“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). I’ve always loved the book of 1 Peter. When you spend 60+ sermons preaching through a book, you can’t help but grow a special fondness of it. In this particular verse, Peter reminds us that the passions of our flesh wage war against our soul.

Let me get right to the point.

Folks, a war has been waged against your soul. And there is nothing more important than the state of your soul. Jesus said, “What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul. For what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). If the soul is lost, the whole person is lost. And there is no way to negotiate to get it back. When the war against the soul is over, it’s over. When all is said and done, it doesn’t really matter if we lose the war against terrorism, or the war against Iraq, or the war against drugs, or the war against poverty or teenage pregnancy or AIDS. Diseases can be treated, organs can be replaced, and, as Jesus said, “the poor you will always have with you,” but you can’t get a new soul. This war against your soul is important. It has grave implications.

Peter calls us sojourners and exiles. We are aliens to the culture that we live in. In fact, Peter has just said in verses 9 & 10 of the same chapter that we are part of a new people—we have a new home, a new citizenship, a new family. But we are not neutral aliens. As believers in Christ, we are a new creation—the apostle Paul tells us that in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We have new values, new priorities, and new goals. And we also have a new nature. But the problem is, we still have our old nature as well. And we still live in a world full of sinful temptations and ungodly values and selfish priorities. And we have an enemy, the Devil, masterminding temptations and setting traps for our soul. There is a war going on between our new nature and our old nature, between our godly values and the values of this world, between our passion for the things of God and the passions of the flesh, between the forces of darkness and the forces of light.

Folks, you’ve got a bulls-eye on your back—better yet, on your soul. Spiritually speaking, aliens cannot be neutral. You can’t live in a country that has declared war on your homeland and not expect to be considered an enemy of that country. You may think that you can just ignore sin and temptation and the passions of the flesh, as Peter calls them. But I’ll assure you, they are not going to ignore you. Notice again how Peter puts it. Those sinful desires that are still resident within you are “waging war” against you. They are out to get you. They are on the offensive. They are aggressive. And they are relentless in their pursuit.

This is why on some days—sometimes it seems for no reason at all—the temptation to lust or over-eat or be lazy is just overwhelming. This is why sometimes you take the opportunity to gossip about somebody else, or feel proud over your success and someone else’s misfortune, or think of yourself as a victim and wonder why others seem to get opportunities and you don’t. This is why sometimes you wake up in the morning and just feel out of sorts with the world—the least little thing sets you off: you snap at the kids, you kick the dog, you pound your fist on the steering wheel at the driver who is driving slowly in the fast lane. The world calls that “waking up on the wrong side of the bed,” but we know better. Peter reminds us that it is the war that is being waged against our soul.

And Peter calls them “passions” of the flesh. He could have just used the word sin, but he wanted to get across the idea of desire or attraction. Folks, there is a desirableness to sin. It is attractive. We are drawn to it. We are passionate about it. You see, we don’t just bumble into sin. We move toward it with intention. We are drawn to it because it promises us something—contentment or purpose or acceptance or love. Peter says to abstain from the passions of the flesh, the desires of your former lifestyle, the things you used to run to for comfort or pleasure or meaning.

What he is saying is this. “You’re an alien; you’re now part of a new people, with new desires and passions. But you’ve been sent back to live in your old country, among your previous people. Now, be careful that you don’t get drawn in by those old desires.” You see, we’re an alien, but we’re a special kind of alien. We’re like the recovering alcoholic who goes back to his old bar to try to help the drunks there find their way out of alcoholism. And Peter warns us, “As you do this, as an alien trying to serve others in this world by telling them that they can be delivered from their sinful addictions, be careful that you abstain from those old sinful tendencies, that you don’t get drawn in by those old temptations.”

So what is the answer? What are we to do? Peter tells us that we are to abstain from these passions of the flesh. We must avoid our sinful desires like they were a contagious, deadly disease. We can’t indulge them, we can’t flirt with them, we can’t minimize their destructiveness. And how do we abstain from these passions of the flesh, these sinful desires and tendencies? We do so by more and more admitting that we are aliens and that these passions of the flesh just do not satisfy like they used to. We must trade old passions for better ones. An alien knows that there are deeper comforts and more satisfying pleasures to be found at home. And home for a Christian is worshipping God and serving others.

Those desires within you for approval or acclaim, for sympathy or pity, for your own comfort or convenience or pleasure at the cost of serving others, must be recognized for what they are. They are enemies of your soul whose goal is to take you down. So beware!