Now, my text this morning is
in 1 Peter chapter one, mainly in, that's what's summarized
in verse 22 of 1 Peter chapter one, but I want to start by reading
a Psalm. I want to go to Psalm 24. And
what I'm going to be talking about is what I've entitled the
grace of purification. the grace of purification. And
you know what purity is. A lot of times when we study
church history, we talk about the Puritans. But what I'm gonna
talk about here, just let me read 1 Peter 1, 22, and then
we'll come back to that after I read Psalm 24 and some other
scriptures that I want you to consider here. Peter writes in
1 Peter 1.22, seeing you have purified your souls in obeying
the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned, that means sincere,
genuine love of the brethren, see that you love one another
with a pure heart, fervently. I'm gonna deal with the script,
the verses around that too, but that's talking about purity.
You know, the word purity, pure means something that's unblemished,
spotless, clean, without mixture, all kinds of words that we can
add that would, something we could talk about righteous, holy,
pure in the eyes of God. But what I want you to see first
of all, is that in salvation and in a right relationship with
God, purity and purification is a requirement. It's not an
option. So let's look at Psalm 24. We're
gonna just on this short Psalm, it says, the earth is the Lord's
belongs to God and fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell
therein. For he hath founded it upon the
seas and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend
into the hill of the Lord? Who's going to go to God, meet
God, or who shall stand in his holy place? To stand means to
be accepted. It means to be on good ground. Who's gonna stand in God's holy
place? Verse four, look at it. He that
hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul
unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing
from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Now we would apply those things without question to the Lord
Jesus Christ, wouldn't we? the pure and perfect, unblemished,
sinless Son of God. And we always have to keep that
in mind if we're going to give Him the due respect and glory
that He deserves. That's why this issue that has
arisen in the past 10, 12 years about was Christ made a sinner
on the cross? Well, absolutely not. That's
unthinkable. That is absolutely unthinkable. Well, how could he justly die
under the wrath of God? It was for our sins imputed.
That's why that doctrine of imputation is so important that we understand
that our sin, the sins of God's elect were accounted, charged,
reckoned. How many times you see those
words interchanged in the Bible? He was numbered. That's a word
that's related. Numbered with the transgressor.
He didn't become a transgressor. As he was on that cross, he remained
pure and perfect in his mind, in his spirit, in his thoughts. Everything about him was pure
and perfect, but yet he suffered justly under the wrath of God
for the sins of his people. Our debt imputed to him. One of the songs that Amy played
on the piano, Jesus paid it all. Paid all what? Our debt. All to Him I owe. So we could
see this purity that he's speaking. That certainly would apply to
the Lord Jesus Christ, but look at verse six of this Psalm. This is the generation of them
that seek Him, that seek thy face, O Jacob, or God of Jacob. This is the generation of God's
people who seek Him. And then he mentions the King
of Glory. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up,
ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come. Now
this answers the question of how can I, a sinful man, how
can you, a sinful people, how can we go to the God of all glory
in his holy hill and claim purity? Well, here it is. King of Glory. Who is this King of Glory? Verse
8, the strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, lift up
your heads O ye gates, even lift them up ye everlasting doors
and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory?
