1 Peter 1:22-2:3 (Community in Exile)

All right, good morning church. For those who

I haven't met yet, I've gotten a chance to at least meet or introduce myself to most of you. My name is

Scott. I was pastoring a church in New Hampshire for the last few years. I've known Kendall since ...

Kendall, there he is. I was like, where is he? Right there. I've known Kendall since we were in seminary together.

We both entered at the same time, and yeah, so we've gotten to know each other, and we have more greys now in our beards and in our hair than when we first met each other, and hopefully age has been kind to us, but probably not.

That's okay. You can ask our wives. But it's a blessed opportunity to be able to share the word with this church again.

I've been able to a few times over the last couple of years, ever since the Shepherd's Church began.

I think maybe I was the first or second guest preacher or something like that. Yeah, so, and my wife and I, we've been here attending and being a part of Shepherd's Church since I stepped down from that pastoral role in New Hampshire, and we're in a transitionary period for really a few more weeks, and in three weeks,

I'm shipping out to South Carolina to begin chaplain training with the United States Army, and then we're moving to North Carolina in September to Fort Bragg, where I'll be doing at least three years of active duty chaplaincy, and then we'll see what happens after that as God leads.

So, oh, thank you, but I don't, I don't do that to receive, I just do that to give you a biographical sketch, that's all.

Thank you, appreciate that. But today we're going to be in 1

Peter, chapter 1, verse 22 through chapter 2, verse 3, and then I have the blessed opportunity to be able to preach as well next week, where we're going to pick up in chapter 2, verse 4, and then go to chapter 2, verse 10, and this really is one great section in Peter's letter that I want to be able to share with you all.

I believe that these verses speak loudly into the times that we live in today.

See, the church in the United States, and nearly all of the Western world for that matter, is in a declining state, a severely declining state.

And when I say that, my emphasis in talking about the declining nature of the church is not on numerical or financial strength, although that's a part of the decline, but what

I'm talking about here, and I'm also not even talking about the theological astuteness in the decline of the church, which that is certainly true, or the biblical validity and accuracy of the

American or the Western church, although that decline is true as well. I'm talking about a different type of decline.

The church's decline in the venue of societal impact and influence. What I mean is that the church no longer really has a voice in American culture and society at large.

When I was in seminary, when we were in seminary, some of our professors who had been pastors for 40, 50 years talked about some of the good old days, in the quotations

I put there, where as a pastor of a community, they'd be able to go to some kind of community service or someone who was selling a product or something like that, or a barber, and they'd be able to get a pastoral discount at the barber shop.

They'd get pastoral discounts on their dentistry or with their doctors, wherever it might be.

If they were out buying lumber or whatever it might be, there were pastoral discounts. And I guess there still are in some areas of the country, certainly not

New England and in less and less areas of the nation. Back just in the 70s, 80s, maybe even the 90s, there used to be these laws,

I can't remember the term, the name of them, where nothing was allowed to be open on Sundays. Blue laws, is that what they were called?

See, I don't even remember them. I'm 34 years old now, it's been 34 years of not having those things.

But you do, you remember them. I do remember as a kid, not having sports practices and sporting events and sport games on Sunday mornings.

Now we drive by fields on our way to church and kids are out there playing soccer, practicing, playing.

The church has lost societal impact. In fact,

I've had so many conversations, I go like this, it's actually kind of hilarious. When people ask me, what do you do, what do you do for work?

And I tell them I'm a pastor, they kind of give me that quizzical stare. Do we still do that?

People are still pastors? I don't even know what that means. So can you get married?

I'm like standing there with my wife, she's right there, yes, she's my wife. I have a massive ring, look at that thing,

I can kill you with that. People don't even know what pastors are and then they kind of look at you and they have no idea how to respond.

So they sort of look down and there's kind of a mild condescension in their voice where they just say, that's nice, that's nice you're a pastor.

It's the same treatment you get as if you like hold up a sketch of your kindergarten, your kindergarten age child's painting.

You're like, well look what they're drawing, oh that's nice. The same response as when you tell someone you're a pastor.

Now I'm not recounting this social development because I long for days of yore. I don't.

I don't, let me tell you why. To be honest with you, even though the church was culturally dominant and influential in the past, it was,

I don't think Christ was culturally and socially dominant. So you can have a culturally dominant church with a near complete absence of Jesus Christ.

Just read about the medieval ages. The church was the most powerful, dominant institution, perhaps in the history of mankind.

Perhaps even greater. We talk about the Roman Empire being the greatest empire that ever existed in the western world, perhaps the world as a whole.

I might make the argument that the Roman Catholic Church has been the greatest empire in institutional structure in the history of the world, at least when we're talking about cultural and social dominance and power.

But read about the middle ages. From about the 700s to the 1500s, there was a near complete absence of Christ -centeredness in the church.

I'm not saying that there was a total absence. There were faithful Christians in that time. The American church in the 50s through the 80s appeared strong on its institutional facing.

Everyone knew where church buildings were. We talked about some of the laws. Tons of people were enrolled in membership.

I go to some of my friends who are pastoring older institutional churches, and they have about 18 people showing up on a

Sunday for worship, and it's been that way for 20 years. But when you look at the membership roll, they have about 480 people on the membership roll.

480 people who are alive on the membership roll. And you try to put two and two together, you say 18 people are showing up.

480 people on the membership roll. What happened? Most of those people put their names on membership roll because that was the culturally embraced thing to do.

