Have you ever wondered what other people really thought about you? For the early church, there are a few accounts from Romans in the 2^nd and 4^th  century that shows what some Romans (ie. Pagans) thought of the church.

Pliny (PLIH-nee) the Younger, who was governor of Northern Turkey around 110 A.D., wrote a letter to the Roman Emperor asking what to do with Christians. In the letter, Pliny makes some observations about Christians: he detailed they’d meet before dawn on a fixed day, they would sing a song to Christ as if he was a god, they would share an ordinary meal together, and they would vow to not commit robbery, theft, adultery, and more. Pliny got this information from two women slaves that he tortured. Who were the women? They were deacons from the church – they were given a ministry title to serve God’s people.

This wasn’t a second century thing either. Around 362 A.D., Julian is the Roman Emperor right now. Julian is interesting too – he actually was a Christian but then left the faith and became a pagan. He actively worked to establish paganism as the default religion in the Roman Religion but there was a problem. And do you know what he observes about Christians? He complains about Christians because they care for poor Christians but they also care for poor Romans, even better than the Roman Empire. He complains that it’s actually embarrassing because everyone can see Christians loving and serving the poor more than the organized Roman Empire.

These are outsider descriptions of what the Christian church looked like in the second and fourth century and what do you see? You see a commitment to community and to Christ, you see a commitment to the poor, and you see a commitment to serving even when its hard.

Put simply, Pliny and Julian are no friends of the church and yet, they wrote about the good deeds that the church was doing – unintentionally. So, a question I want us to think of is this:

How would an outsider honestly describe our church if they watched us? (SLIDE)(PAUSE)

Would it be easy for them to see that we loved each other? Would it be easy for them to see that we care for the poor? Would it be easy for them to see that we worship Christ, together as a family and are eager to serve each other? Or another question we can ask is: do our good deeds even make a blip on people’s radar?

When we dropped off invite cards for the block party, many people seemed genuinely shocked and surprised to see us. From what I gathered, in our 69 years of existence as a church, many neighbors have never met anyone from this church.

1 Peter 2:9-12 tells us to live such good lives among pagans that they notice our good deeds. What would the pagans around us notice and what would they write about us?

These are questions that our church, Peter’s churches in Turkey, and every church across the globe needs to wrestle with honestly. And these are questions that each of us needs to wrestle with in our own lives too. Why do we struggle with this?

1 Peter 2:9-12 gives us two reasons or instructions on why this is a struggle:

We struggle to abstain from sinful desires – verse 11 This is a tough one for most of us to hear. But, 1 Peter is a letter that is relentless in calling us to holy living. Unfortunately, the call to holiness is often viewed with suspicion in our context. As I shared a few weeks ago, we can’t pursue holiness out of pure willpower alone AND we can’t discount holiness because of grace. Peter views the mercy of God and the call to holy living as best friends, not enemies.

But, we struggle with sinful desires. My friends: take this passage seriously. Peter is saying to abstain from sinful desires because they wage war against your soul. That means sin is actively trying to conquer your soul so you will fall away from the faith and stop being part of the chosen people, royal priesthood, etc. Do you hear how serious that is? You cannot make the mistake of downplaying your sin, if you do, you will lose that war.

Think with me of the story of David and Goliath. Goliath views David as weak and downplays him. Goliath views David with contempt and feels superior to him. Then, what happens? Goliath falls because of David’s faith in God. It was Goliaths underestimation that got him killed.

In the same way, you can’t downplay sin. You can’t feel superior to it as a believer because when you do that, you will fall and give into your sinful desires.

And since we struggle with sinful desires, that also leads us to the second thing we can’t do:

Our witness is inconsistent. Notice in verse 9 – it says to declare the praises of him. And in verse 12, it says to live such good lives. That means the goal of the Christian life and role of the church is to commit itself to both word and deed – to speak of Christ and to live life like him.

