad, but we need to be proactive in our prayers. We need to pray, as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, without ceasing, because it is our lifeline to the Father. It’s how we know Him, express trust in Him, align our hearts to His, and glorify Him. And as Jesus points out here in Luke 21, that we have to pray so that we can escape the trap of worldly living. Strength to escape doesn’t mean that we can avoid temptations and struggles…we wouldn’t need strength for that…that’s easy. We need strength to endure it and stand strong in our faith.
When our mentality is to survive the sentence of life, we welcome the distractions because they numb the pain. Instead of escaping temptation, we use temptations to escape reality because it takes the edge off. So it’s no surprise that “distracted" is exactly how many of us would describe our prayer lives. We rarely get past one or two sentences without our brains pinging to something else that we need to do, or respond to a notification. We can’t focus long enough to sit in a focused time of prayer, and when we do pray it’s usually limited to the problem of the hour. We spend more time telling God what we think he should do rather than asking him to strengthen our hearts and to align our desires with his. And, we rarely, if ever, spend time praying for others. Please hear me, it’s not wrong to pray for your problems. Peter himself says to give all your worries to God because he cares for you, but I hope you see the difference in having a mind clouded by the cares of the world, and one clearly focused on eternal matters. Prayer is the most valuable commodity in God’s economy, so we need to stop trading it out for cheap goods that only stifle the market of our lives.
Sober minded - A raw way of looking at it is to see Christians as the designated drivers of life…..if we’re inebriated with the rest of the world, we won’t stand out, we can’t thrive, and we are not in a state to help anyone else get safely home to the Father…and the need to help others is what Peter points out next:
8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God. 11 If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
There are a few call-to-actions here that we can combine into one:
4. Pursue the well-being of others
One of the distinguishing marks of a follower of Christ should be a concern for other people. You can’t follow the way of Jesus and not care for others. That is what Jesus did. He spent his days traveling from city to city, healing the sick, meeting with the sinners, seeing people’s needs and meeting them there. We may not encounter crowds of hurting people everyday, but we are sure to encounter one or two…whether that’s the person sitting next to you today or someone else in your circle of influence…there are always people to love. And Peter says that we are to maintain constant love for one another. This literally means to be fervent or diligent in agape love, pursuing goodwill or benevolence towards others. It means we are to go out of our way to be forgiving, forbearing, and kind….even when that love is not reciprocated. That’s how it covers a multitude of sins. That doesn’t mean we ignore sins or don’t address them in fellow Christians lives, but whenever possible we overlook personal offenses and show a genuine love rather than a posture of criticism or irritation.
To take it even further, Peter says that we are to be hospitable. The Greek word specifically means “a love of strangers.” As much as we are to love our friends, family, and neighbors, we are also called to love people we don’t even know. And…..to do it without complaining. Peter knows us too well. Now you really start to see how all of this fits together. We have to have on our spiritual armor and be prayed up, so that we can see the needs of the people around us and it not be an annoying inconvenience to us. Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan to beautifully illustrate this point. The Samaritan went out of his way to stop and help this Jewish man (did not get along). He cared for him, spent money on him, and did not grumble or complain. When we choose to show hospitality rather than hostility it will truly set us apart from the rest of the world…opening up our homes, going out of our way to care for people that are different than us, not allowing the gaps in opinion, race, or social class to stand between us. In her book, The Gospel Comes With A House Key, Rosaria Butterfield says, “Radically ordinary hospitality shows this skeptical, post-Christian world what authentic Christianity looks like…..Let God use your home, apartment, dorm room, front yard, community gymnasium, or garden for the purpose of making strangers into neighbors and neighbors into family. Because that is the point—building the church and living like a family, the family of God.”
The third way that Peter says we purse the well-being of others is by using the gifts that we’ve been given to serve others. He says we are called to be good stewards of the grace we’ve received. We’ve been talking about this for a while now, being instruments of grace. When we understand the incredible grace that we’ve received, we in turn show that grace to others. Grace in, grace out. And as we’ve discussed in previous weeks, we have been given specific gifts to serve others. If you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit dwells in you, and he has equipped you in a unique way to help meets the needs of others. If you want to know more about that, then I encourage you to attend the 2nd week of our Growth Track next Sunday. If you’ve been there, done that, then I would ask, “are you being a good steward of your gift(s)?” Allowing the Spirit to work through you in using your gifts is essential in moving from surviving as an exile to thriving as an exile. (Consumer to producer). Jesus came to serve not to be served, and we should have the same mentality…our lives spent for the sake of others.
The interesting thing about living as an exile or sojourner in a foreign land is that this is not a new idea for the people of God. If you study the Old Testament, you see this as a common thread throughout the entire history of the Israelite nation. In Genesis, God led Abraham away from his home into a foreign land, and that theme continued even during times of captivity as a result of the sins of the Israelites. But the aim for God’s people never changed. It was always to live differently, to be set apart for the purpose of bringing glory to God, and to pursue the well-being of others. In Jeremiah 29, the Israelites are once again in captivity. They’ve been driven out of their homeland, but notice what God tells them:
4 This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. 7 Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.” - Jeremiah 29:4-7
That doesn’t sound like he wants them to just hunker down and survive the sentence. God wants his people to thrive and he wants the people around them to thrive as a result. We know that this world is only a temporary stop in the eternal timeline, but each day we are called be a good steward of the salvation we’ve been given. Why? Because we know the bigger story that includes Creation, Fall, Redemption, and New Creation. Without Jesus, the world is stuck in the fall, looking for redemption, and only wishing there could be new creation. But with Christ, we have found our redemption, and we are already experiencing the new creation. The new creation doesn’t wait for Jesus to come back. New Creation begins the moment you are saved. It involves healing, restoration, making things right… It’s a both now and yet to come reality, so the way we move from surviving to thriving as exiles is to not put the redemption story in our back pockets and wait for the end (like a squirrel burying nuts), but to carry the salvation story out on the platter of our lives so the world can taste and see that the Lord is good!
