1 Peter 1:22-2:3 Love That Endures, Sin That Withers, New Life That Grows

1 Peter 1:22-3:3 Love That Endures, Sin That Withers, New Life That GrowsIntroduction Good morning…Peter has for this first chapter been reminding us of our certain living hope in Christ Jesus. They have been chosen, called, made alive again by the Spirit, and enabled to persevere in the suffering that this new life in Christ brings into their lives. They have the assurance of their faith in the Holy scriptures, teaching them about Jesus’ suffering on their behalf and subsequent glory.The implications of these things is being united to Christ we must renew our minds after the image of Christ and walk in holiness of life. Active, progressive sanctification. The Battle of the Mind: We are either growing in sober Knowledge conformed to Christ or growing in Ignorance conformed to sinful passions. Our motivation is the fear of the Lord and the precious blood of Christ ransoming us back.  In response we meditate on the nature and character of God and his demands on our way of life. To be Holy as He is Holy.godliness…gratitude to the forgiveness of sins…a life shaped living before the face of a Holy Holy Holy God.Not only does salvation change our relationship to God. Conforming us to HIM. It also changes our relationships to each other. Peter now tells us of just how our community relationships will be changed by what has happened to us in our salvation. Read 1 Peter 1:22–2:3[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. (ESV) [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. (ESV) #1 Love One Another Earnestly…since you have been made new by the gospel (v. 22)#2 Put Away all relational Sins…since you have the enduring word. (2:1, & 23-25)#3 Grow up into salvation by daily feeding on the  pure truth and goodness being worked into you. Look in v. 22 again…#1 Love One Another EarnestlyWe are commanded to love. Earnestly. From a sincere heart. What does it mean to be earnest? Our world likes the idea of love a lot. Every Disney movie ever has a love story. As a culture we like the idea of love.But two things come to mind with our culture and love.First, when we say love we often mean the feeling of romance and warmth we get from being around people that help us feel good, fulfilled, and better about ourselves. I’ve observed many students through the years who loved having a boyfriend or girlfriend…but they really loved the feeling of having a boyfriend or girlfriend. They weren’t thinking about sacrificially caring for that person, and whether they were someone they wanted to vow: before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.The bottom line is so much of our love is NOT – seeking the other person’s highest good ultimately. So much of our love does not flow from the love of God filling our hearts, renewing our minds, and giving us wisdom and a moral compass to know what sincerely and earnestly seeking another’s good would even mean.Instead, our love is seeking a person who does a good job of filling what we lack because we are not secure in Christ, we are lost in sins, and we are a leaky cup (Ed Welch gives this illustration).Before coming to Christ, we are leaky cups and we are searching God’s creation for other creatures to fill us, but as soon as we get money, a job, respect, reputation, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a spouse, children, honors and accolades they leak out through the brokenness, the sin, the God-shaped holes in our hearts and lives.Instead, if we have been made alive, born again by the Spirit, our hearts are repaired, washed clean, and made whole… Now we can love others. Why?We are made upright and pure in heart. We are filled with the Love of God and like a one of those fancy fountains at weddings, the cup pyramids the top cup being filled overflows to others.Now that you have had your soul, your heart, made pure by believing the truth of the gospel. It is time to fulfill the goal and the purpose of the gospel. First, be Holy like God is Holy. Be right vertically with God. Second, begin responding to the truth of the gospel by acting in a holy, forgiving, and loving way towards others.This is important. Because if it is the love of God filling our hearts, what overflows, will be authentic biblical love and not the world’s substitute for love, which can false in several ways: by being selfish, immoral, self-indulgent, or distorted against God’s good designs.Further, A Biblically authentic. Holy. Sacrificial kind of love for others will be earnest.That word earnest is the idea of: loving Deeply, full-speed ahead, unreservededly, from an undivided heart.Picture this earnest love this way: Picture a cliff rescue. One in which you can’t reach and sorta go eh I can’t reach you man. Oh no I love you but I can’t reach. It might get a little dangerous for me if I Stretched myself at all to rescue you.Versus: Maybe Sam grabbing Frodo in the fires of Mount Doom, and he is stretching, he is reaching, he has an undivided heart, that cares more for the rescue than for the danger that his earnest reaching places himself in.Dan Doriani says it is unfeighned without pretense, brotherly and filial, not calculating.The calculating kind of love does not stretch out at risk to itself over that cliff to pull the brother back!Why? Because we have experienced the love and grace of God. Our cups are filled.The grounds and logic of this love is in response to your obeying the truth. The truth of the gospel .Since you have been purified by your obedience to the truth. Since you know God’s grace, acceptance, love, and have a regenerate heart, therefore, you can love in this way. We know this phrase “obedience to the truth” means responding in faith to the gospel through 5-6 verses but here are two…Eph. 1:13: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.Col. 1:5-6 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.When we receive, the word of truth, the gospel, we receive it bearing fruit, because we have understood the grace and the love of God shown us in our salvation. Because we are sealed with the holy spirit. We reach forth in love. What is the Chief mark of an authentic Christian?We cannot read hearts and minds.We cannot detect regeneration….beep…beep. Yep that’s a spiritually alive heart indwelt by the Holy Spirit.We can hear people’s