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SERMON:
“The number one cause of atheism
is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their
actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.” –Karl Rahner
How does that quote strike you? As Christians ourselves we might
get a bit defensive about such a bold statement as this. The number one cause
of atheism is Christians? Surely the godless teaching in our secular colleges
and universities plays a role in making atheists, right? What about the
inherent sinful nature in every human being that ever seeks to deny God’s
existence and authority? Surely that plays a role in making atheists too. Wouldn’t those things be candidates for the number
one cause of atheism in the world today?
Whatever your feelings about Mr. Rahner’s statement, he has a
point. And the point is this, the life of a Christian says something to the
world.
2 Corinthians 5:15 says,
“He died for all,
that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died
for them and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15 NKJV).
The number one reason why the Son of God became human and died on
the cross was to win forgiveness for sinners. Full forgiveness. Complete
forgiveness for every sin we’ve ever committed, and every sin we will ever
commit. The Bible calls this GRACE. God’s free gift of release from sin’s
eternal consequences.
And this grace is so all-encompassing, EVERY SIN, that sometimes people
stop right there. We forget that the second reason the Son of God died on the
cross for us, was so that we should live no longer for ourselves, but for Him
who died for us and rose again.
The Christian life begins with faith in Christ. Faith that he
really did wipe every one of our sins off the board with his divine sacrifice
given in our place on the cross. And the Christian life continues from there.
We aren’t raptured away the moment we come to believe in Christ. And why?
Because God has work for his redeemed people to do on this broken world. And
that work is a life lived in joyful service to our great God and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
▬
Today we continue our study of Peter’s first letter. As we’ve
already stated, the apostle Peter wrote this letter to Christians living in
Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) in the first century AD. Peter had heard that
these Christians were being persecuted for their faith, and Peter wanted to
encourage them in the faith.
Again, these Christians weren’t being persecuted because of their
political views, or for their ethnic heritage. They were being persecuted for
their trust in Jesus as the God-Man, and Savior of the world.
It would have been easy for them to just tuck Jesus away in their
back pocket. Avoid the persecution by lying low. Not speaking about Christ. Not
living Christ’s way. Perhaps they were tempted to just live like they always
had lived, while holding their faith in Christ in the back of their minds.
In our reading for today, Peter calls his fellow Christians to
beware the temptation of hollow, words-only-Christianity. For a life of sin is
poison to the Christian faith. The sin in our lives wages war against our
souls. Unless we reject the sins that pop up in our lives on an ongoing basis,
and come to Christ for cleansing, our faith will wane, and wither, and die.
Peter calls his fellow Christians to cherish the light of Christ’s
forgiveness, and to walk in this light with godly actions.
Why should I live a godly life? First of
all, because God is good.
1 Peter 2:1-3 (NASB)
1Therefore, putting aside all malice and
all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2like newborn
babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in
respect to salvation, 3if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
▬
You remember the Ten Commandments right? Maybe you memorized them
in Catechism class years ago. Or recently. But do you remember what God told
the Israelite right before he gave them those rules for living? He said,
“I am the Lord
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage” (Exodus 2:2 NKJV).
The nation of Israel had just got done suffering 400 years of
slavery in Egypt. God heard their cries to him and delivered them out of Egypt
under the leadership of Moses. He reminds them of this fact right before giving
them the Ten Commandments because he wants them to understand that these aren’t
just rules for the sake of rules. These commandments were meant to bring
blessing into the lives of the Israelites when they kept them.
Peter says, hey guys, you know that God is good right? You’ve
tasted his goodness. He gave you his own Son to suffer in your place! He’s
forgiven your sins completely. You’ve got a future in heaven waiting for you
now. So put aside all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
God’s leading you to do this so that you will be blessed through this change.
Instead of pursuing life as they had always lived it, in these
sinful ways, the Christians of Asia Minor were to turn to the pure milk of
God’s Word instead, so that they would “grow in respect to their salvation.”
