1 Peter 1. Whenever the child of God is
called with the holy calling of God, God makes all things
new. All things new. We're recreated
after God's image. We're made partakers of the divine
nature as Adam was created upright before the fall. That's how we're
recreated through the Spirit of God. And whenever God does
this, in all manner of conduct, in all manner of conversation,
the believer has a new aim, a new desire, and it's to be like God
who called us in holiness, in grace, and in love. The first
thing I want you to see tonight is Peter says, Be ye holy as
God is holy. This is our new motive when we're
born of God. It is to be holy as He who has
called us is holy. Look at verse 15. But as He which hath called you
is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because
it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. Now, our new motive
is also this. We're not our own. We're not
self-serving anymore. Because we know, by God's grace,
the believers made to know we've been bought with a dear, dear
price. Look at verse 19. not with corruptible
things, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before
the foundation of the world. God chose him and he chose his
people in him. What was manifest in these last
times for you, he came forth and he lived and perfected the
law. He obeyed it, magnified it, made
it honorable, and then went to the cross and was willingly made
sin. This one who was spotless, who
in his person knew no sin, was willingly made sin that God might
be just to pour out his wrath upon him and thereby be just
and show mercy to his people. And it's by Him, verse 21 says,
that we believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead and gave
Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. We're sanctified
through the Spirit of God. And when this happens, a believer
is made new. He's made holy. He's created
in the righteousness of Christ, who lived and died for him, and
he's created in true holiness, having been born of the Spirit
of God, made partakers of a new nature by what God has done in
him. Look now over at Leviticus 11. I want you to see what I
think is a passage that Peter quoted here when he said be ye
holy as it is written in Leviticus 11 and I want to show you this
thread throughout this chapter and in other places of how through
this law of God Peter was taught the truth. Leviticus 11 chapter
44 verse 44 Leviticus 11 44 this was when God gave the law of
the clean and unclean animals and he gave two Reasons two principles of why
the people were to be holy watch this verse 44 for I am the Lord
your God You shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and you
shall be holy for I am holy Now they were holy Because God chose
them he brought them out and they were holy brought out by
the blood of a lamb, and they were called. It wasn't that they
had to do anything to be holy, they were. But it was There was
something they could do to be defiled. Neither shall you defile
yourself with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth. And he told them what those things were. That was the
first thing Peter said, because as he which hath called you is
holy, be ye holy. Now here the second thing Peter
said was, you've been redeemed, you've been bought. Look at the
second thing the Lord says here. Verse 45, for I am the Lord that
bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. That
means He redeemed them. He brought them out of the house
of bondage. You shall therefore be holy,
for I am holy. By election, by God's choosing,
by redemption, by Christ dying, by the Holy Spirit's work of
regenerating, We're not our own. We know that. We've come to know
we're not our own. We're bought with a price. And therefore, we desire to glorify
God in our body and in our spirit, which is God's. We belong to
Him. The believer belongs to Him. And we follow after holiness,
which is following after the Holy One, following after the
Lawgiver Himself. And He teaches us through the
Spirit, through His Word, through the Gospel as it's preached,
through the providence He orders and directs and brings us into.
Now that's a wise teacher. That's a wise teacher that can
give us His Word to show us, then make it effectual in our
heart, and then bring us into providential dealings to show
us by experience what He's been teaching us all along. And so
we follow after Him. As He which hath called you is
holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, all manner of
conduct." Alright, here's the second thing I want you to see.
Back in our text, God is no respecter of persons, so let us not be
a respecter of persons. Look at verse 17. And if you
call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according
to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here
in fear." Now be turning with me to Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter
10. We're so depraved by nature,
and we have that old man with us by nature, so that we will
say, not so God, to God. in order that we can cling to
the letter of the law. And when we do that, when we
do that, the fruit of that will be malice, and guile, and hypocrisy,
and envy, and evil speaking, and we'll accuse or excuse one
another unjustly based on a respect of persons. And all the while
think our adherence to the law we're holy. And that is the idolatry,
the idolatry that God gave the law of clean and unclean to keep
his children from. But we have to be taught this,
don't we? Cornelius was a man who was like Simeon, like Nathanael. He believed God, sincerely believed
God, feared the Lord, and was worshiping the Lord according
to the law of Moses, waiting on the coming Messiah. But he
didn't know Christ had come yet. And the Lord was going to send
Peter down to Cornelius to preach the gospel to Cornelius to tell
him that Christ had come. And there were many in his household.
