Living Stone(s) - 1 Peter 2:4-8 - May 23, 2021

 1 Peter 2:4-8 Living Stone(s)

Good morning! I don’t know about you but I really enjoy Peter’s use of metaphors in his letter. I especially like the metaphor he uses in our text this morning of house building and construction materials. I am built to build so this really resonates with me.

We are going to look at 1 Peter 2:4-8 this morning, page 1014 in the pew Bibles, and examine Biblical building materials, and also a Wile E. Coyote reference!

4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: 

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 

7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” 

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Let’s pray.

I’d like to begin with a short passage in Matthew to set the stage for our time this morning, Matthew 16:13-18.

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Now there are two reasons for bringing up this particular passage involving Jesus and Peter. My hope is to alleviate the confusion caused by the Catholic church about the Pope, and to point out some Biblical church construction methods.

Firstly, the Catholic church has taught, based on this passage in Matthew that the rock upon which Jesus said that He would build His church is Peter himself, making Peter the first Pope. This is completely wrong. 

The rock upon which Jesus promised to build His church is not Peter, but rather the confession found in verse 16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

The confession of Jesus Christ as Lord is the bedrock, “petra”, that Jesus promised to build His church upon. Meaning, that you cannot be part of Christ’s church without believing in Jesus, there is no other entrance into His divine building.

I also bring up this passage because I think that this must have been Peter’s favorite metaphor, I mean, why wouldn’t it be?! He wasn’t the first to use it as we can clearly see from the passage itself, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt his feelings at all to use it.

So let’s get back to our passage in 1 Peter.

Peter begins with the phrase, “As you come to Him…”

To be clear, Peter’s meaning here is not the first time we come to Christ, not when we first come to faith in Him, but rather, as we continually come to Him, as we draw near to Him day by day in prayer and fellowship with Him. The verb is present tense, it is continual.

Under the Old Covenant, the priests were the ones who came near to God.

The German theologian Weisinger wrote, “Under the Old Covenant, Yaweh had His house and priests who served Him in His house. The church fulfills both purposes under the New [Covenant], being both His house and His holy priesthood.”

Peter continues with this picture of a holy priesthood of believers later in this chapter as well and we’ll work on it a little more when we get there, but for now we can simply state that believers in Jesus Christ are chosen and consecrated by God, cleansed by the blood of Christ, and anointed by the Holy Spirit to offer spiritual sacrifices for themselves.

Paul echoed this picture in Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [genuine] worship.”

So, as you come to Him, as New Covenant Priests, to the Living Stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…

Jesus Christ was rejected by mankind, He came to His own people, and His own people knew Him not, and we’ll deal with that a little later.

Peter calls Jesus a “Living Stone.” The word for stone is not the same word for “rock,” that Peter was named after. “Petra,” is bedrock, “lithos,” means a natural or shaped stone.

Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16 when he says, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 

Jesus is the Living Cornerstone, as a stone he is firm not hard or harsh, absolutely reliable and true, setting the lines of plumb, level, and square for His building, the church, but He is also living, he is alive and makes alive other living stones for His magnificent spiritual house.

Because he is God’s chosen and precious Cornerstone, as living stones ourselves, connected to Him by faith, and built into His spiritual house, we can be assured an eternal state of grace and salvation.

I have had the great privilege of visiting the Western Wall of the temple Mount in Jerusalem when I was at BICS. The walls of the Temple Mount make up the ground that the Temple was built on where the Dome of the Rock stands today. The stones of that wall are huge limestone blocks that are so tightly fitted together you can barely squeeze a piece of paper into the cracks, which people do, tightly rolled up prayers jammed between the stones.

These massive stones needed to be quarried and shaped so that they could be fitted together perfectly, and so do we as living stones, we are joined together in love by the grace of God the Father. Those massive stones rely on one another to support each other in their grand structure and none of them makes the Temple alone, the need each other. Christ’s church is no different.

The church is God’s spiritual house, built by Jesus on the good confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, based on Jesus as the Cornerstone, chosen and precious, to set the lines and the boundaries of the building to which He is continually adding more and more living stones, more and more disciples of Jesus Christ.

