I want to dive right into our
passage, and so if you would take your Bible and turn with
me to the book of 1 Peter that we've been looking at, 1 Peter
chapter 1. The text that has been assigned
to me is verses 22 to 25, and as always, I want to begin by
reading the passage, and we will then spend our time working through
the text. 1 Peter chapter 1. beginning in verse 22, and the
title of this message is, The Word of God for Exiles. The Word of God reads, beginning
in verse 22, since you have in obedience to the truth purified
your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love
one another from the heart, for you have been born again not
of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is through
the living and enduring 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 off, but the Word of the Lord
endures forever. And this is the Word which was
preached to you. In these verses, the Apostle
Peter underscores the central importance of the ministry of
the Word of God in our lives, as we've been focusing upon the
fact that as believers, we are exiles, which means we – our
citizenship is in heaven, and we belong to another realm. We
do not belong to this world. We are in the world, but not
of the world. we have been delivered from this
evil world system, and we are now in Christ. And because we
no longer belong to this realm, we need the truth that comes
from another realm. Not from this world, but from
the world of glory and the world of heaven. And that is what Peter
is emphasizing here. The Word of God to exiles. We need a Word, the Word, that
is an out-of-this-world truth. And so, let me begin by saying
that no one can be saved apart from the Word of God. And no
one can be sanctified apart from the Word of God." In other words,
no one can enter into the kingdom of God apart from the Word of
God. It is that essential. And no
one can advance in the kingdom of God and grow in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ apart from the Word of
God. The central theme in these verses
is obviously the Word of God. And if you would let your eye
just go back down through these verses that I've just read, the
Word of God is identified in verse 22 as the truth, which
is a synonymous expression for the Word of God. It is the truth. In verse 23, it is identified
as the Word of God, meaning the Word that has come down from
God. It is the Word that has come
down from the throne of grace. It has been breathed out of His
mouth. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In verse 25, it is identified
as the Word of the Lord. And in verse 25, it is also identified
as the Word. And in chapter 2, verse 2, it's
identified again as the Word. It is never identified as a Word,
as if the Bible is one of many cacophony of voices that are
speaking the truth. There's only one source of truth,
and that is the written Word of God. And so this repetition
in these verses underscores how important the Word is in your
life and in my life. Your Christian life will not
grow one iota beyond your intake of the Word of God. If there
is little intake of the Word of God in your life, there will
be a low ceiling over your head and it will stunt your spiritual
growth. But as you are inundated with
the Word of God, it is God's growth food that stimulates our
spiritual growth. That is what He will say in chapter
2, verse 2, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the
Word that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. And so we want to look at these
verses and give careful thought as to the centrality of the Word
of God and the life of any healthy believer. And there's four words
that I want to set in front of you as we walk through this passage
that will define and identify the Word of God. And the first
is, for verse 22, is the word authoritative. The Word of God
is the authoritative Word. He begins in verse 2 by saying,
since you have an obedience to the truth. Stop there. As I said
earlier, the truth is synonymous with the Word of God. In fact,
in 2 Timothy 2.15, it is referred to as the Word of Truth. And when he says, since you have
an obedience to the truth, that points back to their conversion. It points back to the time when
they entered into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, and it was
marked by obedience to the truth. You see, the gospel comes to
us in the Word of God as a free offer and as an invitation, but
it is more than that. It is actually an imperative
command. The gospel commands us to repent
and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel commands us
to enter through the narrow gate. And saving faith at that moment
was a decisive step of obedience to the command of the truth,
the command of the gospel, and in that moment we repented and
believed in Christ just as the gospel demands of us. Now when he says the truth, the
word truth simply means reality. It is the reality of what something
is. It is the reality of what God
says something is. And we live in a world in which
there are all kinds of truth claims. And people do surveys
