This World Is Not My Home — 1 Peter 2:11-12

This world is not my home I’m just passing through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me from heavens open door

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.

The Apostle Paul put it like this in Philippians 1:23-24, “(23) I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; (24) but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” (NIV)

Paul is saying that he desires to depart for Heaven to be with Christ, and that he is torn between that and staying here and serving Christ by ministering to His people.

Why is Paul saying this? It is because this world is not his home.

It reminds me of the preacher who came out on Sunday morning at the start of the worship service and said, “how many of you want to go to heaven?” People shouted “amen” and raised their hands!

Then he asked, “How many of you want to go today?” It got quiet immediately! Paul was so certain about heaven that if you asked him if he wanted to go today, he would have shouted amen and raised his hand.

Hebrews 13:24 gets at what Paul was looking for, and what we should be looking for, “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for that city that is to come.” (NIV)

The city that is to come, that being the city of God at the day of the Lord, that is what we are looking for! In fact, this world is not our home, and we are just passing through.

In 1 Peter 2:11A Peter returns to a theme he has mentioned twice before by affirming, “Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world,” (NIV)

In two small verses Peter tells us how to live in a world that is not our home, because we are just passing through. There are two major points that he makes.

First, 1 Peter 2:11, “Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul.” (NIV)

First, fight the war against sinful desires.

Peter addresses the believers as “dear friends.” It is the Greek word typically translated, “beloved.” He is making it clear that he loves these folks, and you and I are included in the dear friends or beloved. He is speaking the truth from the heart about a subject that is dear to him and important.

He urges us! It is a strong word, that brings the impact of passion for a cause that is one of life and death!

What is he urging us to do? He is urging us to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul. We are constantly at war against sinful desires! We are being called to be diligent about a war against our soul. The word translated soul is the word PSYCHE, and it means the entire person, the body soul and spirit.

The devil is at war with us all the time! His only tool is to lie to us through our feelings and thoughts. Feelings and thought lead to desire. Desire will lead to action that can be Godly or sinful. If sinful it always has the possibility to destroy the body, the soul or the spirit, or all three.

I heard an interview on Fox News of a mother who is raising her grandsons. She told her story. When her daughter was 15, she tried some drugs. She got hooked and spent the rest of her life on and off drugs and in and out of rehab.

At the age of 25 in 2015 she got into some fentanyl, and it killed her. She had two boys and grandma is raising them, and she is now in her sixties.

The war was being waged against that 15-year-old girl. It was waged against her desires and cost her, probably her body, soul and spirit. We must wage war against desire, or Satan will work the desires of people over and wreck their lives.

Remember that we live in a world that is not our home, so we are foreigners here and are open to attack by the enemy. So how do we win that war against our lives in an alien nation where we live?

Galatians 5:16 says, “So I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (NIV) We are called to live by the Spirit and then we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Living by the Spirit will cause you to abstain from sinful desires! How does that work? Galatians 5:17 says, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” (NIV)

The Spirit and the sinful nature, called the flesh in the Greek, are in conflict with each other. If you are under the influence and power of the Spirit, you will be influenced to abstain from sinful behavior and partake in Godly behavior.

How can you be assured of being under the power and influence of the Spirit? Be surrendered to Jesus as Lord all the time. Don’t just make that initial surrender to Jesus as Lord but affirm His Lordship over your life daily.

A life under surrender to Jesus as Lord will be led by the Spirit and the desires of the sinful nature should be stumped and stomped!

Remember that the Spirit will always move in perfect concert with the Word of God in the Scripture! How do I know that? The Scripture came from the direction of the Spirit!

The second major point is from 1 Peter 2:12, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (NIV)

Point number two is live good lives among the pagans.

The word translated pagan is the word for gentiles or nations, and the point is the unconverted. It is referring to those without Christ. The call while living here on planet earth, which is not our home and we are just passing through, is to live really good lives right in front of those without Christ.

Peter recognizes that the unconverted will accuse those who live righteously in front of them of doing wrong, but the hope is that they see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.

How does all this work? It is all over the place in the book of Acts! In Acts chapter 16 Paul and Silas are in Philippi and are going to a place of prayer. A slave girl who predicted the future, earning a load of money for her owners followed them.

She kept screaming that these men are servants of God and are out here telling you the way to be saved. The girl did this for several days. Finally, Paul turned around and told the Spirit to leave her and the Spirit left her. Her owners realized that they just lost their paycheck from her services and threw a fit. What do they do next, they drag Paul an Silas into the market place and accuse them of throwing Philippi into an uproar and doing things that are unlawful.

They attacked Paul and Silas, stripped them and beat them, then the jailer came along and ordered that they be guarded and put in the inner cell of the local jail.

About midnight Paul and Silas were having a prayer meeting and singing hymns to God and an earthquake came along and shook the prison, freeing Paul and Silas from the chains and throwing the doors of the prison open to release them.

All this woke the jailer up and he rushed to the prison to check on the situation, and found the prisoners released. In those days if you were the jailer and prisoners get away from your jail you were subject to the death penalty, so the jailer drew his sword and was about the kill himself.

Paul saw all this and shouted, “don’t harm yourself, we are all here.”

The jailer responded to Paul by asking, “what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30B NIV)

Paul told him to believe in the Lord Jesus, and then he would be saved. They taught the jailer and his family the good news about Jesus and then he and his whole family were taken out and baptized.

The jailer took Paul and Silas to his home and fed them, and everyone was filled with great joy!

What happened in this historical account?

First, Paul and Silas were living good lives in front of pagans. First, they freed a woman from demons that her owners were using through her life to make money.

Freeing that girl was doing good among pagans.

What happened next? They accused them of doing wrong. All they did was make a young woman better but were accused of great evil resulting in them landing in jail.

In jail they had a prayer and praise service! God shook the place up and freed them, then they made sure the jailer did not kill himself. And led the guy to the Lord and baptized him and his family into Christ.

They did good, were accused of evil and led a guy and his family to the Lord, all deeds that result in glory being brought to God on the day He visits us because God used Paul and Silas to bring people to Christ who will be on the saved side of the ledger when Jesus comes back.

This world is not my home, I’m just passing through. How do I live in this foreign land? First, fight the war against sinful desires. Second, live good lives among the pagans.

Tom West works in advanced planning with Myers Funeral Service. You can reach him on his cell number at 602.758.1168. You can see Tom’s messages daily on his Youtube channel, Bible Messages With Pastor Tom West.