But there are two functions of Jesus Christ the Living Stone. The first is to function as the life giving Cornerstone of the Church but the second is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

Those who believe in Him will never be put to shame, literally meaning, that we will never have to run away like cowards that have thrown down their arms and fled the battle. We have a strong and sure Defender.

6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 

7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” 

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Listen to Jesus’ words on this same Old Testament Scripture from Matthew 21:42-44:

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” 

It’s this last statement that is so troubling, or at least it should be. This is Jesus’ word on the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense.

Stumbling stone is a fairly straightforward interpretation but the “rock of offense” is a little more difficult.

This is the Wile E. Coyote reference. A “rock of offense,” is more literally translated as a trap where a rock is propped up by a stick in order to trap an animal and all I can see in my mind is Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner.

This is why Jesus said, “the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

This rock of offense, doesn’t mean that those who reject Jesus will be offended, it means that they will be crushed. Ruin and misery await those who reject Jesus, as Peter says, they disobey the word, the gospel, and stumble as those who reject Jesus Christ as Lord are destined to do.

All those who reject Jesus Christ as their Savior will one day face Him as their Judge.

I pray that’s not you, and if you have rejected God’s free offer of forgiveness through faith in Jesus up to this point you don’t have to stay that way. 

You can still come to Him and ask for forgiveness, turn from your sin and trust Him with your life and He will make you a living stone and add you to His spiritual house, the church!

And for those of us who belong to Christ:

4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: 

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 

7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” 

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Amen.

Simplicity - 1 Peter 2:1-3 - May 16, 2021

These are the Sermon Notes for May 9, 2021. We are meeting in person (check out our Covid-19 Plan here) and online (facebook and youtube) every Sunday at 9:37 am. You can also watch livestream recordings at any time.

 1 Peter 2:1-3 Simplicity

Good morning! We are going back to 1 Peter this morning and looking at chapter 2, verses 1-3, page 1014 in the pew Bibles.

So last week we discussed a little bit about what holy living looks like. Chapter one gave us lots of arguments in favor of holy living, so much so that it seems pretty iron clad that holy living is our responsibility as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Chapter one also wrapped up with a great first step in what holy living really looks like, brotherly love.

Now often the Bible gets a bad rap for just being a list of do’s and don’ts, but in truth, there’s some logic to that idea, there’s some conditional statements involved. For example: If you call on God as Father, then act like you’re His children, right?

Well chapter two starts off this exact same way based on the end of chapter one and the command to love one another. If the “do” is to love one another earnestly from a pure heart from chapter one, then the “don’ts” are here at the beginning of chapter two. 

So let’s read that together.

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.

Let’s pray.

So this chapter division here is really not helpful when it comes to keeping these thoughts all connected, these verses rely heavily on where we just came from last week. These thoughts which we’re going to outline here are all based on the idea of being born again and the brotherly love from a pure heart that flows out of that new birth.

The do’s and don’ts here are quite obvious, you could call them “virtues and vices” if you want to sound smarter to your friends.

The virtues are brotherly love and loving one another from a pure heart from chapter one, but in order for these virtues to grow the vices must die.

And what are the vices? Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.

Peter uses the words translated, “put away,” and the idea is that of taking off and laying aside old dirty clothes, not to just be washed and worn again but to be thrown out.

James uses the same words in James 1:21 when he said, “…put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

Paul also uses it in Ephesians 4:22-24, “…put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Putting off the old self like old clothes and putting on the new self in righteousness and holiness is a recurring theme in the New Testament, and as Peter has been dealing with it, the putting on of the new clothes is holy living through brotherly love.

But in order to put on the new clothes of brotherly love we have to deal with taking off the old clothes. 

This short list from Peter is in no way comprehensive, this is not a complete list  of things that disciples of Jesus Christ should avoid. These ideas are, however, directly related to Peter’s command to love one another out of a pure heart.

Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander, think about these ideas, they are directly opposed to brotherly love, they are the opposite of loving one another out of a pure heart which flows from being born again through faith in Jesus.

Saint Augustine said, “Malice delights in another’s hurt; envy pines at another’s good, deceit imparts duplicity to the heart; hypocrisy imparts duplicity to the tongue; and slander wounds the character of another.”