and they want to poll people and do opinion polls and try
to see who has the most clout on a particular issue. But there's
only one source of the truth. And that is with God who is the
truth. Jesus is the way, the truth,
and the life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit
of truth. The Word of God is the Word of
truth. The church is to be the pillar
and support of the truth. And so when He says, obedience
to the truth, He is referring to obedience to the gospel itself
that is the truth. The truth is? Man is whatever
God says man is. Gender is whatever God says gender
is. Marriage is whatever God says
marriage is. The family is whatever God says
the family is. Sin is whatever God says sin
is. Salvation is whatever God says
salvation is. The judgment is whatever God
says the judgment is. Heaven and hell is whatever God
says heaven and hell is. One ounce of what God has to
say is worth more than ten million pounds of what man has to say. And so, since in obedience to
the truth, all Christians are marked and described as obedient. In fact, if you look earlier
in verse 14, he identifies the elect of God. He identifies those
who are...who were foreknown from before the foundation of
the world as obedient children. There is no such thing as a disobedient
Christian. Now we still commit individual
acts of disobedience, so it is not referring to perfectionism,
but we're on a new path, headed in a new direction, and we have
a new heart and a new mind and a new disposition and a new will
that has been given to us by God in the new birth. And so,
we now are marked on the path of obedience to the will of God. Jesus said in Matthew 7, 21,
not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom
of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father. It's not the
profession of Christ that gets you into heaven, it is the possession
of Christ that gets you into heaven. Many profess but do not
possess, and the one who possesses Christ is marked by obedience
to the Word of God, to the Word of truth. And in that moment
of conversion, he goes on to say that you purified your souls. you cleansed your souls." This
is a reference to repentance and turning away from a life
pursuit of sin, and at the moment of the new birth, at the moment
of your conversion, you were completely turned around and
no longer now pursuing sin. Now you are headed in the opposite
direction, and you have purified your souls. This refers to the
conviction of sin. It refers to a brokenness over
sin. It refers to now a renouncing
of sin and a repudiation of sin. It refers to a turning away from
a life pursuit of sin. That is why it is impossible
to be a homosexual Christian. If you are a Christian, you have
purified your soul and you have repented of your previous sin
and you now are going in a totally different direction. And with
union with Christ, the ruling power of sin that once dominated
our lives, that ruling power has been crushed and it has been
broken at the moment of conversion and you now have a new master.
the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are no longer under the tyranny
of sin that you once were, a slave of sin. You now have a new master,
and you now pursue righteousness. And so, he goes on to say in
verse 22, he says, since you have an obedience to the truth,
that's true of every Christian. since in obedience to the truth
purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren." That is
to say, as you now love God, and as you now love Christ, you
now love the bride of Christ, and you love your new brothers
and your new sisters in Christ, and you have more in common with
them many times than even your own natural family. There is
now a kindred spirit. There is now a close connection
that you have as you are welded into the body of Christ and you
are connected to your other brothers and sisters and you love them. Out in the world, you may be
persecuted. Out in the world, you may be
opposed. Out in the world, you may be hammered. But when you
come into the fellowship of the church, there is a fellowship
that is sweet and it is marked by love. And so, the command
he now gives is at the end of verse 22, we now come to the
main verb of this sentence, love one another from the heart. And we are commanded now to show
unconditional affection and sacrificial love for our fellow brothers
and sisters in Christ, and it must arise from a heart, a heart
that is a new heart, the result of regeneration. But the point
that I want to make with you in verse 22 is the word authoritative. that the Word of God possesses
the right to rule our lives. The Word of God possesses the
right to bind our conscience. The Word of God has the right
to demand and command of our life and to direct us into the
path that God has chosen for us. Every commandment of God,
when God says to do this, is leading us into the very center
of the abundant life that is in Christ. And every command
that says, do not do something, God is saying, do not harm yourself. It will bring about destruction. So the first thing that we see
