·
The first word is: abstain. We are part of an abstinence movement. The
word is not complicated: it means what you suspect it means: to hold one’s self off, to refrain. It is a definite choice not to conform.
·
But it is not merely abstaining from things like
alcoholic drinks or illicit sex. It is
deeper than the physical forms. It is
abstaining from the deep desires that lead us to be involved in the physical
forms that occupy the people of this world.
Abstain from fleshly lusts. Peter is
talking about what John described in 1 John 2:15-17 as the desires that are the
sum total of all that is in the world
(v16). We challenge you to think of some
driving motivation for life that is not defined either as for to me to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21) or one of these three:
o The
lust of the flesh: Hedonism. The desire
to feel good, to have pleasure in every situation. As the old hippy might say: if it feels good, smoke it!
o The
lust of the eyes: Materialism. The
desire to have stuff and more stuff.
Covetousness; the yearning to be wealthier tomorrow than I am today.
o The
pride of life: Humanism or Self-actualization or Meme! The desire to have more friends or climb the
ladder of fame or power or significance.
These desires may lead me to the place where
alcohol or drugs or sex or climbing-the-corporate-ladder are major, necessary
parts of my life. But they are the
driving motivations of the earthly kingdom, not the Heavenly Kingdom to which
we belong. Thus, if we are to declare
the praises of the King who made us citizens of His heavenly city, we must
abstain from the lusts that are common to this world.
·
What is the problem with these fleshly lusts? And why must be abstain? Why can’t we just generally or mostly keep a
respectable distance from bad behavior?
The answer is that these fleshly lusts war against the soul.
o First
let us review Peter’s references to the soul
so far. Faith in Christ is all about the
salvation of our soul (1:9), which is
the Greek term psuche. The soul is the inner man. And when we trusted in Christ, that is, when
we obeyed the truth of the gospel, we purified
our souls (1:21). The soul was lost in
sin but through faith in Christ, at the deepest level, the level of the soul,
we have been saved.
o This
new life we have, which became ours through the new birth (1:3) and through the
shedding of the precious blood of Christ (1:17-19), is what sets us at odds
with the world in which we live. We are
dramatically changed at the level of the soul.
Remember: we came to Christ as a living stone. He is the stone
which the builders rejected. In
other words He was at odds with the administration of this world. And now we, as living stones, are like Him, at odds with the world. Thus we must abstain from the old root lusts
that were the reason we turned away from this world to come to Christ.
So consider yourself a sojourner and pilgrim. Then abstain from fleshly lusts which war against
the soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment