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Psalm 70 1 Peter 1:22-2:3 By Merv Topp

 this section as we continue to look at it, is still part of that great part of Peter's concern as his living before a holy God and being a holy people.
And we have, as he opens up here, some very interesting statements and very powerful statements.
Those things which will cause us to live, to live spiritually and godly, but also there is very straightforward are the things that also causes us not to live in a godly manner.
So Peter begins to remind the readers of the new birth, the new birth, this supernatural event that made it possible for them and for you or me to obey the word.
This event that he describes, look at verse 20, you have been born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible seed through the word of God which lives and abides forever.
See he has now launched out to give strength, remember again what we're, the people here they're scattered, they're dispersed, they've come under all kinds of pressures and testings.
We can't be kept far from that because this is what the whole persecution bit that was going on and the suffering of the people of God and he immediately and he continues to remind the people of God from the place from whence they were dug, by his great mercy we've been born again of an incorruptible seed through the word of God.
This is one of the clearest statements in the word of God as to the means of grace that God has given us to be born again, the word of God and it takes us back as we look back at verse 22, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love for the brethren.
You see the great truth of how the faith has worked out is how it's worked out in relationships in community.
Here this community is scattered, you know there was a sense in this community that everybody needed everybody else.
So it is for you and me in the church community that we live in, in this body there are testings and trials.
But the thing that makes us community, makes us the body of Christ, makes us the people of God, as reminded here that we are in a process on the road to holiness, purify yourselves.
We'll look at them later on, the impure things come.
And when we look at the positives then we'll go and look at the negatives then we'll go
back to the positives.
The word which is imperishable.
This enough should be a clear statement of what we think of this book, the Bible.
It should be enough as we're challenged with all the circumstances of life.
Where do we go for comfort and strength and times of difficulty and stress and strain
in the rigours of life?
Do you know what's happening in the modern world today?
Many go to the psychologist, the psychics couch.
It's the most booming business in America.
It has penetrated the church in America and it's also doing the same thing here in a most
devastating way, with devastating effects.
When the Bible tells us we're born again with a word that doesn't perish, which is lasting
and which abides forever.
This is the word, dear child of God, that you and I have as born-again believers that
we can come to for strength and for comfort.
You know how psychology got into the church, through the United Methodists in America?
They'd run out of any sort of theology, they'd gone completely over to the liberal camp.
They had to sort of hold the congregation somehow, so they went into psychology.
That's how it began.
Now it's proliferated in such a way that psychological centres can set themselves up alongside of
the church almost and pretend to give answers.
You ever get talking to a pastor and a good pastor before men, I said, but your statement
of faith says that the Bible is sufficient in all things matter for attaining to life,
faith and practice.
Do you believe it?
This is the issue.
Now I'm not saying that you don't get some sort of techniques like all sorts of things.
When you come to psychology, which model?
You know there's about 290 different models, which model?
Which model do you integrate?
If you integrate, how far do you integrate, 40-50, or 40-60, 30-70, 50-50?
Which do you integrate?
You have the integrations to say, well this is the challenge, but you see here the Bible
brings us back to purification, the Word of God, to people living in a diabolical circumstances.
Great testing and that Peter reminds you that they've been born again.
He describes the believer's inheritance as living and enduring.
He goes on to support this exhortation.
You know this patient here, he gives all flesh as is grass, he goes back to Psalm 40, I think
it is, 40 and 8, 6 and 8, 6 through to 8.
All flesh as is grass.
It shows us the shortness of life and the brevity of time and all the glory of man.
This is the flower of grass.
Remember the old hymn that I learnt years ago, men sing aloud the praise of men, the
creature of a day, whose little life is as a span, whose glory fades away.
He reminds us, the grass withers, the flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures
forever.
And this is the challenge I'm on.
All that is born of perishable seed will perish, will fall, but God's good Word stands forever.
It stands secure.
Do you believe that?
When the Bible issues invitation, come unto me all you that are weary and heavy laden
and I will give you rest.
Do you believe that?
Is that a promise of the Lord or is it not?
Will it fall to the ground?
The Bible says none of his words will fall to the ground.