about the Word of God for exiles is that it is an authoritative
Word. It's not presenting us with options. It's not giving us suggestions. It's not giving us preferences. It is issuing us commands from
our sovereign God in heaven, and every true child of God is
under the lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's Word. Second, as we come to verse 23,
not only is the Word of God authoritative, but second, it is living. You'll
note in verse 23, he goes on to say, for you have been born
again. The first word is for, which
introduces an explanation. So verse 23 is an explanation
of verse 22. Here is why you are obedient
children, and as you now come under the authority of the Word
of God, here is why this is true of every Christian. Verse 23,
4, here's the explanation, you have been born again. The new birth is the life of
God in the soul of a man. The new birth puts life into
you. You come alive unto God. Certain passages describe it
as a spiritual resurrection, that you were dead in the grave
of sin. And at the moment of regeneration,
in that instant, like a lightning bolt out of heaven that struck
your heart, and in that split second, you came alive unto God
and you were born again. Jesus said, that which is born
of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. And so, the reason why we are
obedient children, as that describes the general flow of our lives,
is because we have been born again. The new birth comes about
when the Word of God, which is living, is implanted into the
womb of the heart. And God the Holy Spirit impregnates
the soul, and there is now life created within the dead womb
of the heart as the seed of the Word is planted in us, and in
that seed is the germ of life. And as the living Word is placed
into a spiritually dead heart, and the Spirit of God acts upon
it, there is life that comes from the seed of the Word that
is deposited in the heart. He's already talked about the
new birth in verse 3 of chapter 1, when he said, "'Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who has caused
us to be born again. Theologians refer to this as
a monergistic regeneration, meaning there's only one active agent
and that is God who acts upon the spiritually dead heart. We are passive, God alone is
active in the miracle of the new birth. And he says the new
birth is brought about, he says in verse 23, not of seed which
is perishable. Now when he says seed that is
perishable, the word perishable means dying, fading away, shriveling
up, withering. The seed that is perishable is
any message that comes from man that would be preached by man,
taught by man, or read by man. It is a perishable message and
it produces further death in the life of the one who receives
it. That would include secular humanism, worldly wisdom. false religion, social gospel,
woke philosophy, godless liberalism, Christianity without the virgin
birth, without the sinless life, the substitutionary death, the
bodily resurrection, and the present ascension of Christ. That is the seed which is perishable. And that is what you will hear
out on the streets, and that is what you will hear probably
in most churches in this town. You will hear the perishable
seed of man's wisdom and worldly thinking implanted, sown into
the hearts of people, and a dead message only further instills
death in the heart. But Peter goes on to say that
the new birth comes about by the imperishable seed. That is the living and enduring
Word of God. The word imperishable means that
it endures. It's alive and it's ongoing. It never weakens. It never wilts. It never fades away. It is an
imperishable seed and when it is planted in the heart of a
person, it actually has life in it. It has the germ of life
in that seed. And when the preacher sows that
seed, when the parent sows that seed into a child, it is there
and when the Spirit of God acts upon it, there is the germination
of life No other message will bring eternal life to a spiritually
dead soul other than this imperishable seed. It never weakens. It is never depleted. Many times
I've stepped into this pulpit and I've been weak, but this
book has never been weak. And as soon as I open this book,
the life of this book just surges through my own heart and soul,
and it quickens me, and it makes me alive because there is life
in this book. Notice he says, that is through
the living and enduring Word of God. I want to emphasize this
word, living. This book is alive. This book
has life in it. Every other book in the world
is a dead book. There is only one living book,
and that is the Word of God. And really, you have need of
other books only to help you understand the book, this book,
because this book alone is… is alive. And when this book goes
forth and the Spirit of God accompanies it, it brings forth life Martin
Luther said, this book is alive. It speaks to me. It has feet. It runs after me. It has hands. It lays hold of me. Surely you've
seen this in your own life. Listen, I've read other books.
