1 Peter 1:21-2:3
First Christian Church, Owensville, IN
Mother’s Day, May 10, 2020
(Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.)
Below is only a skeleton outline of main points, Scriptures and quotations of the message presented via Facebook Live on May 10, 2020.
1 Peter 1:22-2:3:
1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
2:1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
• On this Mother's Day, we come to a passage in our current series that includes maternal vocabulary—born again, newborn, infants, and milk. 23 since you have been born again,
• This is not the first time Peter has referenced our new birth into salvation.
• Remember that early on Peter wrote to us 1:3 that According to his great mercy, [God the Father] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
• How did this come about? Through God’s Word:
23 since you have been born again…through the living and abiding word of God…
• Peter describes God’s Word in a few other ways: “truth” (1:22)
• John 17:17: Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. (NLT) –Jesus
• James 1:18: He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. (NLT)
• “imperishable seed” (1:23); eternal “remains forever”; “the good news” (v. 25); “pure spiritual milk” (2:2)
• For the rebirth through God’s Word to take place, something has to be done with it. It requires a particular response by the hearer: obedience.
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth.
• Peter knew first-hand what he was writing about.
• Acts 2:21-35, Peter preaches a gospel (good news) message.
• Acts 2:36-41: 36 “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
37 Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” 40 Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church [God’s family] that day—about 3,000 in all. (NLT)
• There is the initial, new birth experience. Having their consciences convicted both of their sin and of Jesus being Savior and Lord/King, they believed (received), repented and were baptized (immersed in water).
• They did what Peter said to do—they obeyed the Good News.
• What was the result? Their sins were forgiven (the souls were purified—sanitized or spiritually “Purelled”!) and they received the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the Godhead—as a Guest to dwell inside of them and to identify them as God’s own!
• That is how they called on the Lord’s Name so as to be saved.
• John 3:4-5: 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (ESV)
• God does a lot of work in baptism when a person surrenders to the Lordship of His Son—forgives, gifts His Holy Spirit who sanctifies the believer, unites the believer with His Son, clothes the believer with Christ, raises the believer to a new life empowered by the Holy Spirit.
• 1 John 5:6-8: 6 And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony. 7 So we have these three witnesses— 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree. (NLT)
• At our baptism, we are identified as God’s children, we come into contact with the blood of Christ and we receive the Holy Spirit!
• By obeying the truth, Peter is referring to accepting the Gospel message with both its promises and demands.
• Obeying the Gospel means not only believing the message of Christ, but also committing to live by it. When you put those together, you have allegiance to Christ.
• They were born again not only into a living hope, but also into the family of God with lots of brothers and sisters.
• And if you’ve got brothers and sisters in a family there is something else needed if that family is going to thrive as a family.
• In fact, that very thing you need is one of the very reasons you were reborn—love for the others who experienced the new birth!
• Look again at verses 22-23:
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again…
In other words, what we are to do as God’s children (love one another) is grounded in what God did when we obeyed the Gospel (purified us from our sins) (1:22-23).
• Through the new birth by way of the Word, God He enables us to possess and demonstrate a family love we couldn’t practice before our new birth! Apart from knowing Jesus through the receiving and obeying of His Word we can’t love like Jesus: (1:24-25)
• How am I supposed to love you and how are you supposed to love me? Sincerely and deeply.
• “sincerely” = without any hypocrisy.
• “earnestly” = “strenuously” or persistently. It is the idea of being stretched or strained.
• That means you and I are going to have to really put forth a great effort to really love one another!
• And it’s not something we can just choose to do for a little while. Unlike your mortal life that was conceived by the human seed, your new life in Christ was conceived by the Word of God that is living, abiding and remains forever (vv. 23, 25)!
• Hebrews 4:12: God’s word is living and active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword and cuts as deep as the place where soul and spirit meet, the place where joints and marrow meet. God’s word judges a person’s thoughts and intentions. (GW)
• Because the new life given by God through faith in Christ and His eternal Word is everlasting, our love for one another should be enduring as well.
