In this sermon, Pastor Tim looks at some of the responses to the gift of our salvation. Because of what Christ has done, primarily we are called to love one another deeply from the heart. But what does that look like?
Lets read todays passage – 1 Peter 1:22-25
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,
“All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you.
We are looking at Peter’s letter to these churches that had emerged through the early missionary work of the Apostles…
- That is, people like Peter who had been with Jesus and were sent to tell the good news…
- Good news that all can become children of God because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
- Peter greeted the churches at the start of the letter with grace and peace in abundance…
- This was his story… he had been called by Jesus to be the rock upon which the church would be built…
- Only to drop the ball by denying Jesus at his moment of arrest and trial…
But this Peter had been lovingly reinstated by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to preach the good news.
- He knew grace. He knew peace!
- And this was the new story of all of God’s children who by faith had come to know grace and peace with God.
And what is interesting in this first chapter of his letter is the way that all we are called to do is in response to what God has already done!
- Think about it… it is all through chapter 1.
- Verse 3 “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”
- Verse 13 is the hinge… “Therefore…”
- Verse 14 “do not conform to the evil desires you once had… but be holy in all you do.
- Even the next bit states this most obviously… “be holy, because I am holy”
Again… verse 17… “Since”… so again… Peter’s argument is in relation to what has been done…
- Since (your salvation) “live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.”
- And then today…
- Verse 22 “Now that”… so again in response to all that has happened…
- Peter says “now that” – “have sincere love for one another.”
And I think that all of this is really important… This section is about what happens now that we have received salvation.
- Our new life is a response to what God has done through Jesus.
- Does that make sense?
- Our new life is a therefore… a since, a now that…
- And the reason it is important is that very little lasting good in your life can happen if it is done through sheer will and not in response to something you have received or experienced.
- As it says in 1 John “we love because he first loved us!”
I know we are banging on a bit about HOHI today and this dinner and caring about something beyond ourselves…
- But the reality is that unless you have experienced great dignity and love and mercy from God…
- It is hard to expect that you would care about using your time and resources to bestow great dignity, love and mercy upon others…
- We give from what has been poured into us…
- God saw you with dignity… therefore… our hearts break for those who have no dignity.
- We are rescued and redeemed spiritually, but in response we also want to see people rescued and redeemed physically.
- Therefore… since… now that… because…
When I became a Christian, one of the stories that struck me and resonated with me was Les Misérables…
- And if it is ok, I would like to sing you a few of my favourites from the musical adaptation…
- No, that would be a terrible, terrible idea.
- But I do remember in my early 20’s reading the abridged book, watching the movie and then seeing the musical on the West End in London.
- Let’s just say I was a super fan!
- And then a second movie of the story came out which was a musical with Hugh Jackman… be still my beating heart!
But it tells the story of the former convict Jean Valjean who as a recipient of undeserved mercy goes on to live an exemplary life.
- The French author Victor Hugo actually explains the meaning of his work later in the book when he says…
- “The book from one end to the other details a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from corruption to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God”!
- Amen.
At the beginning of the story, Jean Valjean, just released from 19 years imprisonment for stealing loaves of bread
- Is turned away by innkeepers as a former convict and ends up bitter and angry on the streets.
- Finally a kind Bishop gives him shelter, but when night falls, Jean Valjean steals the Bishops silverware.
- He is caught and returned by police to the Bishop, and at his word, is facing life imprisonment. What a scene…
- And then the Bishop, does something remarkable, something surprising, something that shocks the criminal Jean Valjean…
- The Bishop pretends that he had given the silverware to Jean Valjean, and presses him to take two silver candlesticks.
- The police accept the Bishop’s explanation and leave.
The Bishop tells Jean Valjean that his life has been spared for God and that he should use the money from the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself.
- And so as the recipient of the scandal of grace… the question becomes, what path will Jean Valjean decide to embark on?
- With this get out of jail card will he then go back to his dark ways…
- Or can he see this act of mercy as the changing point of his life.
- What kind of a human being is he going to be?
Well I won’t totally ruin the story for the 3 remaining people in the world who don’t know this amazing tale…
- But needless to say, Jean Valjean ends up living a transformed life of kindness.
- He ends up becoming mayor of a city and in turn transforming the lives of the destitute that he encounters.
- But the reason I think the story resonated with me… is it goes to the questions all us Christians must ask…
- Saved by grace… what kind of life am I now called to live?
- What is my therefore, what is my since… what is my “now that”?
Well in todays passage I see 3 quick responses to the gift of our salvation and receipt of grace and peace.
- A new Life is marked by 3 realities… three things we find out in response to our salvation…
- That we are called to love each other deeply
- That we will base our life on the enduring word of God
- And that we will gain perspective about the transience and vanity of life.
So just working backwards… Firstly we gain perspective about what is important and lasts and what does not.