The Lord of Hosts. He's the King of Glory and what
he's talking about there is our salvation in Christ. But this purity without question
is a necessity. It's a requirement. Listen to
the words of our Lord, Matthew 5, 8. I'll just read these scriptures
to you. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. You're not gonna see God unless
you're pure in heart. Isn't that what that says? You
say, but preacher, how can that be with me? I have such sinful
thoughts. There's sin that still indwells
me, the flesh. My dad used to have a saying
when he would deal with what he called religious hypocrites. He'd say, they think they're
purer than the drifting snow. He said, but I know better. Well,
if you would ask me, am I purer than the drifting snow, you know
what I would tell you? Not in myself, but in Christ
I am. Come, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be what? White as snow. Though you're
red like crimson, they'll be as wool. Isn't that right? Pure
as the drifting snow. Paul wrote to Timothy these things. He said in 1 Timothy 1.5, now
the end or the goal of the commandment is charity, that's love, out
of a pure heart, and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. 2 Timothy 2.22, flee youthful
lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, and with
them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. James said it. In his book, James
4, 8, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse
your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. That's why I call this message
the grace of purification. Because none of these things
are possible by our works or our efforts. Go home today, sit down on your
chair and determine in yourself that today you will not have
one sinful thought. Then call me and tell me how
successful, don't call me. Because I know you're not going
to, because I wouldn't either. so that brings up the question,
how can sinners be purified before God? How is that possible? That question is posed in the
book of Job. Listen to this, Job 25 and verse
4, how then can man be justified with God, cleared of guilt, Declared
righteous, how can that be? Or how can he be clean that is
born of woman? Behold even to the moon and it
shineth not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
God's sight. How much less man. The stars,
which are inanimate objects and don't have any thoughts or do
any actions of their own wills or power, They're not clean in God's sight.
So how much less man that is a worm. The word worm there is
maggot. And the son of man, which is
a worm. The word worm there is the red light crimson worm referring
to Christ. But how is it possible? Here's what we've got to understand
as the spirit reveals the realities of this situation to us. God's
holiness. Who's going to ascend into the
hill of the Lord? Who's going to stand before God? When he reveals the reality of
our sinfulness and our depravity, We're gonna sing that song at
the end of the service, whiter than snow, wash me and I will
be whiter than snow. But you know, there's another
song we sing, I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Both are true if you know Christ. And here's what we have to understand
is that in every blessing of salvation, not one accepted. Think about this. in every blessing
of salvation, whatever it is you're talking about. Go get
you a testimony of theology or whatever, and they list those
blessings, whatever it is. It's all by God's grace through
Christ. And we need to keep in mind that
we don't earn it and don't deserve it, we're blessed. A sinner saved
by grace is blessed with all spiritual blessings in high places
in Christ Jesus. God freely gives us all things
in Christ. There's not one blessing that
I enjoy, that I understand, that I can attribute to me. Do you
understand that? You say, well, when I do certain
things, I seem to be blessed. Oh yeah, I agree with you. Coming
to a worship service and hearing the gospel, I hope that you're
blessed. And you may not have been blessed this way if you
had not come. But it's still not yours to say, man, I earned
that today. I deserve that today. Why is
that? It's because God, number one,
he gave you the ears to hear it, the eyes to see it, and the
desire to want to be here. You may have struggled this morning
with the flesh. The flesh may say, man, I want
to stay in bed this morning. Don't want to get up. But you
got up. Why? Because God's given you
a new heart. You see, it's all of God. It
all goes right back to Him. And then another thing we need
to understand, in every blessing of salvation, by God's grace
through Christ, we need to keep in mind that there is number
one, a work done for us, outside of us, we call that an objective
work, and a work done in us, in our hearts, in our spirits,
in our minds, we call that a subjective work. The work done for us is
the ground of our salvation and the source of all blessings.
And that's totally a work that is done exclusively by himself,
the Lord Jesus Christ. As, as I often say, our surety,
our substitute, and our redeemer. He by himself, Hebrews 1.3 says,
purged our sins. He didn't do that with you or
me. He did it for you and for me. He represented me. He did it because of my sins,
my debt imputed to Him. I'm one with him so much so that
it says when he died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried.
When he arose again, I rose again. But he did it by himself. He
did the work by himself. He earned all the blessings by
himself. He alone. And so that's the work of Christ.
