Exiles

In the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel tells us that if a man sins, his blood is on his own hands. He's committed sin himself. And he tells people that know the Word of God, if they warn somebody about their sin and that their sin will bring them death, that the person's blood is not on the hands of the person that warned them. But if we fail to warn people of the judgment that's coming upon their sin and about the consequences of their sin, God actually says that the blood of those people is on the hands of the person who knew and didn't tell them.

And so with that, I'm introducing what I'm going to start to speak about today, which is that I have an obligation to speak to you plainly and clearly from what God's Word says. it is up to me to be a messenger from God to you of what he has proclaimed and what he has said and it's up to you and God to deal with your relationship therein and whether or not you don't like something that he said or not but I am obligated and I am burdened that it is my job to tell you all that it says one of the things we do when we preach the word so I could get up here, let's talk philosophically for just a moment I could stand up here and I could just read the Bible to you and that could be argued that that's perfect and infallible if I just read the scripture to you, I couldn't make a mistake in theory, but that's not how God ordained that worship was going to occur and how his word was transmitted all the time, God ordained preaching as a means for people to give his word and the sense of it to one another. And so part of preaching a sermon is going to be explaining the text of a sermon. That's the exegesis, if you will.

That's saying, here's what the words mean. Here's what was happening here. Here's the background so we can understand what do these words mean. And part of it is going to be making application. Now, some people do nothing but application. Their whole sermons are life coaching sessions.

But we try to make some application as well. Without twisting the original meaning of the word, we want to understand how does what God said to the people at the time apply to our lives? How do we use it and live that out? So last week we looked at 1 Peter, and we only got through three words. I guess maybe we got through about six. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

And so Peter is an apostle. he's writing to the people in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia and he writes to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia excuse me so Peter is an apostle writing the word of God, he's writing a letter and he's writing to people who are elect exiles. And they're in a region that we now think of as Turkey and Asia Minor. And so they're pretty far from Rome.

And according to historians, this letter was written around 64 AD. So this is 30 years after Christ ascended back into heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. And Peter has spent a life telling people what he has seen and heard and proclaiming the gospel that Jesus commissioned him to proclaim. Peter has suffered greatly and will suffer a horrendous death that I hope none of us have to experience shortly after he writes this letter.

And Peter has a concern for the people, though. We said last week that some of the people in these regions may have been people who were actually in Jerusalem at Pentecost when Peter preached that sermon where 3,000 souls were saved and added to the church. Some of them may have gotten saved that day and then gone back and even started churches in these other regions.

And Peter, who was told by Jesus to tend his lambs, to feed his sheep, and to take care of Jesus' church, Peter, throughout whatever he is going through in his life, he has a concern for the people of God. He has a concern for what they're going to face and whether they'll be able to make it through the difficulties that are ordained for them. And so this is an extremely unselfish letter.

Peter had every authority and every circumstantial reason to demand that people come and help him and serve him. And as an apostle, I think Peter was the one that says in Acts 6, we need to get some deacons so that I can preach and pray while somebody else takes care of the widows. Peter had the authority to say these things, But Peter's heart was, I need to take care of God's people.

And I know that God's people are getting ready to suffer affliction. And he had a concern that that affliction was going to have an effect on them that wasn't the effect that God intended for them with the affliction. And so he writes to them. But I want to key in on one word right now. He says, to those who are elect exiles. So turn to Jeremiah 29.

We're going to talk about what an exile is. because in Peter when he calls people exiles I think we have to naturally ask a question what does he mean by this? is Peter saying that these are people who have been taken from their homeland and they are now in another land which is what happened to the Israelites on a number of occasions where they were taken by a king of a different land Or is Peter referring to people as exiles in a metaphorical and spiritual way When Peter's writing to exiles, is he instead of talking about people who've been physically displaced from their earthly land, but is he talking about people who spiritually belong somewhere else, but have to be in a place that isn't where they belong, belong, that isn't where they're at home. And I think that it is the latter. I think Peter is addressing people who belong in heaven with Jesus Christ.

People who belong in communion with Jesus and close with Him, who now are we'll say, sojourning or traveling in a world that isn't their home. And it's hard to be in a place that's not your home. If you've ever even just traveled for a vacation, have you ever had that sense where it's like, yeah, vacation's great, but I can't wait to sleep in my own bed.