Malice is feelings of hostility and strong dislike, with the implication of possibly desiring to do someone harm, these are feelings of hate. Malice delights in another’s hurt. A pure heart cannot grow with feelings like this being harbored. 

Deceit is lying, trickery, falsehood, it flows out of malice and takes aim at the soul of another.

If deceit imparts duplicity to the heart, hypocrisy imparts duplicity to the tongue. Hypocrisy is the act of hiding one’s own heart away while pretending to be something that it isn’t. There’s no way for brotherly love to exist, let alone flourish under these conditions.

Envy, pining after another’s good, wishing to have what they have and hating them for having it. Envy loses sight of the good one already has in favor of the good somebody else has.

Slander, a most popular vice, wounding the character of another, speaking ill of another when they aren’t there to defend themselves, that sometimes masks itself in “constructive criticism” and “prayer requests.” Slander is slander no matter how you dress it up.

These are the old filthy rags that we are to put off according to Peter, vices that are all poisonous to brotherly love.

JP Lange said, “The vices to be laid aside bear upon the relation to our neighbor and exert a deadly influence on brotherly love.”

He also wrote, “They had been addressed as children of obedience, now their young and tender state is mentioned as a reason why they should seek strength in the word of God.”

At the time, the phrase “newborn babes,” was a current expression among the Jews for proselytes, converts to Judaism according to Lange, and Peter adopted the phrase to cover those who were newborn in Christ as well.

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.

So this begs the question, what is pure spiritual milk, and what is its significance?

Both the Apostle Paul and the writer of Hebrews use this same expression of milk in 1 Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12. 

Paul writes, 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh.

And Hebrews says, 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

So it kind of sounds like from those verses that milk is something that we should move on from as we grow but Peter seems to suggest that we should continuously long for it. The words he uses indicate an intense recurring desire, nursing mothers or mothers who have nursed babies are very aware of what that is like.

So is this pure spiritual milk the rudimentary doctrines of Christian doctrine? I don’t think so, I don’t think that is what Peter is referring to at all. In fact, the words we have here in English don’t really help point to Peter’s meaning all that well.

The word translated, “spiritual,” more accurately means, “genuine,” or, “unadulterated.” This is milk that is true to milk’s essential nature, unclouded by human wisdom, traditions, and errors.

It’s not rudimentary doctrine, it’s simply genuine doctrine, pure and simple. Saint Augustine said, “Christ, the crucified, is milk for babes and food for the advanced.”

Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Simply meaning, you have been born again, live a life corresponding to your new birth, a life of simple trust in Jesus and hunger for His Word.

John Calvin wrote, “Milk, here is not the elementary doctrine which one perpetually learns and never comes to the knowledge of the truth, but a mode of living which has the savor of the new birth, when we surrenderourselves to be brought up by God. In the same manner infancy is not set in opposition to manhood, or full age in Christ, as Paul calls it in Ephesians 4:13, but to the ancientness of the flesh and of the former life. Moreover, as the infancy of the new life is perpetual, so Peter recommends milk as the perpetual ailment, for he would have those nourished by it to grow…

Malice and hypocrisy belong to those who are habituated to the corruptions of the world; they have imbibed these vices; what pertains to infancy is sincere simplicity, free from all guile. Men, when grown up, become imbued with envy, they learn to slander one another, they are taught the arts of mischief; in short, they become hardened in every kind of evil; infants, owing to their age, do not yet know what it is to envy, to do mischief, or the like things. New morals ought to follow a new life.”

This longing is not for the basics of Christianity but for the purity of Christianity in God’s Word, untainted by worldly wisdom and bias, unadulterated by traditions of men.

We have, in fact, tasted that the Lord is good, that He is gracious and kind. Peter isn’t doubting that, his challenge is to remember that.

Martin Luther said, “This is tasting indeed, to believe from the heart that Christ has given Himself to me and has become my own, that my misery is His and His life is mine. Feeling this from the heart is tasting Christ.”

Simple faith, simple trust in Jesus, longing for the purity of His teaching in His Word.

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.

Amen.

Brotherly Love - 1 Peter 1:22-25 - May 9, 2021

These are the Sermon Notes for May 9, 2021. We are meeting in person (check out our Covid-19 Plan here) and online (facebook and youtube) every Sunday at 9:37 am. You can also watch livestream recordings at any time.