• Christ tells us through Peter that this is to be our number one priority:
• 1 Peter 4:8: Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. (ESV)
• Simply put,…
If you obey the Good News, God enables you to intensely and genuinely love your brothers and sisters in Christ (vv. 22-23).
Loving one another deeply includes doing the difficult relational stuff God has commanded.
• Jesus tells us how to handle it when someone gravely sins against us (Matthew 18:15-18).
• He tells us how to handle it when we realize someone has something against us (Matthew 5:26).
• Perhaps the apostle Paul best summed it up by writing in the letter to the Philippian church:
Philippians 2:3-4: 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. (CSB)
• This is really the reason we’re wearing masks due to COVID-19, out love and consideration for others. Just as Jesus laid aside His privileges for our sake, so we lay aside ours for the sake of others. (Philippians 2:5-11).
• Sometimes deeply loving someone means telling them something you really don’t want to say and you know they won’t want to hear. It also means hearing something you don’t want to hear from someone.
• But remember, the attitude with which we confront and are confronted is extremely important:
Galatians 6:1: Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. (NLT)
• This kind of love for one another begins with each child of God doing some housecleaning of their own:
2 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
• Notice that these are sins involving relationships.
• “Malice = all wickedness or depravity;
• “deceit” = lying to each other;
• hypocrisy = pretense or insincerity;
• “envy” = jealousy;
• “slander” = “talking down” or “running someone down”
• These are the kinds of things that ruled our empty lives prior to our conversion. These are the kinds of things that kept us from loving like Christ loves us.
• How do we do this over the long haul? Somehow our deep love for one another has to not only be sustained, but further matured. Peter tells us how to do that:
2:1 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The Word that gave us birth is the word that gives us growth (2:2-3).
• To keep our love sincere and earnest, we have to continue with a healthy diet of God’s Word.
• The same Word of God that saves us is the same Word of God that sustains us.
• Just as an infant after that first taste naturally craves mommy’s good milk, so too the Christian that has tasted the merciful goodness of God is to continue to crave His Good Word and by continuously feeding on it, mature in his/her faith and salvation experience.
• The Word of Truth that cleanses us at conversion, is the same Word of Truth that enables us to become more and more Christ-like as we feed on it and exercise our faith with the strength it provides.
• As long as we’re alive, we’ve got growing up to do! We are growing boys and girls!
• Ask yourself: “Am I a more mature disciple today than I was five years ago?”
• “Am I a more mature Christian than I was back in early March before our daily routines and habits were put to the test by COVID-19?”
• When you were a kid, did you ever receive a shirt, pair of pants, or a coat that was too big—maybe at the beginning of the school year? And you said to your mom or dad or grandparents, “Hey, this is too big!” Only to hear them say, “It’ll be OK. You’ll grow into it!”?
• We look at the Scriptures and see what it looks like to be Christ-like and we say, ‘I’ll never grow up to be like Jesus!”
• And God says, “Yes, you can! I’ve given you my promises, my instructions on holy living. I’ve given you my divine power by the Holy Spirit who lives in you. You just keep feeding on My Word, trusting my Word, obeying my Word, loving others the way Jesus has loved you and you’ll grow up to fit into the clothes of Christ I covered you with when you were born again!
• Think about what Peter has told us thus far in just a little over one chapter. He describes the lifestyle of salvation, the lifestyle of discipleship—a life of hope, obedience to Christ and holiness, a life of reverence before God and a life of love for fellow believers!
• But what about those who won’t obey the truth of the Good News of Christ?
• Peter asks this very question: 1 Peter 4:17-18: 17 The time has come for the judgment to begin, and it will begin with God’s family. If it starts with us, what will be the end for those who refuse to obey the Good News of God? 18 If it’s hard for the person who has God’s approval to be saved, what will happen to the godless sinner?(GW)
• The direct answer is in:
2 Thessalonians 1:7-9: 7 And God will provide rest for you [Christians] who are being persecuted and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. He will come with his mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power. (NLT)
• What will you do with Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life? (John 14:6)
Write down your answers to these questions:
• What dies God want me to accept and cherish from this passage?
• What does God want me to put into practice or obey from today’s passage?
• With whom does He want me to share this passage or His story?