I can't wait to turn on my own faucet. I mean, just little things that we're really used to in our own home. We miss them. We miss things we didn't realize that we liked so much and felt so comfortable with when we're away. If you're a Christian today, if you've been blood-bought by Jesus Christ, if your heart's been changed and you believe the gospel that Jesus died specifically to save you from your sins so that God could not pass judgment on you, but God could pass judgment on His Son instead.

And then Jesus rose from the grave to completely conquer death and show that His death was sufficient to pay for all the sins that God cast on His Son on that cross. If you're a Christian today, then you belong in heaven. You belong somewhere else. This is not your home. And we want to address how we ought to live in that sense. And the entire book of 1 Peter is going to address this.

We're going to go through a lot of things in 1 Peter. But first I want to talk about how God addressed the Israelites who were literally taken from their home. And they were taken to Babylon, they were taken to Assyria, there was a few different times that the Israelites were taken from their home and God had words for them at these times. so Jeremiah 29 is a letter that Jeremiah writes to the exile so it's a very similar parallel to what happens with Peter we're covenantal here we believe that the Old Testament was written for the edification of God's people we believe the Old Testament is the inspired word of God and is profitable for teaching for correction, for rebuke, for training in righteousness and so we don't treat the Old Testament as some book that was just written for the Israelites.

And this was just something that they were supposed to understand. And maybe we can learn a little bit from it. We treat it as this is literally words that were written to God's people, and we are God's people. And so we're going to try to understand them in the context that we are to understand them. So Jeremiah 29. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar was a wicked king and he dragged the Israelites away. This was after King Jeconiah and the Queen Mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elasa, the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

Interesting parallel that Peter's letter was sent by the hand of Silvanus, who wrote it for him, right? So again, we have a prophet of God. God is inspiring a man to write his words down, and then he's passing that on to somebody else who's going to deliver it. Just as a side note, what would you think of a guy that changed the words a little bit? I mean, it's wicked to think about somebody being handed the Word of God and then changing it even just a little bit, just trying to correct it, just to make it a little better.

Maybe in their heart they think they're helping people. Don't try to tamper with God's Word. God has said it. It's our obligation to believe it and then to deliver it to others. thus says the Lord of hosts or Yahweh of hosts the God of armies the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon so this is what God says to them build houses and live in them plant gardens and eat their produce take wives and have sons and daughters take wives for your son and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters.

Multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have set you into exile, and pray to Yahweh on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream. for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name I did not send them declares Yahweh briefly twice we read that it was God who sent them there I read earlier Nebuchadnezzar had taken them into exile in verse one and so we have this big bad guy Nebuchadnezzar took the Israelites into exile. But then, in verse 4, it says, Thus says the Lord of hosts to the exiles whom I have sent into exile So God sent them into exile according to that verse And then in verse 7 he says, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.

So we have a principle here that we need to understand. And one is that men often do things, but what men do they only get by the strength and the power of God. You can't lift your finger right now if God doesn't give you the strength to do it. But the second principle is this, is God will very often use wicked men and their wicked decisions for His own purposes.

But it's not a passive sitting back and just kind of watching it happen, and then maybe He's going to jump in at the end and make things better. God is the one that actually sent the Israelites into exile, and He sent them into exile for His purposes, and his purposes are always good. Matthew Henry, when he comments on this section, said, Note, it will help very much to reconcile us to our troubles and to make us patient under them to consider that they are what God has appointed us to.

So the first thing we want to understand from Jeremiah, and I think when Peter writes to the exiles in Pontus and Galatia and those places, and when Peter also writes to each and every one of us who's a born again Christian. That where you are now, whatever situation you're in, it was appointed by God. Now it may be the result of your own sin that you're in a tough spot.

So you ought to repent. It's not just God's fault. It's not, well, this is how God ordained it, so I can't do anything. We're to repent of sin. But a lot of times when you're put in a situation that you didn't put yourself in, you were just carried off into exile, or in our case, we're exiled here in this sin-cursed world. We need to know that we're here for a reason, and it's God's good purposes towards us.

Everything that happens to the believer is because God loves His people, and He's trying to conform them into the image of His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. And you know what? I'll include myself in this. We're all so far from that image that the only thing that He can do is force us into some kind of suffering most of the time. so that through our affliction we'll reach out to him and we'll beg him for help.

