Exhortation

“Abstain from fleshly lusts,” Peter says in this morning’s sermon text, “which war against the soul.”

It sounds as if Peter is saying that our bodies are evil, but that’s not what he means.

Later in the letter, Peter warns us to put aside the flesh and the “lusts of men” and instead obey the will of God (4:1-3).  The lust of the flesh is the Adamic desire to overthrow God and take His place.  It can take the form of sexual immortality and drunkenness, but it can also take the form of pride, envy, and contentiousness.

The fleshly world pressures us to conform.  Worse, the world has an outpost within.  Desires and preferences that we think make us who we are are just as deadly as enticements from outside.  Your anger and bitterness and are not your friends, and neither are the dazzling advertisements that seduce you into thinking that celebrity, or money, or the right car will make us happy.  Those are all from the flesh, and the flesh wants you dead.

Because we are divided against ourselves, our lives are more deeply marked by war than the lives of Gentiles, who complacently submit to the lusts of the flesh.  Each of us is a battleground in the cosmic war that the Spirit of Jesus wages against the world, the flesh, and the devil.  That is not a cause for despair.  Each of us is a battleground, but in Christ each of us is on the winning side.