1 Peter #6 1 Peter 2:11-12 Mastering Sin: Experience the power of cancelled sin
1 Peter #6 1 Peter 2:11-12 Mastering Sin
We
gleaned some important truths from our reading of 1 Peter the last time we
feasted on the Word of God. We learned that there are expectations for
disciples. As a believer, your task is to remove yourself from the center of
life and put Jesus there. We learned that to survive and thrive we need to be
loyal members of a faith community. You,
a Christ follower, are set apart to minister to God and others, living out and
speaking out the Good News of salvation shining Divine Light to draw people out
of their spiritual darkness. These are
no easy one and done tasks, they are the continuing daily responsibility for
all of God’s chosen. As you choose to do so you are living a devout and holy
life.
Within
the teaching today Peter again identifies Christ's followers with Israel, and
he does so in a way that reminds us that we do not belong to any society or
culture that opposes God’s way. We know
that disciples are to live a holy life, Peter adds a reason: “maintain
exemplary patterns of life, so that unbelievers will be saved and God
glorified” (Wayne Grudem, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries p.117).
1 Peter
2:11 (MSG)
Friends,
this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge
your ego at the expense of your soul.
Peter
tells us that this world is not our home.
If you have called upon the Lord for salvation asking for the
forgiveness of sin, all those messes in your life, asking to begin anew,
wanting this time to be in accordance with God’s will and His plan, then God
changes you. Your old home is left
behind. There is a new place where you
belong, a place where you are loved and accepted, appreciated and valued, a place where what you do matters.
Home is where the heart is,
A sanctuary of warmth and love,
Where memories are made,
And dreams are woven like a glove.
It's where laughter echoes,
And love is always in bloom,
Where worries slip away,
And peace descends like a plume.
Home is where you find your roots,
And where your branches grow,
A place to be yourself,
And let your spirit flow.
It's where you find a haven,
From the world's tumultuous tide,
Where your heart feels free,
And your soul can abide.
Home is where you find your people,
The ones who understand,
Who've got your back,
And have your hand.
It's the place that you belong,
Where you're cherished and adored,
Where the world makes sense,
And your heart feels restored.
(AI
ChatGBT 18Jan23)
Leaving
the old home, moving out of the familiar neighborhood, and saying goodbye to
old friends and often one’s family are one of the characteristics of Abraham
who is revered as the father of the Jewish people. Abraham trusted in God and
with unflinching obedience left all he knew to go where he had never been. That made him a stranger and an alien, wherever
he went, he was one who didn’t belong,
Hebrews
11:8-10 (MSG)
By an
act of faith, Abraham said yes to God's call to travel to an unknown place that
would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. 9 By an
act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping
in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. 10
Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal
foundations—the City designed and built by God.
Living
in tents, just passing through, journeying to our home built by God, New
Jerusalem. In this new home, we live in unity, connected, thriving in the
presence of God (Revelation 21:1-4). 777 Pearly Gates, New Jerusalem, The
Kingdom God. It is so easy to be here, especially in our very rich culture,
where even the homeless on the streets have it better than many workers in
third-world countries. When life is good, it's easy to get comfortable, a
little compromise here, a little bargain over there and you can negotiate a
life that the culture finds respectable. When tragedy struck my life I remember
thinking, “this world holds nothing for me now.” A nasty wake-up call for where my attitude
should always have been, Poetically, all
the colors faded to gray and the world shrouded itself in mist. It took years but finally, I was reminded
that I too was just passing through and a better way of being, of relating, a
new home, is just up and around the corner.
Jesus
tells us as much.
John
14:1-3 (MSG)
Don't
let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me. 2 There is plenty of
room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you
that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get
your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live.
As believers
sojourn through this world, they are Abraham’s children. Christians are the spiritual children of
Abraham, heirs to the promises God made to him.
One of those promises is that the world would be blessed through him,
and now it is through those who walk with Christ to be a blessing to the world
(Genesis 22:18). The promise is fulfilled by you and in you, as you remain
faithfully obedient.
The
world represents a culture, a society, and a way of relating to others, that is
not following God’s desires for humanity. The world does not refer to planet
Earth. A person cozies up to the world
by indulging their ego. Egoism is the
way of the world. Egoism convinces you
that you are morally right and therefore justified in pursuing your
self-interest. The ends justify the means if your agenda is achieved. For instance, Adam decided that being like
God was better than being the person he was created to be. He chose to disobey, damaging the righteous
relationship that he shared with God. We
call the event original sin, the sin that created estrangement from God. Separated from God, Adam was left to decide
right and wrong based solely on his own experience. As a result, humanity has a
sorry history of being horribly less than humane. Egoism convinces you to do
what you want, when you want, if you believe it is what you want, regardless of
how it may negatively affect yourself and everyone else around you. Egoism in
its extreme forms will not listen to correction, it will not submit to any
outside authority, it is manipulative and deceptive, and willing to take to get
what it wants. Egoism is the way of the
world.
John
Wesley called egoism “the sin that remains.”