Because when we feel most weak, that's usually when we actually rely on him the most. It's a blessed man who actually has some concept of his own weakness and relies on God even when he doesn't feel like he has to in this life. Amos 3.6 tells us, Is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid? and he says, does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it?

There's a false teaching in American Christianity in particular that says when bad things happen, that must have been Satan and the Lord had nothing to do with it. Like he's up in heaven with his hands tied behind his back and every once in a while after a bad thing, he comes in and tries to make it better. and that is not the Lord Jesus Christ that's revealed in the Bible the Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible is absolutely sovereign over every molecule of creation he created all of them he's already written all of history and every bad and evil thing was in fact foreordained by him for the glory of his son Jesus Christ and for the love of his bride, of his people and some of those things are very hard to swallow for us some of those things are very hard for us to understand but it is what the Bible tells us he sent them to exile if you know what the Babylonians probably did to some of the Israelites we don't have a lot of details but we know the kind of stuff that happens to slaves and different kinds of people around the world even now The Babylonians, they weren't good people that just dragged them into exile. It wasn't like, hey, we want to help you out.

This was a very negative thing. So for a Jew to have heard a letter that basically said, you are here because God sent you here would have been an amazing revelation. And to understand that purpose would have been huge for them. Secondly, he tells them to settle down. I want you to notice that. He doesn't say go into exile and plot your course to get out.

He doesn't say just act like you're not really there. He doesn't tell them to just kind of imagine they're in a better place. It's not like he's prescribing yoga and mindlessness or any kind of weird things like that. He tells them build houses and live in them. You build a house, you're settling down. You aren't leaving.

It might be a little easier in 2020 to put up a house and move. It's still hard. But the idea of building a house back then in Babylon for these people, it meant you're going to be here a long time. Don't think about getting out. Don't think about being free. Don't think about it.

Just go and dwell there. And God is saying the same thing to us. We're here. We're in this world. We're to have families, build houses. He says plant gardens and eat their produce.

It's like, you know, try to take care of yourself. You know, don't be completely dependent on maybe the entire economy even. Plant gardens and eat their produce. You know, feed yourself. Take care of yourself so you can keep a little separation maybe. Take wives and have sons and daughters.

Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage. This is all in the context of remaining within God's people. he wasn't saying go find Babylonians to give your wives to give your daughters to, he wasn't saying that at all he telling them you need to continue to reproduce and in this sense it would be godly families and that what we to do And this is why God gives us a prescription in the New Testament that a Christian is not to be unequally yoked with a non-Christian in any number of endeavors, but one of them is in marriage. Because two cannot walk together unless they agree.

And if you know anybody that's ever been in a relationship where they were a Christian and their spouse was not, It's an extremely difficult thing for people. And it usually results in the Christian being, we'll say, pulled down in a sense. And so they're to marry, though, and they're supposed to multiply there and not decrease. So God has a plan for them.

We're going to get to the plan in a second, but God has a plan. And it might not make sense. They might think, well, why would I want to bring a kid into this world? That's what I'd be thinking. That's what a lot of people think. That's why we have, what, a thousand abortions a day?

I don't know the stat. I mean, it's amazing how many abortions we have. This is the United States. There's more in other countries. I mean, we've killed like 60 million little people in the United States because people basically hate children. And some of them will use the excuse of, well, I don't want to bring a child into this terrible world.

God tells Christians to bring children into the world. He says they're a gift from Him, actually. and the more you have the more blessed you are he says when they're older and well behaved I think when they're little you still don't feel it but you're supposed to be looking forward to the arrows in your quiver actually being able to be fired out and strike your enemies you don't do that with little kids but you put in that work but he's telling them multiply there don't decrease this is completely counter to what our minds would think our minds would think I'm going to go to Babylon I'm just going to mind my own business I'm either going to plot my escape or I'm just going to enjoy life all I can and just end up dying there anyway he's telling them get married I don't know about some of you guys but I don't sometimes having a person with you is more difficult in like an exile difficult situation but I think this applies to us I just got the evil eye from one of the ladies of the church. But so, he says, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to Yahweh on its behalf.

And now it's to the are you kidding me part. We have a book of Psalms, and there's a portion of them that are imprecatory prayers. And those are the prayers where David's actually praying that God would bring destruction on his enemies. Paul asked to be delivered from wicked and unreasonable people, and he's got some difficult words to say about Hymenaeus and Alexander when he writes to Timothy.