People give financially. A lot of people who still, they don't even step foot in a church to worship

God, but they still give financially. People always got married in churches. People had baptisms.

But the vast majority of people in this country between the 50s and the 80s, maybe even into the 90s a little bit, they did this because of ritualistic religiosity.

There was very little passion, joy, exuberance for God, for his kingdom that is ruled over by his

Son, enlivened by the Spirit, proclaimed by his people, firmly known through his word, and ultimately awaiting us in the life to come.

So no, I don't want to return to that. Cultural Christianity in America was and is a house of cards that's built upon man -centric, earthly -focused kingdom building, and that's not the gospel.

So I don't want to return to that. Still, as I mentioned today, the power and dominance of cultural

Christianity, that's not the problem with the church. Not anymore. That's waning, and it will be gone.

Any little kind of modicums left of cultural, powerful Christianity that have been left over, that's going to be gone within a generation.

So that's not the problem with the church in America. No, today, one of the problems with the church of America in embracing or encountering society,

I should say, is that we have very small and insignificant impact on social norms.

Nobody cares about what the church thinks, does, or says. Just nobody cares. 99, 98, 97, whatever number you want to put on it, percent of people in this world, just move along in their worldly, political, evolutionary, hedonistic, nihilistic, materialistic, and scientific ways of thinking, and they don't even give a smidgen of thought to what the church or what a pastor might have to say.

But the true church of Jesus Christ, which is the instrument of his kingdom building in this world, has been in this situation before.

See, now, we might lament this, and we might feel like we're in a precarious situation because we're coming out of an epoch and out of a time.

I mean, there's really not that many people remaining who were around in the 20s and, like, the 1910s, where the church was actually fairly weak socially, especially in the 1920s.

So, actually, I don't know if anyone's. Like, there's got to be a handful of people who are alive from those periods of time.

So, most people who are alive today, whether older or younger, have lived through some period of time where the church had this dominant social influence.

And now we just see that receding quickly. And so that can cause anxiety or worry in us.

Like, what are we going to do? How are we going to deal with this? How are we going to kind of make it through this new season that we're entering into as a church?

Well, look no further than the New Testament, because, as I said, the church of Jesus Christ has gone through this before.

And, in fact, the point that we're moving towards a post -Christian era is actually kind of moving back to a

New Testament church era. That's really where we're moving to. We're becoming more and more like what the church had to be in a

Roman culture in the West. That's really where we're moving to.

And I think, maybe this is an audacious claim, but I really don't think it is. I think that this is a blessedly good thing for the kingdom of God, for the church, and for God's people.

So that's where we are today. That's the cultural and social context of our American church. And how does that apply to the context of this letter that Peter is authoring?

So let's ask a few questions, answer them, and help kind of build the context around the text that we're going to read today.

Number one, who is the author? The author is Peter. Peter. We kind of know about Peter from reading the gospel, but he's an interesting character when you think about him.

He's very outspoken. He's sort of just a, I don't know if he was an extroverted individual, but he sort of seems like that.

I'm not trying to socially analyze who Peter was, but one thing we know is that he was, first of all, he's an apostle of Jesus, one of the first ones who were called.

He was recognized as the mouthpiece or the leader of the 12 disciples. He was the one who was going to stand up and preach the gospel on the day of Pentecost in front of the thousands of people there, of which 3 ,000 are converted and saved.

But at the same time, Peter's someone who gives into the fear of man. Peter's someone who, when he was confronted at the trial of Jesus, actually invoked a curse upon himself to denounce

Christ. And that's how far Peter went there. And so there's a timidity in him as well.

Peter's also the person who Paul had to call out because Peter was fearing man once again, was rejecting the fellowship of Gentile Christians in favor of Jewish Christians because of the different dietary habits that they had.

And so he was going back towards this old covenantal understanding of who the people of God were.

And that's what he was practicing, even though he might not have written that in a letter or spoken that theologically, that's what his practice was saying.

And Paul had to call him out for it. So Peter's a really interesting person in the history of the church, someone who is bold and audacious on the one hand, but timid and afraid of man on the other.

And these things just kind of come together in his personality. He's writing this letter towards the end of his life, probably in the early 60s

AD, while he lives in Rome. And while he's living in Rome, there's an emperor at that time, whose name is

Nero. Now Nero ends up being a great persecutor of the church in Rome.

He accuses them of lighting a fire that sets the entire city of Rome ablaze that he himself actually lit.

So he's not persecuting the church necessarily at the time that this letter is written. But if you eventually have this program against the entire church in 64, 65

AD, the seeds of that hatred have to be sown beforehand. And so I think it's a logical estimation that Nero was already sowing the seeds of hatred towards Christians in the early 60s

AD. That's the background of Peter and when he's writing and where he's writing from.

Let's look at the audience that he's writing to. I believe that Peter's writing primarily to Gentile converts in this letter.

And there's a little bit of an argumentation on this, but here's my rationale. We read this in chapter one, verse 18.

He says, you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. That's a phraseology of antiquity.

So as he's writing to these people and he talks about the futile ways of forefathers, that could be applied in a

Jewish context. It really could. But this futility inherited from forefathers,

I think has a better setting in the Gentile world. He even carries on there to finish up verse 18, where he says that you've inherited from your forefathers, not with imperishable things such as silver or gold.

So you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with imperishable things such as silver or gold.

And then he goes on to talk about being redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. And I think, and again, this is me and there is disagreement on this.

