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How To Suffer
Well – Studies in 1 Peter
Message Two: 1:13-25
Introduction:
I want us to start this morning by turning to Isaiah 58:10-11.
These two verses are probably among some of the lesser known ones in
the Bible, but they teach a profound truth. In them, Isaiah is
speaking to people who are surrounded by darkness and gloom, they
are without strength, in need of guidance, and dying of thirst in a
parched land. Not exactly the kind of situation you’d ever want to
find yourself in, is it? As we look at these two verses, note the
“if . . .then” conditional setup. Read along with me starting in
verse 10. “And
if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of
the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness,
and your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will
continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched
places, and give strength to your bones; and you will
be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do
not fail.”
When you find yourself in some kind of painful circumstances like
these we just read, what is the last thing in the world you usually
want to do? More often than not, when we are overwhelmed with
distress, we aren’t usually inclined to think about ministering to
other people, are we? Let’s say you are a single mother with two
young daughters, 7 and 9 years old. You have worked hard for the
last ten years, made many personal sacrifices, but by the grace of
God and your tenacity you have worked you way up to a management
position in your company and are finally making ends meet
financially. Two weeks ago, you went to work on a Friday looking
forward to payday, and then a great weekend with you children; but
when you got to work the doors were locked and the owner had closed
down the business. What is worse is that he owes you two weeks of
salary, and has fled the country. Yesterday you found out that the
company annuity you had been contributing to for ten years was a
sham, and you now have nothing to show for your sacrificial savings
program. And today’s installment of bad news came in the mail in
the form of a letter. It is from you ex-husband’s lawyer informing
you that he has been given sole custody of your two daughters. I
believe this fictional woman could characterize her life as being in
a scorching desert, without any strength in her bones, and
surrounded by gloom and darkness. Her future is certainly bleak and
she has quite a stretch of turbulent water ahead of her. And it
would be understandable for her attitude to be one of needing to be
ministered to instead of having a desire to minister to others.
After all, she is the one who is hurting. She is the one who is in
distress. She is the one whose future is in jeopardy. She is the
one who has been taken advantage of. In this scenario, if there is
anybody in need of being ministered to, it is certainly her.
Without minimizing or dismissing her distress, let me say that the
passage we just read from in Isaiah 58 speaks directly to her
situation. There is a principle involved in this passage that is
expressed in a variety of ways in the Bible. In Acts 20:35
we read that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
In Mark 4:24 Jesus puts it this way. “By your standard of
measure, it shall be measured to you,” and in Mt. 7:12 He
says, “however you want people to treat you, so treat them.”
All three of these verses express the sentiment of Isa. 58:10-11.
In 2 Cor. 8 Paul gives us a real live example of people in
distressing circumstances ministering to others. The Christians in
Macedonia were by no means wealthy, yet they contributed very
generously to an offering Paul was raising for the relief of the
poor Christians in Jerusalem. Paul tells us in verse two that even
though the Macedonian Christians were characterized by “deep
poverty,” they gave to the offering with “liberality.” Then down in
verses 13 and 14 he expresses the principle I am driving home when
he says, “this is not for the ease of others and your
affliction.” In other words, Paul wasn’t trying to heap up
affliction on these already suffering Christians so that the
Christians in Jerusalem could live on Easy Street. Rather, he was
encouraging them to get their eyes off their own distressing
circumstances and focus on others. But the clincher here is that
Paul goes on to say “at this present time your abundance”
will be “a supply for their needs” so that down the road
“their abundance may become a supply for your needs.” In other
words, “what goes around comes around.”
Peter is aware of this principle as well, and in verses 13 – 25 of
chapter one he tells us that the second key to suffering well is to
maintain an external focus. Last week the emphasis
was on maintaining an eternal focus as opposed to a
temporal focus, this week we are going to see the
importance of an external focus as opposed to an
internal focus. Another way I could express this is to
say that when we are suffering, introspection is not a healthy
activity. Let me repeat that. When we are suffering, introspection
is not a healthy activity.
Now, for the sake of clarification, let me say that there are times
where introspection is good, and even commanded by scripture. Jesus
tells us in Mt. 7 to get the log out of our own eye so that
we can see clearly to remove the splinters from other people.
