Alliance Christian Church
August 24 2025

      • 2 Corinthians 9:7GS-NETBIBLE

      • Ezekiel 37:1–6NETBIBLE2ED

  • Rattle!
  • I Exalt Thee
  • Fairest Lord Jesus

      • 1 Peter 2:11–17NETBIBLE2ED

  • We Didn’t Start the Fire

    1 Peter 2:11–17 “Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul, and maintain good conduct among the non-Christians, so that though they now malign you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God when he appears. Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good. For God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good. Live as free people, not using your freedom as a pretext for evil, but as God’s slaves. Honor all people, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the king.”
    Introduction
    July 19th, 64 AD, Just two years after the letter of 1 Peter was written, the Emperor Nero was in big political trouble.
    Let me give you an idea about Nero’s personality
    Nero was bragadocious. He was self centered. He was by all accounts a terrible leader
    He lead the roman emperor into economic decline, food shortages
    All the while, building lavish palaces and statues for himself.
    We was the textbook definition of a narcicist emperor.
    and on July 19, 64 AD a fire broke out in the city of rome.
    Normally that wouldn’t have been that big of a deal
    The city was supposed to have aqueducts and water canals running all through it so that they could handle emergencies like this
    And nero himself had even promised the citizens that he was going to update their water canals, and renovate their buildings to be made out of materials like stone instead of wood just in case something like this were to happen
    He never did that. He didn’t have enough money in the treasury because he spent most of it on parties and palaces for himself.
    And so what became known as the great fire of rome broke out all throughout the city.
    Lives were lost, entire neighborhoods were burned to the ground.
    While the Fires were still burning
    Nero had an idea
    He thought to himself, you know there’s a neighborhood that has just been burned to the ground
    It’s on the edge of the city, up on a hill
    It’s got a marvelous view of the lakes and the forest outside the city.
    And it’s vacant, because all of the buildings have been burned donw
    People’s homes, their businesses, their livelihoods, all ashes
    And that old burnt neighborhood would be a perfect place for my new mansion.
    I’ll line it with gold and jewels
    Bear in mind, this is while fires are still burning in the city
    And to make matters worse, the construction efforts involved removing a water canal
    The same water canal that used to feed water throughout the city to put out fires
    Needless to say, the people of rome were not happy
    Rumors had even begun to spread that Nero himself started the Fire, and that it was all on purpose so that he would have an excuse to build his mansion
    And what nero needed at that moment, more than anything else, was someone to blame.
    Because after all of the incompetence, and nepotism, and narcicism of Nero, he was almost the most hated person in the entire roman empire
    Almost.
    There happened to be one group of people living in the roman empire, that everyone hated more than nero
    1, 2 Peter Encouraging the Persecuted

    “a deadly superstition … hideous and shameful.”

    1, 2 Peter Encouraging the Persecuted

    “a class of men given to a new and wicked superstition.”

    And at this point, Nero was desperate.

    Ancient Roman Historian Tacitus...

    Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.
    Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out
    not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.
    Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.
    If there was one thing in ancient rome that everyone could get behind it was the idea that everyone hated the Christians.
    How do you live in such a world? How do you function when you’re the butt of every joke, you’re the scapegoat for every tragedy?
    That’s what we’re going to talk about in 1 Peter this morning.
    If you have your Bible’s turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 2.
    We’re in our series called scattered. How the church survives and thrives in exile
    1 Peter 2:11 NET 2nd ed.
    Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul,
    This is on the heels of peter telling them to build their lives on the cornerstone of Christ.
    Be built up into a spiritual house, to crave after the word of God the way Babies crave after their mother’s milk.
    Keep away from the sins of the flesh. All the stuff that you used to do that keeps you away from God
    And in case you’re wondering what kind of “fleshly desires” he’s warning them to keep away from, peter tells us in chapter 4 what their former way of life used to look like
    1 Peter 4:3 NET 2nd ed.
    For the time that has passed was sufficient for you to do what the non-Christians desire. You lived then in debauchery, evil desires, drunkenness, carousing, drinking bouts, and wanton idolatries.
    Peter says, as exiles, as foriegners..in other words, this world is not your home. You are strangers in your own country, because your true citizenship is in heaven. Therefore
    Keep from sin. Why? What does keeping away from the desire of the flesh have anything to do with being foreigners and exiles in the world?
    1 Peter 2:12 NET 2nd ed.
    and maintain good conduct among the non-Christians, so that though they now malign you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God when he appears.
    Your Bible here might say maintain your good conduct “among the gentiles” or maybe “among the pagans.” The NLT says among your “unbelieving neighbors”
    As a side note, if you’re serious about reading and studying the Bible, one of the things that you need to start doing is reading the bible in multiple english versions.
    Because translating the Bible from the original languages into english is a lot more like an art than a science. Sometimes languages and all the culture and nuance behind them don’t translate over well into english.
    And so if you read a passage, read it in two or three different bible translations. You can use the Bible app, so you don’t even have to buy three different bibles.
    But the word Peter uses here, literally is among the nations. But more specifically, it’s translated as “gentiles” because among the Jewish people you were either Jewish or not jewish. And if you were not jewish, you were people of the nations, ak a, the gentiles.
    But peter, here, is writing to Non-jewish christians, i.e. gentile christians, and he tells them, maintain good conduct among the gentiles.
    And what he means here, is “Anyone who is not a christain” He kind of co-ops the word.
    And the point that he’s making is, how should you act among those who are not the people of God?
    Maintain your good conduct. So that though now they malign you as wrongdoers, they will see your good deeds and glorify god when he appears.
    Application
    Anybody ever heard the phrase “kill em with kindness?”
    That’s the types of lives we ought to live.
    Live lives that show the Love of Jesus so much, that even people who despise Christianity, even people who despise Jesus can’t help but to stop and say,
    you know I don’t agree with their religion at all, but you know what, those chirstians have it figured out.
    I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s just something about them. there’s something about the way they live and they way they love.… they have something figured out.
    And peter continues on in verse 13,
    1 Peter 2:13–14 NET 2nd ed.
    Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good.
    Perhaps the area in which I believe the church today struggles the most with is how we relate to the culture. And specifically, to the state.
    And what i’ve seen in today’s culture, is that two extremes have started to emerge.
    On one side you have the church that says, you know what, we are all in with the state. We want to infiltrate the state, we want to be a positive force in the culture and in the government, we’re going to say the pledge of allegiance in Church, we’re going to make ourselves a political entity. We want Christian politicians, we want christian institutions in governement. We want to have a nation where God and country are so intertwined that they are virtually indistinguishable.
    And of course the obvious downside here is, while the intention might be to bring God into politics, what inevitably happens is the opposite. We bring politics into the church. Instead of bringing christian values into the culture, what usually ends ups happening is we bring cultural values into the church.
    So then you go over to the other extreme. And this is the church that says, you know what, peter was right, we’re exiles in the world, this is not our home. So we’re going to close ourselves off from everything.
    We’re not going to get involved, we’re not going to have our kids in school, we’re not going to associate with the culture and the state.
    We’re going to sort of isolate oursleves, and live good honorable holy lives.
    And what ends up happening there, of course, is you raise up an entire generation of Christians who have no idea how to associate with the world, no idea how to communicate, no idea how to preach the gospel, because they are so out of touch with those outside the church.