I think that the alluding to the silver or gold there is actually a picture of idols, is really one of the things he's talking about here.

And then in chapter four, verses one through four, let me read that for you too, because I think this gives us a picture of who the audience is.

He says, therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh is no longer for the lust of men, but for the will of God.

For the time already passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the

Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

So this is the audience. He's saying that you used to carry out the practices of the

Gentiles, which included all of these things that were clearly not something that was accepted within the

Jewish community, especially abominable idolatries. He could be spiritualizing that and then talking to the

Jews in that way, or he might be talking to Jews who were acting in a Gentile kind of manner, but I think the most natural audience here are

Gentile converts that are in this region that he's speaking of, which is in greater

Turkey. So there's all these Christians who are living in this 50 to 100 mile radius in Turkey.

Most of them are Gentiles. And why is that important? Why is that a valuable thing? Again, I want us to think about the life of Peter here.

He was someone who had to be called out for his pushing away or stepping away from the

Gentile community within the church, and now he's writing a letter towards the end of his life, specifically targeting the

Gentiles to encourage them in their faith. So I wanted to point that out because I think that it's important for us to kind of see that development in the heart of Peter, this spiritual growth, this maturity that he's having.

On the one hand, early in his life, he has to be called out because he's rejecting those very people who are called into the kingdom of Christ, and now he's embracing them fully as brothers to the point where he's making a distinction between them as the people of God, and then the

Gentiles who live in that region in Turkey. I think that's an awesome point of development in his life.

So now here's the question. Who else is this audience? It's kind of wrapped up here in the opening.

Chapter one, verse one. It says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, or exiles is another way of reading that, scattered throughout

Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are the elect. Now, as I said, those areas,

Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, those are regions, the vast large regions. They're not particular cities that are in modern day

Turkey. They had been dominated by Rome for at least 100 years. They're fully Greco -Roman, wedded with a little bit of kind of like old

Persian, Asian sort of culture and religion, but they had been dominated mainly by a

Greco -Roman worldview system at that point. But the interesting thing is what Peter calls them here, because this is a theme that continues through the rest of the book, where he says that you reside as aliens or exiles.

What does Peter mean in identifying these readers as exiles or aliens?

What does he mean by that? Well, he could mean that they're people who had been dispersed because of persecution.

That's one way to think of them. They had either fled from Rome or Jerusalem or somewhere else and fled to Turkey because they were under persecution.

So that would make them exiles. That would make them aliens. That's one way of thinking of it. Another way of thinking about it would be that Peter was referring to a lot of slaves because a lot of the composition of the church in the early days were slaves.

Since a third of the Roman population were slaves, it was quite pervasive. And slaves were by nature displaced from their homeland.

So that could be a reference point. But I think the most natural reading in calling them exiles is the fact that they've been exiled from their former way of living.

They've been exiled out of the world. There's an interesting twist in the word exile that Peter uses throughout his letter compared with the way that exile is used in the

Old Testament. See, in the Old Testament, if you were obedient and faithful to the covenant of God, and to the laws of God, then you would be stable in your home.

You would stay in the land. God was going to prosper the nation of Israel. He was going to make it so that they didn't have miscarriages.

That's what God promised. If you were obedient, you stay home. You will not be an alien.

You will not be an exile. You become an exile through disobedience, through idolatry, through breaking the covenant.

That's how you become an exile. But as the New Covenant changes, fundamentally changes aspects in God's relationship with his people, we now live in a time where to be faithful to God means to be exiled.

To be faithful to God means to not be at home. To be faithful to God means to literally be living our lives in the wilderness.

Our entire earthly lives are lived in the wilderness. We're never, ever, ever at home.

See, Peter's term here, exile, is a word that's used only one other time in the

New Testament. It's in Hebrews 11, 13, specifically talking about Abraham, who's the first exile for God.

Remember, he's called out of his homeland and he's told to come into Canaan, which is going to be the place where his descendants live.

It'll be their home, but it's not his home. He literally lives his days as an exile, relying on the promises of God.

So Hebrews 11, 13 talks about all of these people in the Old Testament really focused heavily on Abraham and Moses too.

And then ends up saying that these people all died by faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.

And I love that phraseology because it really picks up the image of Moses. We know how Moses died, right? Moses does not get to enter the very land that he's been leading the people to for 40 years.

And oh, did he labor hard. Wow, did he work hard. My goodness. Are there any books out there for pastors about living like Moses in some difficult churches?

That's a good book idea. It's a good book idea. Because honestly, you go to pastoral groups and stuff like that, and pastors are not so sanctified that we never complain about things.

We grumble, we ache, and we complain. And some of them are valid. There are some headaches that you have in the church world.

There are some tough, tough things. And, you know, so we kind of give into saying like, wow, this leading is a difficult endeavor.

There's nothing like Moses. I mean, Moses leads the people through some seriously difficult thing through grumbling, complaining, and griping, and people wishing they could go back to Egypt.

And then wars, like Moses is leading the people through wars. He doesn't actually do the fighting, but he's still leading them into that conflict.

And then through all of that, through all of that, because of a moment of disobedience, which was a horrendous thing,

Moses did, God tells him, you're not coming into the promised land. You know, the reality,

I even think about this, even if Moses did get a chance to step foot into the promised land, like he was 120 years old.

He wasn't going to live long. He wasn't going to live in the promised land. He's probably going to step in and be like, I'm done. So Moses did all of that labor, all of that work.