British theologian Lesslie Newbigin said,
Movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ…will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as a sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s redeeming grace for the whole life of society.
Can we be that congregation? Can we renounce an introverted concern for life and go into every public sector to claim it for Christ?
What would happen if we were armed and ready, sober-minded and prayed-up, and loving others in such a way that the reality of the new creation was present, known, and experienced? That’s our prayer for this church…for The Church.
I know what you’re thinking…that’s great, but nobody wants to hear about Christianity. In fact, if we’re honest people seem pretty hostile towards just the idea of Christianity. It is the new public enemy. That’s nothing new either. Peter continues in Ch. 4:12:
12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you. 13 Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. 16 But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?
18 And if a righteous person is saved with difficulty,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?
19 So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.
The final way for us to thrive as exiles is to
5. Rejoice in suffering
If everything to this point has been a challenge to our thinking, this is just downright counterintuitive. Suffering does not naturally produce joy. But I don’t think this means we pretend that things don’t bother us, or go through life with a fake smile and suppress our feelings. But how can we rejoice in our suffering? Why would we? Because we see life differently.
Peter knew from personal experience that if you truly follow the way of Jesus you will not be praised for it, but you will suffer for it. True Christian living is radical, and the message of the Gospel is offensive. People don’t like to hear that they are “sinners,” or that they need God to save them. It’s not popular to stand on the truth of Scripture as an absolute and reject a relative value system. Our friends will laugh at us, family will be mad at us, and the world will hate us…..but we can praise God because our hope is not in this world.
When we suffer for the name of Jesus (however mild or severe), we share in what Christ experienced and it brings glory to God.
Communion: united with Christ, and united as his church.
We don’t have to be afraid of what people will think of us, or shy away from what we believe. (Doesn’t mean we turn to Bible thumping).
The western Church (unlike much of the world) has been pretty comfortable is regard to suffering in recent history, but I believe a time is coming when our faith will be tested…we will have to either stand out or blend in…there will be no in between. And as that pressure mounts, we need to remember these words from 1 Peter and not be ashamed of the name of Jesus, but glorify God who is the author and perfecter of our faith.
You see this progress in Ch. 4 of preparation, action, and response. It’s simple blueprint for thriving as an exile.
The Big Idea is that being an exile is not about surviving a sentence, but stewarding your salvation. God hasn’t given you another day to just survive and make it to bedtime (even though that’s what we feel like a lot times), he’s given you another day because you have a purpose…Jesus didn’t Jesus save you from something, but for something. He wants His Church to thrive because when the church thrives, the community around it thrives, the light pushes back the darkness, the new creation is experienced, and God is glorified!
I want to leave you with some bonus points for practical living as an exile. These are not directly tied to this text, but I think they do fit in with the instructions from Jeremiah 29, when God told his people to multiply, thrive, and pursue the well-being of the city. Here’s some ways we can do that:
Don’t just work - Work was part of God’s plan before the fall, therefore there has to be a different approach to work than woeful labor and drudgery. God is creative. He loves fine craftsmanship. He is in the business of restoring and flourishing. Scott Sauls says, “We participate in God’s work through our work. And in this, we actively participate in executing God’s creative and restorative work in the world. As the image of God, every time we participate in work that creates and restores, we also participate in God’s work of leaving people, places, and things better.”
Every good vocation is just as much a part of God’s mission in the world as the vocation of pastor and missionary. Builder, teacher, doctor, mechanic, janitor, engineer, parent….all reflect the character and work of God. Don’t just work, “pray earnestly that God will use your contributions in such a way that a watching world will see your good words and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Are you working just to work, or are you working for a greater purpose?
Leave it better - We have the resources to nudge the world towards peace, healing, wholeness, and flourishing. “The answers to the world’s woes includes ordinary men, women, and children who have been awakened to their place in the Story of an extraordinary God….Christ’s ambassadors are called into the places where they live, work, play, and worship, with the glorious purpose of leaving people, places, and things better than they found them. That is the universal Christian job description.”
Are you leaving places better than you found them?
Deploy your money - One of the biggest temptations we face is spending everything we have for ourselves rather than spending ourselves for the world, which is what Jesus taught. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “What if Christians, rather than buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like, instead began to deploy money (and time, energy, and mindshare) that we do have on things God has determined the world does need in order to love people whom God loves - to the end that God receives glory through our obedient, irresistible faith, and that in this, we receive our greatest joy?”
Are you building your kingdom of God’s Kingdom?
Leverage your time - Time can seem like our arch-nemeses. But what if we learned to say no to good things so that we can have margin for better things? What if we made time to be still and quiet before God? What if we had time to serve other people, even if that meant just having a meaningful conversation? Is it possible to reprioritize your life (or kids’s lives), so that your calendar reflects and supports your spiritual priorities?
What do you need to cut from your calendar? And how can you be more intentional with things that have to stay?