But often times, it’s easy to have one of those and not the other. That’s an incomplete faith then. What do I mean? (SLIDE)

On an individual level, it may mean you are kind and demonstrate sacrificial love to others – that’s you being committed to good deeds. But, no one knows you’re a Christian. They just assume you’re a nice person or have good manners. You have the deeds without the word.

On the flip side, you may be really passionate about Jesus and your beliefs online and even have a bible verse in your Instagram bio. But in-person, you treat others poorly, participate in worldly sin like drunkenness or sexual immorality, and are far from careful with your speech. You have the word (online) without the deeds.

Don’t make the mistake of saying: “My life is my witness.” That’s true to a point, your life and good deeds are valuable but 1 Peter is clear: you need deeds AND you need the word.

Jesus himself rebukes this in Matthew 23:23 where he announces woes to the Pharisees for tithing (which is good) but ignoring the weightier matters of the law like: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

1 Peter 2:9-12 encourages us to have a consistent witness of word and deed together, every time and in every area of our life.

These two issues reveal that there is something deep within us that makes this difficult for us to do. What is that? There are two things we forget (SLIDE):

We forget our true identity– read verse 9 with me again…a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession (our identity) – can you grasp the weight of that identity? Can you hear the splendor of who you are because of what Christ has done? And when you embrace that identity, it leads to life transformation. When you remember you’re chosen, a priest, a nation, and a special possession of God, your desires reorient to God.  

But, if you forget that identity, your desires reorient and end up giving into sinful desires. It leads you to abandon your trust in God as your good father who knows what’s best for you.

When a child knows that they are loved by their mom and dad, they tend to flourish. But, when a child forgets their mom or dad’s love or if it feels distant, kids often go looking for love in places that won’t give it back.

We forget the coming day – look at verse 12, the day of visitation. This phrase can have two meanings: first, it means that we should have hope that pagans will see our good deeds and be won over to the faith. That will bring glory to God. Second, it is also talking about the day when Jesus returns – to vindicate God’s people but also judge those who mocked God’s people. Jesus is going to return!

Most of us live our lives totally unaware of these realities. We downplay the power that is available to us through the Spirit and potential that each of us has to witness to a nonbelieving world. Have you ever considered that the salvation of your co-worker, neighbor, or relative could be tied to your visible witness of word and deed? God often chooses to work through our words and deeds in redeeming people but do you really believe that? That’s what 1 Peter wants you to see but we often don’t believe it so we do nothing.

We also forget that day when Jesus returns which makes sharing the Gospel feel like an option or feel like the most terrifying thing. We’re less likely to share the Gospel with that coworker because judgement of their sin feels far off. And we’re more likely to feel afraid of sharing the Gospel because we’re worried someone will respond poorly. The coming day is meant to give us hope and resolution but yet, many believers live their lives as if they don’t believe that. That’s what Revelation is meant to do – give us hope and urgency to share.

So, what hope is there for us?

The hope can be found in verse 10 – once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. It is the mercy of Christ that enables our identity. What even is mercy? This is one of the huge biblical words that we use often and it has multiple meanings.

But in the context of 1 Peter, mercy is God’s compassion to those in genuine need or distress. Peter is quoting Hosea in this passage. In Hosea, God is  reminding the people of Israel that they are struggling because of their unfaithfulness to him. Despite that, he is going to show them a mercy.

Just like God chose to show mercy to Israel who was unfaithful, God chooses mercy to us despite our unfaithfulness. Before God’s mercy intervened, we were not a people – we had sinful desires that were destroying our souls. Those sinful desires lead us to running away from God who is the only one capable of restoring our souls. We run to sinful things that refuse to show us mercy like God shows us mercy. In doing so, we harm ourselves and harm the good world that God has created. We lived in spiritual darkness. So, why would God, who has every right to abandon us, instead draw near to us?