He's my representative. He's my surety. My sins charged
to him. His righteousness charged to
me. He's my substitute. He took my place. If he hadn't
taken my place, I would be condemned forever. And he bought me lock,
stock, and barrel with the price of his blood. That's the work
done for us. That's the ground. my salvation
that's the ground of all blessings and it's the source of spiritual
life and that's the second thing the work done in us is the fruit
the result of our salvation of what Christ did for us and that's
a work done by Christ through the spirit and it brings about
a change within us Change it's described in the Bible so many
ways. It's called regeneration It's
called the new birth the giving of a new heart new life given
within Again eyes to see and ears to hear the gift of faith
all of that the gift of repentance the process of perseverance But
it's all of grace The work for us by Christ as our surety, our
substitute, our redeemer is our justification before God. That's the forgiveness of our
sins. That's our being declared righteous
before God based upon Christ's righteousness imputed. You could
call that in essence our legal purification. Look back at 1
Peter 1. Let me show you that. Verse 18. 1 Peter 1 and verse 18. He says,
for as much as you know that you were not redeemed. Now, redemption
implies that Christ, who was the Redeemer, was our surety. Our sins laid to his charge,
his righteousness to our charge. It also implies that Christ was
our substitute. He stood in our place as our
surety and paid the debt, paid the price. So you were not redeemed
with corruptible things. Silver and gold from your vain
conversation received by tradition from your fathers. Those things
didn't redeem you. But you were redeemed, verse
19, with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb. A lamb without blemish and without
spot. Now this is talking about when
He redeemed us. When did He do that? On the cross.
He was made sin, how? He who was without blemish and
without spot was made sin. He who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. And verse 20, and
listen, His blood is precious blood. precious blood. And it says in verse 20, who
verily was for ordained before the foundation of the world.
This, this, this redemption was promised and ordained by God
before the world was ever created. This is why Paul in, I believe
it's second Timothy chapter one calls it a salvation that was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. but it was manifest,
it was made known in these last times for you. Christ actually
came, lived on this earth, died on the cross, was buried, arose
again the third day, and now he is with the Father in heaven
ever living to make intercession for us. And it says in verse
20, who by him do believe in God. You see, faith is the gift
of God through Christ. The blessing of faith which is
one of those works done in us, it comes by Christ. You wouldn't believe this God,
not this God, this gospel, apart from God doing a work within.
And he says, who by him do believe in God that raised him up from
the dead. You see, the righteousness that
Christ accomplished on Calvary is not only the ground of our
justification, it's also the source and power of our life
within. And gave him glory, look at that,
your faith and your hope might be in God. We look to the God
who justifies the ungodly, the God who saves sinners by grace,
We forsake the God of this world. That's repentance. We forsake
our works and our efforts as forming any part of the ground
of our salvation or the righteousness that justifies us. We turn to
the true and living God. Now, so we could actually say
this, we're pure legally. Legally, we're pure. What does
that mean, preach? It means no one can charge us
before God with sin unto damnation. You know, Paul, when he was lost,
he would say to himself, as touching the law, I'm blameless. He was
lying. But you know what? We who know
Christ, we can say that. As touching the law, we're pure. We're blameless. What does that
mean? That means my record in heaven is pure. It's wiped clean. God will not charge me with sin.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. That's pure. But then Peter in verse 22, he
begins to speak of purity within. Look at verse 22 again. seeing you purified your souls
and obeying the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren." Now that obedience to the truth,
what is he talking about? He's talking about believing
the gospel, believing in Christ, faith in Christ, which we did
not have before we were born again. And love of the brethren,
that's a love we did not have before we were born again. And
he said, unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one
another with a pure heart, fervently. Now the word pure and purified
and purification, it basically means the same thing.
It has to do with being cleansed, being purged, purging, cleansing,
spotless, all of that. There are basically two families
of words that are translated in our English versions as pure
and purity and purified. One of those words comes from
the family that is the same family as the words holy and sanctified. And that would be the first word
here that Peter used, seeing you have purified your souls.
You've been sanctified, you've sanctified your souls. Become
holy, pure in that sense. Another word pure is a word in
the medical profession. It's like the word catharsis
or cathartic. If you've heard that word, it
means something has healing powers, positive powers. If something
is cathartic, it can heal you, it can do you good. I may not
have it all right, doctor, but you know what I'm talking about.
