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CHURCH IMPROVEMENT : BUILDING A CHURCH THAT HONORS GOD AND LOVES PEOPLE BY THE LIFE GIVING WORD OF GOD1 Peter 1:22-25 INTRODUCTION What are you looking for in a church? What do you think ought to be true of the ideal church? Each of us will give somewhat different answers to that question depending upon our previous experiences with church, our present circumstances in life and our understanding of God and his will. However, I do think there is at least one characteristic that everyone has on his or her list of traits of an ideal church. Even people with little or no experience with churches expect churches to be loving communities. I regularly talk with people who are considering joining our church and with those who are disappointed with our church. Almost without exception those who are considering joining are doing so because, among other things, they have sensed here a warm and caring fellowship and those who are disappointed are so because they do not feel our church is as warm and caring as it ought to be. Expecting a local church to be a place where the members love each other is not without biblical warrant. Jesus himself said that it was our love for one another that would demonstrate to the world that we were his disciples. Perhaps the most profound description of love ever written was written by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 to a divided and troubled church. The point he was making was that love among Christians is the most obvious evidence that God is at work in a church. In our passage this morning you can see that Peter's central concern is that the Christians in these churches “love one another deeply, from the heart.” It is without question that one of the chief evidences that an individual is a true Christian and that a local church is a true church of Jesus is the presence of a sincere and fervent love for other Christians. As many of you know Jane and I and our family moved to Janesville in the summer of 1997 to start this church. By the spring of 1998 there was a group of about 60 people meeting each Sunday evening and we were making plans to have our first, public, Sunday morning worship service in the fall of that year. I wrote a letter that spring to a group of friends and churches that were praying for and financially supporting us as we worked to plant River Hills Community Church. In that letter I asked these questions: “How do you take a group of strangers with a variety of religious backgrounds and spiritual maturity and enable them to become a close knit, loving community of Christians? How do you build a community that is progressing daily in following Christ and is involved in ministering to others?” This is the question with which our passage is directly concerned. What is the primary method God has chosen to bring healthy, loving churches into existence and to enable them to persevere in love? How do you build a loving church? This passage tells us that the teaching and preaching of God’s written word is the primary method God has given for building his church, which is a loving community of God-besotted, Christ-exalting, self-forgetting people. I want you to see how the structure of this passage teaches this exact thing. There is one command in these four verses and it is at the end of v. 22: “love one another deeply, from the heart.” The reasons for why they should be a loving community both precede and follow the command. They should love one another because they have purified their souls through obeying the truth so that they have a sincere love for one another and because they have been born again by the living and enduring word of God which is the word that was preached to them as the good news about Jesus. This passage then explains why it is that the teaching and preaching of God’s word is God’s method for creating and sustaining a loving church. MAIN POINT The teaching and preaching of God’s written word is the primary method God has given for building his church because… I. Only faith in his word can produce a loving community (v. 22) The first half of v. 22 describes the condition of the people who comprise the churches to which Peter writes. Peter says that there are three things that are true of these Christians. Each thing builds on what proceeds. First, all of these people have obeyed the truth. Then, second, by obeying the truth they have purified their souls. Finally, third, the result of having their souls purified is that they have a sincere love for their Christian brothers and sisters. I want to examine each of these things in turn. First of all, what is the truth they obeyed? The answer to that question is in what proceeds v. 22. If you look at vv. 10-12 you can see that the message that these people were told is the same message that the OT prophets gave. The entire OT is talking about the sufferings of Jesus and the glory that would follow his suffering. We know also that the entire NT is about the same thing, the sufferings and the glory of Jesus. This is the gospel, the message that they were told by those who preached the gospel to them. In other words, the entire written word of God, OT and NT, as it reveals the suffering and glory of Jesus Christ, is the truth that they obeyed. You can see a little bit of a summary of that truth in vv. 18-21. Redemption or being saved from the futility of human existence is gained through the precious blood of Christ who is a lamb without blemish or defect. Human life is futile