Word of Salvation - June 2011

 

GOD’S PALACE; GOD’S PEOPLE, John de Jongh

(Sermon 4 in a series on 1 Peter)

 

Reading – Psalm 34:1-8

Text – 1 Peter 2:1-10

Songs – 181, 337, 145, In Christ alone

 

Outline

 

Ridding yourself of evil, crave pure spiritual milk!

 

As you come to the Lord, the Living Stone, as living stones you are being built into a spiritual house.

 

To believers, this stone is precious; but to unbelievers, the stone causes them to stumble.

 

You are God’s people, that you may declare his praises!

 

And so: Crave God’s word, and declare his praises!

 

 

If you look back at the passage before this one, Peter begins to answer the question ‘How then shall we live?’ He encourages us to live in hope, holiness, fear, and love – certain hope in God’s grace fulfilled; growing holiness just as God is holy; reverent fear for God; and deepening love for each other.

This passage continues that practical application and gives some further theological foundation for it.

 

Point 1

In verses 1&2, Peter gives us a concrete example of what living a hopeful, holy, fearing, loving kind of life is like in practice. If we really live in hope, holiness, fear, and love, then that will mean that we rid ourselves of all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.

 

‘Rid yourself’ is literally ‘put off’. The word picture is throwing off old filthy clothes.

I’m sure you know what it’s like to come home from work or sport or working in the yard, throwing off the filthy clothes you had on, jumping under the shower for a quick wash, and putting on the new clean clothes you’re going to wear as you head out to dinner or some occasion.

 

That’s the picture here. The old sinful characteristics and behavior that we used to put up with have no place in a life of Christlike hope, holiness, fear and love. We’ve got to throw them off, and replace them with God’s alternatives.

 

This passage especially targets some sinful traits that too often are tolerated in the life of a church. It’s easy to recognise the more obvious sins, like murder, adultery, theft, and blatant lying. But the sins mentioned here are more subtle, and too easily we can get away with them. But they have no place in the life of a believer, or in the family of God.

 

Malice is an underlying motivation rather than a sinful act, and it results in doing something that maybe even looks good to hurt someone or do damage. We might tell the truth about someone, but a truth that is better kept to ourselves, so as to hurt them or damage their reputation, instead of building them up like we should. God says it’s not acceptable. If this is one of your problems, get rid of it. Do the loving, upbuilding thing instead.

 

Deceit is similar - not telling the truth, or only telling half truths, or hiding the truth and giving a false impression, usually again to hurt someone. Maybe someone is accused of doing the wrong thing. And you’re the only witness that they are innocent. But you can say whatever you like – it will be your word against theirs. And so you say whatever you can get away with that will damage them the most.

And again, God says, get rid of it. Learn to love them deeply, from the heart, instead.

 

Then hypocrisy is one of those things that churches and Christians are too often accused of by those outside the church – preaching one thing, but living another way. Unfortunately, too often we’re far from innocent. Too often we can even give the impression that we’re better than others, and they’re not welcome.

The message we need to be careful to preach is that we’re forgiven sinners through faith in Jesus our Saviour, striving for greater holiness, while still often getting it wrong, and that others are welcome to join us in that struggle.

 

And then I’m sure we all know what envy is like. Envy is me, as a leader, wishing the church I served was growing, bigger, more successful, like the church down the road. Envy is any of us wanting anything that isn’t ours to have instead of being content with what God has given.

 

And then slander is similar to malice and deceit - saying whatever needs to be said to damage a person’s reputation. Maybe they’re better than us at something. Maybe they’re more popular. Maybe we just feel better about ourselves if we drag others down. And so we say things about others to ruin their reputation.

 

Aren’t these all sins that survive too easily in the life of a church? We tolerate them at a low level because they can be so hard to pin down and address. But none of these things fit in the life of hope, holiness, fear of God, and love of others, that God wants us to live. We need to get rid of them. Put them off like filthy clothes.

 

And then in v2 Peter gives the alternative.

You might have expected a list of virtues – Christlike qualities that we should replace them with. That’s often what you find next in these kinds of passages. But instead Peter goes to the heart of the matter. Too often we tolerate these vices, and they live on in our hearts and lives, because we crave the wrong things. We set our desires and passions on worldly things, rather than living as strangers here.

And so the alternative here is, like newborn babies, to crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you might grow in your salvation, having tasted that the Lord is good.

 

We know the picture well enough, don’t we? We visit a new mother in the hospital, or just after she’s come home. And her new bub begins to cry – it’s hungry. And nothing is going to satisfy it except its mother’s milk. The crying doesn’t stop until it’s latched on for another feed.

 

Our problem is that we’re too easily satisfied by the counterfeits and lies, or we too easily think we’ll be satisfied by them. And so we chase after the same things everyone else does. We compromise living with Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. We spend too much of our lives chasing fun, money, worldly success, power and influence, and an inflated sense of our own importance – as if these things will satisfy.

And we wonder why our walk with God is so unsatisfying.

 

But if you look at Jesus’ life, you see that he didn’t chase these things. What he craved – couldn’t do without - was a daily, living, relationship with his heavenly Father of absolute trust and obedience.

Isn’t that what we need to learn to crave too, at the expense of everything else, rather than the other way around? In the same way that a newborn baby, crying and hungry, will only settle for its mother’s milk and nothing else, we need to crave a living, loving, trusting, obedient, relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and settle for nothing less.

 

And so the pure spiritual milk that Peter is thinking of here is God’s word, the gospel message, God’s revelation of himself to us in the Bible. It takes us back to the couple of verses before this passage, where he talks about the living and enduring word of God, by which we have been born again; the word that has been preached to us. And he comes back to it again in v8.

 

Point 2

As we respond to this call to crave what is best, as we come to Jesus, the Living Stone, God builds us, as living stones, into a spiritual house.

 

You probably know that in the OT, God is often called our Rock. Passages like Deuteronomy 32:3-4 say, “Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” God is the Rock on which we can build a life that can’t be shaken.

 

Here Jesus is the living Stone that is cut and shaped out of God the Rock. He has come to us in human form. He is the most important stone in God’s earthly palace, his temple, which was symbolized in the OT by the physical building, but is fulfilled and completed in God’s people united in Jesus Christ.

 

And so the quote here from Isaiah 28 refers to him as the cornerstone. It was the most significant stone in a new building. It set the design and orientation of the building. The rest of the building was constructed according to it. And in God’s spiritual house, Jesus is that cornerstone.

 

But he’s a cornerstone that has been rejected by humanity in general. The general response to Jesus and his claims has been unbelief. Humanity generally has stumbled over this cornerstone, rather than aligning themselves with him.

On the other hand, he is a stone that has been chosen by God and is precious to him. And so in the same way that Peter’s readers, and all believers, have been elect and chosen by God from before the creation of the world to be God’s people, you see that Christ has also been elect and chosen by God to be our redeeming sacrifice. In chapter 1:19-20 Peter writes that we were redeemed by ‘the precious blood of Christ, a lamb … chosen before the creation of the world but … revealed in these last times for your sake.’

 

Peter’s point here, is that ‘as we come to him, … we also like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house … .’

 

We see again the delicate balance of our responsibility and God’s sovereignty, as the paradox that we will never be able to logically fathom.

We are called to come to God in repentance and faith, giving up the kinds of vices mentioned in v1. But even as we do, we discover that God is actually the one at work in us, building us into his spiritual house. He works faith in his elect, by his Word and Holy Spirit, so that we do respond to him and come in repentance and faith and obedience - God aligning us with his chosen and precious cornerstone Jesus, building us into the spiritual house in which he lives for all eternity.

 

Conclusion

And so like in Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders, the challenge here is to build our lives on the Lord Jesus Christ. To rid ourselves of everything that doesn’t fit the life of repentance, faith, and obedience that God calls us to.

 

We can do it knowing that even as we do, it is actually God at work in us by his Word and Holy Spirit, building us into the covenant family that will live with him for all eternity.

We may be wise builders, building on the rock rather than the sand. But God is even behind that, working in and through us. And with the Lord building the house, how can it fail?