And that is not to say that you and I will not pass through trials and testings.
You and I will not suffer the things that are common to man.
I'll never forget once, seven years ago, I haven't shared this much, but seven years
ago I was at death's door, I nearly died, I nearly died.
The greatest strength and comfort that I found was when I asked people to come, when I asked
the elders to come and pray, I said, Lord, whatever you want to do with me, if you want
to take me now, you take me, but if you want to preserve me, preserve me so I can preach
the Gospel.
And I prayed.
As your years are social, your strength be, was the promise that God had given me.
I believe that.
And as the elders come and prayed, it was incredible.
I couldn't walk from here to there.
I couldn't bathe myself.
I was totally burnt out.
The left side of my heart was enlarged.
The thing I had to hang on to was God's Word.
God's Word is what we're invited to hang on to.
God in His mercy raises to health and strength again.
Oh, there's some scar tissues, but that's all.
You see, do we believe this?
I mean, I had one guy coming to me and telling me about, well, give away the work now, you
know, you're burnt out and this and that.
I said, I'm going to trust the Lord.
Do you believe this?
I believe God's Word is true.
That the Word of God stands forever, this imperishable Word.
Was the content of Peter's preaching.
It was the burden in the midst of terrible stress, terrible strain, terrible persecution.
The people of God were dispersed.
And this is the hope that he brings to the people of God, born again, not of an incorruptible
seed.
I want to take, ask the time this morning, have you truly been born again?
I want to ask you this morning, is this where your hope is anchored?
Or the tragedy will be that if I was to preach here for three months and that you go into
a Christless eternity without me asking you and telling you about the fact that you need
to be born again.
Have you ever clothed with Christ, this great invitation that has been offered by God in
all His great grace and mercy?
My friend, you've got to be like grass, you'll perish, it'll be heard no more.
You can slip from a time to eternity and a Christless eternity if you haven't been born
again.
You see the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword.
He knows your sin, He knows your life and can divide bone and marrow.
But God's Word will never fall to the ground.
You see, if I've got to call this message anything, it's a call to a new identity.
If they're born again, Peter, once he hears that they must be affected by it, a life-changing
power, as seen in 1 Peter 1 through to 3, 2 Peter verse 1 through to 3, there must be
a life-changing power.
God has reached out in His mercy, infected the regeneration.
This is an enduring act of His, His salvation has been offered.
I want to say, dear child of God, then should we return and wallow in a corrupt life, a
sinful life?
You see, God is working at a work of grace in our lives and is changing it.
We having been born again as it's already been discussed, which is now the Word which
was preached by the Gospel, we have this invitation.
The one thing that Peter is concerned about is this laying aside of those things that
so easily beset us.
You see, Peter takes them back to conversion so that they are reminded of when they repented
from and renounced the old way of life and were baptised into a new way of life.
This is the issues here.
In early Cyril or something like Alexander, I think I remember, I think it was one of
them, early writers in church history, gave an illustration of how serious the early church
took this, that when they went through the waters of baptism, they took off their clothes,
laid the old clothes aside, went through the water of the baptism and put on new clothes
at the other side of the baptism.
That's literally what it means here in the language, lay aside.
The old garments of this life no longer wallow and Peter looks at this and points their conversion,
finds them and points them to new birth, refers them to this loft as this laying aside.
Believers, dear child of God, this is the challenge for you and for me.
I come to these passages, I look to these passages and think of my own life and think
of our own life, look at the church, look at the life in the church.
We've got to get rid of the old vices of the old way of life.
This is what it means.
What are the old vices?
All malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speak.
See, this is the challenge.
When there's an inward change, that change must be worked out in a moral revolution which
all genuine, personal Christianity originates.
We can no longer carry on with the old vices or the old way of life.
Remember we said, we lay aside a garment.
We understand clearly that a Christian is not to murder and he's not to steal, they're
the big things.
In fact, Paul gives the list of the vices that are in the common ancient world.
We can look at a few of them but we won't look at all of them.
Look at Mark's Gospel, chapter 7.
That's the first one in the Gospel.
I'll refer to one of the Gospels, one in Epistles.
And the Lord is speaking here.
Verse 20, what comes out of a man that defiles a man?
