“Seeing Beyond Troubles” – “Obey the Truth, Love from the Heart” – 1 Peter 1:17-2:3

The assurance of a reward can see us through the hardest labors. Athletes train hard for the hope of gaining wins and glory. Entrepreneurs work long hours in order to reap the rewards of their labors with a successful business. As long as we know there is a reward or a reason for the things we do, we are willing to endure in order to achieve.

It is this idea that Peter continues to stress as he continues writing to the men and women of faith in trying times.

Background

Peter is a man who straddles many worlds. He was a common man, a blue collar worker, earning his living by fishing. He was a Jew, committed to the laws as Moses defined them. He was also a steadfast, loyal follower of Christ, both before and after the resurrection. In his life, Peter had experienced a lot that allowed him to write these two letters.

In the letters, we see the apostle’s worlds blending together. Repeatedly in 1 Peter, he reached back to his Jewish upbringing to help the readers of his letter to see how they now relate to God. He continues this theme in today’s passage.

Central to Peter’s letter is the gift of salvation by God through Christ. He repeated the theme throughout the letter, reminding the listeners that they can overcome circumstances by relying on the promises God has made in Christ and that He gives them through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Because God is at work in us, Peter writes, we can endure, knowing that God is using these circumstances to grow our faith.

Central Truth: We get through troubled times by embracing God’s gift of salvation.

We embrace our salvation by:

1. Placing our faith and hope in God (1:17-21)

Since you call on a Father who judges each man impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

If you’ve ever watched a Congressional hearing on a potential Supreme Court justice, you’ve probably heard questions about how that particular candidate will rule on any given issue. Inevitably, the judge will decline to answer the question. We would hope that the candidate’s timidity in answering was based upon his or her desire to remain impartial until hearing all the facts, but the reality is that each of the candidates has been vetted carefully by the president’s team, and that the candidate as only nominated because he or she answered those same questions in a way favorable to that president. It’s a sad commentary that we have judges sitting in our courts who have already made up their minds on the cases before them. That isn’t justice, and it isn’t seeking to faithfully interpret the laws of our land.

Peter understood the significance of an impartial judge. It is God’s impartiality regarding us that grounds the apostle’s point in these five verses. He wanted us to live our lives in reverent fear before God precisely because God is an impartial judge. Peter repeats the reminder that we are strangers in this earth, that our home is with the Father through the Son. The reminder of God’s impartiality is a call to us to walk in obedience to God, reverently and in awe.

The reason we do so is because God redeemed us in Christ Jesus. Our redemption was planned by God before He created our world. God as always been a redeeming God, and the message of redemption was first given to the people of Israel through the Passover lamb. Invoking this symbol, Peter referred to Jesus as a lamb without blemish or defect. Just as the angel of death passed over the homes of Israel sprinkled with the lamb’s blood, so are we granted life through Jesus’ redeeming act of crucifixion and resurrection.

The redeeming work of God through Christ is what enables us to believe in God, to have faith in God and to have hope in God. Peter wrote that we are redeemed from an empty way of living. A life without Christ has no ultimate meaning. The writer of Ecclesiastes understood this, noting that all was meaningless apart from our relationship with God. In Christ, we have faith, hope and life. We are given a purpose, and that purpose is to walk in holy obedience to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

2. Loving obedience (1:22-25)

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever.”

A question philosophers have long sought to answer is the question, “What is real?” The idealism of Plato and Socrates stated that the ideal world is what is real, and that we live in this world as a reflection of that which is ideal. Aristotle countered with only the things that can be ascertained by the senses was real. Other philosophies fall somewhere in between. In 2 Corinthians, the Bible tells us that what is eternal is what is real, that the physical world is temporary (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). What is eternal are the things of God, and we who are saved by His grace need to embrace this truth. That’s what these next few verses are telling us.

It’s interesting how often the Bible seems to indicate that you and I have the ability to earn our salvation. Taking v. 22 out of context could lead to that belief, but that belief is wrong. Salvation comes only from God through Christ, and that salvation is a rebirth into the family of God, made possible by the Holy Spirit working in us and giving us the ability to have fellowship with the Father and the Son. We find purity through our willingness to obey the Father. It is akin to preparing our minds for action and practicing self-control (cf. 1:13). Just as the ability to set our minds for action and practicing self-control comes from the power of the Spirit, so is the ability to purify ourselves.

Peter wrote that our purification comes not from our actions but from the actions of God. Our eternal life comes from the living and enduring word of God. The idea of the word of God takes on many meanings. The most significant understanding of the Word of God is Jesus (cf. John 1:1-2). Jesus is the Word, and all that we know of God comes from the inspiration of the Spirit. The same Spirit that guided the prophets guided the writers of the New Testament in writing faithfully what they had learned from Jesus. In this sense, we can also understand the Bible to be the word of God, as well. It is this idea that Peter promotes in these verses.

Our purification comes from having been born from the Word of God, and we understand the things of God as the Spirit illuminates the Scripture. This word is valid for as long as we await Jesus’ return (cf. Matthew 5:18). The word of God lasts forever because the word comes from the Word of God, who is Jesus. We are purified as we walk in obedience to what the Spirit has shown us through the Scripture and from what Christ did in the crucifixion and resurrection.

We embrace our salvation as we walk in obedience to the word of God. This is demonstrated in our obedience to Jesus’ command that we love one another. In embracing our salvation and walking in love, we grow in that love and in our ability and desire to love others, to carry out the Golden Rule.

3. Growing in our salvation (2:1-3)

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

When we first become parents, we bend over backward to make sure our child is fully protected and given every opportunity to grow up healthy. We make sure diapers are changed regularly and that the child has clean clothes to wear. We also want to make sure their food is free of harmful substances and chemicals that might hinder their growth or make them sick.

Peter had this in mind as he wrote these two verses. He listed some of the impurities that can hinder our growth. We are expected to practice the self-control of 1:13 by intentionally getting rid of the impurities. The word translated “rid” is similar to the removing of clothing. Malice is a general feeling of ill-will toward others. It is born of fear and distrust, and is the opposite of agape love. Deceit is lying and misleading others for our advantage. Hypocrisy is pretending to be one thing while being quite the opposite. Envy and slander are exactly how we understand these words. When we allow ourselves to be weighed down by these attitudes and ways of dealing with others, then we prevent ourselves from being purified by the love for others.

In getting rid of these attitudes, we instead seek to be fed the pure food of God’s word, in order that we may grow in Him and continue to walk in His ways. This word that is imperishable and has been the seed implanted in us by the Spirit through the redemptive work of Jesus by God’s will and design is what will lead us in growing deeper and stronger in our faith and our salvation.

Conclusion

Satan is a liar and a deceiver. He wants us to take our eyes off Jesus and focus on the things that are not real. That’s why he throws obstacles in our way by causing difficult circumstances and trials and tribulations in our daily walk. Peter’s letter is to a group of people that are enduring hard times.

The way to endure hard times is to keep our eyes on Jesus. By focusing on what God has done for us and in us through Jesus, we learn to endure. More importantly, we are able to grow in Him and become stronger in our faith and in our salvation.

The question we need to answer is, “Am I letting distractions drag me down, or am I learning to rid myself of distractions and seek the pure milk that comes from God?”