Abraham did all of that labor, all of that work, had an entire life of obedience and faithfulness to God, walking with him and hearing

God's call and following him. And neither one of them get to actually see any of the fruits on this earth of their obedience.

But what does the author of Hebrews, who I believe is Paul, tell us? He said, the point is that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

So what they did is they looked beyond what they had on this earth and looked for a far country.

Actually, let me turn to Hebrews 11. I just want to read that whole passage for us. I'm sorry.

I should have marked this off, but it's too good. Hebrews 11, 13. This is what

Paul says. He says that they were, all these died in faith without receiving the promises.

None of them received the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

And indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.

So thinking about going back to their home place, but as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

So what Peter is saying here in his letter is that we are to be like Abraham.

We are to be like Moses, that that's what the way that the church is going to have to live as exiles and aliens on this earth.

We do not have a home here. We must be like them and longing for a better country. That's what it means to be living as an exile.

Now, all this background information about this letter teaches us about the main purpose or leads to the main purpose in the circumstances of this letter.

Peter wants to set the Christian's eyes on the eternal kingdom of Christ because the life of a sojourner is a life of hardship.

Walking through the wilderness for life is not easy. It's just not. Scorpions, have you ever seen scorpions?

Terrifying. Rattlesnakes? They scare the crud out of me.

You ever seen a, oh man, what are they called? They're called wolf, not wolf spiders. Camel spiders. You've seen camel spiders, right?

They're in the desert, like the deserts that the Israelites are walking through. They horrify you, right? So all of those,

I mean, those are all just examples of what it's like to actually walk through a real wilderness. But walking through the spiritual wilderness of this world and of this life is a really hard endeavor too.

And that's kind of Peter's, he talks about this. His whole letter is saturated with suffering and pain and persecution and hardships and social ostracization and even death.

The crucible of trials is going to come on these exiles. And when the crucible is coming, one of your first impulses is to say,

I got to get out of this wilderness. I'm going to go back to the other country that I came from, which is the exact thing that the

Israelites were doing when they were walking through Sinai. They said, we want to go back to Egypt. And spiritually speaking, we give our lives to Christ.

The spirit comes upon us, regenerates us, and then we answer the call and we're saved.

And we feel that salvation. We notice the love of Christ. We love the Word of God. We love to sing praises to His name.

Prayer fills our souls. And then the crucibles come and we want to retreat and run back.

Peter wants to prepare Christians for that. And when we live in a society that is going to be socially and culturally less accepting of Christianity and of Christians in general, you better believe that the crucibles and the pressures are going to get increased.

So the logic of all this is that God calls us out of the world. You are now a citizen of His kingdom.

And being a citizen of God's kingdom makes you an exile of this world. As an exile, you will suffer.

You will. The question is, what degree of suffering is God going to give to you? It's not a question of if you will suffer.

It's how much you will suffer. That's it. And that's all in God's hands. You will suffer.

And part of the reason you're going to suffer is because this world is going to punish you. John 15, 18 through 19.

I know I'm jumping ahead of you a little bit, brother, but you'll get there in about four years, right? If the world hates you,

Jesus says this to His disciples. He's speaking to the 12 here. He's speaking to the 12. But I believe that this principle through the epistles clearly shows that it now extends to future generations of disciples.

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

Sometimes we just want the world to love us. But we know that that means we have to be of the world.

Because Christ says that. But He says, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

What hard words that come from Christ to His disciples. I mean,

I love Scripture. Let me just say that. I love Scripture. But I really love that God is honest with His people.

He doesn't sugarcoat nothing. I think I just did a double negative there. It's a

Greek double negative, so it creates emphasis. He does not sugarcoat.

He will not. He's not going to give us candied apples and then all of a sudden pull that back and give us a razor to shove in our mouth.

No, He just gives us the razor. He's like, chew on it. This is my truth.

This is my word. You're my people. You're going to embrace my word. And sometimes you have to chew on a razor. Jesus does not shy away from telling us about it.

So now we've put our text, I think in a proper context for the original authors.

And hopefully I've made a connection point to kind of like where we stand today. I mean, I'm not saying like, look, things are still different.

We're 2000 years later. Society is different. Politics are different. The way that we communicate with one another is different.

Our clothing is different. Our music, like there's not any complete and total point of connection.

But the idea that this early church had no social clout, no social power, no social impact.

There's nothing like, look, no governors and centurions and of course the emperor, they weren't going to pastors and saying,

I wonder what a pastor is going to think when I have this social policy implemented in Galatia or something like that.

Like no one cared. No one on the Roman side and the cultural side cared about what the church was doing.

And the church just had to go and live in this. And they had to go and live in this, this massive, powerful empire, knowing the words that Jesus just said there.

What? How do we do that? How am I going to be faithful? How am I going to be obedient?

How am I going to be Christ -like in this thing when there's a pressure cooker the size of Alaska and I'm the size of like a thimble of water?

Like, how am I going to do that? Well, that's why Peter writes this letter. So Peter, the leader of the 12 disciples, is writing to a large variety of mainly

Gentile converts living in what is modern day Turkey in order to encourage them to walk through their exile identity from the world and into their kingdom identity in Christ, especially when the crucibles of persecution and trials begin to heat up.

That's a summary of the background that I just went through. So now let's read chapter one, verse 22, through chapter two, verse three in 1

Peter. It's so weird using a Bible that's different than your own, the pages.