As they rejected sinful ways and attitudes, and continued to trust
in God’s promise of forgiveness in Christ, their grip on salvation would grow
stronger. Their faith would mature.
Why live a godly life? Because God
is good. And eternal blessings surround the path he leads a person down.
▬
And Peter continues.
Why live a godly life? Because
Jesus is the chosen Cornerstone of God’s church.
1 Peter 2:4-8 (NASB)
4And coming to
Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and
precious in the sight of God, 5you also, as living stones, are being
built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For this is contained in Scripture:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a
precious corner stone,
And he who believes in Him will not be
disappointed.”
7This precious
value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve,
“The stone which the builders rejected,
This became the very corner stone,”
8 and,
“A stone of stumbling and a
rock of offense”;
for they
stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.
▬
If you’ve
ever seen a stone archway you might have noticed that it had a unique stone at
the top. Where the two stone arches meet in the middle there is often “keystone”
which is shaped differently than the rest. It’s special shape applies the
proper pressure to each side, holding the weighty structure up.
In ancient
masonry, cornerstones like this were critical. While the most important stone
in the arch was the keystone, the most important stone in the building was the
chief cornerstone. It was the stone that set the lines for the rest of the
building, making sure everything was straight and in place. Solid and stable.
Now you can
imagine what a mess the builders would be in if they haphazardly discarded the
chief cornerstone. Since the rest of the building was designed around this
stone, the whole building plan wouldn’t make any sense without it!
This is what
happened to the Jews. God had chosen the nation of Israel for the special
purpose of bringing his eternal Son into the human race. God’s Son would be
born a Jew.
But when the
Son of God arrived, and carried out God’s plan to redeem sinners from their
sins, the Jews, for the most part, didn’t accept him as the Messiah. They
rejected the one individual that the whole Old Testament existed to point to!
They discarded the Chief Cornerstone of God’s building!
Without
Christ, the faith of the Jewish nation fell apart. If Jesus isn’t the Savior,
who is? All the prophecies pointed to him. Who else could take his place? What
were they to do about their sins? God was very clear in the Old Testament that
there was to be a judgment one day, and that the only escape from it for sinful
mankind would be a Savior. If it wasn’t Jesus, how could they stand before God?
Where was the relief from guilt and sin that God promised? Where were they to
go from here?
The picture
presented by Peter here is easy to imagine. Peter quotes the Old Testament
prophet Isaiah calling Jesus a “A stone
of stumbling and a rock of offense”—to the Jews.
It was as if
they were building the temple in Jerusalem, but refused to use the Chief
Cornerstone sent to them from the quarry. There it lay, pushed to the side. And
as they ran back and forth trying to figure it all out, they’d stumble across
this stone repeatedly. If you’ve ever slammed your toe into a rock you know how
frustrating this would be.
Peter writes…
“for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to
this doom they were also appointed” (1
Peter 2:8b NASB).
Now, I want
to take just a moment to clear up a little confusion in the text here. The
translation that we’re using is the New American Standard Bible translation.
And we’re using it for our study because it is usually one of the most
trustworthy English translations around. But for some reason the translators
made a regrettable addition to their translation in this verse. The Greek text
simply doesn’t include the word “doom”. They italicized the word so that
readers would know that it wasn’t found in the Greek here.
The problem
with supplying the word “doom” here is that it could be understood to mean that
God appointed the Jews to the doom of unbelief. But Scripture makes it clear that
God doesn’t predestine anyone to hell. As it says in First Timothy 2:4,
God desires all people to come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved through
faith in Christ.
So, without
the word “doom”, what is God saying here? Simply that those who are disobedient
to the word, those who reject the promise of salvation in Christ, they’re doing
to stumble. And we’re back to the picture of builders tripping over the most
important stone in the building project.
Peter
contrasts the confusion of the Messiah rejecting Jews with the solid position
of believers. Those in Asia Minor who were coming to Christ by faith were being
taken by God as living stones, and placed on the Chief Cornerstone. The
precious Cornerstone that God had chosen and sent to redeem mankind from sin.