They were chosen of God. They were redeemed by the blood
of Christ. They were sanctified by the Spirit of God. And they
were waiting on the coming Messiah. They had heard rumor of it, but
they hadn't had anybody preach the gospel to them to tell them
Christ has come. Peter's going to be the one that's
going to do that. But Cornelius is a Gentile. And Peter is a Jew. And that
law that God gave for those clean and unclean prohibited a Jew
to have any association with a Gentile. They were to be kept
separate from them. But now look what the Lord is
going to teach Peter. Acts 10 verse 9. On the morrow,
as they went on their journey, that is, the men that were coming
from Cornelius, the Lord had appeared to him and told him
to send them up there to get Peter. They drew nigh unto the
city, and Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the
sixth hour. And he became very hungry and
would have eaten, but while they made ready, he fell into a trance.
And he saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto
him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and
let down to the earth, wherein were all manner of four-footed
beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things,
and fowls of the air, all these animals. that the Lord had said
were unclean. In that law of clean and unclean,
they were in this sheet let down from heaven. And look what the
Lord says to Peter, there came a voice to him, rise Peter, kill
and eat. But Peter said, not so Lord. Why not? Why not? For I have never eaten anything
that's common or unclean. Peter's saying, not so, Lord,
because I'm keeping the law. Now, is that keeping the law?
To tell the lawgiver, no, I'm keeping the law? I'm not going
to obey you because I'm keeping the law. That's not keeping the
law at all. Peter is going to have to be
taught salvation is not by the law, salvation is by God's grace. And following the lawgiver is
what the believer does not cling to the letter of the law. Look
at what the Lord says to him, and the voice spake unto him
again the second time, and this is what he said to Peter, What
God hath cleansed call not thou common. That's what the spiritual
meaning of the law of clean and unclean was. What God has cleansed Don't call common. It's not common. What he's cleansed is holy. What
he's cleansed is good. What he's cleansed is just. It's
not common anymore. It's not common. That's the spiritual
teaching of that law that was given in the letter. And he's
being taught something else. He's being taught not only is
the believer not under the law but under grace, but he's being
taught that God saves by grace without a respect of persons
whatsoever. Without any of the distinctions
that we put between men and women, between Jew and Gentile, between
bond and free, between learned and unlearned, all of the things
we use to make distinctions to set ourselves up on an elevation
above somebody else, God don't even regard it. And aren't you
thankful? Because when we truly taught
what the law says, we're all on the same level on the dung
heaps where we are. It's where we are. So look down now at verse 34.