Verse 24 For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.”
- Now this is a quote from the prophet Isaiah in chapter 40 which for tells the coming of the Messiah.
- And a big part of it is contrasting the Word of God which as we will see endures…
- With our own human frailty, vanity and transience.
- People are like flowers and flowers fall!
- Maybe this point could be titled beware botox and biceps…
- Not there is anything wrong with health or beauty… but it does not last… so do not get swept up in trying to stay eternally young!
- Now that you are saved you can focus on more important things…
Guys this is such a big thing on the Northern Beaches… we are obsessed with youth and beauty.
- Flowers fall, grass withers…
- The most beautiful girl on the beach in the 1970’s is now probably in a nursing home…
- How could the money that is spent on trying to stay young be better directed towards generosity and the poor.
- Wake up Manly Life… don’t get caught up in the culture around you.
- If you want to be happy, invest in people, in church, in your family…
So what should we focus on, now that we are saved if we want to be holy and live worthy and good lives?
- Verse 25 “but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
- So if our beauty and indeed our lives come and go… build your life around the eternal, life giving, Word of God and his truth!
- Don’t eat beauty supplements….
- Eat this book! Get it into you…
It is funny thinking about this cultural moment and the fads and ideologies and crazes that come and go…
- But Jesus and his truth endure. And they are the key to an abundant life and life eternal.
- So, now that you are saved by grace, build your life on the truth!
- Now we say things like this… but the reality is that we regularly need to be reading the word and sitting under good bible teaching…
- In my prayer hour… refreshing to open the Word with no agenda than just being with God.
- We need to spend more time in the Word than concerning ourselves with our appearance or what others think of us.
- So get the Word of God into you…
Netflix show… Blue Zone. Findings…
- Moist relevant or relatable community was a Seventh Day Adventist community in America.
- Beyond diet and exercise which had some bearing, what the guy found most keys was;
- Faith, purpose, connection, generations
- All the things that the Word of truth basically encourage us in…
- 7 years longer life span and healthier and happier lives…
- Flowers fall, grass withers… but the Word of the Lord endures…
Well finally, now that we are saved… now that we have perspective that orients us away from vanity and towards the enduring Word of God.
- What should we focus our lives on doing well?
- Well I don’t think it is any surprise if you know Jesus… it is the call to love one another deeply.
- Verse 22 “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.”
Well what can you say about love that isn’t cliché?
- The Beatles… all you need is love… da da da da da…
- You can read about Christian love in 1 Corinthians 13…
- And it is amazing, it is practical, it is profound…
- Brilliant things about love like it not keeping records of wrongs, that love is patient… it is kind and so on…
- And we need to read the Gospels and look at how Jesus loved people… how he saw them in their need and responded…
- We need to study 1 Corinthians 13… and learn the way of Christian love
- We need to study 1 John and hear the hard truths of if we don’t love, we do not know God…
But here is the thing I thought I would finish on…
- Anyone can love from a distance. But if we truly want to love one another deeply, and from the heart… it starts with the people we are in closest proximity to.
- And that friends is the hardest! Haha…
- In the church with people you are in community with…
- If you are at home I guess that might be siblings or with your parents.
- If you are married it would be with your spouse.
- If you live out of home, maybe it is with you flatmates…
- It is easy to have a Christian persona that projects kindness… what is hard is to love the people we rub up against on a daily basis.
- Peter says, love one another deeply… from the heart!
Victoria and I were listening to a podcast a year or so ago on parenting…
- And one of the asides was on why do we sometimes end up treating the person we love the most, the worst…
- Right? Sometimes we might say things or do things to our husband or wife, that we would never say or do to anyone else.
- I can do it, and I see you guys do it… you take bites out of each other…
- You undermine each other in public… you have goes at each other at home…
- You love them, but to be honest you treat each other like crap.
And the reason, they suggested in the podcast was because in the safest of relationships, such as a marriage, we let ourselves go without restraint.
- Right, we say things we’d never dare say to other people…
- And so we can wrong each other… and if we keep a record of all these wrongs… well who can remember who started what…
- But relationships can get difficult. Each holding on to a series of comments or actions or slights… that begin to hurt.
- It adds up, what might have started healthy and hot, grows toxic and cold…
And into this we need the circuit breaker of love and forgiveness.
- We need to heed Peter who says our response to our salvation is a life of loving each other deeply!
- This is our response…
- Let your faith and the presence of Jesus in your hearts and minds change you…
- Change how you respond, how you forgive, how you serve one another… how you speak to one another…
- Friends, in one sense, invite Jesus in… who models this unconditional love and forgiveness… who keeps no record of wrongs with us!
- Because we are loved first… we love too…
Well let’s finish with that! We all want to love and be loved…
- Therefore, now that, since, because…
- What a life we now get to live!
- Shall we stand and respond…