And on this
Cornerstone these redeemed sinners were being built up as a part of God’s own
spiritual house. His own spiritual temple. The Church of God’s believers.
And Peter
quotes from Isaiah 28:16, those who believe in Him will not be disappointed.
On the foundation of God’s Chosen Savior, these believers would be able to
offer acceptable sacrifices to God. Offerings of thanks and praise that were
acceptable to God because those offerings are covered by Christ’s perfect
offering of himself on the cross.
Why live a
godly life? Because Jesus is the Chosen Cornerstone of God. And on him we are
secure. On him we are made new.
▬
Peter now
moves away from the picture of stumbling apart from Christ.
1 Peter
2:9-12 (NASB)
9But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim
the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light; 10for you once were not
a people, but now you are the
people of God; you had not
received mercy, but now you
have received mercy.
11Beloved, I
urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war
against the soul. 12Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles,
so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because
of your good deeds, as they observe them,
glorify God in the day of visitation.
▬
Maybe we’ve
gotten a little lost at this point. Remember, Peter is addressing Christians in
Asian Minor who were suffering persecution because of their faith in Christ.
People who were tempted to pocket their Christianity and live like everyone
else to avoid conflict and strife from the unbelieving world.
To that idea
Peter says, Why live a godly life? Because you’ve received mercy from God.
Many of the
believers in Asia Minor had grown up in pagan cities. Cities where pagan temple
priests resided over their followers, telling them that the only way to God was
through THEM. Bring your sacrifices here, and let the priests offer them for
you.
But Christ
had come to them through the Gospel message of sins forgiven through his cross.
Christ had spoken to them and told them the truth: there is only ONE priest who
can stand before the almighty. The very Son of God. And he has offered the ONE
sacrifice that God would accept for mankind’s freedom and cleansing—his own
sinless suffering and death. And NOW they were HIS priests. Called out of the
darkness of pagan unbelief and worthless sacrifices to offer their lives as a
living thank offering to the God who had redeemed them.
They had
received God’s mercy. His free grace in Christ. They could stand before God
without a human priest, for their High Priest had cleansed them forever.
And so Peter
urges them to live as they truly were now. He urges them to live as aliens and
strangers in this world of sin. He says don’t feed your sinful desires any
longer, even if this means persecution from your neighbors. The sins that would
gain you freedom from their ridicule would be poison to their faith.
Instead Peter
says, put up with their persecution. And live your lives to God. Don’t worry
about settling the score, returning the volley of gossip, or returning the
insult. Repay evil with good instead. And one day, your persevering in Christ’s
faith may cause your neighbors to see the light. And they may feel the
forgiveness and renewal that comes through faith in God’s chosen Messiah. Even
your persecutors may turn to Christ before the day he returns to judge the
world.
Why live a
godly life? Because you’ve receive mercy from God, and through
you they may receive the same gift from God.
▬
“The number one cause of atheism
is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their
actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.” –Karl Rahner
Christians,
however that quote strikes us, we have to admit that Christ calls us to both
proclaim his grace with our mouths, and also by how we live our lives.
But before we
close today I want to make one thing very clear. Living a godly life doesn’t
mean we Christians are going to be perfect. When Martin Luther wrote his
ninety-five theses the first one was this…
“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent'' (Mt
4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance” (Martin
Luther).
For sinners
redeemed by Christ, a godly life isn’t one that is devoid of sin, as if that
could ever happen. It is a life of repentance. A life of continually putting
aside the malice, the deceit, the hypocrisy, then envy, and the slander that
flow from our sinner’s hearts.
Christians
are sinners. Every day we live is filled with sins. But instead of embracing
these sins, we reject them in sorrow, and bring them to our great God and
Savior for cleansing. And we receive that cleaning because of Christ’s cross.
That’s the
life that Peter called his poor persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ to
embrace. That’s the life that Christ calls us to embrace today also.
Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard
your hearts, and your minds, in Christ Jesus.
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