For from within, out of the heart of man, precedes evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication,
murderers, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness.
All these evil things come from within and defiles a man.
The Lord was taking this, where was he laying this out?
He was showing and illustrating, was he not, the religious people of the day of the terrible
corruption.
Remember the religious people of the day would wash the cup, would concentrate on those issues.
Paul and Romans 1, 29.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
people of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, they were whisperers, backbiters, haters of
God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning,
untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God,
that those who practice such things are deserving of death and not only do the same but also
approve those who practice them.
Now we look back and march off with the religiousness and we look back into the world here.
Look back into the world and we'll see the tragedy.
I think we look at Galatians 5, 1 over in Galatians 5, 19 and 20.
There's a whole list that we could...
These are just for the purpose of reminding us.
Chapter 5 verse 19,
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, adultery, sorcery, hatred, contentiousness,
jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness,
revilers and the like which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in times past that those
who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
You see now we come over to Peter's epistle and he's concerned for community.
He's concerned for the life and the growth and the development of that community in relationships
and this is where I've got to admit we look at these things and are reminded that these
are in all of our hearts.
This is in all of our hearts.
Likely said to remind the Christians here in the dispersion, the same is in all of our hearts.
And then we forget reading some years ago, two great Christian leaders in the past, I
wouldn't agree with their theology but they were popular speakers in the past, F.B. Meyer
was the older man of the two and Campbell Morgan.
F.B. Meyer had reached his pinnacle and he was doing all the preaching rounds and very
popular and the younger Campbell Morgan, I think it was that way, come up and he was
starting to get more preaching and F.B. Meyer had to admit one time at the great Keswick
Convention that he was envious and jealous that God was losing popularity, he was using
popularity.
You see it creeps into all of our hearts and they're very common amongst all of us.
These five things that we're warned about, criticism behind others' backs.
If one Christian gets a higher post than successful for endeavors, Satan uses these things.
You see Peter had to remind the community here that these are the things, these five
things are the things that destroy community and dear child of God, they destroy fellowships
and I have seen them destroy fellowships and you have seen them destroy fellowships and
we need to be reminded and be warned.
It's a bit like my grandmother had a great, she used to love giving out cod lib royal,
I used to hate the stuff, the biggest spoon you can get in the kitchen, what's the biggest
tablespoon?
She'd pull this stuff out and glug out on the spoon and smell fish and I'd spend most
of his time in the bend of my throat and somehow it meant for me to be good, I could never
see the goodness in it actually.
Then I had an uncle, he decided that molasses was good for you too, he went on a health
check and he dished me up one of those big spoons of molasses and that spent most of
his time going up and down my neck.
You see sometimes when we're confronted with these issues we need to be reminded that the
enemy can come in and these are the things that destroy fellowships and tear them apart.
There are five things and these sins are the hidden in our heart, the heart is deceitful
Jeremiah says and above all things desperately wicked, who can know it?
And jealousies can creep in, actions can move in from personalities.
You know as I look through the history, as I looked back years ago when I did the roots
of the brethren movement, the issues that split the brethren movement were no great
theological issues, like personalities that tear the church apart.
Hiddenness, often Christians are not even aware they're committing these things and
we need to be reminded and this is what Peter is doing here, he reminds us.
The basis of all of this is pride and selfishness and self-love, self-promotion.
You see it's God alone that fully understands your heart, it's God alone that can minister
to us.
Psalm 90 and verse 8 says, you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in
the light of your countenance.
Dear child of God we need to be reminded that there's nothing hid from the all-knowing,
all-seeing eye of God and we need to be reminded constantly of the things that divert us, that
take our attention away.
And some things we do might be well-meaning and well, have real, real meaning behind it.
Tell you one of the interesting times, one of the times that when I was telling you about
when I was very, very ill and a man used to come and visit us, he'd come in and he'd spend
20 minutes giving me the declensions of all the Greek that he preached in the previous
Sunday service and Elizabeth used to stand at the door and she'd be sitting there going,
let him go, he means well, you know.
He meant well, meant well but accomplished nothing.
And sometimes it's just like some of the foibles that happen within the church, they meant
well, they accomplished nothing.