This book reads me. I mean, this book is alive. It has life. This book alone
identifies the real issues of life. Only this book can tell
me who I am. and why I'm here, and where I
came from, and how I'm to live, and what is the purpose of my
life, and what is death, and what lies on the other side of
death, and who is God, and how may I know God? No other book
in the world can give me the answers to these most important
questions other than this book. And when this book is sewn into
my life as it was when I was 17 years old as a teenager, I
suddenly came alive unto God and entered into a relationship
with God through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And because
this book is a living book, therefore it speaks to every person on
the planet. There is no person alive anywhere
on planet earth but that this book speaks exactly to them,
exactly where they are. It matters not what their age
is. It matters not what their generation is. It matters not
what nation they live in or what continent they are on. This book
is so alive, it directly addresses every person on planet earth
when this book is brought to them. It is a living book. James 1 verse 18 says, in the
exercise of His will, He brought us forth. by the Word of truth. It is the Word of God that God
uses to bring about regeneration No one will ever be born again
until this book is planted in their mind and in their heart
and in that order. First the written Word, then
the power of the Holy Spirit to cause that living Word to
have life in that person and they come alive. But there's
a third word that I want you to see, not only authoritative
and not only living, but third, the word enduring. And you see
that at the end of verse 23. That is through the living and
enduring Word of God. Your translation may read, abides. It's much better translated as
enduring. The verb means stays or remains. From one generation to the next,
from one age to the next, it never changes. It is always enduring. Listen, society changes, culture
changes, morals are changing by the moment, genders appear
to be changing for the mentally ill. But the Word of God never changes. Right is forever right. Wrong
is forever wrong. The way of salvation has never
changed from Genesis 3 verse 15 to the end of the age Salvation
is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, whether
it is the Old Testament, whether it is the New Testament, nothing
changes in the Bible. There are no additional addendums
that need to be added. There's no editing that needs
to be made. It doesn't need to be brought
up to date. It is the most contemporary book
that there has ever been in the history of the world. Some pastors
say, well, we want to have a contemporary worship service. Great, then
preach the Bible. The Bible is the most contemporary
book that has ever been written. Psalm 119, verse 89, "'Forever,
O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven.'" It's nailed down
in heaven. It is immovable. The truth is
the truth. It is etched in stone in heaven. Psalm 119 verse 160, every one
of your righteous ordinances is everlasting. It has a long shelf life. There's
no expiration date to the Word of God. It endures forever. Jesus said in Matthew 24 verse
35, heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass
away. There's coming a time in the
future when this entire planet is going to be melted down by
fire. And there's coming a time when
all of the heavens and the outer space and all the planets are
going to be melted down by fire, 2 Peter 3. Heaven and earth will
pass away and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But Jesus
said, My words will never pass away. They will never be replaced
with an alternate form of truth. It is forever the same. And so,
to show that this is the old truth in verse 24, He actually
now reaches back to the Old Testament and He quotes from Isaiah chapter
40. verses 6 through 8. And he does so to show that what
he is teaching here in the New Testament is in perfect alignment
with the Old Testament, that there's only one body of truth,
that there is this perfect continuity here at this point from the Old
Testament to the New Testament. And he says, for all flesh is
like grass. And flesh here refers to human
flesh and human life and human ideologies. And he says it's
like grass. It appears for a short time and
has some passing beauty to it, but it's only brief and momentary. He says all flesh, human flesh,
is like grass. and all its glory like the flower
of grass." There are some crowning achievements by man. There is
some good that does come from certain discoveries and certain
advancements. But he says this, the grass withers. That word, it means it dries
up. It dies. And the flower falls off. It just collapses to the ground. That is so representative of
every human philosophy and every worldly ideology and every apostate
religion and all liberalism and agnosticism and atheism. It just sprouts up for the moment
and it dies off by the time the noonday sun has arisen in the
sky. It's worth nothing. It only breeds
death. But he says in verse 25, but,
