The Strategy of Joyful Warfare Text: 1 Peter 2:11-12
Introduction: Resident Aliens on a Long-Term Mission
The Christian life is lived in a perpetual state of tension. We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom, yet we are commanded to be the best citizens of our earthly ones. We are told this world is not our home, yet we are commanded to seek the welfare of the city where we are exiled. We are at peace with God, yet we are engaged in a bloody, full-scale war. If you do not feel this tension, it is likely because you have collapsed it in one of two erroneous directions. Either you have become so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good, treating this world like a bus station where you are just waiting for the celestial transport, or you have become so earthly-minded that you have forgotten you are a soldier behind enemy lines.
Peter, writing to scattered and persecuted believers, will not allow for either of these errors. He addresses them as "sojourners and exiles," which is our fundamental identity here. But this is not a call to quietism or cultural retreat. We are not to be spiritual tourists, snapping a few pictures before heading home. We are resident aliens. We have an embassy here. We are colonists for King Jesus, tasked with bringing a foreign culture, the culture of Heaven, to bear on this one. Our identity as exiles does not mean we disengage; it defines the nature of our engagement. We engage not as those who are trying to preserve a seat at the worldly table, but as those who are preparing a feast for the King who is coming to claim all the tables as His own.
In these two verses, Peter lays out the grand strategy for this Christian engagement. It is a two-front war. There is an internal war against the passions of our own flesh, and there is an external war of public conduct. These two fronts are inextricably linked. You cannot win the public war for cultural influence if you are losing the private war for personal holiness. And the goal of both is not simply our own survival, but the glory of God when He shows up in power.
The Text
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul, by keeping your conduct excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good works, as they observe them, glorify God in the DAY OF VISITATION.
(1 Peter 2:11-12 LSB)
The Internal War (v. 11)
Peter begins with an affectionate and urgent appeal, grounding his command in their identity.
"Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul..." (1 Peter 2:11)
First, notice the address: "Beloved." We are loved by God. This is the foundation for all obedience. We do not fight in order to be loved; we fight because we are loved. This is not the pleading of a drill sergeant but the urging of a father. He then reminds them of their status: "sojourners and exiles." This world is not your native country. You speak with a different accent, you have different loyalties, and you serve a different King. Because this is true, you must live differently. A man visiting a foreign land does not adopt all its corrupt customs; he remembers where he is from. Our heavenly citizenship is what makes our earthly conduct so potent.
The central command here is to "abstain from fleshly lusts." This is not a call to a bloodless stoicism or a monkish asceticism that despises the material world. "Fleshly lusts" are not the ordinary desires for food, sleep, or marriage. The phrase refers to those disordered passions, those renegade desires that have declared independence from God. They are the cravings of our fallen nature that want to be king. Paul gives a representative list in Galatians 5: sexual immorality, impurity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, and so on. These are not neutral trifles; they are traitors within the camp.
And Peter's language is stark. These lusts "wage war against the soul." This is military language. Your soul is a battlefield. There is an insurgency, a fifth column within you that is actively trying to overthrow the rightful rule of Christ in your heart. These desires are not your friends. They are not quirky personality flaws. They are enemy combatants, and their goal is your destruction. They promise pleasure, but their payload is death. Every time you entertain a lustful thought, a bitter attitude, or an envious spirit, you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. You are supplying the rebels. Therefore, the command is to "abstain." This means to hold back, to keep away from. It requires a settled, determined, daily decision to starve the rebellion and feed the new man in Christ.
The External Witness (v. 12a)
The internal battle for holiness is the necessary ground for the external battle of witness.
"...by keeping your conduct excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing which they slander you as evildoers..." (1 Peter 2:12a)
Our conduct, our public behavior, is to be "excellent among the Gentiles." The word for excellent here means beautiful, noble, of high quality. We are to live lives that are compellingly attractive. This is not about being nice, in the vapid, modern sense of the word. It is about living with such integrity, honesty, diligence, and joy that the watching world cannot help but notice. Our lives are to be an argument for the truth of the gospel.
And the world is most certainly watching. Peter assumes, as a matter of course, that we will be slandered as "evildoers." This was certainly true for the first-century Christians. They were called atheists because they would not worship the pagan gods. They were called cannibals because of a twisted understanding of the Lord's Supper. They were called incestuous because they called each other "brother" and "sister." They were accused of disrupting the social order, and in a very real sense, they were. The gospel always disrupts a fallen social order.
We should expect no less. As our culture grows more aggressively pagan, the Christian virtues will be increasingly seen as wicked. A biblical view of marriage will be called hate. A biblical view of justice will be called oppression. A biblical view of male and female will be called bigotry. The world will call our good evil. Peter's point is that we must not give them any legitimate ammunition. They will have to lie about us. Our conduct must be so unimpeachable that their slanders appear ridiculous to any honest observer. We are to live in such a way that we answer their lies with our lives.
The Ultimate Goal (v. 12b)
What is the purpose of this difficult, two-front war? Peter gives the glorious, long-term objective.
"...they may because of your good works, as they observe them, glorify God in the DAY OF VISITATION." (1 Peter 2:12b)
Our good works are not just defensive, to protect our reputation. They are offensive weapons in the cause of the gospel. The pagans are watching, and as they see our good works, a seed is planted. They see a Christian businessman who is scrupulously honest. They see a Christian family that is joyful and ordered in the midst of chaos. They see Christians who face persecution without bitterness, who serve their enemies, who build beautiful things for the glory of God. And this observable goodness creates a cognitive dissonance in them. Their slanders say we are evil, but our lives say we are good.
This dissonance is resolved "in the day of visitation." Now, what is this day? The phrase can refer to a day of judgment, and it certainly includes the final judgment. On that day, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The testimony of our good works will stand as evidence against those who slandered us, and they will be forced to glorify God's justice.
But in the context of Peter's hopeful, world-conquering theology, it means more than that. A "day of visitation" is any time that God visits a people, a city, or a nation, whether in judgment or in grace. It is a time of historical reckoning. Peter is saying that as we live faithfully, as the church embodies this excellent conduct over generations, God will visit our pagan neighbors with His grace. There will come a day of revival, a day of turning. And on that day, when God's Spirit moves, they will remember the good works they observed. The very deeds they once slandered will become the reason they glorify God. They will say, "We thought they were fools, but they were the only sane ones. We called them hateful, but they showed us the love of Christ. Their lives were the signposts that led us home."
Conclusion: A Strategy for Victory
So, the strategy is laid bare. It begins in the secret place of your own soul, in the brutal, daily war against your own disordered desires. You cannot commend a feast to a starving world if you are secretly snacking on poison. You must mortify sin. Put it to death. Abstain.
From that foundation of personal holiness, you are to build a life of public excellence. Your work, your family life, your citizenship, your art, your everything, is to be done with such skill and integrity that it becomes a beautiful spectacle. It is to be a city on a hill. It is to be salt, preserving and flavoring the culture around you.
And as you do this, you will be hated. You will be slandered. Do not be surprised. But do not grow weary in doing good. For your good works are time-release capsules of grace. They are being stored up. And when God determines that it is time to visit our nation, when He decides to bring a great awakening, the testimony of your faithful, beautiful, slandered lives will be the very thing He uses to draw our enemies to Himself, so that they might join us in glorifying His name.
This is not a strategy for retreat. This is a strategy for conquest. It is the slow, patient, multigenerational work of building a Christian civilization, one holy life and one excellent deed at a time. So take up your post. Fight the war within, and live beautifully without. For the day of visitation is coming.