    —
    In order to have a biblical framework, how we ought to relate to the state, how we ought to relate to the roman empire of our day… we ought to have a look at what the whole bible tells us.
    So here in 1 Peter, it seems as though peter is trying to tell them both things.
    On the one hand, he keeps calling them exiles. foreigners. He’s signaling to them that they are NOT a part of the culture they live in. They’re separate, they’re different.
    But on the other hand, he tells them, be subject to every human institution.
    Be a model citizen. When Caesar is owed taxes, pay your taxes. When caesar is owed respect, give him respect.
    Paul tells us in Romans 13:1
    Romans 13:1 NET 2nd ed.
    Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God’s appointment, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God.
    In the book of Daniel, Daniel is brought on as an advisor to the king.
    He gives the king all of the common courtesies that are due to him.
    He says to king nebuchadnezzar
    Daniel 2:37 NET 2nd ed.
    “You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has granted you sovereignty, power, strength, and honor.
    And he said that not because he particularly liked nebuchadnezzar.
    But because that’s the way you were supposed to address the king. He was giving proper respect to the office.
    However. Our respect that is due to the office of king. Stops just short of our true allegience and loyalty to the true king.
    When King darius told Daniel not to pray to God, and to pray to him alone, Daniel did not comply.
    When Peter, the one who is writing this letter we’re studying, was told to stop preaching about Jesus by the authorities.
    He responded by saying
    Acts 4:19–20 NET 2nd ed.
    But Peter and John replied, “Whether it is right before God to obey you rather than God, you decide, for it is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”
    As Christians it’s not that we have our feet in both worlds. We don’t have one foot in the kingdom of heaven and one foot in the world.
    We are squarely planted in the kingdom of heaven. We are subject to God and he is our ultimate king.
    That’s why we’re called exiles, that’s why we’re foriengers in this world.
    However, the other side of that coin is, we are guests in someone else's house.
    And that’s how we ought to act. As long as the cultural rules and the governmental rules don’t go against God’s rules, we obey.
    We act as model citizens.
    1 Peter 2:15 NET 2nd ed.
    For God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.
    One of the hardest things to do is to tease or make fun of someone who is a generally good person.
    It is really difficult to persecute people who are Good.
    In fact, throughout church history, a few hundred years after the new testament was written we have letters from roman emperors basically saying,
    We don’t like the christians, we want to execute the christians. But the problem is, they care for not only their own poor, but for the pagans too.
    They’re out there taking care of widows and orphans, and inviting people into their homes and feeding them and clothing them.
    And as roman emperor it’s really difficult to arrest these people and put them on trial, becasue everywhere you go they’re out there caring for the sick and the poor and the homeless. It kind of makes us romans look like jerks.
    And that’s exactly the type of attitude that peter wanted to instill in the churches from the very beginning. Be so good, so upright, so kind, so generous that when people try to persecute you, or mock you, they end up looking like fools.
    1 Peter 2:16 NET 2nd ed.
    Live as free people, not using your freedom as a pretext for evil, but as God’s slaves.
    As roman citizens, the scattered churches had a lot of benefits.
    There were a lot of perks that came along with being a roman citizen. Much like today, we have rights and we have benefits of being citizens of the united states.
    We have a lot of freedom. And when we use that freedom for our own benefit, things go wrong.
    but when we use it for God’s glory, that’s when the whole thing comes together.
    We have a first ammendment right to free speech. Are we using it to be obnoxious, or are we using it to glorify christ.
    We have a right to assemble, we have a right to participate in our government through voting and civic duties.
    Are we using it for us? So that I can vote for the tax breaks that I want, and the freedom that I want? Or are we using it to grow and expand God’s kingdom?
    Because even though we’re free, we still serve God.
    1 Peter 2:17 NET 2nd ed.
    Honor all people, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the king.
    I told you earlier, the emperor nero used the Christians as his own personal scapegoat.
    It’s believed that peter himself was caught up in the executions. Which means two years after this letter was written, Peter was brought out, flogged and crucified.
    Nero, wanting to make such an example of the Christians, brought them out and set them on fire in the city, and let them burn in his gardens at night.
    The same king that peter is telling them to honor, did that only two years later.

      • 1 Peter 2:11NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 4:3NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:12NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:13–14NETBIBLE2ED

      • Romans 13:1NETBIBLE2ED

      • Daniel 2:37NETBIBLE2ED

      • Acts 4:19–20NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:15NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:16NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:17NETBIBLE2ED

  • Blessed Redeemer
  • Graves Into Gardens
  • Let The Redeemed Of The Lord Say So
Alliance Christian Church
churchinalliance@gmail.com
9707657196
https://www.alliancechristian.church
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