The Bible is not just, hey, just be nice all the time. The Bible actually never says be nice, actually. The Bible tells us to be kind, which is different. And if you don't know that distinction, it's something Christians should learn in our culture. But he says to seek the welfare of the city where you're going to be. So basically he's saying, these guys are going to come drag you off. some of you are probably about to get separated from your parents, they're going to separate children from their siblings and all of a sudden you're going to be all alone they're going to inundate you with their religion with their education and the only way you're going to survive is by basically becoming a part of that system and working and doing things and who knows what atrocities some of these Jews were going to witness and he says seek the welfare of that city because there's a principle in play here that we are to pray for our leaders that we have even if they're wicked.

We're to love the people in the cities where we live. If you have a wicked president or a wicked vice president or a wicked mayor or a wicked congress or whatever it happens to be, we're to seek the welfare of that area. I think too many Christians have a retreatist attitude that they've decided they're sojourners in this earth. And they're right. They've decided they're just passing through.

They're just traveling. and they've decided that they're not going to do anything to try to make any good impact on the culture that they're around. They're just going to do their little Christian thing in the corner. They're going to teach their kids Bible verses and some songs. And when it comes to trying to change some legislation that may protect their neighbor from atrocities, they're not going to do anything about it.

The attitude is, well, I can't change people's hearts and if I make a law that says well let's say we make a law that says well because murder is already illegal but if we made some kind of law that made it clear that a person is a person at conception and so now we've more clearly defined that murder is illegal before a person is born and there's people that would say well people will disobey it anyway and I can't change their heart so what's the point not to seek the welfare of their city I'd say trying to prevent murder in your city is seeking its welfare I'd say trying to prevent theft and lying helps with the welfare of a city defining marriage the way God defines marriage and then trying to enforce that to the best of your ability it's not going to stop people from violating what God says about marriage there's still going to be people but it may deter them a little there is a use of the law of God where they're actually deterred from evil when they understand it and hear it and if there's temporary consequences to a lot of these wicked things that are in people's hearts some people actually value their own safety and comfort more than they love their sin there's some people who just won't give themselves over to the abominations that are actually in their heart because they don't want to suffer like even going to jail or something. And so there is a sense where fighting for these good things is actually for the welfare of your city. And it says that it's for your welfare then.

If you live in the United States, the United States could have been said to have been a wicked country for a long, long time now because of some things that have happened in the United States. There are people in the United States that are still suffering the consequences of bad things that happened before. I'm not a social justice warrior, but it's a fact that we had some bad stuff happen that still has a trickle-down effect.

We've had abortion for a long time in this country before Roe v. Wade officially tried to legislate that it was good. and yet this is a very prosperous country and Christians in this country prosper as a result and a lot of people in this country who were Christian prospered in this system and then they sent out missionaries to other places to spread the gospel and so we play a role here even though we're sojourners, even though we're travelers and exiles right now and we're not in our home we play this role and God says don't let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you so basically he says don't let these people lie to you so what they're going to tell you is basically you can have heaven on earth back then they were going to tell them you're not going to be here 70 years it says in verse 10 let me skip for thus says Yahweh when 70 years are completed I will visit you and I will fulfill my promise and bring you back to this place so God tells them it's going to be 70 years and what God knows is going to happen is men are going to get up and lie and they're going to say don't do all this stuff Jeremiah said don't build a house, don't plant a field don't get married because we're going home in a couple years and they're going to give a motivational speech they're going to tell people exactly what they want to hear people who haven't hearkened to what God has told them in Jeremiah in Jeremiah's letter and then people are going to do the opposite of what God has commanded and then they're going to suffer because they believe the dreams of these diviners and these false prophets. And we have the same thing happening today.

There's people telling you that you can be healed from all your diseases. There's people telling you that you can have wealth and prosperity in this world that isn't promised to you. And they promise it in the name of God and they blaspheme His name. And you think Hitler's in a hot hell right now. False teachers are in a hotter one if I understand what Jesus said about them.

Hitler was nothing compared to the spiritual murder that these guys are doing to people the Bible says fear he who can kill your body and soul in hell not he who can kill your body in this life but God says it's a lie that they're prophesying in my name he's angry and Jeremiah writes this letter that is supposed to be truthful and comforting. But there's nothing particularly comforting about you're going to suffer. And hey, if you're in your 20s right now, you're never leaving Babylon.