Removing the log involves a certain amount of introspection. Paul
tells us in 1 Cor. 11:28-29 to examine ourselves before we
take part in the Lords Table so that we don’t partake in an unworthy
manner. That involves some introspection. This kind of inward
assessment is not what I am talking about this morning. What I am
talking about is the kind of internal, self-absorbed focus we all
have a tendency to engage in when life hits us hard. And contrary
to what every fiber of your being is screaming out, when you are in
the furnace, you need to think less about yourself and more about
others. You need to maintain an external focus.
Structure:
That is the essence of what Peter tells us in this morning’s
passage, and it is the second key to suffering well. I want to
start by showing you the structure of the passage because we are
going to break these 13 verses down a little differently. In the
midst of all the elaborate sentence structure, Peter uses four
imperatives. We are going to focus on them. In the Greek language,
an imperative is an easily distinguishable part of speech and they
are helpful for interpretation because they are commands and let us
know exactly what the author of the passage wants us to do. For
instance, let me give you a series of sentences, and I want you to
figure out what it is that I expect of you.
“In a moment I will close the service with prayer. Then Ray will
come up and lead us in the hymn we are focusing on this month.
After that we will be dismissed to our fellowship time, and as you
are leaving the auditorium, greet one another warmly.”
Is my point in these three sentences that we are going to close the
service in prayer? Or that we are headed to the fellowship time?
No. What is my main point? My point is that I want everyone to
greet each other warmly. Three of the phrases simply conveyed
information, one conveyed a command. The imperative is our marching
order.
In these 13 verses, Peter gives us lots and lots of
sentences that all convey good, helpful, information. But four
phrases really stand out, and they are found at the end of verse 13,
the end of verse 15, the end of verse 17, and the end of verse 22.
This is one of Peter’s literary devices – he doesn’t put the most
important part of the verse at the beginning – he puts it at the
end! So if you underline in your Bible, or if you highlight in it,
here are the phrases I want you to mark. At the end of verse 13,
highlight the phrase “fix your hope completely.” At the end of
verse 15, highlight “be holy yourselves.” At the end of verse 17,
highlight “conduct yourselves in fear.” And at the end of verse 22,
highlight “fervently love one another.” Those are the four
imperatives of the passage, which means that Peter expects four
things from his readers, and they constitute our marching orders.
Let’s read these verses together and then look at Peter’s first
command, that of fixing our eyes on the return of Jesus Christ.
13
Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit,
fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do
not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your
ignorance, 15 but like the Holy One who called you, be
holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16
because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 17
And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges
according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the
time of your stay upon earth; 18 knowing that you
were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from
your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19
but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless,
the blood of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before
the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times
for the sake of you 21 who through Him are believers in
God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your
faith and hope are in God. 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, 23
for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but
imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of
God. 24 For, "All flesh is like grass, And all its glory
like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls
off, 25 But the word of the Lord abides forever." And
this is the word which was preached to you.
I. Fix Your Focus on the Return of Jesus – vv. 13-14
Look back with me at verse 13 where we see Peter’s first
imperative. At the end of the verse he says “fix your hope
completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ.” As I mentioned last week, the revelation, or
revealing, or unveiling of Jesus Christ is going to take place
either when we pass into eternity through the normal process of
death, or when Jesus returns to the earth in an event we call the
rapture of the church. However we go, there is going to come a
moment when our faith will no longer be faith, it will be sight
because Jesus will be visibly revealed to us. We look forward to
that day because the life of faith, as we endure day in and day out,
is a difficult life to live. But because of our conviction that the
day is coming when we will see Jesus, we live lives of hope. We are
not morose, depressed, pessimistic, cynical people. How many of you
are familiar with Eyore, the donkey character in the Winnie The Pooh
series? Eyore is not a donkey of hope. I know Christians who have
an amazing resemblance to Eyore! And because of their perspective
on life, nobody likes to be with them. They are very lonely people
because they are not people of hope. But we need to remember that
we are going to see Jesus one of these days! And because of that
truth, we are people characterized by hope.