So Peter got this message and he went. The Spirit of God taught
him and said, now go. And when these men knocked on
the door, he went with them back down there. And he got down there
and Cornelius told him, the angel of the Lord appeared to me and
told me to send these men to get you and they came to get
you and now you're here and we're all here ready to hear what you
have to say to us. And here's what Peter said. Then
Peter opened his mouth, verse 34, and said, Of a truth I perceive
that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth
him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Everywhere
that God has cleansed a person, whether they're Jew or Gentile,
bond or free, whatever the case, male or female, where he's cleansed
someone by a holy calling, calling them His children by His divine
election, making them His children through the precious blood of
Christ, redeeming them from sin and iniquity, washing them in
their conscience, purging them from dead works to serve the
true and living God, they're clean. And God has no respect
of persons. Now, I told you to place there
in Acts 10 and turn over to 2 Corinthians 5. This is what James said, if we
would fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But if you have
respect of persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the
law as transgressors. Now let me just talk to you about
that law just for a minute, of clean and unclean. You realize
that before God formed the nation Israel, and called them his nation
Israel, so that it was known in the earth that this is God's
nation, Israel. Before he did that, there was
no distinction between Jew and Gentile. There was no distinction
between Israel and all the heathen nations around. God made that
distinction. And God told His people when
He brought them out of bondage, He said, I have made the difference
between you and all other peoples on this earth. He said that you
may know that the Lord does put a difference between the Egyptians
and Israel. He left the rest of the Gentile
world in idolatry. And He called out Israel only. He separated Israel only. He gave them His Word in tablets
of stone only. He didn't give it to everybody
else. Why did God make that distinction? Why did He do that? He did that
with a physical nation, with a law written on tablets of stone
to show us what he does when in the power of his grace he
calls his individual elect into his holy kingdom, into his church
by his grace and writes his law on our hearts. That's how he
separates the believer from all idolatry. God does it. That's how a believer is made
a new creature, totally, completely new. That's what Paul was saying
when he said, who maketh thee to differ from another? Who does
make us to differ from another? Who makes a sinner among millions
of sinners to believe on God? God does. What do you have that
you didn't receive? Everything the believer has was
given freely by God to the sinner. We didn't have anything to offer
to God. He gave us everything freely
in His Son by His grace. Then why do we glory as if we
didn't receive it? Look here in 2 Corinthians 5
verse 14. This is now This is what the believer knows
that's been called by God's grace. Verse 14. The love of Christ
constraineth us because we thus judge. This is true judgment. This is true spiritual discernment
right here. If one died for all, if he died
for all those given him of the Father, if he died for them,
here's why. They were all dead. They were
all dead. And he had to die. And that he
died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live
unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose
again. Wherefore? Henceforth, know we
no man after the flesh." We've been born of the Spirit. We've
been born of the Spirit of God. We're not regarding the flesh
anymore. We're not looking at the flesh anymore. Yea, though
we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we
know Him. No, we know Him no more. Not
after the flesh. We know Him in spirit. We follow
Him in spirit. We worship Him in spirit and
in truth. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, This is the point
Paul's making. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. He's not what he was before.
Everything he was before was of the flesh. Everything he was
before was of... If he was religious, it was all
of the law. It was all vain. But if he's
truly been called of God, he's a new creature. And all the old
things that was his confidence are passed away. Behold, all
things will become new. He's been made new, and now he
beholds God anew, and he follows God anew. So we don't give carnal
distinctions of the flesh. That's living unto ourselves.
What kind of distinctions? Like race, Jew and Gentile? not
of persons rich or wise or poor and unlearned, not after the
law. Paul said, in Jesus Christ neither
circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith
which worketh by love. Can you imagine walking into
a place where for thousands of years they had been taught that
you must adhere to the law delivered by Moses, and it begins by being
circumcised, and it brings you under that law, and then now
you have to obey everything about that law, even though you would
believe on Christ, that's still what you must do. And Paul stood
up in the midst of them and said, circumcision avails nothing,
and uncircumcision avails nothing, but faith, and faith works by
love, not by law. This is what we're talking about.
Peter was being taught more and more. Why is that the case? We don't even regard ourselves
after the flesh anymore. You know what will happen when
we do? The spirit of legalism that's still in us, now you be
honest and you think about this, the spirit of legalism that's
in us right now causes us to lose or gain assurance, to lose
our assurance or gain our assurance, By the evil or the good we do. How many times have you found
yourself fretting over your sin because of some evil you've done?
And then find yourself getting some assurance because you stopped
doing it. Circumcision doesn't avail anything
nor uncircumcision. Here's what avails. Faith in
Christ. I'm trusting the doing and dying
of Christ only. That's all. This same spirit
that's still with us will cause us to neglect our duties and
our responsibilities. We won't pray. We won't come
to the Lord's table. Why? Because we begin to think
there's some personal inadequacy in us. And preachers of the law
stand up and tell you not to. It sets up rules of life for
others to live by which God hadn't given in His Word. The spirit of legalism that's
in us tries to motivate believers with threats of punishment and
promises of reward. It causes men to set themselves
up of judges of God's saints, those who are saints, holy saints. And you know what it always causes
men to do? It always causes us to say, stand over there because
I'm holier than thee. That's the only place holiness
is used in all of the Scriptures in a relative sense. As one being
holier than the other. You either are holy or you are
not holy. And Paul said, of those who stand
there and say, I'm holier than you, God said, there are smoke
in my nostrils. Smoke in my nostrils. Why? Because
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes. And everyone that believes is
complete in Him. That's why. That's why it's a
smoke in God's nostrils. All right, now, 1 Peter again. Did you hold your place in Acts?
