Whatever it is, viruses and everything
else. There's never a time when we
don't have something or someone to pray for. Turn with me to First Peter chapter
one. I want to start reading. In verse
17 and down through the end of the chapter. 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, knowing
that you were ransomed from the useless ways inherited from your
forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation
of the world but was made manifest in these last times for the sake
of you, 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 purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for
a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a
pure heart since you've been born again, not of perishable
seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of
God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower
of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word
of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the gospel that
was preached to you. And before we get into this,
I want you just to think about where we've come from, where
we've been in the last, what, 19 weeks in this text, what it
means to be obedient. You've heard me use the, have
almost become cliche in my life and the life of those around
me, but you've heard me talk about, it's not about who we
are, but who's. Yet we still fight this undercurrent
inside of us that we must perform in order to set the standard
of our identity and worse, that God would love us. Or that we must be something
if it's not because we fear God, we fear others. Or maybe we even fear our own
standards. Have you ever noticed sometimes
for some of us, I can't speak for all of us, but for some of
us, there are times where we are not satisfied with others
because we are not satisfied with ourselves. And we always look to find a
way out of that. We find a way to get away from
that pressure. To avoid it, to dismiss it. And beloved, we know the false
gospel of works. We know the false gospel of the
covenant of works. It's not good news. There is
nothing good about if you do X, you will get Y. Because that rests solely upon
the shoulders of the one doing. And yes, salvation is about obedience. Salvation is about perfect living. Salvation is about being absolutely
righteous. And Jesus of Nazareth is the
only human being who has ever fulfilled any of those. So His
obedience is our righteousness. His obedience is our salvation. Death on a cross. His obedience
is our identity. And from his obedience should
we find the way to live authentically. Now, I've been to a lot of concerts
in my days. A lot of them. Jazz concerts,
symphony, ballet, hip hop. I've been dragged to a few country
concerts. Not drugged, but dragged. And all sorts of stuff. I've
been to heavy metal concerts where they tried to pick me up
and tote me around. That's not me. I like the music, don't pick
me up. One of my best friends in college,
we were at a cookout at his house and he and another friend of
mine decided it'd be funny to throw me in the pool with my blazer
on and my dress shoes and everything. Well, they still limp today because
of that. I don't tolerate that. Don't
touch me. It's not who I am. It's not funny. I don't want to be tickled. I
don't want to be mocked. I don't want to be laughed at.
And I sure as heck don't want to be passed around like a cup
of water at a restaurant, at a musical event. What do they
call that? At a concert. My brain just died. I don't want
it, but for people who do it, it entertains me. I'm like, this
is amazing. Let me stand over here and watch this amazing thing. It's not who I am. I'm not authentically
engaged that way. I can sit there with my eyes
closed and enjoy the metal just like I would not want to be dragged
to the stage in a ballet. be forced to put on tights and
stand on my tippy toes. Number one, it would be horrific.
Number two, I can't do it. Number three, I have no desire.
It's not who I am, but If I'm at a blues concert and somebody
said, Tiffins, get that tenor and come on. I'm probably going
to get on stage and I'm probably going to act real goofy and everybody's
going to think I'm probably on some substances or either intoxicated
because I'm going to get giddy like a little boy when those
blues riffs come down and I just have to stop playing for a minute
because I'm laughing on the inside. That's authentically me. But
yet for years I hid that side of me. No, no, no, I'm not going to
play. No, I'm not going to do that. No, I don't want to do
that. No, that's OK. I'm just going to stand here
and be stoic. Stoics make terrible musicians and they're terrible
entertainers. What's the point? If we call
on God as our father. That's who we are. We're the children of God. And
nothing we do and nothing that we don't do that might have negated
that, but you get the grammar can take that away from us. Nothing. Herein lies the foundation of
the gospel report, the good report, the good story of Jesus Christ,
which is the word of God, who is the word of God and our culture,
our historical culture, the culture of Christianity, historical Christianity,
historical theology. We have done our best to diminish
the gospel to one's performance, to one's knowledge, to one's
existence. So I want to say all of that
very clearly in the beginning because we're getting to some
things that we're supposed to be doing as acts of obedience
as God's children. And if we enter into this blindsided,
we're going to fall back into the false gospel of works. Which is what does Paul say to
the church of Galatia? The churches of Galatia, which
is no gospel. It's no good news. See, stop
saying gospel until you understand that it means good report, the
good story. A false gospel is no good story.
There's no good story there. It doesn't end well. It sounds
happy, but it's tragic. They don't ride off into the
sunset happily ever after. The gospel of works is not a
good story. It's a story of destruction.
It's a story of diminished returns. It's a story of despair. It's
a story of hopelessness. That's OK, it'll go off by itself
later. You shut it. Media. It's not a good news. It'll go off by itself later. But in all of it, we need to
learn to live authentically. You've been hearing me say this
now for over a year. I use these phrases. And there's a reason
that these types of words are buzzwords in our culture today.
It's because after an elongated stint of staying home and looking
inside of our belly buttons, we have all decided navel gazing. You're like, well, let me check
myself out. You've seen kids do that, right? It's sort of
gross. They don't bathe in there like
they should. But all this introspection, all of this stuff, we've had
as an entire world now opportunity to think about who we are, to
think about what we want, to think about what we're doing
and to consider the reality that we don't even like where we've
been, much less where we're going, so we're going to do something
different. Oh, if I had acted on every whim. Related to my identity and to
living authentically, as I really thought I would, I would have
been all over the place. Zigzag Zig. Emotionally, I was
mentally I wasn't even operating, much less focused. So as we open
up this text today and as we think about this, consider the
fact that we are the children of God, the cause of Christ. Let's take this stuff verse by
verse. It's a lot, I know. I've probably never preached
this many verses at one time, except maybe in the first year
of my ministry. But that's okay, that was a four-hour
sermon, we can stand it. And if you call on Him as Father,
verse 17, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds.
Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
Now let me speak to this. And this is a review, these first
few points are review from last week, but it winds us into this.
How are you going to stand before God today and Him be your Father? When He judges everyone according
to their own deeds without partiality. There's two ways that we could
look at it in our human mind. One is we could work really hard
to change the way we're perceived by God so that when He looks
at us, He sees us worthy of not being judged so harshly. The
only problem with that is that we are already guilty before
God. And even in that mindset, we
are wrong before Him because we cannot establish righteousness
in our own obedience. Or secondly, we just don't think
about it. I ain't worried about that. And so what we have in
our culture is this constant internal war. Well, I've done
this and I've done that, but I've done this and I've done
that. And this and that seems better than this and this and
am I okay? Courts don't use scales. There's a reason that justice,
although ironically, is blind, with a scale in one hand and
a sword in the other. And the scale is not tipped. No matter what you do well, no
matter what you do good, it does not outweigh what anything that
is bad. It's like the illustration that
I give, and I've written about this in some of my essays on
my Substack, not necessarily my blog, but how much of a roach
would you allow into your food before you wouldn't eat it? Knowledgeably. Would you let him sit on the
edge of the plate and go, yeah, this chicken looks good? Would you let him come
around and sniff on it? Would his antenna be okay? Would
his leg be okay? Long as he got out of there before
you ate it? No, no. Now, in some cultures, it'd be
like, well, a little side dish, antipasto. Not in this one. Not in this one. I am deeply
indebted to the first world problems of bougie-ness. when it comes
to my food and its cleanliness. Some of the greatest places to
eat in the world are the dirtiest and I've not tried them. Yep,
I'm not eating here. Sorry. But yet we will think
that way about ourselves when there's a little bit of dirt.
Oh, we're still clean. Don't look at my belly button.
Don't look at my ears, right? Did you clean your ears? Yes,
sir. What is that moving at there, you know? When it comes to righteousness,
there's one standard, absolute, constant, eternal perfection. Understand that righteousness
by definition means at a constant state of continual perfection
from the beginning. So if you've ever lied, if you've
ever stomped your feet, I want popsicle, you have failed the
standard, you've missed the mark of righteousness. Now we have
balled that up and thought, well, God judges each one according
to his own deeds. See, when I say it like that,
like a 1950s evangelist, I'd have to get a little sweaty.
It's sort of It sort of has a little bit of a different tenor or like
I've heard before God's gonna get you Yes, what's he gonna get me a
car It's gonna get me a house no, he's just gonna get you oh
You know, I've been scared of the boogeyman my whole childhood
now. I know who he is. He's God. Oh, I It's okay to
see God as a righteous judge because he is. And nothing we
do, right or wrong, will sway him. That's what it means to
impartially judge one's deeds. But it's a reminder of understanding
that our righteousness is not going to be subject to that type
of judgment. On this earth, absolutely. In
the context of this life, we are going to deal with the consequences
of judgment. We are going to deal with the consequences of
choice. We are going to deal with the
consequences of free will. Even when we do things wrongly
with the right intention, it can still be judged. But God
is not looking to show favors. The only way we are not going
to receive the judgment that God impartially puts upon us
is that Christ is our righteousness. If you did not receive, I said
this last week at Romans 8, 15, you didn't receive the spirit
of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit
of adoption to be called sons and daughters,
children. And this spirit is the way that
we cry out to God and call Him Daddy. Yeah, remember? I said we should sing that song.
Now we've got a screen, we can sing that song, Abba Father. So God judges based on deeds. He will, as according to Paul
in Romans 2, which the first four chapters of Romans establish
for these Roman Christians, these non-Jewish Christians, that the
Jews and the Gentiles are both guilty before God. And of course,
next time you hear Pastor Trey, he will definitely read Romans
3 for you. Or Hebrews 10 or one of those places like I will probably
in John 3 or somewhere before we're out of the text today or
John 6 or John 10. It's just the way it works. But
he will render to each one according to his works. This does not change. God will render to each one according
to His works. That's why the works of Christ
given to our account erases the works that we've done. But how
can He do that? Because God has judged Jesus
for our works. So our works are judged. Get this. Our sin is judged. Our lies are judged. Our irritated
spirit is judged. Everything we've ever done that
is not absolutely perfect has already been judged, because
God judges impartially. The difference is that He took
all of the judgment that we deserve, He put it all on Christ, and
He crushed it. And the reason Jesus rose from
the dead is because He did not deserve that. So he received
the justice and the judgment for sins that didn't belong to
him. So the wages of sin is death. Jesus died, but they weren't
his to bear. So the judgment is satisfied.
And because they weren't his, he came back to life. Because
personally, he was perfect. Because of this, then we get
into that conduct yourself with fear throughout your time of
exile. So we don't like the word fear. I don't like the word fear.
So how do we parse this out? How do we unpack this idea? Well, I'm scared of God. You
cannot be scared of God in judgment. But there is a sense in which
I have to be very careful of anecdotes that I use in my own
life, but there have been times where I've escaped death. And
I look back on those things and I think, There's a lot of respectful
fear there with what could have happened just then. Bad people
with weapons. And God's allowed me to walk
away from these things. Gangs of people trying to take what's
mine. And God's allowed me to walk away from these things.
Tornadoes that I fled on four wheels. And God allowed me to
escape those things. But there's trepidation when
I consider the reality of what could have been. But then when I consider the
reality of who God is in justice, and then I'm reminded of the
reality of the good report of grace, there's a fear there that turns
more to all than anything. It's like swimming
in the ocean and seeing a whale shark, a big, big, big thing. I don't want to see that while
I'm in there. I don't want to contemplate that. And that's nothing in comparison
to the justice of God. But perfect love casts away all
fear. You see how that fear subsides when we understand the love of
God. Paul tells the Philippians, as
you've always obeyed, continue. Even when I wasn't there, even
when I was there, but now that I'm not there in my absence,
continue to do so. And work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling, trusting not in and of yourselves, but trusting
in the Lord, trusting in Christ. In Hebrews 11, we see what? We
see that list of faithful ones who by faith did not receive
what they were promised, but they received something else.
They all died in faith, not receiving the things promised, but having
seen them and greeted them from afar, having acknowledged that
they were strangers and exiles on the earth. While we live in
this earth, we still live in a fleshly state. We still live
in a state of physical, emotional, spiritual fallenness in practice,
and we're warring against the two, but in the courts of righteousness,
we live in a state of perfection. In the eyes of God, we are God's
people. There is nothing that we can
do to upset that. But it doesn't mean that we should
not remember it. Verse 18, knowing that you were
ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers,
not with perishable things such as gold or silver. We were purchased. We've been bought with a price.
So therefore, glorify God in your body. First Corinthians
6 20. You've been purchased. Not to be a slave, to be to be
a son, to be a daughter, to be a child, you've been adopted
to stand and share in the glory of Jesus Christ, immutable, from
that day of glorification forever. The very thing that Lucifer claimed
for himself, we receive by mercy. I will ascend to the throne.
I will ascend and stand on the mountains of the gods. I will
stand next to Elohim and I will bask in His glory because look
at me, I'm just as beautiful. And God threw him out of heaven. now in the day of glory, we will
be made just as beautiful as Christ. And we will stand with
Him while the angels worship Him. Perception, beloved. And this
is true for you who believe. So then to live authentically
as a child of God means that this is the current, right? This
is the the flowing river of life, the water that's welling over.
This is the reality of everything that we are in Christ. So let
us live in this way, not so that we stave off judgment because
it's gone, but because we know that this
is who we really are. Live authentically. The old man
is dead in Christ. The new man is alive. You were sold for nothing and
you shall be redeemed without money, God tells his people through
Isaiah. You can't pay your way out. Because
Christ's blood is the currency. I mean, think about the emptiness
of life without Christ. Think about the hopelessness
of life without the gospel. And think about the value of
your redemption. Consider it. Imagine. Imagine
breaking free from the sinful patterns and the mindset and
the traditions inherited from our previous generations in the
name of goodness, in the name of holiness, in the name of righteousness,
imagine being free. Beloved, we are free. Let's live it. And I would rather coach each
other in sensitivity and wisdom than shackle one another in fear
and oppression. I'd rather say that probably
wasn't a wise choice of words to use around your Nana than to walk on eggshells for
40 years because you might offend somebody. What's more of a gospel picture?
That we reconcile the offense. Not that it doesn't happen. Aha! An epiphany! May it be so
in our lives. If we're avoiding offenses, we
are living a lie. Because two people in their natural
state, even as children of God, will offend one another. Maybe we should make that a core
value of our congregation. We value confrontation and defense,
for from it comes grace and reconciliation. There you go, write that down
on the annals, corporate resolution, so be it. We put that on the
newspaper, what would they think? Change our logo to look more
like an MMA team. We can do it. We'll put, you've
seen Bob in the back room, right? We put him up here on the stage. You've been purchased with the
precious blood of Christ. How much more, Paul says, how
much more, he asks, will the blood of Christ who, through
the eternal spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, how much
more will the blood of Christ purify our conscience from dead
works to serve the living God? You see what I'm saying? We've got to understand and embrace
the concept of Jesus as the perfect unblemished lamb who took away
our sins and then live authentically as one whose sins have been paid
for without apology. Something I've started doing
in the last six to eight months is I stopped saying I'm sorry
unless I purposely did something wrong. Period. Because it just, it doesn't mean
anything. Even I'm sorry you feel that
way is not an apology. I'm not sorry for something I
did not do. I understand how you feel and
I empathize with that. But I'm not sorry for it because
the way you feel is not my fault. Well you said this, I'm sorry
that I said that. You see the difference? We've
got to live without apologizing for it. We've got to live as Christians
without apologizing. And I'm talking about in our
commandment to love one another. Here's the punchline, guys. Obedience
is about love, not a lifestyle, not anything else that the culture
has imposed upon us. None of that. It's about love.
So everything that does not flow out of love is not flowing out
of faith and everything that is not faith is sin. Because faith continues to focus
on what we've been called to do in this life. Right now, today,
present, mindful, understanding, knowing, having the intelligence
of our emotions to know what we're thinking and feeling and
why. Because otherwise, we're just going to flip from one thing
to another, trying to either numb this war or win this war
in ways that God has not promised it to be avoided or defeated. And nothing has changed with
him. Verse 20, for He was known, foreknown, before the foundation
of the world. But He was made known, He was manifest, He came,
He appeared, He walked with us. And John 1, for the, what? The
Word became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen God's glory,
glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Our namesake, Grace Truth Church. It's who we are, it's not what
we are. And I'm one of the pastors of
this church, not at this church. This location is irrelevant to
our essence, to our being. It's just convenient. Even as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, Ephesians one for that we should
be holy and blameless before him in love, he predestined us. We are that way. Because before
the world was eternally, God's eternal plan was to was to covenant
with himself. That the sun would become like
the creation that did not exist. so that when the scripture says,
let there be light, the light coming into the world is the
life of men, who is Jesus Christ. This is who we are. What's the point of verse 20?
We're supposed to have our jaw dropped, going, oh, wow, I am in awe. That's why we sing certain songs,
so that the words of these things make us go, wow, And then other
songs make us feel good about who we are in Christ and other
things that we learn. It's all in the above. It's everything. When the fullness of time had
come, Paul tells the churches of Galatia, God sent forth His
Son born of a woman, born under the law. But the seed of this promise
was not tainted by the man. for it was conceived of the Holy
Spirit of God, Jesus Christ. So beloved, as much as I was
taught in my younger years by well-meaning people not to personalize
the narrative of salvation, we need to personalize the narrative
of salvation, understanding that it was for our sake. And Paul
says this numerous times, but not for ours alone, but for yours
also. We're not going to bust into
all of that in the sense of how we can philosophically unpack
it differently. But I want you to know that when
you're alone, you need to understand what God has done for you. And
then you need to understand that obedience to this amazing grace
is about each other. More than it's about you. Or me. Because of verse 21, who through
Him are believers in God. Sister, we don't even get to
take credit for our faith. We cannot take credit for our faith.
We cannot take credit for any of this stuff. We have to say,
okay, now I am in Christ, now what do I do? How do I hold on? And we are taught in our world,
well, you gotta believe. Gotta believe what? A proposition.
A contract. An idea, no. You have to be gifted
a disposition that despite what? That's what the word repentance
means, a state of mind, a disposition. And that is that sometimes without
even being able to comprehend the love of God fully or express
the joy of God succinctly, like Peter's already said over in
the first few verses, we rest in Him completely. We rest in
Him completely. So we are believers through Him
who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory so that what?
So that your faith and hope are in God. John 3, Nicodemus being
spoken to by Jesus, no one comes to the light for this is the
judgment. They don't come to the light because when they come
to the light, They had to see that all of their works and all
of their prayers and all of their obedience and all of their worship
and all of their incense and all of their offerings and all
of their tithes are darkness. It doesn't make us live. But
the ones who do come to the light do so so that it may be clearly
seen that their works. Of coming into the light. Have
been carried out by God. We were buried with Him in baptism
into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness
of life. We ground our faith and our hope
firmly in the promises of God through Jesus Christ. We embrace
the power of the resurrection as the foundation of our faith.
And we recognize that Christ has been exalted and supreme. And He is preeminent,
and we walk in that light. The light of Christ shines on
us like a stage light. We don't shine as if we have
light to shine. The light we shine is a reflection
of Him. So our lives of obedience are
a reflection of Him. Well, why would I want to honor
Him? Look what He did for you. And if we were to place it in
a place of indebtedness, it would make more sense. It's not indebtedness. The Bible could teach that. For
the saint, it's not indebtedness. It's enlightenment. Hebrews 10, you were enlightened.
You walked in all this way. You did all these things. You
worked perfectly. You did it all correctly, but you were enlightened.
It was darkness. Now the light is Christ, the
son of the living God. He shined on you and now you
shine back to him what he is. It's not obligation. It's adoration. And the things that we do to
change when we're in love, right? Or if that's in jeopardy. I had
a friend tell me last week, we were talking with a group of
men and one of these guys were talking about how anger just
seems like the only emotion they ever have. And this friend said,
you know, that was my story, and I'm going to misquote him,
but it was something like this, is that rage is a great antidote
to fear. And so when we work and work
and work and work and try to be a good Christian person, when
we try to be a godly man or woman, when we walk in a manner worthy
of the gospel and we do so well because we are so afraid and
then somebody sees us for what we are not, it can make us angry. But when we see God and when
we see Christ for who He's not, He didn't get angry. He said,
Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. See, we don't know what we don't know, do we? But when
we do know, oh, it changes everything. It changes everything. Let's
go back to that plate of food where the roach was just looking
at it. It's not on there now. There's nothing left behind.
I put it down. And as you're halfway through,
you've enjoyed the meal, but the chef comes out, says, oh,
cool, I'm glad that roach didn't get in there for too long. Ah,
you're done, you're not eating anymore. Now you know. Well,
now you know your righteousness is in Christ. Now you know that
God loves you despite you. Now you know that one day you
will be made perfect like him. Now you know that living authentically
includes the bumps, the bruises, the bad, the mistakes, the sins,
the failures, the rage. The heartache, all of it, that's
who we are, let's live that way. And we grow into the person that
we're going to be authentically. Not becoming more righteous,
it's impossible. But our actions can reflect more
and more the righteousness that we have. See the difference? We're not becoming, see that,
from one state of glory to another garbage, where people like to
say, I probably shouldn't have said garbage, but that's how I feel. Might
have been insensitive, but I think it is. I think it's bondage. Well, you know that you know
that you know that you know that you're saved because look at
where you are. You're not where you want to be, but you're not
where you used to be. And I mean, that's so, so simplistic, so deeply
devastating. How about when we live authentically
by the grace of God? We reflect more of the righteousness
that we are. And the beautiful thing is, is
that we could be doing so well and then tomorrow be doing so
badly. Have you ever had somebody, probably your spouse, that just
ruined their reputation with you in a moment? You've been
married to them a decade or maybe more and all of a sudden something
came out of their mouth or they did something and you're like,
who is this devil? Right? And so you have to reframe
it. And sometimes you're like starting
a new season of life going, hmm. And especially children, we know
that, right? But don't forget, if they're
the devil, we're their parents. It's our fault. Verse 22, having
been purified, having purified your souls by your obedience
to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another. Here's
the reality of it. Love one another, love one another earnestly from
a pure heart. A pure heart loves honestly,
earnestly, authentically. These are words that we need
to know as human beings who speak English. Because we have guarded
the reality of what these things mean and through my growing up,
And to all the different stages of my adult life, we've called
them, I'm going to be truthful. I'm going to keep it real. I'm going to speak the truth
in love. I'm going to tell it like it is. That's not authentic. That's as much of an act as me
juggling fire and telling you that I'm a Zambonian. I know
that's a device, but king. I've driven one of those, by
the way. It's not safe. Having purified our souls by
your obedience to the truth, in other words, what God has
done in us to give us righteousness in Christ, we know by faith and
we rest in that and it ebbs and flows, it comes and goes. Our
faith is strong, our faith is weak and sometimes it's nowhere
to be found. But he's faithful. Draw near to God, he will draw
near to you. Cleanse your hands before you eat, you sinners.
and purify your hearts, you double-minded," James 4, 8. There's a context
there. I hate using pretexts, but there's a context there.
James has not condemned one person in his letter to unbelief. Neither has John in his first
letter, or second, or third, none of them, to unbelief. Everyone
that read the letter, he assumed with all positivity, without
any doubt or hesitation, that they were believers, but believers
struggle with the truth. Believers struggle with love.
Believers struggle with life. Love one another with brotherly
affection. Outdo one another in showing
honor. Romans 12, 10. I've already mentioned 1 John, verse
18 out of chapter 3. Little children, let us not love
in word or talk, but let's love in deed
and in truth. So we should pursue this spiritual
purification to reflect the righteousness that we truly are through obedience
to God's word, which specifically is to love one another. We cultivate
sincere and genuine love for fellow believers and for our
enemies and for those who persecute us and for those unbelievers. Not that we may bring them to
the faith, that we may love them genuinely. In the same way, we
love ourselves. We've got to get this because
Chapter 3 is coming. Actually, Chapter 2 is coming. We start
using the big S word, which is submit. It's going to really
be blown out of proportion if we don't get it. Christ is the
greatest submissive person that ever walked the earth. He submitted. So we, who are like Him, should
have the same heart as He had, and we do. Verse 23, since you've been born
again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the
living and abiding word of God, God declared you alive. And he
told you about it. He affected all the ends and
the means and everything else. He, he fulfilled every obligation
in the contract of redemption in the covenant of redemption
of redemption. in the sales order, everything.
There's not one place, there's not even a subsection with a
subsection of a subsection and a footnote on a back page somewhere
written in handwriting on a napkin that says that the recipient
of grace has any part of the contract except it be delivered
to them and sealed forever, irrevocable. We got a contract lawyer in the
midst. That'd be a good one to write up. Oh, it's already been written.
I'm reading from it today. The living and abiding Word of
God, not perishable seed, but imperishable seed. So it is with
the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What
is raised is imperishable. For the Word of God, Hebrews
4.12, is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Piercing
to the division of the soul and the spirit of the joints and
of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the
heart we Cannot hide from the Word of God, but as God's adopted
children in Christ Jesus the Word of God is life Not bondage So we must embrace
our new birth. We must embrace the new man the
new woman the You're with the same people physically, ontologically. Here we are, but we've been made
new in the image of Christ. We've been made new in the promise
of Christ. Let's reflect that. We've been perfected by the word
of God. It's declared to us. It's taught to us. So we understand
the eternal nature of this and we understand that it's rooted
in the scriptures. So engaging deeply with the word
of God, with the living and abiding scripture, is where we're going
to see transformation of our mind. And when our mind is authentically
functioning, then we will see transformation of our lives.
The last few verses. Peter says four. For all flesh. All flesh. Is like grass. And its glory. Like the flower
of grass. The grass withers, the flower
fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever. The word of the Lord. Remains. forever. Isaiah 40 verse 9. And then Peter says this, and
this is, and this word that remains forever, listen very carefully
church, is the gospel that was preached to you. This is not
referring back to everything that he said. This is referring
to the very end of Isaiah 40. The word of the Lord remains
forever and this word is the good news that was preached to
you. The same word as the, I'm not ashamed of the good news
for it is the power of God unto salvation. The same word that
Paul told Timothy that you were really, you understood the scripture
as a young boy which are profitable unto salvation, which brought
you to the faith. So this idea that we have to
articulate certain doctrinal preciseness or that we have to
have a set minimum standard of certain things that God will
only use to bring regeneration puts the onus on us, our language,
our availability, et cetera. And beloved, if we preach from
the word of God, God's business is to establish his spirit as
he sees fit, blows where it wishes and produces what it wants. And this is completely against,
like this text here talks about the temporal nature of human
life. Flesh is like grass. My grass was so green a week
ago and growing like an inch a minute. And now there's dry
patches because we haven't had rain a couple of days. Just withers
away. It's a metaphor. The whole text there is the voice
says, cry. And I said, Isaiah, speaking
to God, why shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its
beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers,
the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely
the people are grass. Human existence is just a vapor.
God's Word never fades. God never fades. He never fails. He never leaves. He never changes.
And in that sense, since we are vapor, our achievements are vapor. All of it's glory. All of the
flesh is glory. Everything that's seen, revealed,
accomplished, and established by our fleshly lives is our glory. It's what people behold. Oh,
look at there. Look at what James has done. Poof, it's gone. It's
gone. It's nothing. Human achievements,
human beauty, human glory. It's short-lived. That includes
our ministries. That includes our books, our
teachings, our sermons, our good deeds. None of it counts. It's
not going to be carried over into the afterlife for us to
get on a scale. It's not going to be like, oh, man alive, you
of all people did very well. Thank you so much. I needed a
representative like you in the earth. No, that's not the gospel. The gospel is I fulfill my purpose
as God speaking. And I use who I want. But more importantly, because
I saved you, your mind was transformed to know Me in a way that only
I could reveal Myself. So now your life that you lived
was not yours, but you lived by faith in Me who loved you
and I gave Myself for you. See, this is what Paul says,
right? But in contrast, the word of
the Lord remains forever. Christ remains forever. The establishment
of God's kingdom remains forever. That's why it can never and never
will be and never was intended to be an earthly kingdom, an
earthly nation. There's no such thing as Christian nationalism
and it be biblical. It's absolutely unbiblical and
it's absolutely in every iteration. If you'd like to talk about it
later, I'm going to say this, very triggering, demonic. to call
it biblical, much less Christ. Welcome to the election year.