It’s all mercy. Rather than leaving us to fate, God became flesh and dwelled among us. Jesus Christ walked in the darkness of this world – allowing the powers of this world to crucify him on the cross. And for three days, Jesus dwelled in the darkness of death. But on that third day, he arose – announcing that mercy gets the final say and that he will not leave his people to stumble in the darkness anymore. He will instead rescue us and make us his own special possession. And if that doesn’t get an amen, I don’t know why we’re here.

Mercy is the mechanism underneath our core identity that’s revealed through this passage (SLIDE):

·      We’re a new race (chosen people): the apostle Paul in Romans 5:12-21 puts it this way: every race has a father. Every people has an origin. As humanity, our origin lies in Adam who sinned against God and ran from him. Likewise, we inherit that same failure. But, Jesus Christ succeeded where Adam did not and he chose total obedience to God over disobedience. Why? To reveal his mercy and make us a new race, a chosen people.

·      We’re royal priests:  We now have access to God through what Jesus Christ has done. And we can now make spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to him as we saw last week. Paul tells Timothy the same thing in 1 Timothy 2:5 that there is just one mediator between God and man – that mediator is Jesus Christ.

·      We belong to a King of a holy nation: We belong to God and that means we are now part of something bigger than ourselves. That means our top allegiance is to Jesus – not our countries, not our families, and not our sports teams.

All of this is because of God’s marvelous mercy, not our merit. Taste and see, my friends – the Lord is good!

So now that we’ve been shown such great mercy by God, how then do we live our lives? Our new identity also gives us a deep purpose too: God wants us to display mercy to his world so that others will be rescued by him.

Our big application idea today is this: (SLIDE) Mercy — not effort — is what constitutes God's people, and that same mercy is what now presses outward into how you live before a watching world.

We’re going to give two examples, one for you personally and one for us corporately as a body.

Personal and Household: I’d invite you personally or your household to do two things:

1.      If you struggle with doing good deeds but not sharing the word, pair your act of service with the why behind it. For example, if you’re talking to a neighbor and you know they’re struggling, offer to bring them a meal or a dessert. When you do that, ask if you could pray for them or share that you’re doing it because Jesus loves them and as a follower of his, you’re called to serve.

2.    If you struggle with sharing the word but lack good deeds, look for a way to serve someone that you’ve shared the word with. If that’s a relative or a co-worker, pray to God that he would give you an opportunity to bless that person or to serve that person. Guess what? I have a feeling God will answer that prayer.

Corporately: right now, friends, we do not have a set local missions and outreach plan in place. That’s a real problem for our church and one that your leadership is actively working on. This past year, we’ve continued to make strides in this area with our block party, Halloween outreach, and a few other things that are cooking.

So, I’d invite you to take two steps today because mercy is already working in your life if you’re a follower of Jesus. And because of that mercy, it presses you into two next steps:  

1.      Pray for your church board – these are your spiritual leaders and shepherds over your life. We’re actively discerning what God has called us to do in this neighborhood and city. In the New Year, we’ll have some solid steps in place but we really need your prayers.

2.    If your convictions allow it, sign up to be a part of our Trunk or Treat outreach. As that event unfolds, there are going to be hundreds of people that are watching our church – what will they see? An intergenerational group of people who love each other and want to serve their community? That’s my hope.

As we prepare to close today, I’d invite you to reflect on two things then during our time of singing and time to receive prayer. Pliny and Julian wrote about their experiences with Christians and so I want you to think about:  

1.      If an outsider was writing about your life, would it be clear that you are a person who follows Jesus in Word and in deed?

2.    If an outsider was writing about our church, would it be clear that we are people who follow Jesus in Word and in deed?

My friends: sit with those questions. Reflect on the great mercy that has been give to you through Jesus Christ. And because of that mercy, you now have a new identity and a purpose: to be a follower of Jesus who is committed to word and deed. If you have the word without deed, you have an incomplete calling and vice versa. When you have both, that’s when you can live such a good life among pagans that they will notice and you can boldly share why you’re different in hopes that they will be won over and with the reality that Jesus is coming back someday. Live your life knowing that to be true.

Amen?