Salvation is the present possession of the child of God as well as their future goal,
who is kept by the power of God, ready to be revealed in the last times.
You see, before we get onto this whole, the end of our, receiving the end of our faith,
the salvation of ourselves, when we come back to this, you know, Peter gives this,
lays these five things out, we're to desire, desire the word.
What does he say here?
Like newborn babe, desire the pure milk.
I don't know whether any of you realise this, that all the milk that you buy in the shops
today is not pure.
You realise that?
This is my shaggy thought, when all the big dairies developed, they got the milk, they
extract all the by-products out of, if you ever stop and think all the by-products out
of milk, and they reconstitute it.
So you've got slim milk and you've got all the different sorts of milk and you can get
some that have got extra cream in them.
All the milk that goes through the dairies, all the by-products you take out of them are
reconstituted and then they sell it to you and pack it, it's all nicely packed and you
think you're getting pure milk, it's not.
How do you realise it all?
But here is pure milk of the word.
There's no extraction out of this.
Desire, purity of the word, the word of the living God.
You see he goes on, this word that has been born again, not of crap, desire that was his
pure word, spiritual.
This is the challenge.
You see this is not just another matter of a home Bible group, it's not just a matter
of going to another Bible discussion or personal studies, all these things are important or
going to church or to Sunday school or even to Bible college.
I don't know whether you realise it but there is a number of people that go to Bible colleges
that drop out and never do anything after they've been through Bible college and it's
a tragedy.
Some that went through college with me and nowhere to name with the Lord, so hard to
explain.
In fact when you're going through training at Bible college one of the things you've
got to be very careful of is you spiritually feed your soul otherwise you can come out
of it parched and you think you're in a glasshouse environment hearing all these great
teachings but it's not even that.
It's the opposite from fleshly cravings.
It's the desire for the word of God in my life.
You know what the cravings are like when you get up in the middle of the line, oh boy
I just like a bit of tasty cheese on a bit of toast, giving some of my own cravings away
so you know that desire.
We open the fridge and the meal is halfway proof of being prepared.
Oh, we're to desire the pure spiritual milk in the same way.
We've come to new birth, a living word which abides.
How's our spiritual desire?
Do we long to grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord?
You see grace without knowledge, knowledge on its own, what does it do?
See the Liberals write as many Bible commentaries as anybody else, they translate the Bible,
they've got knowledge.
The desire, pure spiritual milk refers to the very thing that nourishes the Christian
and the fellowship into growth.
You see we've heard a lot of, this is another thing that came out of America, United Methodist
Church again, church growth stuff and these things have been helpful because counseling
has reminded us that we've been faulty on our partial care and church growth, we haven't
really worked out what it is to grow.
But the true growth, growing in grace and in knowledge of the Lord, it is the desire
to know more of Jesus, to desire and know more of Him, more of Jesus would I know, more
of His grace and mercy know.
You know that's the desire, responding, knowing God, in prayer and instruction, in the gospel,
faith for your obedience to hearing the word of God preached.
The desire of spiritual nourishment should be the desire of every church that wants to
know the Lord and do His will, that's the desire, that's the desire.
And this desire accompanies a learning of ridding yourselves of all vices, it's the
putting off these vices that so easily pull us down.
That malice, it's the destroyers of fellowship, maliciousness, cunningness, treacherous.
What destroyed Israel was grumblings, discontention, bitterness.
What happened in Miriam and Aaron with Moses' leadership?
They challenged it and God dealt with it, they brought out, come out in leprosy,
they grumbled when God felt them, they longed for the leeks and the onions and the melons of Egypt.
Just imagine a good feed of leeks and onions and melons, you know, mostly water.
You see the inner problem is the heart,
deceit, insincerity and hypocrisy being faced both ways.
You see, dear child of God, we need to work through that.