 1 Peter 1:22-25 Brotherly Love

Good morning! We  are back in our study of 1 Peter this morning, we are going to look at chapter one, verses 22-25, that’s page 1014 in the pew Bibles. 

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at arguments for holy living. But during those studies we haven’t spent a great deal of time talking about what exactly holy living looks like. How are we supposed to do it now that the arguments have been made and we are thoroughly convinced we need to pursue holy living?

Well, verses 22-25 of 1 Peter give us the first step: Love.

Let’s look at the text, we’ll pray, and then jump in.

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.

Let’s pray.

So Peter uses two different words or phrases here in these verses that we need to fully understand in order to come to a place where these thoughts really make sense. Those two phrases are: “The truth,” and, “the word.”

Now that may sound easy to you, Peter is obviously talking about the Bible; we call it God’s Word, we call it the truth, that must be what he means! Well, it isn’t.

Don’t forget that you are not Peter’s original audience. Peter’s original audience had access to what we call the Old Testament but may have only had access to a few letters of Paul and this letter from Peter, and maybe one or two of the Gospels. Peter isn’t talking about any of that.

So what could he be talking about? The context makes it clear since we know now that he wasn’t talking about the whole Bible as we know it. The truth that they had obeyed and the word that was preached to them was the gospel itself, the Good News that Jesus died to save sinners just like us.

Peter says, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth…” The purification of souls is only  possible through faith in Jesus Christ, acceptance of the gospel.

Our English text makes it look like that purification of soul is a done deal, it’s in the past tense. Well, in Greek it’s not, it’s not aorist, it’s active, it’s continuing, and it is continually necessary, a constantly needed purifying, a constantly laying aside of evil. This isn’t Peter’s declaration of what they have already done but what they ought to do and continue doing. 

This is so important because the heart of holy living which is a sincere and pure brotherly love is not possible without the continuous purifying of the soul.

Purity of soul consists in obedience to God, not just in general like following the Ten Commandments, but obeying the truth, obeying the gospel, having faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus is the primary way that we obey the truth and thus purify our souls.

Matthew Henry wrote, “Many hear the truth, but are never purified by it because they will not submit to it nor obey it.”

Many people mistakenly think that faith in Jesus, being born again, getting saved, is only about getting into Heaven. “I’m all saved, I’m all set. Now I can just sit and soak.”

But that isn’t it at all! Of course when we are saved we are adopted as God the Father’s children, we are heirs of His eternal kingdom, but there is much to do before the time comes that Christ return and calls us home. Where does that “much to do start?” Brotherly love.

We have been born again by faith in Christ, born again of imperishable seed, born of God, so we ought to live and love in a manner worthy of God.

The imperishable seed is the grace of God in the gospel that causes us to be born again. The flesh is from the perishable seed, it withers and falls like flowers of grass. Some of you may be more keenly aware of this than others.

The glory of the flesh- its wisdom, strength, riches, learning, honor, beauty, art, virtue, are all temporary and are passing away, but the word of the Lord, the gospel remains forever.

And if you have received the word of the Lord, you have received the imperishable seed which is the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ, therefore you were born for eternity and are bound to live for eternity. Not just living forever but living for our Eternal Omnipotent Father, living as He lives.

And what does living for eternity look like?

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; 

Living for eternity looks like love.

Now to be clear, this is not the world’s definition of love, this is Christian love. And as Warren Wiersbe wrote, “Christian love is not a matter of feeling but a matter of will.”

Peter said, “having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”

Now we come back to the different Greek words for love, because Peter uses two of them here, “Philadelphia,” and “agapao.”

Philadelphia is brotherly love, this is affection specifically for fellow believers in Christ, and it is to be sincere, genuine, without pretense.

JP Lange wrote, “As natural relationship produces natural affection, so spiritual relationship produces spiritual affection. It is lasting because it emanates from an eternal source of life. Brotherly love must be the exponent of the nature, strength, and fruit of regeneration.”

Brtherly love is the love which God specially commends – in our self-centered times it is more important than ever to exercise this kind of love to the church. God would have us cultivate this kind of brotherly love towards one another and so testify our love of God and prove it with evidence and not just words.