We're going to come back to it. But I want you to see this thread.
Peter quoted that law. God, this is our motive. As he
is holy, so be ye holy. Well, how is he holy? God fulfilled
the law by laying down His life. That's right. He sent His only
begotten Son, His Son, His very Son. He sent Him. And through
His own blood, He purchased the church. Not only that, He freed
us from the law and He created us anew through the gospel of
His grace, teaching us in the heart through the Spirit by the
Word. Not only that, He did it without respecting our persons
whatsoever, ever, but by His grace alone. That's how God's
holy. That's exactly how God is holy.
Now, Peter says, so you be holy like He is. In all manner of conduct, let
us lay down our lives. It's not about self, it's about
God's glory. In all manner of conduct, set
forth the truth of Christ's full and finished work, which is our
only hope. In all manner of conduct, do
everything without respect of persons. That's what he said. There he said, verse 15, As he
which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of
conversation. He dropped down there to verse
17. He said, if you call on the Father who without respect of
persons judges according to every man's work, past the time of
your sojourning here in fear, you'd be like Him too. For as
much as you know, you were redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers. We saw the other day that was a throwback to that
shekel of the sanctuary. that law of the shekel of the
sanctuary. We weren't redeemed by the law. We weren't redeemed
by the law. But with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do
believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him
glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. Now, here's
the third thing. First thing is, be ye holy for
God is holy. The second thing, God's no respecter
of persons. Let's not be a respecter of persons.
Here's the third thing, love with a pure heart fervently.
Look at verse 22. Seeing ye have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure
heart fervently. Turn back to Acts 15 now. We still see the thread of that
same law that Peter quoted, that same law by which he was taught
by God that you're no longer under the law, you're under grace.
God has no respect for persons. Well, after Peter had gone down
there and preached the gospel to Cornelius and his house, God
poured out the Holy Ghost on those Gentiles like He did on
the Jews on the day of Pentecost, manifesting that He has an elect
people among the Gentiles as well as the Jews. And they were
baptized. And Peter stayed there and ate
with them. He probably sat down and ate him some big old pork
chops with those Gentiles for the first time in his life. Well,
when he got back to where the circumcision were, the legalists
that were in Jerusalem, they got on him about it. They raised
a fuss about what he'd done. And eventually, they came down
to Antioch where Paul was, and that's where they messed up.
Because they came down there trying to tell him, it's all
right for these Gentiles to believe, but now they've got to be circumcised
and keep the law. And here's what happened. Acts
15.1. We saw there, Peter said, seeing
ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth. That's how
believers are purified, cleansed, made holy and right with God
through the gospel, through obeying the truth. All right, Acts 15.1. And certain men which came down
from Judea taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised
after the manna of Moses, you can't be saved. When therefore
Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with
them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other
of them should go up to Jerusalem and to the apostles and elders
about this question. They said, Paul, you and Barnabas
should come up with something on your own. You need to go back
up here now and find out what the church of Jerusalem is saying.
So Paul said, all right, let's do that. Being brought on their
way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria,
declaring the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great
joy unto all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders,
and they declared all things that God had done with them.
But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, which
believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and
to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and
elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there
had been much disputing, Peter rose up and he said unto them.
Now he's talking about what happened back there with him in Cornelius.
Men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago, God made
choice among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the
word of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did
unto us, even as he did unto us Jews. And He put no difference
between us and them. You mean God didn't respect the
fact that we've been keeping this law this whole time? Uh
uh. He sure didn't. He didn't. He put no difference
between us and them. Purifying their hearts by faith. By faith. That's what avails.
Faith which works by love. He purified their hearts by faith.