That's basically what it means. It's some kind of remedy. And
that's the second word he uses here, with a pure heart. Fervently. This means purification or a
purgation or purging or cleansing that brings about spiritual renewal. And both of these that he's talking
about here are the work of God's grace through Christ. It's not our work. Our works cannot purify us. Do you understand that? Our efforts to be pure, you could
say, to be righteous, to be holy, will not purify us or make us
righteous or make us holy. In fact, look at it this way.
I'll give you this illustration. Whatever is used to wash something
clean is determined by the nature of the stain. For example, if
you were gonna paint, You go to the store and you buy latex
paint, and you get that on your hands, what do you wash it off
with? Soap and water will do it, won't it? Latex paint. But
what if you buy oil-based paint? Soap and water won't get that
off. You gotta have, what, paint thinner? Some people use gasoline. Well, let me ask you this. What is our stain that needs
to be washed? It's the stain of sin. Am I right? We need to be purified from our
sins. Well, we just sang it. What can
wash away our sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. You following me? Nothing else
will do it. Nothing else will do it. Religion
won't do it. Baptismal waters won't do it.
That doesn't wash away my sin. When I go into the waters of
baptism and come out, I'm no purer after I come out in myself. Morality won't do it. Giving
won't do it. It just won't do it. Listen to 1 John chapter 1. Verse
seven, if we walk in the light, that's the light of truth, the
light of Christ, the light of the gospel, as he is in the light,
as Christ is revealed in the light, we have fellowship one
with another. That's the love that Peter's
talking about, fellowship with one another. We're in the same
family. And the blood of Jesus Christ,
his son, cleanses us from all sin. Now watch, can wash away
my sin? He says, if we say that we have
no sin, if I say I'm pure as the drift and snow within myself,
my thoughts, my habits, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. You know one thing that is indicative of a pure heart?
The pure heart readily confesses the sinfulness within. Paul said it this way, with a
pure heart he said, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners
of whom I'm chief. You know that's a pure heart
speaking? And it says in verse nine, if we confess our sins,
that's an evidential if, he's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You
see that? What makes me pure in God's sight? The passage that I read at the
beginning and the passage that Brother Randy read tells us a
little bit about that subject. In Hebrews 9, 13 it says, if
the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling
the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. That's
talking about the old covenant. Where there was a ceremonial
purification, atonement, redemption, that was in the blood of animals,
certain animals, lambs, rams, bullocks, without spot, without
blemish. But that was all physical. It
was all temporary. It could not bring about eternal,
spiritual purification, redemption. But it did ceremonially, ritually,
make them clean to do the duties of the old covenant and be accepted
with God in a temporal ceremonial way. For example, you remember
back in Exodus 19, you can read this sometime, but when Moses
came down out of the mount or when he's getting ready to go
back up into the mount and he told the people, he said, now
I'm going up there, don't you follow? And he said, what you
need to do is wash your clothes and take a bath. to be pure. Now you and I know, and it was
told to them back then, that washing your clothes and taking
a bath will not make you pure before God or pure in heart. But that was symbolic, that was
ceremonial, that was a ritual that they were to go for, but
it could never take away sin, just like the blood of bulls
and goats. He says in Hebrews 10, he says in verse four, it's
not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away
sin. He said if it were the comers,
those who participated in those rituals, they would be complete
and perfect. Their conscience would be purged,
purified. But that won't do it. And it's
like today. Those who say that the sins of
a believer are washed away in the waters of baptism. They're
no better off than those who are washing their clothes and
taking a bath. It won't do them any good. It
won't help you. It won't help any of us. But
how much more, verse 14, shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal spirit, not temporary, not temporal, not physical, not
ceremonial, but eternal spirit, offered himself without spot
to God. purge, cleanse, purify your conscience
from dead works, works that won't do you any good as far as being