Now when Peter tells us to fix our hope on the return of Jesus, we
need to understand that “hope” in the Bible is not the same as
“hope” in the English language. In our language, “hope” carries the
idea of an “optimistic wish.” The biblical definition of hope is
that of “confident expectation,” and there is a huge difference
between those two ideas. And the “hope” of the believer in Jesus,
the “confident expectation” of the person who come to Christ for
salvation, is that one of these days he will see Jesus face to
face. That is what makes life worth living, even when the going
gets tough. One of these days, we will see Jesus.
So Peter’s first imperative is that we are to keep our hope fixed on
the return of Jesus. The way I am expressing it to you is that we
are to keep our focus on the return of Jesus. Now, that is a great
concept. And we know what the revelation of Jesus refers to, and we
know what hope is, but what exactly can we do to keep our focus on
the return of Christ.
Surrounding this imperative is three phrases (adverbial participles
of manner) that all describe for us the manner in which we are to
keep our focus on the return of Jesus. In other words, if we do
these three activities, we will be obeying Peter’s command to
“[fix] our hope completely on the grace that is to be brought to us
at the revelation of Jesus.” We are to 1) gird our minds for
action – v. 13, 2) keep sober in spirit – v. 13, and 3) not be
conformed to the former lusts which were ours in ignorance – v. 14.
We are going to look at “girding our minds for action”
and “keeping sober in spirit” at the same time because both phrases
convey the same basic idea. Girding your mind for action means that
you have a mentality that is poised, or prepared for action. When
you see someone burning a brush pile and lying around him is a rake,
and shovel, and a pitchfork, and a 5 gallon bucket of water, and a
garden hose hooked up to the outside spigot; that is a man who has
“girded his mind for action.” The man who is burning a brush pile
with no firefighting tools at his disposal is a man whose mind is
not “girded for action.” One of those men is poised and prepared,
the other one isn’t.
The other descriptive phrase Peter uses is that we are
to be “sober.” If you are using the NAS, you have the words “in
spirit” in italics after the word “sober,” which means they have
been added by the translators for clarity. As far as I’m concerned,
it’s an unnecessary addition because the word simply means the
opposite of being drunk. When a person is drunk, he is not in
control of his faculties. His thinking is muddled. His senses are
blunted. His reactions are dulled. His speech is slurred. He has
no control over his body functions. Everything about him is slow
and imprecise and uncertain. The opposite of this is what Peter is
commending as being sober. We are to have complete control of all
of our faculties. Our thinking is clear. Our senses and reactions
have been honed razor sharp. Our speech is clear and everything
about us conveys alertness, precision, and certainty.
What we are seeing here is that there is a demeanor that
accompanies keeping our focus on the return of Jesus. Can you
appreciate the contrast between the drunk man whose mind is not
girded for action, and the man who is sober and poised for action?
The return of Jesus is going to be a spectacular event and we want
to be ready for it. And what’s more, He could return this
afternoon! Are you ready for that? If you have come to Christ for
salvation, you are ready. If you have never come to Christ for
salvation, this day that is going to be so glorious for Christians
is going to be a day of judgment for you. But your day of judgment
can be averted by confessing your sinfulness to God and asking Him
to save you. Will you do that this morning?
How To Suffer
Well – Studies in 1 Peter
Message Two, Part Two: 1:13-25
Review: Last week we started looking at
Peter’s second key to suffering well. Does anyone remember the
first key? It is to maintain an eternal perspective.
Peter challenges us in the first 12 verses of the book to get our
eyes off our temporal circumstances and contemplate our eternal
state. Peter’s second key is to maintain an external focus, and it
is found in chapter one, verses 13 - 25. The way we are approaching
these 13 verses is to focus on the four commands Peter issues. The
first one is seen at the end of verse 13 where Peter exhorts us to
keep our focus on the return of Jesus because that is the great hope
of the Believer. But since that command doesn’t really tell us
how we do that, we noted that surrounding the imperative
are three phrases, grammatically connected to the imperative, that
describe the manner in which we are to focus on His return. We have
already looked at the first two phrases, those of ‘girding up our
minds for action,” and being “sober.” The way I summed
up those phrases was to say that there is a deportment, or a
demeanor, that should characterize the one whose focus is fixed on
the return of Jesus. He is alert and poised, all his senses are
sharp, and he is living in expectation of the revelation of Jesus.
This brings us to the third of the phrases, found in
verse 14, where we see that we are “not to be conformed [our
word schematic comes from this word] to the former lusts
[desires / passions] which were yours in your ignorance.”
The Bible teaches that once we become a child of God, with Jesus as
our master, our lives from that point on are changed forever. In
2 Cor. 5:17 Paul says, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new
creature. The old things passed away, behold, new things have
come.” That is what Peter is thinking of in this verse – what
our lives were like before we came to Christ for salvation. And
his command is that we are not to pattern our current lives after
our former way of life. If you will look over at 4:13, there is an
example of a former lifestyle that is to be shunned. “For the
time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the
desire of the Gentiles [a reference to being unsaved, not a
person who non-Jewish], having pursued a course of sensuality,
lusts, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties and abominable
idolatries.” Those are the old things that have passed away,
and the temptation we have as “new creations” is to look back on
them with desire. Peter’s prohibition here concerns looking at the
past with longing.
The emphasis here is on your focus in life. Is your
focus on the return of Jesus, or on all the stuff you left behind
once you got saved? Once we come to Christ for salvation, we aren’t
supposed to be looking back on those things we left behind. I can
think of two examples in the Old Testament that illustrate this
principle profoundly. 1) Lot’s wife got into a lot of trouble when
she did that, didn’t she? God gave her and Lot explicit directions
to flee the city of Sodom and not look back at it, but she did – and
was turned into a pillar of salt for her longing. 2) The children
of Israel got into trouble in this way as well. In Numbers
11:4-5 we read “And the rabble who were among them had
greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said,
"Who will give us meat to eat? 5 "We remember the fish
which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and
the leeks and the onions and the garlic.” And then down in verse
18 the story continues and we see that some were saying, “Oh that
someone would give us meat to eat! For we were well-off in Egypt.
Why did we ever leave Egypt?" Can you imagine?! This is why it
isn’t surprising to read in verses 33-34 that after the Lord brought
up a wind that brought in huge flocks of quail for them to eat,
“while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed,
the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD
struck the people with a very severe plague. 34 So the
name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they
buried the people who had been greedy.” Do you see the danger
of being conformed to the former lusts that were a part of our lives
before we were saved? Our focus is to be on the return of Jesus,
not the filth we have left behind.
So to summarize our first point, there is a demeanor, as
well as a direction, that should characterize our lives as
believers. Concerning demeanor, we are to be poised and alert and
ready for action; concerning direction, we are to be focused on our
new lives in Christ, not looking back with longing on the way of
life we embraced before salvation. And if we will allow these
activities to take place in our lives, we will be following Peter’s
first command, that of keeping our focus on the return of Jesus.
Peter’s second imperative is found at the end of verse 15. [B]ut
like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all
your behavior;16 because it is written, "You shall be
holy, for I am holy." I want us to focus next on the phrase
“be holy yourselves in all your behavior,” and if you are taking
notes, Peter’s second command is to live a life of practical
holiness.
II. Live A Life of Practical Holiness – vv. 15-16
This is the first time we come across one of Peter’s secondary
themes, that of visible holiness. He’ll develop it much further
later on in the book, so for now I just want us to consider a
definition of holiness, the command to be holy, and then we’ll look
at the standard of holiness.
A.
The Definition
The word holy in the Bible means to be separated to or set
apart for God. We see reference to this idea in Deuteronomy
15:19 where we read, "You shall consecrate to the LORD your
God all the first-born males that are born of your herd and of your
flock; you shall not work with the first-born of your herd, nor
shear the first-born of your flock.” In other words, these
animals were separated from the rest of the flock and herd, and were
set apart for special use – the sacrificial system. And the term
that was used to describe these animals was “holy to the Lord.”
This label of “holy” wasn’t limited to animals though, it also was
used to describe certain items in the tabernacle, days of the week
or year, plots of land, and even people. But the concept was always
the same – they were separated from a larger group and set apart for
a special purpose. They were “holy to the Lord.”
B.
The command
The command is simple – be holy. Again, it is an imperative. It
isn’t optional, its mandatory. So with this in mind, what does
Peter expect from us when he says, “be holy yourselves, in all
your behavior?”
First of all, we have to understand that as a follower of Christ,
by virtue of our salvation we have been taken out of a larger group
of people and set apart for a special purpose. The larger group of
people we have been removed from is all the masses of people who
aren’t saved, and our special purpose is to bring glory to God in
all we do. We have talked many times over the past three years
about what it means to bring glory to God so we won’t belabor it
here, but in a nutshell bringing glory to God in all we do means to
live in such a way as to make an observer’s perception of God go up
as a result of what he sees in us.
·
How we conduct our business, spend our money, pay our bills, and
honor commitments.
·
How we treat our spouse, raise our children, and get along with our
in-laws.
·
How we entertain ourselves, spend our free time, and how we care for
one another.
In all we do, we are to bring glory to God. This is what our
purpose is and why we have been set apart by God. Our lifestyle
(and this is why this point is called ‘Live a Life of Practical
Holiness’) should catch the attention of all the unsaved around us
and cause them to be impressed with our God. That is the essence of
this command to be holy.
C.
The standard
The standard we are to aspire to is found in verse 15 and is seen in
the phrase “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves
also in all your behavior.” Just in case we don’t know exactly
“how holy” we are supposed to be, Peter tells us to look at Jesus
and how He lived – and then aspire to that level of holiness!
Several weeks ago when we were having our quiz, I asked a true /
false question something like this. “God expects us to be holy, but
understanding our humanity, He doesn’t expect us to be perfect.”
And the answer was false. Peter is telling us here that the
standard is incredibly high. Is it an impossible standard? Depends
on who you ask. There are some Protestant belief systems that teach
what is referred to as “complete holiness,” and what others refer to
as “sinless perfection.” They teach this in part because of this
verse and argue that God doesn’t give us unattainable commands. He
doesn’t hold out to us expectations that are beyond our ability to
achieve.
My understanding of this verse is that God does expect
us to hold to this standard. He does want us to be
just as holy as his Son Jesus. This isn’t some pious platitude,
it’s a genuine expectation, even though it seems impossible for us
to reach! I believe God wants us to always have something to aspire
toward, because if He didn’t, our human nature is such that we’d all
just float through life, content with having reached some kind of
minimal level of holy living. Can you imagine what we would look
like if God had said, “I want you to be mostly holy in
all your behavior”? Or how about, “I want you to be as holy as you
feel you can reasonably attain.” No! The standard is, “like the
Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your
behavior.”
So Peter’s second imperative is to live a life of practical
holiness. The third command we see in this passage is found at the
end of verse 17 where we read that we are supposed to “conduct
ourselves in fear during the time of [our] stay on the earth.”
If you are taking notes, for number three I want you to write down,
“Appreciate the seriousness of your sojourn.” Our first imperative
was “Fix Your Focus on the Return of Jesus.” The second imperative
was “Live a Life of Practical Holiness.” And now the third
imperative is “Appreciate the Seriousness of Your Sojourn.”
III. Appreciate the Seriousness of our Sojourn – vv. 17-21
17
And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges
according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the
time of your stay upon earth; 18 knowing that you
were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from
your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19
but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless,
the blood of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before
the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times
for the sake of you 21 who through Him are believers in
God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your
faith and hope are in God.
As I have meditated on this paragraph I come away from
it with a sense of solemnity. Did any of you get that impression?
It speaks of judgment, bloodshed, futility, and injustice. And
even though it ends on a positive note, the overall tenor of the
paragraph is that of sobriety. When he says that we are to
conduct ourselves (the word means to live) in fear,
he doesn’t mean we are to live lives of paranoia (even though the
word he uses is our word for phobia), but he does mean that our
lives are to be marked by a sense of weightiness. Does this mean we
can’t get together as a church and have a dessert and game night?
No. It means that we live with an appreciation of the reality of
our existence. Hell is hot. Heaven is real. Eternity lasts a long
time. Actions have consequences. Time is short. Souls are in the
balance. Satan is hungry. These are weighty truths! And these
truths need to be foremost in our minds, which is why I say that
Peter’s third command is to appreciate the seriousness of our
sojourn.
This is a truth that isn’t preached very often in our
entertainment obsessed culture. And I’m not talking about the
entertainment obsessed culture of all those unsaved heathens that
live all around us – I’m talking about the entertainment obsessed
culture of American Christendom! Numerous people who study
Christianity as a movement have lamented that Christianity in
America seems to be characterized by a frivolity and shallowness
that is disturbing. Just go to a Christian bookstore and look at
the books that are on the shelves. What do the titles tell you
about Christendom in America? Look at the list of Christian best
sellers. Look at the explosion of Christian “entertainers” who have
come on the scene in the last 20 years. Look at the typical Sunday
morning (or Saturday evening) worship service of the rapidly growing
churches. You walk into the foyer, and after you sign up for the
golf clinic being offered on Thursday nights, you grab your decaf
mocha latte with soy milk from Godbucks on the way into the
auditorium where your senses are immediately inundated with lights
and video projections and singing groups. And even though there is
eventually a brief message that is supplemented by more video clips
and the drama team, you never get a sense of God’s transcendence and
majesty. The only difference between your church experience and
your trip to the mall the night before is that at church, there was
a speaker who talked about God.
I want to be quick to say that not all large churches are like this,
but the majority of them are, which is why they are so
large. Most people who study Christianity as a movement acknowledge
that the church has become very skilled at marketing itself and
appealing to the entertainment obsession of our culture. We really
do live in an entertainment saturated environment, and it has
infected the church.
Contrast that with what Peter mentions in these verses.
He gives us three reasons why we should appreciate the seriousness
of our sojourn.
A.
A Day of Reckoning – v. 17
First of all, verse 17 mentions the day when our works are going to
be examined by the God of the universe. Paul mentions this day in
1 Corinthians 3:11-15. 11 For no man can
lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. 12 Now if any man builds upon the foundation
with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13
each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it,
because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will
test the quality of each man's work. 14 If any man's
work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss;
but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire. He speaks
of it again in 2 Corinthians 5:9-11. “Therefore
also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be
pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his
deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or
bad. 11 Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we
persuade men.” This is an incredibly sobering thought!
B.
The Value of Our Salvation – vv. 18-19
Verses 18 and 19 mention the incredible price that was paid for our
sins – nothing less than the blood of Jesus Christ, the perfect,
sinless Son of God. The emphasis here has to do with value. If one
of you ladies were to pull a handful of change out of your pocket
and in doing so heard a coin drop, how much time would you spend
looking for the coin? Probably not too much. But let’s say that as
you were pulling out that change you felt your engagement ring catch
on the edge of your pocket. And as you pull your hand out, one of
the prongs bends and your diamond falls out and rolls away. How
much time will you spend looking for that? The value of what is
lost determines how seriously you appreciate it. We don’t
appreciate dimes very much because they aren’t worth much. We
appreciate diamonds immensely because they are worth thousands of
dollars.
When Peter says in verses 18 and 19 that we were “not redeemed
with perishable things like silver or gold . . . but with precious
blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ,”
he is trying to get us to appreciate the immense value of what was
spilled for our salvation. That is a weighty, sobering thought.
C.
The Magnitude of God’s Plan – v. 21
Verse 21 speaks of the magnitude and scope of this plan – it was put
into place before the foundation of the world. In other words, our
salvation is not the result of some hastily thrown together ideas
conceived on the spur of the moment because Adam and Eve ruined
everything. Guess when I started thinking about and planning the
gift I was to bring to the party last night? About three hours
before the party! That is not how God put together the plan for our
salvation.
And it is because of the day of reckoning we know is coming, and
because of the value of the price that was paid for our salvation,
and because of the scope and magnitude of the plan of salvation,
Peter’s third command is that we are to appreciate the seriousness
of sojourn here on earth.
How To Suffer
Well – Studies in 1 Peter
Message Two, Part Three: 1:13-25
Introduction / Review: For the past two
weeks we have been looking at Peter’s second key to suffering well,
which is found in verses 13 – 25 of chapter one. In these verses he
lays out for us a series of four commands. These commands are found
at the end of verses 13, 15, 17, and 22, and are usually surrounded
by several phrases that describe the manner in which we are to carry
out the command. We have considered three of them: 1) Fix your
focus on the return of Jesus – v. 13 “fix your hope completely
on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.” 2) Live a life of visible holiness – v. 15 “be
holy yourselves also in all your behavior.” And 3),
appreciate the seriousness of your sojourn – v. 17 “conduct
yourselves in fear during the tie of your stay upon the earth.”
This brings us up to his final imperative, found in verses 22 – 25,
where we see we are to genuinely love one another.
Follow along in your Bibles as I read these verses, and then let’s
draw some conclusions and make some application to suffering well.
IV. Genuinely Love One Another – vv. 22-25
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, 23 for you have been born again not of seed which
is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living
and abiding word of God. 24 For, "All flesh is like
grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass
withers, And the flower falls off, 25 But the word of the
Lord abides forever." And this is the word which was preached to
you.
Peter’s final command in this paragraph is to genuinely
love one another. Over the past few years we have talked many times
about what biblical love entails; and in a nutshell, biblical love
is very different from our popular, cultural definition of love.
The average person on the street would tell you that love is
primarily an emotion, or a feeling. It is something that happens
to us. We are passive responders, simply responding to stimuli,
which is why you hear phrases like, “I fell in love with her,” as if
you had no choice. The Biblical picture of love is that love is an
act of the will – the exact opposite of an emotion. Following this
model you could say that you “jumped into love,” as opposed to
“falling into love,” but biblical love always involves deliberate
choice.
The average person on the street perceives love in terms of having
personal needs taken care of. This is why it is so easy to “fall
out of love” when you are following the worldly model. From that
perspective, as soon as the relationship stops meeting my needs, as
soon as those initial good feelings are gone, the love is gone, so
I’m off to find the next person who can reignite those emotions.
Biblical expressions of love are rooted in meeting needs in another
person’s life regardless of the presence or absence of emotional
pleasure. And again, there is a huge difference between these two
perspectives: meeting needs, or, having needs met. So I think it is
safe to say that there is a pretty wide chasm between the biblical
and cultural definition of love.
And since there is such a gap between the two, it
shouldn’t be surprising that living up to the biblical standard
doesn’t come to us naturally or easily. After all, down deep, we
are all pretty selfish creatures and like to have our needs catered
to. And to pull ourselves out of the quicksand of selfishness and
think about others more than ourselves is no easy task. Yet Peter
commands us not only to do it, but to do it “fervently!”
The word Peter uses carries the idea of intensity, but it
also has the idea of “extensive” associated with it. If you
were to ask one of your children to wipe the dining room table after
dinner, and he not only wiped the table but he also wiped off the
table legs, and then got out the lemon oil and polished the table -
he has wiped the table “fervently.” There was some breadth to what
he had done. He did not stop with doing the bare minimum. That is
how Peter tells us to love one another. We don’t do it the least
amount possible that is necessary to qualify us for being obedient!
And not only does he expect us to do it fervently, he expects us to
do it genuinely! It has to be from the heart. We are all
familiar with shallow sentiment, aren’t we? We know when the
expression of love is genuine and when it is a put on. We are
supposed to be genuine. We also know when the expression of love
has ulterior motives. I came home from work one day and some of the
children immediately greeted me and said, “Here Dad, sit in the
recliner for a while. Can I get you a glass of ice water? Prop
your feet up and take a rest. Let me point the fan toward you so
you can cool off for a little while.” So I said, “OK, what’s up?”
And then the request for going out for pizza and a movie was made.
There were ulterior motives for their expressions of love.
So when it comes down to what this love should look like, Peter uses
two words to describe it. It should be marked by fervency
and genuineness. But is there anything else in these
four verses that will give us insight into fulfilling this final
command. There is, and I want you to see next that loving others
fervently is an act of obedience as well as a demonstration of
gratitude. We see the idea of obedience in the beginning of verse
22. Read it again with me. “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.”
More often than not, loving others will not come to us easily. Why
is that? Because more often than not, we are not very lovely
people! So there are going to be times when we do it simply because
we want to be obedient to God who loves us so much. And the
importance with which God views this matter of loving others is seen
in the number of times it is repeated as a command in the New
Testament. 13 times various authors and even Jesus Himself tells us
to love one another. Guess how many times the NT commands us to be
holy? Once! But 13 times we are commanded to love one another.
But note also that it is a demonstration of gratitude as well. Yes,
we love others because God tells us to, but there is actually a
higher motive mentioned in verse 23. Note the first word – “for.”
This alerts us to the idea that Peter is about to give us his
reasoning. He tells us to fervently love one another from the heart
“for, we have been born again, not of seed which is perishable
but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of
God.”
Here’s Peter’s rationale. We have been born again as the direct
result of God expressing His love to us. Two verses teach this.
Jn. 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The other verse
is 1 John 4:9 – “By this the love of God was manifested in
us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that
we might live through Him.” Salvation is an act of love. That
means that if you are saved this morning, you are the recipient of
the greatest act of love ever perpetrated. And if God can love you,
certainly you can love others. This is all wrapped up in that
little word “for.” “Fervently love one another from the
heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable,
but imperishable.”
So there we have Peter’s four imperatives.
·
Fix your hope on the return of Jesus.
·
Live a life of practical holiness.
·
Appreciate the seriousness of your sojourn.
·
Genuinely love one another.
But the next question is to figure out what these four imperatives
have in common. And as I have been studying this passage, I have
noticed that each of the imperatives is designed to draw us out of
ourselves and get our attention elsewhere. Do you see that, or am I
seeing things? There is an upward focus in the first,
an outward focus in the second and third command, and
an others focus in the final command. Fixing our hope
on the return of Jesus draws our attention upward. Living a life of
practical holiness and appreciating the seriousness of our sojourn
draws our attention outward, and fervently loving one another draws
our attention to other people. And the net effect of obeying these
four imperatives is that our focus is off self and on Jesus and
others.
And this is one of the keys to suffering well – maintaining an
external focus. As I shared with you three weeks ago, doing this
runs contrary to everything within us, because when we are hurting
or suffering, the human response is to circle the wagons and
minister to our hurts – not reach out and minister to others. Turn
back to Isaiah 58:10-11 with me, and let’s read those verses again.
“And
if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of
the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness,
and your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will
continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched
places, and give strength to your bones; and you will
be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do
not fail.”
To use Isaiah’s language, when
we are surrounded by darkness and gloom, when we are without
strength, in need of guidance, and dying of thirst in a parched land
– we don’t naturally think about ministering to other people. But
the principle stated explicitly by Isaiah and certainly implicitly
by Peter is that one of the ways to have our needs met when
suffering is to minister to the needs of other hurting people.
I remember reading about some Russian pastors in a
prison camp who would fast one day a week to give their meager,
starvation rations to other prisoners. They understood this second
principle for suffering well – maintain an external focus. When
Elisabeth Elliott was going through the pain of having her husband
killed by the Auca Indians, her testimony is that what kept her
going was having to get out of bed every morning to care for her
infant daughter. The way she expressed it was that she would just
“do the next thing.” She maintained and external focus.
A Biblical example of this principle is seen in an episode from the
life of the prophet Ezekiel. Turn with me to chapter 24 verse 15.
“And
the word of the LORD came to me saying, 16 "Son of man,
behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a
blow; but you shall not mourn, and you shall not weep, and your
tears shall not come. 17 "Groan silently; make no
mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on
your feet, and do not cover your mustache, and do not eat the
bread of men." 18 So I spoke to the people in the
morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did
as I was commanded.” Ezekiel “did the next thing.”
I realize this is a rather radical example and I
certainly don’t hold it out as a model for how we should grieve if
we lose our spouse. Please don’t mistake the purpose of the
illustration. But I think it is a great example of maintaining an
external focus during your time of suffering. This is Peter’s
second key to suffering well.
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