by stark contrast, but the Word of the Lord endures forever,
throughout all eternity future. God's Word is forever. God's
Word is based upon God's own eternality and God's own immutability. Malachi 3 verse 6, I am the Lord,
I change not. And God's Word changes not. And so when we put our confidence
in the Word of God is in a message that will never, never be changed. What you learned in your teenage
years? What you studied in your 20s, what you taught your kids
in your 30s, what you passed on to your grandchildren in their
50s, in your 50s and in your 60s, is what you're going to
be clinging to on your deathbed in your 70s and your 80s. The
message endures. It outlives you. It outlives
every generation. Nations come and go. Rulers are
raised up and taken off the throne. But the Word of God is the one
constant in this world that never changes and is not perishing. You and I are perishing. Society
is unraveling like a cheap sweater. Everything around us is imploding. But the Word of God endures from
age to age, from generation to generation. And so this brings
us to the end of verse 25. And we've seen that the Word
is authoritative. It has the right to rule and
command our lives. We have seen that it is living,
that it possesses life, and that it imparts life. We have seen
that it endures. that it remains the same forever? And the last thing at the end
of verse 25, we see that the Word is preached. He says, and
this is the Word which was preached to you. Of all the ways that
the Word of God goes forth, by reading the Word, by someone
witnessing to you one-on-one, by coming into a church service
and hearing the Word sung, by various means through a Christian
counselor, from a parent to a child, there is one primary means of
grace that surpasses all other means of grace, and that is the
preaching of the Word of God. It is God's chosen means by which
His Word is to go forth. It is to be heralded. It is to
be proclaimed. It is to be preached, and that
is God's chosen means. I'm just reminding myself as
I'm saying this that Martin Lloyd-Jones, who stood in this very pulpit,
he was the co-pastor with G. Campbell Morgan for a number
of years. until G. Campbell Morgan retired and Martin
Lloyd-Jones assumed the sole pastorate lead role in this church. And people were flooding out
of London after World War II. In fact, the difference between
G. Campbell Morgan and Lloyd-Jones, it was said that when the Germans
were bombing London here, that G. Campbell Morgan would dismiss
the service, but Martin Lloyd-Jones would just keep on preaching
through the air raids, and he was so focused upon preaching. And so, as people were leaving
London, They were saying to Martin Lloyd-Jones, we've got to have
some new strategies. If we're going to keep people
in this church, we need new strategies to hold what we have and to bring
others in. Well, as you recall, Lloyd-Jones
had been a physician in this town, a very eminent young physician. He was the assistant to Sir Thomas
Hoarder, who was the physician to the King of England. And so,
Lloyd-Jones had a very prominent position in the medical community
until God called him to preach. And so, as he became the pastor
of this church, Lloyd-Jones had all kinds of the church members
here at this church telling him, we need some more strategies.
We need new strategies. And Lloyd-Jones said to the members
of this church, When I was a physician, I never let the patient write
the prescription. And neither will I let you begin
to write the prescription for this church. And so, last night
we met in here on a Friday night. And it brought back memories
of the Friday night Bible study that Lloyd-Jones had in this
very sanctuary on Friday night as he preached verse by verse
through Romans for over a decade. And I was reminded that that
Friday night study, it actually began behind this wall back in
Fellowship Hall. It was a Q&A with Lloyd-Jones,
and you could ask him any question. And it became apparent to Lloyd-Jones
that his people had been sitting under a lot of devotional preaching
but lacked theological structure. They lacked sound doctrine. And
so, he talked through an entire systematic theology behind this
wall back in Fellowship Hall. And the crowds began to grow
on Friday night until it became so large that Lloyd-Jones had
to move out of Fellowship Hall on Friday night and move in here
into the sanctuary And he began preaching through Romans, and
the crowds grew and grew and grew, the total opposite of what
those in the church were telling him, that his preaching would
be the death blow to the church. Actually, it was the preaching
of the Word of God, especially through Romans, that rebuilt
this church. and caused it to be one of the
most historic churches in all of the world. And I think you
can trace back to this pulpit right here, the Reformed resurgence
in our day as it came across the Atlantic and James Montgomery
Boyce and then R.C. Sproul took it to the masses. It all started right here, this
pulpit, a man preaching the Word of God. He literally preached
the building full under the authority of the Word that was being preached.