Now therefore, why tempt ye God Now that's what it is. It's tempting
God. Why tempt ye God to put a yoke
upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor
we were able to bear? Peter said, ain't any of us kept
this law. Ain't none of us kept it. But
we believe. Now listen to this. Peter's standing
there as a Jew. One who had been under the law.
And he says, we believe that through the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, we, Jews, shall be saved even as they, as those
Gentiles. He didn't say, we believe those
Gentiles will be saved like us. That would have been saying,
yeah, they need to be circumcised to keep the law. He said, no.
We're going to be saved, us Jews, like those Gentiles, by the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, without the deeds of the law. That's
how we're going to be saved. Now go back with me to 1 Peter.
1 Peter. Whenever God does this, and He
purifies the soul of a man, when He purifies the soul of the believer
through faith, It stops the unfeigned love. We stop acting, we stop
putting on a show, we stop pretending like we're something we're not,
and we really love one another then. This is the only thing
that does it is the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed through His gospel through the Holy Spirit. The law just
won't do it. The law just won't do it. How
do we come to this? Verse 23, being born again not
of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth
and abideth forever. You see, even as we were not
redeemed with corruptible things. That's what Peter had said back
there in verse 18. You know you weren't redeemed
with corruptible things, but you were redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. That's what Christ did for us. And here he
says, and by the same way that you weren't redeemed with corruptible
things, you weren't born with corruptible things either. He
says, but with the incorruptible seed, born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible. You see, we're delivered from
bondage by what Christ has done for us. and by what the Spirit
of God performs within us. And both are performed effectually
by God's power, by God's grace, and is incorruptible, and you
and I don't have any room to say anything whatsoever that
we did anything to make ourselves to differ. He did it. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. The first time we were born,
we were born in sin. We were born of corrupt seed.
We hated God and we hated one another. We might have acted
religious, but we hated God and we hated one another. But that
won't last. That birth won't last. That birth
will die. And everything that's done while
still in that nature will die. And all the works that we've
tried to do will die. Everything will die because it's
all of the flesh. Verse 24, For all flesh is as
grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass
withered, the flower thereof falleth away. So we don't put
any confidence, that's why we don't know any man after the
flesh anymore. Now we know what the flesh is, don't we? We don't respect a man according
to the flesh now, we know what the flesh is now. And we know
being born of God, we know how a man is saved and kept and preserved
and shall be presented faultless before the throne of God. And
being born of God, we're recreated after His image. What does that
do? Look at 1 John. When we're born of God, this
thing of loving our brethren with a pure heart, with pure
love, that in itself, that's not just something that's thrown
out there and said, okay, now you do that. It's an absolute
thing that will be in a believer. Unfeigned love of the brethren.
Not a hypocrisy. True love. Why will it be so?
Because this is what happens when God recreates us after His
image. He's love. God is love. And when He recreates
us after His image, He makes us partaker of His nature. He
creates us with a nature and a spirit of love because that's
what He is. It's like Him. Like Him. This
is the perfect law of life and liberty. Look here at verse 23. 1 John 3 verse 23. This is His
commandment. This is what God commands us.
This is the law He writes on our heart, right here. This is
His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son,
Jesus Christ, and by faith in his son who came not to destroy
the law but to fulfill it and who fulfilled it on behalf of
his people in precept and penalty. This one who fulfilled it completely
perfectly through faith in him. We don't make void the law. We
perfectly have fulfilled the law because Christ has fulfilled
it. Now that covers all the law. Believe on Christ and you've
established the whole law of God. Not as men say, establish
it. As God says, establish it. Perfectly. Perfectly. And you're dead to
it. Because Christ, when he died, you're dead to the curse, the
power, the dominion, the guilt of it. Completely dead to it.
And then having been born of God, he says here, and love one
another as he gave us commandment. Look over at 1 John 5. Because
we're born of Him, recreated after His image, God who is love,
look at verse 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. That was the first thing He told
us to do. Believe on Him and we've fulfilled all righteousness.
And here's the second thing. And everyone that loveth Him
that begat, loveth Him also that's begotten of Him. Not ought to,
He does. He does. We have both fulfilled
the law through faith and by being recreated after the image
of God with this spirit of love imparted to us, we love the brethren. And that's all the commandment
of God. That's everything God commands us to do. That's a light
and joyful easy yoke, isn't it? Believe on God and love your
brethren. Now that's light and easy. light
and easy. The work is done. We get the
easy part. Trusting God and loving one another. And the tie that binds us in
all this, the tie that binds us is the word of the gospel,
this very gospel I'm preaching to you now. This is what unites
the hearts of believers. When I hear it, I hear a tuned
instrument. And when I don't hear it, I hear
an instrument that's just all out of tune. The Lord said, my
sheep hear my voice and they follow me, and a stranger they
won't follow. And God's sheep hear it. They
hear His voice and they follow Him. They know it. When I hear
it, I know His voice. I may not know the person that's
preaching. I may not have any idea who they are, but I know
who they're preaching when I hear this voice. And it's the tie
that unites us together. Look back at 1 Peter 1.25. But the word of the Lord endureth
forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached
unto you. You know what the Lord said?
In John 15, verse 3, He said, Now ye are clean through the
word which I have spoken unto you. You know what that word
does? This word washes us. You come
in here and you're all spotted from the world and from being
in the world all week and at your jobs and in your homes and
all those things. You just come in here all spotted.
And you hear the gospel and God through the Spirit washes you. You go back out. Come back in
next time, spotted, and He washes you. He washes you. And He's
teaching us to keep ourselves unspotted, unspotted from this
world. So what's the exhortation? Well,
I'll give you these three things. First of all, love one another
with a pure heart fervently. Believe on Christ and love one
another with a pure heart fervently. We'll look at a couple of more
scriptures. Let's look at a couple of more. Colossians. Just go
there. We'll stay there. Colossians.
We'll be done. Colossians 3 verse 12. Here's what it is to love one
another with a pure heart fervently. Verse 12. Put on therefore as
the elect of God holy and beloved, that's what you are, holy and
beloved. Put on, therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all
these things put on charity, love, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule
in your hearts, to which also you are called in one body, and
be ye thankful. Colossians 3 there, look at verse
5. This is the other thing Peter
said. He said, Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile,
and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, That's
what Paul said. Since we've been born from above,
since we're dead to the law, since our life is hid. is hid
with Christ in God. He says this, verse 5, mortify
therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness,
which is idolatry. You know what the Lord gave that
law of clean and unclean for? It was to keep His children from
the idolatry of the Gentiles, because those animals was what
they used in much of their idolatry. You know what the Lord just told
us? We're the idolatry. Our flesh is the idolatry. Put
off that old, idolatrous man. For which thing's sake the wrath
of God cometh on the children of disobedience? Into which ye
also walked some time when you lived in them. But now ye also
put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication
out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing
that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him." And here's what Peter said in
our text, where there's neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is
all and He's in all. A good rule of thumb is this.
Whenever you get ready to speak against your brother or your
sister, whatever you think about doing against your brother or
your sister, just ask yourself, would I say this or do this against
Christ? Because Christ is all and He's
in all. He's in all our brethren. Here's
the last thing Peter says, as newborn babes desire the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if so be you've
tasted, the Lord is gracious. Stay in Colossians 3, look at
verse 16. Now when Peter says, if so be
you've tasted, the Lord is gracious, I can't help but think we're
still talking about that thread of that law of the clean and
unclean because that had to do with eating things. And when
God calls a man and creates him anew in righteousness and true
holiness, He gives him an entirely new appetite. And that which
he once fed on, now he realizes is death, and he doesn't want
to eat that anymore. Now what he wants to feed on
is the sincere milk of this Word, like a newborn baby feeds on
his mother's milk. Here's how Paul put that, Colossians
3, verse 16. Let the Word of Christ dwell
in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in Psalms." Want to talk to somebody that you think is
out of line, or you think is hurting, or you think needs to
be corrected, or you think is in error, or anything like that?
Read them a Psalm. What Paul said, do. Speak to
one another in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God and the Father by Him. Now that's holiness and grace
and love. And that's what we desire above
everything else. Amen.