I mean, like the people who got this letter, 70 years, maybe none of them were the ones that made it back. But for the love of their children and their children's children and their children's children's children, and I'm having trouble saying it, their grandchildren's children, for the love of future generations of people, they who obeyed the word of God created generations of people who would be brought back one day. And we're in the same position.

We don't know how long we're going to be in this exile here in the United States. This isn't even exile. We have Starbucks. As long as you can go get an espresso, you're not in exile yet. I know we all suffer different ways. there's things that have happened that are hard for us but we're hardly suffering here in a lot of the ways that the rest of the world suffers you know who the most persecuted people on earth are do you know who they are Chinese Christians may not be the case in the United States yet but globally Christians are killed at a rapid pace we're going to try to find a building that we can call a church and go meet there and we're actually not going to be really afraid that someone's going to come kill us.

At least not at first. And so we have a lot of blessings here that we enjoy, but we are here to suffer. And Peter's going to teach us about this. But I think that I want you to be able to put in your mind that this is not the first time God's people have been sent by God into exile for their good and for His glory. It wasn't the first time when Peter wrote that letter.

It's not the first time when you have difficulty. When you lose your job, when you lose a customer, when your cousin doesn't like you anymore, when your brother calls you names, whatever it is that you go through in your life, I want you to remember, you're not the first. And even if somebody was the first at one point, Jesus Christ is the only one that didn't deserve the punishment.

He suffered. But God says to him, in verse 11, and here's the verse that a lot of people kind of don't like how people misuse it at times, but God says, I know the plans I have for you. Talking to His people in exile, declares Yahweh, plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Now that verse is sometimes misused by people, and I think that they're rightly derided for it.

But the misuse is the promise that we sometimes give people in American Christianity, that hey, you're suffering right now, but Jeremiah 29.11 says, you're going to be cured of your cancer. Jeremiah 29 says you going to find a job Or whatever suffering you going through people say Jeremiah 29 means you going to be delivered from it in this life And that a misapplication of what Jeremiah said because he didn say that to us he said it to these guys And again, he said it after 70 years, so the people he wrote it to, most of them probably didn't experience the blessing. He was speaking to his people, but the principle applies, and the principle applies in 1 Peter. and we're going to go through 1 Peter Lord willing, we'll get past the first verse eventually too we're going to go through it and get into some of this detail of suffering and what we do as Christians but what I want you to realize is that you will be delivered from this world one day it's not a promise that you're no longer going to suffer in this world when we look at Jeremiah 29 11 and I say we can claim this verse for ourselves and I'm halfway to heresy according to some people by saying that, what I'm saying is you are going to die.

Or you're going to be taken by Jesus when He returns. If you're a Christian. And all of the suffering that you experienced in this world will not even compare to the glory that will be revealed to us. You'll wish you had had more suffering so that you would understand the beauty of the glory you're now seeing on that day. So don't despair. Don't don't feel alone.

Don't feel like you're the only one or the first one. It's about God's people together, the mystic sweet communion. I'm just saying about it, with those who've already gone before. We have sweet communion with the true believers that were in exile in Babylon. The ones that truly believed Yahweh and obeyed His word and looked forward to the Messiah. We have communion with them.

It's mystic and it's sweet. It's certainly mystic because I don't get it. But it's real. Mystic doesn't mean unreal. It's real. And so lest we start to think that the Old Testament was all these sojourners and exiles that were just physical, I want you to turn to Psalm 119 because I want you to understand that this idea of being a sojourner in a land that's not your home, in a spiritual sense is not something new to the New Testament.

This is not some new thing or new dispensation, if you will. And David, who I think wrote Psalm 119, in verse 19 of Psalm 119, David says, I am a sojourner on the earth. David was king in Jerusalem. He wasn't in exile in a foreign land. He wasn't kidnapped to Babylon. David was like the greatest military victor in the history of the world.

I guess you could argue it, but David was insanely good at winning victories and defending his homeland. But he says, I'm a sojourner. He doesn't mean I'm literally sojourning here in a land that's not my home. He wasn't in Babylon writing Psalm 119. David knows the truth that Peter tells the elect exiles that that is not his home. David knows that there's another home where he really belongs.