Like you just get used to your pages and then it's, wait a minute, in my Bible, verse 22 is on that side.

Sorry. Since you have, in obedience to the truth,

I know, I'm a squirrel guy. Since you have, Peter writes this, 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 I'm gonna change the word here, 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 off, but the word of the Lord endures forever and this is the word which was preached to you.

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. I love this.

Pay attention to these two verses. Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, and that's the right translation, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation if you have tasted the kindness or goodness of the

Lord. What a verse. What passage. So it starts off in verse 22 and if you're a strongly reformed individual like myself, you kind of read verse 22 and you're like,

Peter, did you mean to write it that way? I would change the word slightly,

Peter, if I were you, like you're a reformed professor or something like that. You're correcting the paper and be like, it's really not your obedience that you do there.

Peter wrote what he did. Let me explain why he wrote what he did. So he says there, since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls.

So is Peter here saying that the Christian who is the person who brings purification to themselves through their own efforts and obedience, is that what

Peter's saying here? It kind of seems like it if I just read that verse. Sometimes you got to erase the verses.

You just do. I know that I started there, but I started there for a reason because I can't start in verse one. I have two weeks.

You'd be in big trouble if I did that. So we had to start in verse 22 for a reason, but verse 22 is in a context as we know.

Context is king when it comes to interpretation. And this aspect of in your obedience is resting in an entire chapter that is about new birth.

The whole chapter starts with new birth. It talks about that. And I know Kendall had preached about that. So if you want to hear about new birth, it's going to be on the sermons in the gospel of John.

I'm assuming, right? Good. So I'm not going to explain the new birth too much, but let me just say, the new birth is something that God does by his spirit.

He does it in the name of Christ. That's how it's done. God accomplishes the birth. What does a baby do to bring about his or her own birth?

Nothing. The birth is coming whether the baby wants it or not.

Okay. The baby was conceived whether the baby wanted it or not. He or she had nothing to do with the producing of itself the maturation of itself or the birthing of itself.

Absolutely nothing. And yet at the same time, does the baby play a role?

Let me say this. Not originating, but is the baby play a part in its birth? Yeah, because the baby exists and the baby's coming out of the birth canal and the baby ends up crying and the baby ends up breathing and the baby ends up opening its eyes and then the baby ends up drinking.

But the baby does not sustain itself, originate itself, make itself, create itself, even name itself.

I know maybe sometimes some people in our society want to do that, but I can't.

So all of the originating and life giving and honestly like personality giving and attribute giving to the baby comes from his parents and then most importantly from God, even physically speaking.

And likewise as Christians, while we experience the new birth, while we through that experience are participating in the new birth, we do nothing to originate it.

It is 100 % of God and 0 % of itself and bringing about new life in us. I mean,

Jesus makes that clear in John 3. He says the spirit moves as he wills. It's that simple.

It's that simple. So the entire context in which Peter is saying, verse 22, about obedience to the truth, you have obedience and you are obedient and you act obedient because you've been born again, because you have the spirit of Christ in you, because he has sovereignly elected you.

I mean, that's how he starts his letter. He says to the elect who are in these regions. So we cannot read that passage and say, oh, see, it's about obedience.

It's about my work. That would be to totally strip that verse way out of its context and then honestly to be just manipulating scripture.

We can't do that. No one, no one can. I don't care who tries. Sorry, I jumped ahead.

And so obedience to the gospel, obedience to the truth, it is a necessary aspect of our faith walk.

It's a necessary component. Even though the spirit is the one who gives new life and new birth to us, when the gospel calls for us to repent, we in obedience repent.

When the gospel calls for us to confess our sins, we in obedience confess. When the gospel calls for us in obedience to put on Christ, we start to put on Christ.

We put on kindness, gentleness and reverence and self -control and holiness and worship and joy and peace.

We put those things on. That's an act of obedience, step of obedience. But again, it's because God gives us that new birth through his spirit.

But what I want us to notice here is that there's a purpose clause that comes in this verse. He says, since, makes this a condition, since you have in obedience to the truth, purified your souls first.

And then it says for a sincere love of the brethren. So we are being purified in the obedience that we have because of the new birth.

And it's for a purpose. It's for a sincere or pure or unadulterated is another word that we could use there, love of the brethren.

See, God doesn't just save us into a new life that we live individually. That's impossible.

Let me just say that's impossible. If you're saved, if you're redeemed, it's for the purpose of living that out in community.

You have to. That's a necessary component of being obedient to Christ. And if the spirit has truly given new life to you, you're just gonna have this innate desire.

I need to be with other Christians. And not only do I need to be with them, I need to love them.

And I don't wanna make this sound egotistical or anything like that, but it's a good thing to say, and I need them to love me.

That's a good thing to need to love and to be loved. We're made to be that way in relationship, of course, with God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And that's why Peter here talks, he talks about the sincere love means unadulterated, just totally unhindered, unhinged from anything that is depraved.

And then he really goes on to explain a lot of this in chapter two, verse one, where he says, therefore putting aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander, those are the things that adulterate, that smirch, that grossen, that's a word, disgusting to your love.

They do. I mean, think about it. If you're having relationships with God's people, and it is identified by malice, which in and of itself just means evil intent.

How can you have love if there's evil intent in that relationship? You can't. How can you have love if there's deceit?

Which means simply put dishonesty, lying. You can't have love if there's distrust. How can you have pure love if there's hypocrisy?

Seeing someone's face and be like, oh, that's a nice person. And then all of a sudden they show their true things, right? There's a great story about this, about a pastor who, you know, he's in a big church, and he's up there preaching, and the audio just gets all messed up.

And he goes, oh, it's not a big deal, guys. It's okay. We deal with these quirks and stuff like that. He shows his kindness and forgiveness and everything, you know.

And he gets in the backstage, forgetting his mic is still on, and just starts swearing at the audio person.

I don't know if it's a real story, but it's a good parable. You see hypocrisy.

I mean, hypocrisy kills the relationships in the church massively. Envy, lusting after what your brother or sister has.

That'll destroy the love of the church. Lusting after the person's career that they have, the car they drive, the clothes that they wear, the family that they have, or something like that.

Slander. I call this parking lot talk. It's when you're all in the meeting room together, and everything's going great.

And then you walk out the doors, and everybody starts to circle up into different little bunches in the parking lot. They say, There it is.

Slander. And you know, you can be telling the truth and still be slandering. You can be honest and still be slandering.

And you say, Oh, well, did you hear that Benjamin had an affair? It might be true.

Why are you talking about it? What's the purpose? Why does the person you're talking to need to know about it?

Do the elders know about it? And if the elders know about it, are they dealing with it? Are they talking with Benjamin and Benjamin's wife and Benjamin's family?

Are they coming up with a counseling plan and a restoration plan and all that? Let them deal with it. You don't need to talk about it.

And look, I'm not accusing anybody here of this, but I'm just saying, we do have this kind of quirk sometimes when we think that as long as we're not lying, we can gossip.

No, we can't. We're not allowed to do that. And so I love this comparison and contrast.

Paul does this all the time too, where he talks about sincere brotherly love and then shows what that isn't so you can put on what it is.

If it's not malice, it's good intent. If it's not deceit, it's honesty. If it's not hypocrisy, it's integrity.

If it's not envy, it's contentment. If it's not slander, it's honesty and falsehood in the right context, in the right conversation.

And these things destroy churches. They do. The church I was pastoring had so many of these negative qualities and it just seeped in like parasites, just gnawing away at every single foundational bone in the church and there was nothing that could be done.

There's nothing that could be done. Once these things get in and fester in and Satan has opened up the doors and just thrown those things in and it starts as a tiny little maggot, that maggot multiplies.

In our church, when I first got there, I had two older ladies coming up to me and fighting with one another.

Envious, it was an envy issue because they were fighting over who was going to lead the women's Bible study.

I had a 78 year old man come up to me and tell me he was going to get into a fist fight in church with another elderly gentleman because he didn't like his sarcastic sense of humor.

I felt like the dude who's just like, who comes out before a big boxing match, let's get ready to rumble.

And what is that? Like that's, there's some malice, that's malice. And it is.

And I could just tell you dozens more, hundreds more of those little things. And I'm telling you, it didn't start like that.

It's not how anything begins. And this is my caution and my warning to the Shepherd's Church. You all must be on guard against these things.

You want to have sincere brotherly love? I certainly hope so. I think you do. I think that's the intention of your heart because I know that the vast majority, if not all of you in here, have the new birth, have the spirit inside of you.

That's the assumption that I'm going on. So I know that if that's true, you want to love sincerely.

Great. Satan's still going to attack you. He really is.

And he's going to want to throw in some of those maggots and they'll be little. They'll be so small and insignificant.

You'll think that I don't even need to notice them. And that's why every person in this church, your responsibility is to be a watchman and a watchwoman upon the walls to defend this church against these insidious things.

Because if just Pastor Kendall and Derek have to do this, they're just going to wear themselves out.

They can't run along the walls of this church day and night, night and day.

Every single watchman and watchwoman needs to be awake and alert for these things in their own lives and in the lives of their brothers and sisters.

So that's the negative aspect. On the other hand, I love this. Genuinely, genuine brotherly love is infectious.

When people within a church truly care and love for one another, don't you feel plunked right into the middle of just this beautiful, wonderful family?

Caring, considerate, sacrificial. Because you feel the love of Christ in all these people towards you.

And you begin to know that I can trust them. I can confide in them. I can call upon them.

And I know that they want what's best for me, which is my continued sanctification, my continued growth in Christ.

And even if someone's coming at me in what seems like a critical way, I know that they're coming at me in love because they see some kind of sin and they want to root it out of me.

That ends up being the mindset when you're in that community and that culture of love. It's beautiful. And then what happens is, like I said, it's infectious.

So you come in needing to be cared for, needing to be loved on, needing to be able to have someone to confide in.

And then you become the person who serves and cares for the other. And you're the one who other people can come to confide in.

And then you just have this beautiful strengthening of the loving, genuine, pure church.

And consider what this means for these Christians who are called exiles by Peter. See, they've been exiled from the world, which means that they have really no natural family in society.

And that's compounded by the way that Roman society was structured in the ancient world. So archaeologists have done these diggings and Rome was interesting.

Roman culture was really interesting because in most societies, how is a city structured? Most of the life and the economy and the entertainment and the religions in the middle of the city, right?

And then everything builds out around it. It's kind of the way that cities are built. Ancient Rome was different.

There was no center of the city because it was a patriarchal society or a society built on patronage, which meant that in the center of society was a person, was a man, obviously at that time.

And what they had in cities were these different centers or hubs where various men were influential and around them built out a family structure.

And this family structure was their immediate family, their wife and their children, where merchants and soldiers, and then they had on the outskirts of it, like the slaves and just various other people, but they were all part of this concentric circle centered upon one man at the core of it.

And it would be passed on from generation to generation to generation. But when these people in the church get exiled out of that community because they no longer can find their identity in it, and there was oftentimes a shrine or a god or goddess at the center of that too, and they couldn't do that, they couldn't belong to that anymore.

So now they're literally being exiled away from this concentric circle of familial strength, which jeopardizes their careers, their safety, their fellowship.

But what Peter is saying here is that although you're exiled from that, you are then brought into a true loving community.

And how important is that for us today too? Because many of us have suffered by coming to Christ by being removed from our families and friends.

I pray that that's not the case for you. I hope that's not the case for you, but I know for some of you that is. When you've come to Christ, friends that you used to think were very close to you, suddenly push you away or pull back.

Family, parents, siblings, children, they push or pull away as well.

And suddenly you're left in this place where it's like I've come to Christ, but now I'm isolated, I'm alone, I'm exiled from everything that I've ever knew.

But what Peter's saying here is, yes, you are exiled from the world, you are exiled from perhaps that concentric circle of protection and safety that you've been in.

But even though you're exiled from there, you're exiled into a community here on this earth that is a reflection of the eternal community when we find our true and permanent home.

And now Peter in verse 23 through 25 explains why this happens.

He says this, for or since you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable.

That is through the living, and again, I changed this word, abiding word of God, and just because I think it's a better translation.

And he quotes Isaiah 40 here, says, 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.

Why are you born again into a family of love, even and exiled all at the same time?

Why? Because the word of God has been preached to you.

The living means it brings life, the life -giving word. There was a point in time where you were not part of the people of God, and you heard the gospel preached, or you heard the gospel summarized.

Or you read it in a book, or something like that. And you heard the gospel, or read the gospel, and suddenly, it just impacted you and penetrated you with life.

And you said, I believe this. I believe this. And I'm going to follow this.

I'm going to heed this. I'm going to study this. I'm going to learn about this. I'm going to live according to this. It's life -giving, and it's also abiding or enduring as it's translated here, meaning that not only is the word of God the thing that gives you life through the

Spirit, of course. The Spirit's the one that brings a new birth through that preaching of the word, but it also keeps you in that life.

The word sustains you in that life. You might be dragging away every once in a while, but then all of a sudden, again, you're going to come back to the service, and you're going to hear the word of God preached, or you're just going to pick up and read the word of God, or you're just going to hear someone preaching it on the corner of a road somewhere, and it will pierce you again, and it's going to keep you and sustain you and abide you in that life that God gave you.

Now, why is this so important? Again, verse 24 here, where he quotes Isaiah chapter 40, verse six through eight, and it talks about the permanence of God's word in comparison with the leaves of the world, or the grass of the world.

See, in Isaiah chapter 39, it talked about Babylon and the Israelites' exile into Babylon, and Babylon was the superpower of the time.

It was the Rome before Rome. It was the America before America. It was the England of the Renaissance period before England.

Babylon was the power of all powers, the height of glory in the world of that day, and Israel was exiled into that land, and the land of Israel was totally wiped out and destroyed, and then

Isaiah 40 comes. Isaiah 39 reflects on that as a judgment of God. Then Isaiah 40 comes and reminds the people that even though Babylon looks like it will never fall, it will, and even though it looks like God's promises are not gonna come through, they will, because that's the way that this world works, and what an encouragement that is to them.

They're exiled out of the greatest superpower of that day into this tiny little church made mostly up of slaves who have no social clout whatsoever, and they're supposed to stay together in love while this persecution is coming.

How do you endure that? Because Rome's gonna fall. Rome's gonna wither.

Rome's gonna be like grass, but the

Word of God will remain. Amen. We've already seen that fulfilled. Rome fell.

The Word of God is reproduced, and you have accessibility to it in every way, shape, and form nowadays.

Who would have ever thought that back in 60 AD? And the same thing today. Maybe society around us looks like it's too powerful.

People are way too obsessed with whatever's on their phone. They're way too obsessed with whatever's happening in Hollywood. They're way too obsessed with whatever they're learning in school, and it's not of God.

And you look at that and you say, we can't overcome this. This is going to kill us. It's going to slay us.

It's going to crush us. We can't endure through this. Yes, we, the church, will endure, and the

Word of God will endure, because He will keep us. He will keep it against all oppression.

And so then I want to end with chapter 2, verse 2 now. So he gave this, he gave this, first of all,

Peter gives this purpose, right? He said, you have been born again, and, or no, excuse me, since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls, he says this purpose for sincere love of the brethren, he then gave a command, so fervently love one another.

He gives this indicative and then the imperative, right? He says, you've been born again essentially for this, so do this.

And he does that likewise with the Word. He says, for you have been born again through the Word of God and by the

Word of God. And since you've been born again through and by the Word of God, then verse 2 in chapter 2.

So now there's a command, like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the

Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. Long for the

Word of God like a newborn baby. Think about the image of that. How does a newborn baby long for its mother's milk?

Incessantly. Many times a day. And what happens if that newborn baby doesn't get the milk?

Do you know about it? Do you hear about it? Pretty loud, isn't it?

Pretty annoying at times, isn't it? It could be 2 .30 in the morning and you're going to hear the wah, and that wah is not going to stop until that baby gets his or her milk.

What Peter is saying, and he makes this very clear because he uses the word for a born baby that was just born, not like a little child, but a baby that was just born.

And when a baby's just born, that baby gets hungry fast because all the nutrients that it had from when it was in utero begin to leave.

And then that baby needs to drink. And when that baby needs to drink, that baby works for that drink.

It's hard for that baby. That's why the baby sleeps so often, because the baby sleeps, wakes up, is hungry, works its tail off, even though it doesn't have a tail, for that milk, is sustained by that milk, goes back to sleep, wakes up again, and keeps on drinking.

In that same way, what Peter is saying here, that's how we long for the Word of God.

He commands us to do that. Do you notice that? That's a command. He commands us to desire the

Word of God like a baby desires milk. And now

I'm going to say something as we conclude here that I think is often missed. When Peter commands the church to do that, how does the church carry out that command?

They didn't have this. What I mean is this binding and these papers. How many people here have a

Bible in their hand right now? Can you hold it up? They didn't have that.

How many people have a Bible app on their phone right now? They didn't have that. Do you know how the people of God in the

New Testament had to long for and be satisfied by the milk? They had to come together.

See, I think that this command is connected with the command earlier to love one another with sincere hearts.

I think that the two commands are connected. And look, I'm not saying, I'm not disparaging the fact that we can take the Bible home and study at home.

That's great. That's awesome. That's wonderful. But they didn't have that opportunity. They had one

Bible at best. And most often, they maybe had one gospel and a couple letters. And for them to learn, they would have to come together under the reading and the preaching of that word.

And then they'd have to borrow some other books from another church down the road. And then that's why they ended up writing different copies of the letters and the gospels.

And that's how we ended up getting our Bible. It's really cool stuff. And I would geek out about it. But that's how the church had to learn from the word.

They had to come together. And I'm preaching to the choir here when

I say this because you're all here together. But if anybody is listening to this message, or if you know of anybody in your life, or maybe there's someone who walked in here today who typically doesn't think that they need to come to gather together with the people of God to worship rightly and read from the word rightly.

I want to say this. The only way to be obedient to this command is to do so in the context of God's community and God's people.

And again, I'm not saying that that means you don't go home and read on your own. That's a wonderful gift that we have because of the printing press.

It's glorious and beautiful. But we do that so that we can then take what we're reading and the insights of what we're gleaning back into the community and then to discuss it all together and to learn it all together and to be sitting under, this is very important, the elders who have been appointed and gifted by God to be able to help discern the truth and help us interpret things rightly.

That communal aspect of longing for the word is so important. So we all got to be like newborn babies.

That's the way the church is supposed to be. We're supposed to be just wang and wang and wang.

Give me more, more, more, more, more. I need to grow. When do you end growing?

Never. I don't even think in eternity you end growing. You keep on growing eternally. I think we're still gonna be babies when we walk into the kingdom.

We might be only like a day old at best. Even the most mature, knowledgeable, seasoned Christian might be two days old.

That's it. But we're all gonna be this newborn baby until the moment that we die and we enter the kingdom and we're still gonna be that baby and then maybe we'll get to really start growing.

I don't know. We'll ask God that. But as of now, we must come together and just long for the pure milk of God's word.

And when we do that, I'll tell you these two commands here. Long for the milk and to love with a sincere heart.

You show me a church that has those two things. And I think that they're interconnected. If you're doing one, you're doing the other.

If you're not doing one, you're not doing the other. They're intertwined. You show me a church that's doing these two things.

That's being this way. You're being babies and lovers. I'll show you a church that's strong.

I'll show you a church that's growing spiritually. I'll show you a church that's ready to withstand whatever the society and this world and this culture is gonna throw at it.

I'll show you individuals who are ready to stand. I'll show you watchmen and watchwomen who are ready to be able to protect against those malicious evils that Satan wants to send the church's way.

So stand firm as a church. Grow as a church. Be babies as a church. Love one another as a church.

And you'll see the beauty of God flowing in and through you. And we're gonna talk about the implications of that next week.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. Your word is so good. Your word is nectar.

Your word is milk. Your word is sweet and filling and nourishing.

And Lord, our hearts tend to be the problems. We get heart blocks preventing us from truly craving after your word.

But Lord, the beauty of a heart block is you know how to do heart surgery. You've done it.

You've done it in every single one of us. Here is my hope. And if there is someone here whose heart hasn't been radically changed and altered by the movement of your spirit, by the new birth,

Lord, I pray that the words that we've read here today in your scripture, that the stories that we've reflected on, that the implications that we've talked about, that the passions that we've spoken of would enliven that heart and you would bring about salvation in that person today.

And they would just sit there and say, what just happened to me? I need to know. I need to know what this nourishing is.

I need to know what this kind of love is. I want to be a part of that. And Lord, for all of us here, most of us here who have that new birth,

I pray that any blocks that are there in our hearts that are preventing us from craving and hungering after your word, any distractions that are preventing us from truly loving one another,

God, I pray that you would chisel away those blocks or rip them away and that every single one of us would leave with a hunger to just read and study and pray and come together and do that with one another and grow in love together and serve together and confide in one together because God, your church needs to do this.

The world doesn't care who we are, but we care about the world. We care about the lost in the world, the lost sheep that you have out there.

We care about the fact that our children are going to grow up in it. We need to prepare them, but we need to have these foundations of love for your word and love for each other.

May that be the basis of the shepherd's church, the grounding of our faith and the joy of our lives.