words. Yes. To see if they understand the truth of the gospel. We can hear as Peter says early in chapter 1 about their words in regards to the holiness of God, the seriousness of sin and their love for Christ as savior.But at the end of the day the serious FRUIT we see as Col. 1:5-6 says it is the gospel bears fruit and 1 Peter 1:22 says the obedience to the gospel is the fruit of Earnest, sincere love for the brothers.The epistle of 1 John says, 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.Biblically authentic Love for one another is a fruit and a Sign of salvation. (Disney love proves nothing.).But second, notice the brotherhood, the implied church family, the Shape of the love is in community…And in community we love by seeking their objective chief and highest good. According to the truth of the word of God.That is the mark of a Christian.Earnest Love. And Earnest Putting away of Sin.Repentance. New Obedience.Mortification of Sin. Vivification of the Gospel and the Gospel fruit of Love for GOD (Worship) and Love for Other (Gospel Community)…#1 Love One Another Earnestly…since you have been made new by the gospel (v. 22)#2 Put Away all Relational Sins: Because you have been born by the living and abiding word of God![2:1] So/Therefore put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander….Why? verse 23 is the why…[1:23] since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; [24][And quoting Isaiah 40:8] “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.”   The Word of God abides foreverbecause the word of God, reflects his holy Attributes. Consider Psalm 19:7-10 God’s Word isperfect, revives the soul.  the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; thecommandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9  the fear of the LORD is clean,enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.The seed of what the word of God does in the human heart, in the church, and down through history Endures forever, is true, and righteous altogether.What you have been born again to Outlasts the world: Empires fade. Ideologies fade. [Turn to Isaiah 40.]Isaiah chapter 40 begins to make these certain promises to Israel. Every promise to Israel that is about to be unfolded from Isaiah 40-66. The promise of Redemption. Life by a messiah. These things cannot fade and fail.What God is doing in Salvation to comfort his people cannot fade or fail. Peter is quoting Isaiah 40 verse 8 and its in the context of God beginning to give good news to Isarel after bad news for 39 chapters…So we arrive in Isaiah 40…with Israel…exiled…lost…all external community in shambles.Isaiah 40:1–5 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. [2] Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.ISRAEL has received PARDON. Grace. Double pardon double grace for all her sin. Christ is Promised. God is speaking, comfort, comfort my people…the living and abiding word of God cries. Is. 40:3ffA voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. [4] Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (ESV)Christ has come. He has established the highway of our salvation by his death on the cross. And his glory has been revealed. And what? The grass withers the flower fades but the word of the Lord remains forever.Verse 11… God will tend his flock like a shepherd he will gather the lambs in his arms;Christ has gathered the church in his arms, he has called us his by the good news of the gospel. Life in Christ. Clean. Set apart. Born again. Holy. Indwelt by the Holy Spirit a New Community.Many things in life fail…But the church called, born again, and brought together in every generation as brothers and sisters in Christ abides forever. The gospel has gone forth and the Word of the Lord remains forever.If you grew up under the word you may like Israel wander, go astray, go to Babylon, but remember the word of God always calls you back.No matter how far you go, the word of the Lord remains forever and will not return void.This is true not just for individual covenant children but in the broad revival and reformation of the church in history. God’s Church will not fade and fail.We should therefore have great confidence in the bible as believers. It is the seed by which we are born again. It is the living and active word. The sword that pierces hearts.Consider our great heroes who sparked, reformations, global missionary movements, and church reform in the face of great loss of spiritual truths.Gideons – thousands brought to a living relationship. Bibles to communist countriesJohn Wycliffe (late 14th) – The bible in your language not latin…condemned but centuries later William Tyndale (early 16th) building on Wycliffe said, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost. “a plough boy knowing more than a priest”The Reformation with the Gutenburg press and a German bible by Luther. Allowed for the word to go forth like never before.The Bible in Indian, Chinese, Russian, all these places the Churches has gone in it is a seed planted underground and it has been immense fruit even in communist states…the bible is an unfading treasure.And the Church has responded with the obedience of faith to the gospel, to the Whole counsel of God, even in dark times.In Every century, the bible most be re-affirmed: Re-affirmed as sufficient for life, doctrine, godliness, wisdom, decision making, to organize your life around. In Every century the bible most be re-affirmed as the powerful tool of the gospel going forth and churches being strengthened and the faith being passed on to the next generation.Isaiah 40:8 which is now on our bulletin. Reminds us that God’s word is what gathers us in worship. It is unfading in being able to be used of the Holy Spirit as the ordinary instrument that unites us to Christ who is the Word made flesh who has life in himself abundantly.And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (ESV)Never forget the good word is preached to you. It is the truth. It endures and you can build your life on it because in it you find Christ andPastors may fade and fail. Individual denomination may fade and fail. But The Word remains Forever The gospel anchors everything.So read verse 22 next to verse 1 with me now.