[Wesley's sermon “On Sin in Believers,”
“I do not suppose that any man who is justified is a slave to sin: Yet I
do suppose that sin remains (at least for a time) in all that are justified.”] If original sin created an estrangement
between God and Humanity, Jesus' death reconciled that relationship making it
possible for anyone who desires to establish a right relationship with God to
do so (Romans 5:10. In our faith
community we call this the first blessing, the blessing of being saved by
faith, allowing the Spirit of God to apply justifying grace into our
lives. A person is declared to be holy,
made right with God, and there is a change of status a person was an outsider, and
now they are an insider. Yet egoism remains.
When the Apostle Paul used the Greek word sarx which has been translated
as “the flesh,” “the sin nature,” the sinful self,” he is addressing egoism, the sin that remains
after you have been made right with God.
Galatians
5:16-17 (MSG)
Live
freely, animated, and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions
of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at
odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with
selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live
at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any
given day.
The
”root of sinful self-interest” is egoism.
Recall that Wesley called it “the sin that remains.” Wesley taught that the power of egoism to
hijack your best intentions can be broken. [https://kevinmwatson.com/2013/05/27/christian-perfection-the-reason-for-methodism/]
How often after asking God to save you
have you found yourself doing what is contrary to your new life in Christ? This is because of this principle of selfishness;
egoism is a traitor to your desire to live a devout and holy life. As you mature in your relationship with God
the Holy Spirit makes you aware of this tug of war in your heart in which
sometimes you are obedient and other times you find yourself falling back into
old negative habits, attachments, addictions, and dysfunctional ways of
relating to people. What often happens with this realization is that you try to
exert your willpower to change.
Unfortunately, egoism is so ingrained within, that you soon find out willpower
is no power at all. There is no
sustainable victory exerting your own effort.
This is where a second blessing comes into play, sanctifying grace
breaks the power of canceled sin. Sanctifying grace is the empowerment of the
Holy Spirit that transforms your life in the likeness of Jesus. Sin was
canceled when God declared you to be holy, but its power to hijack your best
intentions remains. Now you can ask God
for the power to master egoism. When you
long for it, God gives it to you. Wesley
called this gift Christian perfection, not that you were made perfect in the
sense of being beyond the ability to sin, or no longer needed to learn and grow
spiritually, but perfect in the sense that now you had mastery over
egoism. Within our faith community, the
Church of the Nazarene, we call this event entire sanctification because now
you can choose to be like Jesus all the time.
Now you have Holy Spirit power instead of will power to defeat the
temptation to not love God, to not love others, to not love yourself. The possibility remains, but the choice not
to sin is fully yours. No longer can egoism hijack your best intentions. Now you decide.
Mastering
egoism is the way you prevent yourself from cozying up to the world. Mastering
egoism is so important we should go over “the how to” once again. You have already acknowledged your need for a
savior. You have believed that the
savior you need is Jesus. You have
committed yourself to be Jesus’ disciple.
You have asked God to save you.
This is the path to the born-again experience in which God forgives your
sins, declaring you to be one of His chosen people, changing your status from
outsider to being holy. There have been
ethical changes in your life, you are not the same person you used to be. The Holy Spirit has convinced you that you
are a Christian, and this can be verified by your change in behavior and
interests and values. An outside
observer can see the fruit of the Spirit developing in your life: love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…
(Galatians 5:22-23). As you continue to grow in love you realize that
temptation gets the best of you from time to time. You were doing well, then suddenly find
yourself out of step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). This realization creates sadness, and grieving
in your heart, as you realize you have not so much disobeyed but more so, hurt
the Savior that loves you. This is key,
the feeling is like when you disappointed a parent, a spouse, or a child. You didn’t do what you said you would do and
you broke your promise. It’s not that
desire of once caught you now want to get out of your mess. Big difference. Think, the intent of the
heart, you don’t ever want to deter, damage, or destroy a right relationship ever
again. With that attitude, you ask God
to give you the power to master egoism.
In our
faith community, we call this seeking God to sanctify you. The questions are asked: have you been saved?
Have you been sanctified? Have you experienced the first blessing of
salvation? Have you experienced the
second blessing of entire sanctification?
Please remember that the word entire refers to being able, like Jesus,
to refuse to willfully sin, “entire” doesn’t mean finished, there is continued
spiritual growth. You can liken the
experience to a martial art if you obtain a black belt. You went through
multiple-colored belts as you progressed in the art, when those are mastered
you are awarded a black belt. The black
belt is not the finish, it’s the start of having the elementary teachings
accomplished and the start to move on to the skilled lessons. So it is with entire sanctification, now you
are ready to take on the spiritual adult responsibilities of being a disciple
of Jesus.
Peter
has told us not to cozy up to the world.
The way a disciple of Jesus remains an alien and a stranger to the world
is by mastering egoism. Have you asked
God to sanctify you? Are you
experiencing the power of canceled sin? Is the power of egoism to hijack your
best intentions broken?
If not,
then keep trying to keep in step with the Spirit and the Spirit will lead you
to this second blessing gift of God.
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