due to our sin. We live out the days of our lives in rebellion to God and then we die and we suffer the consequences of our sins, which is eternal separation from God and all that is good in hell. But we escape that destiny by means of God’s lamb, who was chosen before the creation of the world to be the savior of all who will trust him. God sent him to die as our sacrifice, just like all the lambs that were slain throughout the thousands of years of Israel’s existence as a nation. Then God raised him from the dead and so now we trust in God’s provision of Christ as our only hope of escaping the futile way of life handed down by our ancestors. What does Peter mean by saying that they obeyed this truth about Jesus? Why does he not say, “by believing the truth”? While most of the time the NT says that the means by which sinners obtain the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection is by believing in Christ or by trusting the gospel (see v. 21) it does, on occasion, as here, say that we are united to Christ by obeying the gospel (Acts 6:7, Romans 1:5, 6:17, 10:16, etc.). Why does the NT speak this way? I thought salvation was not based on my obedience but upon Christ’s obedience in my place? Is salvation based on how well I obey God’s truth and my faith in Christ? Without going through each of the places this word is used let me summarize what it means to obey the truth of the gospel. First, when you hear the good news that though you deserve God’s wrath and condemnation because of your many sins, yet he has given his Son to die in your place and he has raised him from the dead to live as your mediator in God’s very presence forever; you also hear this command attached to it: turn from your sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone as your only Savior from sin and death and hell. The gospel contains a command to repent and believe. Thus, when you trust in Christ you are obeying the truth of the gospel which contains the command to believe. Second, faith always leads to obedience to Christ. It is the nature of faith to obey, to act on what is believed. Every child who trusts in the goodness and wisdom of their parents eagerly obeys what their parents command. Every sick person who trusts in the skill and knowledge of his or her doctor does what the doctor says to do. Every student who trusts in the knowledge of his or her teacher learns and does what the teacher says. When you trust in someone or something you always act in accord with what you believe. Therefore, if you are a person who trusts in Christ you are also a person who is eager to obey Christ. Your obedience does not earn the favor of God but is the evidence that you are trusting in the Son of God. Obedience to Christ is always the fruit and evidence of faith in Christ. Notice, everyone who obeys the truth has purified his or her soul. It is the truth that purifies your soul. Your obedient faith connects you to the truth of the gospel, which is the purifying agent. Listen to how this is expressed in Acts 15:8-9 as Peter explains what happened when he preached the gospel to the Gentiles gathered in the home of Cornelius: “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.” God is the one who purified hearts by the Holy Spirit through his word when people believe/obey the gospel. The idea of purification is an OT concept, which describes the process by which people remove their uncleanness in order to be fit to enter into God’s presence. You must be pure in order to be with God. Thus when a person trusts in Jesus as he is revealed in his word, God the HS, for the sake of Christ removes everything that displeases God from the human soul and makes it fit for God. Finally, notice that everyone who has a pure soul has a sincere love for his or her Christian brothers and sisters. Every person who has been made fit for living in God’s presence forever through their faith in Christ has a sincere love for other Christians planted in them. These two things always go together: going to heaven and sincerely loving other Christians. Sincere love for others is the fruit of a purified soul because when I know that I am accepted and loved by God then I don’t need you to love me back. My love for you is not insincere, that is, motivated by a desire to be paid back by you, because I am secure in the love of God for me. A sincere love is doing good for another because it makes you happy to do good to them, not because you hope to be reciprocated in some way. The only way to be happy in doing good to others without regard to yourself is if you know you are securely loved by God, which is what is true of you, if you have purified your soul by obeying the truth. Now, you cannot trust what you do not know and therefore this entire sequence, which results in a loving community, begins with you learning the truth so that you will obey it and thus purify your soul and thus gain a sincere love for other Christians and thus the motivation and ability to love others fervently from the heart. The teaching and preaching of God’s written word is the primary method God has given for building his church because…
II. All other methods are human and thus fruitless (vv. 23a & 24) Whereas v. 22 concentrated on the human response to the truth, vv. 23-25 describe how God sovereignly uses the truth of his word to impart his life. But before he explains how God gives his life by his word he makes the point that divine life does not come from a perishable seed. The word translated “perishable” is used in the NT to describe human beings and the world we inhabit which one day is going to be destroyed by fire. We and world we inhabit are mortal or perishable. The word is given further description in v. 24 through the quote from Isaiah 40. Human beings are like grass and the flowers of the field. We are extremely temporary. We flourish for a short time and even can appear quite glorious like flowers in a field but we quickly wither and perish and blow away. Later in Isaiah 40 God reinforces this portrait of the impermanence of even the most glorious of human beings when he says, " He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff." The President of the U.S. has been called the most powerful man in the world. Yet, in my lifetime, I've witnessed the death of five of these most powerful men. The most glorious of human beings are nothing but chaff that the wind blows away. I'm not much of a gardener but every spring I plant a bunch of geraniums in large pots around the outside of our house and plant some impatiens along a fence. Jaimee and I faithfully water them through the summer. They are quite beautiful. However, after the first frost they wilt and turn quite ugly. I take them to the city's compost yard along with the fallen leaves from our trees. This is the human condition. This is who we all are. Peter, by this metaphorical description of human beings from the OT aims to say the same thing that Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3. He tells Nicodemus that the only people who are going to heaven and who belong to God’s eternal kingdom are those who have been born again by the Spirit of God. He tells him the reason they must be born again to gain heaven is this: “Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit.” This is the exact same contrast as in v. 23; especially if you know that the literal translation of v. 24 is, as the ESV has it, "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower…". Jesus, Isaiah and Peter all agree that human efforts can only create what is human. Human beings, no matter how hard we work at being religious can never by our own efforts create divine life. There is as much chance for a human being to beget divine life as there is for a horse or some other animal to bring forth a human being. Every creature reproduces after its own kind. Human beings can only beget human beings and human things. Never can a human “seed” bring forth divine life. We are a perishing race and everything that we beget of necessity must also perish with us. God also begets life after his own kind, if you’ll permit me to speak like this. When he sends forth his “seed” he begets divine life. The fact that perishing humans can only beget that which perishes and does not endure should have an enormous impact on how we operate as a church and how we parent and how we lead small groups and how we do missions and how we seek to win people to Christ, in short, it should impact everything we do. If your goal is to raise well mannered, successful children there is a lot you can do as a human being. If your goal is to get lots of non-Christians to show up at your church on Sunday mornings, there is a lot you can do. If your goal is keep teenagers off drugs and not pregnant and in the church there is a lot you can do. If your goal is to care for the poor or to stop abortion there is a lot you can do. Although you can be highly successful in accomplishing all of these worthy goals, none of what you accomplish will survive the fire that is coming upon this world. All this glory will fade away one day. Perishing humans can only reproduce other perishing persons and things. However, if your goal as a parent or a small group leader or as an elder of the church or as a friend is to impart and nourish eternal, divine life in others, then there is really only one thing you can do: preach the word. Only the word of God is the divine seed that contains eternal, divine life as we see in the next two points. The teaching and preaching of God’s written word is the primary method God has given for building his church because…
III. God’s word is the only life-giving power in the universe (v. 23 & 25b) Look back at 1:3-5. Peter has already told us that God is the one who causes us to be born again. He alone gives us his life: divine, eternal life. T his new birth is given to us on the basis of his mercy, not our merit. Just like you did not decide to be born and you did nothing to deserve to be born, but God mercifully gave you physical life through your parents, so also, God mercifully gives you new life, his eternal life. God is able to justly give his life to those who are dead in their trespasses and sins and who delight in a life of rebellion to him because Jesus died and rose again and is now interceding for us at God’s right hand. God rewards Jesus’ work by sending out his Holy Spirit to give life to all whom he is pleased to give life. What would be true of you if you were born as a son or daughter of Brett Favre? What would your life be like now and what would it be like in the future? How happy you would be now and how secure your future would be, right? You get to go to the Super Bowl in two weeks. Your dad is one of the most respected and well known men in the U.S. You will never have to worry about money during your whole life. All this is true because you are his son or daughter; you have his life and belong to his family. Look at what is true of all those to whom God gives his life. You have a living hope because Jesus rose from the dead and is now alive. You know you will be resurrected because he was resurrected. You know you will live forever because he lives forever. Notice that you now have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade which is preserved in heaven for you. Unlike the life that is created by a perishable human “seed” which quickly fades like grass, this life, this inheritance is permanent. The vicissitudes of the stock market cannot affect it, the plotting of evil men cannot touch it, sickness and fractured relationships cannot alter it. The inheritance that belongs to you as a child of God is protected by God and you are protected by him as well. God is keeping you so that you come to the end of your life still trusting in Christ. Finally, notice that the life you’ve been born into is ready to be revealed right now but won’t be revealed until the last time, which is the time known only to God the Father. This is what is true of everyone who is born anew by God. What v. 23 tells us is that the seed that God uses to beget this new life is the word of God. No one will be born of God and thus given that living hope and that inheritance reserved in heaven apart from hearing or reading the word of God, which is the good news about Jesus. God gives us his life but he does so only in and with and through his word. I know that sitting in front of me this morning are dozens of people who are bored with the Bible. You are bored with sermons. You have no interest in reading the Bible. Some of you admit this is your condition while others of you pretend that you like the Bible. Others of us while not entirely bored with it find it very difficult to give the attention to it that we know we ought to give. Right here are reasons to overcome your boredom and indifference and distractions. Do you want God's life? Do you want to be born anew and given the very life of God? Do you want to have a living hope and an inheritance reserved in heaven for you and do you want to be protected by God's power? If you do, then pay attention to this word. Read it, memorize it, pay attention on Sunday mornings, be involved in a small group, find an older Christian who will meet with you and talk with you about what it says. Only God can make his word effective. Only God can take these printed words and these spoken words and make them the vehicle of his life. But of this you can be sure. You will never have God's life and you will never go to heaven without hearing and reading and knowing what this word says. Let me also say a word to you parents. Getting this word into the lives of your children needs to be job number one. Potty training them or getting them to learn their multiplication tables or preparing them to get a 33 on the ACT or making sure they have lots of fun friends or that they find a good husband or wife should not be the main thing you are working on or worrying about as a parent. You need to bleed Bible in your relationship to them because it is the means God has appointed to give them his life and without his life they are just like grass and the flowers of the field which blow away. The teaching and preaching of God’s written word is the primary method God has given for building his church because…
IV. God’s word is the only enduring power in the universe (vv. 23b & 25) When God gives his life to a person through his imperishable, enduring word that life of necessity also is imperishable and enduring. It is eternal life. In contrast to the mortal, perishing, temporary life that characterizes man and the world that man lives in, God's life, as created by God's word, is permanent. So if you have been born again by the Spirit of God, through the word of God then you will never die. The life that God has planted in you is an eternal life. I don't know if you have ever thought about this but our sun, upon which life on this earth depends is going to turn into a Red Giant Star which will consume the earth in 5 Billion years. The sun as we know it will be gone in 5 billion years. If you have been born again by the word of God you are going to outlive the sun because God and his word endure forever and therefore, so will you. Here is the only security in the universe and the antidote to all fear. This is the foundation of your life that will enable you to take the risks that you must take if you are going to love others. This life can never be taken from you because the eternal God by his eternal word has given you eternal life. But the fact that this word is enduring and that everything else is not also challenges us in regards to our faith. What are we depending upon for our security? All of us trust the word of someone or something to find security in this dangerous world. We trust the word of our employers, of economic forecasters, of weather forecasters, of our friends and family, of our financial advisor, of our therapist, of the government, of our bank accounts, but do we trust the only thing that cannot fail: God's word? His word alone will never let you down, will never fail to come true. It is the only stable thing in this temporary and highly unstable universe. So are you living your daily life in dependence upon and in accordance with this enduring word or are you living by faith in the words of men who are like grass that the wind blows away? The teaching and preaching of God’s written word is the primary method God has given for building his church because…
© Copyright 2008 John Swanson.
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