You'll see it again in four years. Note over. We are not of this
world. Serve your conscience. Go to
bed. Keep it to yourself. Because
it's got no place in the kingdom of heaven. Because God's word is eternal,
and he's not going to establish borders and nations and kings
on the new earth. The United States of America
is the greatest example of what will never work in righteousness. We have ultimate liberty to worship
any way, one, and when we want, and yet we're still fighting
over it. Blows my mind. That's what we
do, right? Because we're not living. We
can't find our identity in the gospel of grace. We'll create
our own identity. I cannot talk today. We will
create our own identity and our own understanding of how we think
Christ should be effectual in the world in which we live. Just
like ancient Israel, when he came on the scene, they said,
we will make him our king. Christ is not the king of the
United States. The United States is a wash pan
that's going to be poured out just like every other crown.
in the world. Because this is good news. This
is eternal good news. The Word is the good news that
was preached to you, this enduring Word, the Gospel message that
was proclaimed to believers. Yes, the Gospel is a concise,
if I can dare say, a set of things that the Scripture teaches about
the person and the work of Christ, but we don't have to parse it
to such perfection. Just teach it. God the Spirit
will draw His people into wanting to know more. But beloved, we've
got to realize the transient nature of life and the anchor
of the Word of God as our hope that's eternal so that we can
hear the voice of this gospel message, not for the sake of
the nations, but for the sake of our own joy and to the nations. Why? So that we can live with
an eternal purpose. With an eternal purpose. Everybody
wants a purpose. I deal with men my whole life
who are excited about doing something for God, but they're not excited
about being a child of God and loving their neighbor. Beloved, that's the greatest
thing we could ever do. And that's what Peter's saying. Your days
of glory are over. Jews, exiles, elect. Your days
of glory are over. Your life is over. Your future's
over. The hope you ever thought of
of retirement and grandkids and all that's over. Everything's
over. Don't you lose your joy. Don't try to rebuild what you
had in the name of Christ so that Jesus could be a part of
the same thing but better. It's over. So walk in a manner
worthy of the grace and the love of God. Walk in a manner knowing
with great respect and awe that you have been bought by the blood
of Jesus and that nothing can separate you from that. And no
matter how bad all those old friends of yours shame you for
walking away from God, you have walked nowhere except where God
is walking with you. This is life. Love each other
with a passion that can that is unparalleled in this world
and do so in such a way that only God can get the credit.
This is the writing to Peter, and he gives instruction on how
it looks a whole new reality. With grace at the root, with
the transformation, the transformative power of grace. And the reality, and I'll talk
about this next week because our time's up, but the reality of the fact
that our good works and our love may be absent at times. We may
not want to do it, and that's okay, because our assurance is
in the sovereign grace of the Lord Jesus. Jesus says, I gave
them eternal life. I told you I'd be in John 10. And they will never, ever, ever,
no possibility Can they ever perish? And no one could ever,
there is no possibility that anyone could ever snatch them
out of my hand. Jesus says, my father who has
given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch
them out of his hand. And Peter just said that he is
our father. No one can snatch us out of his
hand. We can't jump out either. So we rest while we pursue good
works, while we extend grace to others, while we seek to grow
and to renew our minds and live in a grateful way because of
God's grace for us in Christ. And we're halfway through. We'll
pick up next week. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for the gospel, for the prayers that we can petition your great
and holy ears. and know that you hear them.
Lord, thank you for arresting my mind and my heart with your
word, for giving me hope and comfort and rest. Lord, may you
bestow all of these beautiful promises to all of us. There
are many of us who are suffering deeply right now, this very moment.
in many different ways. You know what they are. We don't
have to figure it out so we can give you the list. Lord, you
know the deep parts of us. And Lord, I pray that if, when
we find ourselves in these places, Lord, that at the minimum, you
would settle our hearts even without us knowing. Father, there are relationships
that are falling apart. There are children that are going
astray. There are marriages that are
near the end. There are bodies that are decaying
and becoming sick. There are minds that are desperate
and hopeless. There are lives without purpose
or identity or focus. And Lord, the answer is Jesus,
but the outcome is not to escape these things or perfect these
things. The outcome is that we become the perfect. In the midst
of these things, we rest as the perfect. And it's not our perfection,
but Christ's perfection credited to us. We are clothed in the
perfect. And so with that, Lord, we are
able to walk without shame, for we are clothed in righteousness,
the nakedness of our Feudal glory is covered by the eternal glory
of our Lord and Savior Jesus. What a beautiful picture. May
you run its poetry through me every day this week. And would
you share that same beauty with all of us, even those who cannot
be here for whatever reason? That we may be together. That
we may know each other. Because we know you. because
you know us. And this is so because of Christ
and his life given and raised in his name, we pray. Amen. Let's take the table, beloved.