In a church life, if you look into the history of Israel, when it was divided it never received
blessing. So it is with a church, when it's divided with grumblings and disputes, with
bitterness, angry, deceit, insincerity, you surely must have been in a situation where you felt the
brother is taking a hand, oh that's right, and he's working his best behind you to cut your leeks
from under you. Ulterior motives. Anything that is less than being fully and honestly and truthful
in the heart. These are the things that pours apart truth. You know, yes we need to now like
earnestly contend for the truth. The Jew tells us that. But to be contentious at every point,
these are the warnings. Now Paul says, our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness,
nor was it in deceit. 1 Thessalonians 2-3. See the purity of heart, these are the exhortations.
So should be the Christian humility. You know, he said we have not renounced the hidden things
of shame nor walking in craftiness or handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation
of the truth. He says, 2 Corinthians 4-3, the desire that we might see ourselves in every means,
commend ourselves before God.
Insincerity is a pretence, a type of pretence or deception or inconsistency of doctrine and
practice. He said we can have very fine about doctrine, but when we get over to the practice
side of it, never demonstrating any of it. We can know all about the doctrine.
No? Have all knowledge, have not love, a sounding gong and a cymbal. We know all about the truth
of grace, we know about all fine doctrine. One of the things I learned off a dear brother that had
some of the older folks might remember him, he's home with the Lord now, Mr W R McEwen.
He's in the ministry for 50, 60 years in Melbourne. I said to him today, Mr McEwen,
he's 84, and I said, oh, talk to me. I said, what would you do differently now that you're
at the end of your life? Mr McEwen was very good at Reformed teaching. He said, you know,
he said, no, he said, a little Irishman, he stood about 5 foot 2 or something. He said,
one of the things I've learned, he said, is I used to be very defensive of the truth, he said.
He said, I'd take my pen out and I was very good at the pen. He said, I'd take my brother
and a part. And he made reference to a particular brother. When he finally met him, he said,
you know what nerve he said? I discovered he loved the Lord. And I thought if that was any,
anything an old preacher could pass on a younger person would be that. We need to be very careful
that we're on a journey. We're all on a journey. Love the Lord. God is at work in all of our
hearts, not our lives. Well, the Lord constantly warned us of the hypocrisy or the leaven of the
Pharisees. This is hypocrisy. The Pharisees were known for what? Their legalism. They could tie
the mint in the cumin. I want to tell you dear child of God, legalism tears the heart and soul
case out of the warmth of a fellowship. By this you know that you're my disciples, but of course
you have love one for another. Now I'm not casting truth aside here. I'm talking about the things
that need to be talked about. Deceit is a practice of a person before the Pharisees speaks nicely to
him. Once his back is turned, he abuses him. Well how is this thought overcome? I've got to summarise
up an application then. I want to say to you, child of God, it is overcome by desiring as newborn babes.
And what marks a newborn baby? How do we come to the, how do we come to the kingdom except you become
like one of his little children? He shall not enter into the kingdom of God. It is a childlike
faith. It's not childishness, a childlike faith. As newborn babe, desire the pure milk, desire to be fed,
to be built up, that we might grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord. There's a growth into
spiritual maturity. Nourishment is to be sought in the same way that it exhibits with young people.
I was at Parramatta the other day and there's a young mother feeding a little child and she
had something wrong with her digestive system. Had a tube in through the nose and she was feeding
it tenderly through a drip feed system. I watched that mother until she'd fed her child.
I thought of this text, exhibiting youngness. That little child was taken in.
Spiritual milk is pure and unmixed. There are great things of truth of the Gospel,
great doctrines that need to be understood, need to be exercised on.
And not to be communicated with envy such as malice and deceit and hypocrisy or evil speaking.
In order for the nourishment to be pure, believers must resolve all the hindrances,
all these hindrances that would hinder grief. We're going to see growth in them, in grace.
You see, repentance is the prerequisite for receiving nourishment. Repentance.
Nourishment from the Word, growing in maturity in the Christian faith.
Dear child of God, let us conclude we must live, as Peter is saying, in the light
of our new identity. Live in the light of the truth of our baptism.
We've put off the old way of life, put on the new way of life.
Long to see and yearn for spiritual nourishment.
And it strengthens as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord.
And he concludes and pulls again from another Psalm, if indeed you've tasted.
And the Psalm says that the Lord is good. Once we've tasted the goodness of the Lord
and the mercy of the Lord, we might grow onto maturity.
In grace.