righteous, being pure before God to serve the living God. And then over in Hebrews 10,
Brother Randy read this, look at verse 19. Having therefore brethren boldness,
liberty to enter the holiest, Who shall stand before the hill
of God? Who shall ascend into that hill? Who shall stand before
God? Here he talks about boldness to enter the holiest, the very
presence of God, on what basis? By the blood of Jesus. By a new and living way, not
an old dead way like the blood of bulls and goats. which he,
which Christ hath consecrated. He made it new by his work on
the cross as our surety, our substitute, our redeemer, for
us, in place of us, through the veil, that is to say his flesh,
that veil is his body that veiled his glory. And having a high
priest over the house of God, look at verse 22, let us draw
near with a true heart. That's that faith unfeigned,
that's that genuine, genuine love in full assurance of faith
believing in Christ resting in him pleading his blood his righteousness
and having our hearts sprinkled the sprinkling of the that's
the application of the blood of Christ to our minds our affections
our will our conscience from an evil conscience you know what
an evil conscience is It's a guilty conscience that inspires us to
try to work our way out of that guilt. I gotta do something or I won't
be able to sleep tonight. My conscience won't let me. That's a guilty conscience, that's
an evil conscience. Think about it, what cleanses
the wicked unbelieving heart? What is it that cleanses, soothes
the guilty conscience? Well, for a sinner who's being
convicted of sin, there's only one thing that will do it, the
blood of Jesus Christ. Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Just
like old top lady wrote. Rock of ages cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee, let the water and the blood from thy
wounded side which flow be of sin the double cure. Save from
wrath and make me pure. What cleanses the wicked unbelieving
heart? Look back at first Peter and I'll hurry. Verse 22, seeing
you purified your souls, in obeying the truth through the spirit
unto unfeigned love of the brethren. That's believing the gospel,
looking to Christ. That's what purifies our souls,
not just cleaning our clothes or washing our bodies, but our
very soul, our inward. We look to Christ. We plead his
blood. An unfeigned love of the brethren.
What are you pleading today? Hey, if you're pleading His blood,
if you're standing in His righteousness, you know what? You're my brother
or sister in Christ. And I love you. I do. I may not love everything about
you. You may not love everything about
me. But we're together. And it's not because of our choice.
It's because God brought us together. Isn't that right? Love the breath,
see that you love one another with a pure heart. What is the
pure heart? It's the heart that's being convicted
of sin so as to look nowhere else but Jesus Christ crucified
and raised from the dead. I don't plead my love for you
as being my purity. My love is covered, washed in
the blood of Christ. Did you know that? My body, my
soul, my person, but my works too, that are acceptable with
God, they're washed clean in the blood of Jesus Christ. The
pure heart fervently. Look at verse 20, and he connects
this with the new birth. He says, being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. This happens
is what Titus said is the washing of regeneration. the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. It's when God brings us to faith
in Christ that our hearts are purified, not because we're sinlessly
perfect in ourselves, not because we have no sinful thoughts or
ideas or dreams or not because of any, but because we're pleading
the blood that makes us pure. For all flesh is grass, all the
glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth and
the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth
forever. And this is the word by which
the gospel is preached unto you. This gospel, as applied by the
Spirit, purifies our hearts in the sense that it brings us to
admit our sinfulness and look to Christ. Now let me tell you
something, a false gospel will not do that. A false gospel will always lead
you to looking to yourself in some way, to some degree, at
some stage, somewhere other than Christ. And so it will not purify. The good tree brings forth good
fruit. The corrupt tree brings forth
corrupt fruit. And so this is the heart purified
by faith. This is the grace of purification. This is what drives us to Christ,
washed in his blood. What can wash away my sins? This
is what drives us together in love to one another. Fellowship
of love to the brethren around the word of truth. We're all
in the same boat. And we can't get out of it. And
we don't want to get out of it. Isn't that right?