…[22] Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, …Having tasted and seen that God is good![1] put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander….Therefore, put away – take off, put to death everything that no longer fits with a holy child of God. That no longer fits with a heart that has had the love of God fill it. That has had the gospel reshape its loves. A heart that has a sincere and deep love for brothers and sisters in Christ that experienced the forgiveness of the Gospel.Put away these community sins. Dan Doriani calls this “community destroying sins.” Many of which are “respectable sins.” If its directed against the right people.Put away all Malice/Evil – You have been saved by God. You have tasted that he is good. Wickedness, Self-serving, evil purposes must be done away with.chiefly anything that willingly seeks to harm other people. Nursing, ill will, and vindictiveness towards others. Mal – bad – will towards others made in the image of God. Get rid of it! If you find malice in your heart towards another, I want you to flinch away from that sin like you do discovering you have a spider on your shoulder!Do not keep pet spiders on your shoulders! Especially. Especially towards a brother or sister in Christ covered by the blood of Christ.Doriani again notes…its interesting that this list is of community sins. Respectable since. Not gross pagan sins. Not perversions of nature. Not idolatry. Not murder and evil governments…Polite Wickedness needs to be put off. Callous indifference.Over and over here is the word ALL. You wyould never say, “I’ll brush off some spiders off my shoulders…but I’ll keep some of them as pet sins…No All malice of thought, word, or deed…flee from it. Repent. Ask for the Spirits help.Put away all Hypocrisy: Do not live two lives. Two standards. Pretending to care about something or someone but only because it helps you. This harms community. “these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Isa 29:13).Put away all Envy: Wanting what others have. Such that we are mad at God that he gave those looks, that money, that job, that house, those talents or gifts to that person and not you. You neglect to be joyful and count your own blessing and so you envy…and so you will soon hold Malice towards others in the community for what they have..especially if you have envy for the wicked…Envy of the wicked says, “Man if I just didn’t have moral standards…” I could have what my pagan neighbors have, if I just didn’t tithe, if I just changed my doctrine or ethics to be more acceptable I could be accepted and loved by our culture.Put away all Deceit and Slander: I think it is obvious on the surface. If we have purified our souls by obedience to the TRUTH. If we believe in Capital T truth that all truth is God’s truth, that there is a universal objective Lord who knows the truth of all matters. We cannot twist facts, shade the truth, tell white lies, and attempt to deceive or slander our brothers and sisters.Now, “love covers a multitude of sins.” We don’t say, “Well, I’m just telling the truth.” We tell the truth to those who have a real right to certain facts based on proper authority structures and age appropriateness. But in all these things, we honor the Lord with honest integrity.   There was a case recently of a well-known pastor who kept several anonymous twitter accounts in order to attack his personal enemies with slander and lies.So you can see the sin of ENVY, lead to the sins of deceit and slander.Sins of the Heart often lead to sins of the tongue…or in these days the sins of the keyboard.When I think of Deceit, I often think of politics…but more specific than that political PRIMARIES. How often have we been told…slanderously…this person is the worst, they wake up in the morning and kill puppy dogs. Then 3 months later after the primary is done“this candidate is the greatest and I am proud to endorse them.”In the Christian community let us be slow to give a poor report. Take care that information is going to the correct people. And put away all deceit.The gospel truth calls for us to do so. Let us close with this…Put Off. Put On verse 2.[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. (ESV)#3 Put On:  Grow Up into maturity. Grow up into salvation by following the daily command to long for pure truth and goodness being worked into you.Long for / Crave ongoing growth in the gospel of truth > That is moral & doctrinal transformationYou don’t once hear the gospel and then move onYou don’t “get saved” have an episode where you felt guilty for wrongdoing and knew you needed some Jesus in your life with not ongoing transformation to be like Christ and growing in godliness.No, you are born again, are putting off the old life, and daily, hourly, like and infant constantly feeding on the new life you have in Christ, the obedience to the truth has daily implications. And in this context it means daily feeding on the goodness of God, the goodness of the gospel, the abiding life found in the word, the abiding community of brothers and sistsers in fellowship. So worship. Word. Prayer. Fellowship. Godly transformed living. This is the good, true, beautiful, and spiritual good. The pure milk of the transformed Christian.There is no category in the bible for a believer who is able to be fleshly, perpetually immature, not growing, not feeding, not loving their brothers and sisters, not seeing the gooness of God daily.Long for continued life / continued moral transformation and to conform yourself to the goodness and grace of God you have experienced.The idea is that by the Holy Spirit and this new birth by the gospel you will like an infant Long for the holiness of God consistently be going back again and again to the word, the gospel, and your community to experience this new life.Remember the leaky cup loves sin, seeks to fill itself with worldy love, worldly passions of the flesh, and does so with malice, envy, harm…filling itself with the poisonous fruit of vice.The believer has been born again by the word and has cast off these things…Because we know the Lord is good in his grace to us.So daily long for the word, the gospel, nearness to God, and to God’s people. This is offered to you in corporate Worship with the ordinary means of grace, in fellowship when we gather for food and prayer, and privately as you feed on the word.  Prayer | Benediction: 1 Peter 1:2According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jamesensley.substack.com