And as much wealth as he had and as much good things that David got to enjoy, that God gave him. David longs for the day that he's just with Jesus. He longs for the day that he's side to side with his Lord and that he's sinless. He's a sojourner on the earth. And he tells God, he says, hide not your commandments from me. David acknowledges that he's just visiting, but he wants God's commands, because there's something in God's commands that's going to help him.

And we'll get to that in a minute. In verse 54, David says, Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. So again, we have this idea of sojourning, but David, he says, in the house of my sojourning. Again, David's not in Babylon, he's not in Assyria, not even outside of his house David's in his house writing to God writing the Psalms by the Holy Spirit inspiring him to pen the very words of God for his people to be passed on to generation and generation so that thousands of years later people like us can read God's word and I'll add this David wrote all this before Jeremiah this was before they went to Babylon David knew he was a sojourner before there was even the concept physically that I don't want you to be stuck on so in verse 54 he says your statutes have been my song so Jesus, David who is a type of Jesus has been singing God's psalms these were psalms he wrote a lot of them right God's statutes God's rules, his ordinances his law, his judgments his commandments, whatever all the words are that David uses to describe like just God expressing like his very morality to us, David sings those I think there's a lesson there it's one of the reasons why we're trying to get, Aaron's trying to get psalms in music from somebody that we know that's written them and if you guys know anybody else, my only thing is I want to do ESV because that's what we're all trying to work with here but I think we should sing some of God's psalms and sing the statutes back to him.

But he says, Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning Well why Why is that important And let take it back to 1 Peter real quick In 1 Peter 2, I want you to turn there. Sometimes I want you to turn, I want you to see it yourself, encounter the Word. I can quote it or I can read it off a piece of paper. The point is you're supposed to encounter God and God's Word.

It's not about if the speaker can get you to think something, or if he's a good order, or any of those kinds of things. The goal is that you encounter God's Word, you see the text yourself, and then God's Word does its work on you, that God's Word will do, if God's will is for it to work on you in a way. But Peter says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners in exiles, 1 Peter 2.11, sorry.

I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. He basically just tells them, your sojourners and your exiles, don't sin. That's what abstain from the passions of the flesh effectively is saying. He's telling them, obey God's commandments while you're in your exile.

While you're sojourning, don't show up somewhere and like, like, ooh, I'm in Vegas, I can do what I want, right? Which is a bad example because I'm going to Las Vegas tomorrow. But that's the saying. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. There's people that literally live these apparently moral lives, and then they go to Vegas and they get into all sorts of debauchery because they somehow think it's contained there.

But Peter's saying, no, while you're sojourning, while you're traveling, you're to obey God. His statutes are to be your songs in the house of your sojourning. He says, I am a sojourner on the earth. Hide not your commandments from me. That was Psalm 119, 54 and 19. Those were the two verses we already looked at.

There's a relationship between being an exile or a sojourner and obeying God's word. And so God's statutes, first of all, need to be in your heart. if you are truly exiled, which we are truly exiled, but we have God's Word. If you ever become truly exiled where you don't have a copy of the Bible handy, a good question I have for you is, how much of it do you know?

How much of it could you sit down and reproduce if you had to? Do you even have a plan for that? do you just memorize verses once in a while or do you have a plan that says yeah I'm ready if I end up in a prison and now we don't live in a country where Bibles are just handed to prisoners how much of God's word can I recall so that I can obey it and also so that I can be comforted by it you should ask yourself that question if you're a Christian I bet some of us would remember all the things that happen on Friends or whatever TV show people... Friends was the last TV show I really ever watched, I think.

It's been so long. But some of us are experts at baseball statistics or football teams or the history of whatever we're interested in, like agriculture, botany, sewing. There's any number of things that people get into. I just know the ones I got into when I was more of an into-things person. It was mostly sports. And some of us are really good at our jobs, and we have to work hard at them, and we have to know a lot of things and learn a lot of things, but how much effort are you putting into the very realistic possibility that one day you may be separated from God's Word physically, and all you'll have is what you've put in your heart?