And so there needs to be this renewed confidence in this day
in the preaching of the Word of God. Tragically, sermons are
being shortened and shortened and shortened. Sunday night services
with preaching have been canceled. Wednesday night preaching in
churches have been canceled. There is such little preaching
of the Bible, of the Word of God, that is it any question
why churches are shriveling up? because they are anemic because
they do not sit under strong doctrinal Bible preaching that
challenges the people to live the Christian life. And so, as
we see this at the end of verse 25, and this is the word that
was preached to you. Do you know the first century
church was a preaching church? Do you know when you study the
book of Acts that one out of every four verses is a sermon?
That the entire book of Acts is...it's really mistitled. It's not the Acts of the Apostles,
it's the preaching of the Apostles. It's the sermons of the Apostles
that ignited and torched the early believers until it shook
the Roman Empire because they were preachers of the Word of
God. There are other secondary means
of grace, but they are secondary. There is only one primary, and
that is the preaching of the Word of God. So what should this
say to you and me today? What does this require of us? Well, I think the first thing
it requires of us is that the Word of God must be always increasing
in our lives. None of us have arrived in our
knowledge of the Bible. None of us have arrived in our
living out what the Scripture requires of us. J.C. Ryle once said that it takes
a whole Bible to produce a whole Christian. And we need the whole
Bible, the full counsel of God to be brought to bear upon our
lives. And in order for you to grow
as a Christian, you don't need less Bible, you need more Bible
in your life to instill spiritual growth within you. So that's
the first thing that this requires. You need to be reading your Bible.
You need to be studying your Bible. You need to be marking
up your Bible. You need to be memorizing your
Bible. You need to be meditating upon
your Bible. You need to be putting the Bible
into practice in your life. You need to be setting your mind
on things above and not on things of the earth. The second thing
that it requires of us is that you be in a church where there
is a man who stands in the pulpit and who opens this book and who
feeds your soul Sunday by Sunday by Sunday. And if you're not
in a church like that, with a few rare exceptions. You need to
get in a car and drive someplace to where...or get on a train,
get on a subway, go to where the Word of God is being preached. You must have it. If you need
to move, move to another city, take another job, be somewhere
where you can sit under the preaching of the Word of God that is the
wisdom of God that is designed for your life. Pray for your
pastor. Encourage your pastor. Tell him
that you're praying for his preaching and his study in the Word of
God. Affirm him and encourage him after he preaches on Sunday. And may God use that to see a
new generation of preachers of the Word of God that are being
raised up in this land. in the days of Amos. God said through Amos, "'Behold,
days are coming,' says the Lord, "'when there will be a famine
in the land, "'a famine not for drink or for food, "'but a famine
for the hearing of the word of the Lord.' "'And it was the judgment
of God upon ancient Israel, "'because they refused the prophets.' "'God
said, "'I will send you to a place "'where you'll never hear the
word of God again.'" And it was the judgment of God that they
did not act upon the truth when the truth was brought to them.
I wonder if America is under the judgment of God because we
have refused the Word of God. I wonder if England is under
the judgment of God because in decades past, we have hardened
our hearts and refused to hear the Word of God. It is actually
a judgment from God Himself as He abandons a people and turns
them over to their own ways. how we must pray to God that
God will restore voices who are crying in the wilderness, make
straight the way of the Lord. And it will be the instrument
in the hands of God to bring about a thorough revival and
reformation. It is always preceded by a renewed
focus upon the preaching of the Word of God. It is authoritative,
it is living, it is enduring, and it is intended by God to
be preached. May the Lord's blessing be upon
these verses. Let us pray. Father in heaven, I pray that
You would raise up again in this city, in this country, in surrounding
countries, in America, in Canada, in Australia. in Africa, in South
America, in India, around the globe, in Europe. Lord, may You
raise up Bible preachers, gospel preachers, and may Your church
thrive as she sits under the proclamation of Your Word. May Your Word run swiftly from
country to country, from city to city. And may you bring about
a renewed church in these days. We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.