1 John 4:19-21 says,

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

John Calvin wrote, “Nothing is more difficult than to love our neighbors in sincerity. For the love of ourselves rules, which is full of hypocrisy; and besides, everyone measures his love which he shows to others by his own advantage and not by the rule of doing good.”

But that is not the type of love Peter describes and commands, not selfish but selfless, not hypocritical or seeking our own advantage but sincere and genuine. Love for the brethren (and sisteren) is the evidence of our regeneration and justification by faith. This brotherhood flows from our new birth!

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”

In light of our purification of soul through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ we are made for brotherly love, Philadelphia, so, love one another, agapao, earnestly from a pure heart.

This kind of love, agapao, the selfless, choice of will to prefer another above oneself, can only come from a changed heart, from one whose motives are pure, and who seeks to give more than he takes. 

This love is expressed deeply, earnestly. That means, “At full stretch, all out, with intense strain.”

Because we are born again of imperishable seed, born of God, we ought to live and love in a manner worthy of God. Love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is the evidence of our new birth.

Johann Steiger wrote, “The Christian loves primarily those in Christ, secondarily, all who might be in Christ, namely, all men, as Christ as man died for all, and as he hopes that they too may become his Christian Brethren.”

Being children of God we ought first to love our siblings.

It is because we have been loved through the gospel that we are able to love one another, and we should do so more and more.

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.

That word, the gospel, the Good News, is simply this:

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Do you believe in Him?

Amen.

Arguments for Holy Living part 2 - 1 Peter 1:17-21 - May 2, 2021

These are the Sermon Notes for May 2, 2021. We are meeting at the church with specific procedures and protocols that need to be followed. Read our Covid-19 plan here. You can still watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.

 1 Peter 1:17-21 Arguments for Holy Living pt2

Good morning! We are picking up where we left off last week in 1 Peter, verses 17-21, page 1014 in the pew Bibles.

Last week we left on kind of a cliffhanger, we got the first three points on Arguments for Holy Living, what could the second three possibly be?!

It’s not much of a cliffhanger really, you have the text right in front of you and can read it for yourselves… Let’s read that text, we’ll pray, and then review.

17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Let’s pray.

So let’s review, what are the first three arguments for holy living based on this text?

Argument #1, We call on Him as Father, so we should act like His children. True faith is not a hollow dream nor empty talk but holy living in the fear of God, holy living in reverence and awe of our Father.

Loving our enemies, doing good, lending without expecting anything in return, being kind to the ungrateful and evil, being merciful just as our Father is merciful; being imitators of God as dearly loved children; we call on Him as Father, we should act like His children. 

Argument #2, He judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, and so, we should act accordingly, not to earn our salvation but to prove it. For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. 2 Cor 5:10

Argument #3, Jesus chose us out of the world, we are exiles, therefore don’t start acting like the locals. The world hates the church because it hates Jesus, if we belonged to the world the world would love us as its own but because Jesus chose us out of the world we are not of this world anymore, so stop acting like it.

So because I love three point sermons so much the Lord decided to bless me with two in a row…

This morning we are going to focus on three more arguments for holy living.

I’d like to introduce those three arguments with a quote from Bede the Venerable. What a great name, he sounds like a character in a fantasy book or movie.

He was an actual person though, a Benedictine monk born around the turn of the eighth century in England.

He wrote, “In proportion to the price at which you have been redeemed from corruption of carnal life should be your fear not to grieve your Savior’s heart by a relapse, for the punishments will correspond to the worth of the ransom.”

Bede the Venerable was pointing back to where this argument all started, and that is the great worth of the gospel, the treasure that is the grace that is ours through faith in Christ. And that is where the second three arguments find their basis: when we consider the great worth of our salvation and the great price that was paid for it, we cannot help but aspire to holy living.

So here is Argument #4 from verse 18, 19: 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Argument #4 is that we have been ransomed and the price was great.

So in considering this argument it would behoove us to have a good understanding of what Peter meant by, “ransomed.”

Jesus said in Mark 10:45, “That He did not come to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.”