And whether or not you're comforted in your affliction, and whether or not you sin against God will largely be based on your ignorance of what all of God's Word really says, and your inability to recall it. something to think about so keeping God's statutes in our hearts provides us three primary graces while we're in the house of our sojourning think about these first of all we receive comfort in our affliction we are strangers in a strange land with heavenly citizenship so Philippians 3.20 supporting verse for what I've been saying and what Peter's saying but our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body so our citizenship is truly in heaven knowing that God is comforting to those in whom his spirit dwells is helpful in our affliction if you thought that this was all there is you'd be one of the most miserable people alive and if as a Christian you're fed false hope of deliverance from your temporary afflictions not only will that be extremely disappointing when it doesn't happen or it doesn't happen on your time tail but it's a bad testimony to other people Christians who suffer well are testimonies to the world that we believe in our God even when the circumstances don't seem to say the same thing that's what we want but we want comfort if something should happen to anyone in here if you not a Christian yet I pray that you would become a Christian as soon as possible That you would personally repent of your sin and you would trust that Christ died for you and rose again And that you would believe that you have nothing to offer God. That if God saves you, it's because of His goodwill, because of His love for His Son, Jesus. That's what I would ask you to do.

Don't come to Him with your little bit of good works that you think you've done, and then say, I'll add Jesus on top, or, ooh, I like that Jesus guy, but I'll just also pop in and say, here's the good stuff I've done. Just go to God, empty-handed, bankrupt, and say, I have nothing to bring you. Please save me. Have mercy on me, a sinner. So I pray that you would do that.

I'd hate to find out that one of the children, especially, got carted away in an exile situation and didn't know these things to think about it when that happened, even. but when you're there that's where you get your comfort you comfort yourself by remembering God's promise to seek welfare of his people right? Jeremiah 29 11, a promise to do good to you one day for some of us it's just just being delivered from this body of sin is enough I'd even take a thumb knee for eternity I mean I'm looking forward to not getting hurt anymore and just to not be able to sin would be such a gift so the first grace you receive comfort and affliction the second one we receive instruction for how we shall live so Peter says abstain from the passions of your flesh which wage war against your souls do not be conformed to the world there's a lot of things that Peter's going to tell us about how to live in our new situation we talked about taking wives and husbands In Peter's epistle, we're going to see this. Peter's epistle, which a lot of people say, well, it's about suffering and it's about preparing for suffering.

Well, he also talks about how husbands and wives should treat each other, how the church of God should treat each other, and he exhorts elders of churches how they should take care of the flock of God. Peter wasn't writing the letter as if it was all going to end the next day. He understood the same concept that these people could have, it will take 70 years, these people could have a lifetime of this affliction. and it may not end in that lifetime.

They may be with the Lord before it would end. But we receive instruction for how we shall live. So in order to fulfill God's commands, we need God to reveal His commands to us. And by the enabling grace of the Spirit of Christ, we'll have the freedom and power to obey them. So your work doesn't get you into heaven, it doesn't get you saved, but that isn't an excuse to not work once you've been saved keeping God's statutes in our hearts even singing about them provides us with the necessary hope of future deliverance the important thing to remember about sojourning is that it implies there is a home somewhere you're not homeless you're sojourning, there's a difference I'm going to repeat that the important thing to remember about sojourning or being a sojourner is that there is a home somewhere you're an exile not homeless and every redeemed saint ought to know that Christ is coming back to take us home cling to this hope so Psalm 119 57 Psalmist said Yahweh is my portion I promise to keep your words and then we'll finish with Spurgeon Spurgeon says I am looking for my heritage in the world to come now my brethren the Lord does not try many of you in that manner he keeps you on short commons and bitters your bread and mingles wormwood with your cup he says why is this?

Why? Because you are not to have your portion here. I like this line, though, the last line of this quote. He says, you once half thought you might have two heavens, but you were deceived. Pray with me. Father, we need your grace to be able to live this life that you've asked us to live, that you've sent us here to live.

And as Peter tried to prepare the people at that time for a lifetime of affliction, and as Jeremiah tried to prepare people in his day, we remember the words about living an ordinary life in a sense, seeking the welfare of where we live, establishing roots there, while still never truly thinking of it as our true home. And so, Father, we pray that this word would dwell in us richly, that we would be people who take seriously the commands of Scripture and how it fits together. I thank you for the patience of the people and the children who have behaved.

I pray, Lord, that you would bless the rest of our service today, that we might glorify you in all that we do. from hearts that have been regenerated, and for those who have not, that they would come to faith in Christ, even tonight. I ask all this because of the precious blood of your Son, Jesus. Amen.