The word translated, “ransom,” can be, and has been translated, “redeemed.” These are fine words, churchy words, we sing them all the time. It stands to reason then that we ought to have a strong handle on what they mean.

The word, “lytroo,” translated here, “ransom,” describes deliverance, liberation, it’s the process of setting slaves free, purchasing them from their former masters with the express purpose of setting them free. 

Jesus Himself purchased us from our former master: death, and has set us free from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers that only lead to death, so that, we could have new life in Him.

As I said last week, the futile ways of our forefathers have their roots in appearances, devoid of all true foundation, they are selfish, empty and hollow. They may fool our friends but they will never fool our Father. We have been set free from these sinful ways that lead only to death, we have been bought back and the price paid was great.

1 Timothy 2:5,6 says, 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all…

The price paid was not perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

The precious blood of Christ, undefiled by sin, unstained. He is the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world just as John the Baptist proclaimed.

We see the shadow of that Spotless Lamb in the Passover, the blood of the lamb spread on the doorposts of the houses of Israel so that the Angel of Death would pass over them while they were in Egypt.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Sounds like holy living!

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. That also sounds like holy living!

Titus 2:14 says, [Jesus Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. More holy living!

I could go on forever… actually, we will! But not starting right now…

Argument #4, we have been ransomed, bought back from death, and the price was great.

JP Lange wrote, “The blood of the God-Man is more valuable by far than the blood of many thousand valiant warriors.”

Argument #5 for holy living, Christ was foreknown by God and sent to earth for us.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you…

This may seem obvious, probably because we talk about it all the time, but hear me out.

Christ coming to ransom us, to redeem us, was not a natural development. Jesus wasn’t just some good guy from the backwoods that thought He could help people by dying on a cross just for telling people to be nice to each other.

Jesus didn’t just show up when the time was right or the conditions were right, like a, “when the student is ready, the master will appear,” type of thing.

It was known and determined by God before Adam took his first breath that Christ would be sent to die on the cross to pay the price of our redemption, it wasn’t a sudden, knee-jerk decision by God, it was the plan from before the beginning.

The plan from before the beginning was to send Christ for us. Believers are the end and aim of the mission of Christ. He was sent so that we might believe, and so we do, and so we owe Him our allegiance and our obedience. We owe Him holy living.

Argument #4, we have been ransomed, bought back from death, and the price was great.

Argument #5, Christ was foreknown by God and sent to earth for us. Our salvation was the plan all along and so we ought to live in holiness.

And finally, Argument #6, God made faith and hope in Him truly possible through Christ and faith results in holy living.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Having faith and hope in God through Christ is the first step in holy living.

Hebrews 11:6 says …without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Holy living has faith and hope as its foundation, holy living is the sweet fruit of faith. This may, in truth, be the hardest of the arguments to live with but here goes…

James 2:14-19:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

James used the word, “works,” we have been using the words, “holy living.” They mean the same thing.

Holy living is the evidence of faith and hope in God through Christ. 

If we have faith in Christ, if we have faith in His resurrection, if we have hope in His return, the confident expectation that His return will truly complete our salvation, then we will live lives in pursuit of holy living, the type of lives that He describes in His Word.

God sent Him, God raised Him, God glorified Him, God will send Him back for us, our faith and Hope are in God through Christ, and so, we must live lives that prove it.

We call on Him as Father, and so, we should act like his children.

He judges impartially based on a person’s deeds, and so, our deeds should be worthy of Him according to His Word.

We are exiles in this world because Jesus chose us out of the world, an so, we should not conform to the wicked customs of the land of our sojourn.

We have been ransomed and the price was great, and so, our lives should reflect our gratitude.

Our salvation through faith in Christ was God’s plan from the beginning, and so, we ought to live lives of holiness.

And finally, God made faith and hope in Him possible through Christ, and true faith results in holy living. 

There’s an often incompletely understood word that gets used a lot in the church, that word is, “worship.” Worship is often used to describe only singing, maybe even expanded to encompass our weekly services. But that kind of worship is only once a week, that kind of worship, though it is wonderful, is incomplete.

Life is worship. Through holy living we worship our Father. When we don’t pursue holy living as described in God’s Word we worship something else.

17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Amen.