Motivation for Holiness

So if you want to follow along, I'm in 1 Peter 1, verse 22 to 25. I know for some people they're shocked that I'm at the end of the chapter already. I think we started slow, and here we are though. Lord willing, we will be on 1 Peter 2 next week. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass the grass withers and the flower falls but the word of the Lord remains forever and this word is the good news that was preached to you you may be seated a couple notes about listening to a sermon.

It's almost awkward to say this because I'm the one giving the sermon, but your job when you're seated in your chair listening to the sermon is to receive what's being said. You're to be actively participating in worship as hopefully the Holy Spirit is actually guiding me in what I tell you, using what He has built into me not only throughout the week of preparation, but the previous years of my ministry and my growth in Christ. And so what we hope for is that what you're actually hearing is God's Word.

Now, not in the same way that we say God's Word when we read it, or when we look at the text of God's Word, but it is considered to be a special act of God that He does through the preaching of His Word to put His Word onto the hearts of the hearers. And so Jesus said many times, let he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And so it's your job right now, it's your task to worship through listening, to be a participant in the sermon and in the worship.

At the same time, it's your job, and I want to remind you of this periodically, it's your job to also be listening very closely to find out if I'm teaching heresy. It's your job to be checking to see if I'm saying things that are not in accord with sound doctrine. and it's not necessarily meaning that you ought to be nitpicky although if you are it wouldn't bother I'm a nitpicky person so if you were nitpicky and you said I said something wrong that wouldn't bother me I'd actually be happy that you heard something and you wanted to make sure that I didn't believe the wrong thing I said but we should be people who are discerning and we should be interested in knowing what the guy who's preaching is saying because other people in the room are hearing. So even if you hear something that doesn't sound right to you, but maybe you're like, oh, well, I can handle that.

I can move past that thing. There's other people who listened to the thing that the preacher said, who may believe something that was said that was false, and then that will affect their life in an adverse way. So we should all be discerning all the time. and I say that as the person here who I would like to be corrected if there was a need I do not know all the doctrines I'm thankful I'm in 1 Peter because so far we haven't encountered any really difficult ones or any where I felt like the ones that are difficult in 1 Peter I don't feel like being wrong on them is that devastating but there's parts of the Bible where you can be devastatingly wrong to the souls of people listening and so you should be listening intent to hear from God trusting that God will work through the preacher that he's appointed to you and at the same time being on guard to protect the truth so with that being said it wouldn't bother me if immediately after the sermon you wanted to talk to me I know some guys are like give me a few minutes I love talking about this stuff I just want to leave that door open to anybody that we can discuss things and a lot of times I'll say things where I leave the supporting proofs unsaid.

And so sometimes it's just a matter of me showing you why I believe what I just said. But looking at 1 Peter, we talked a few weeks ago when Brother Andrew was here about that there was a command, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And Peter tells us that we ought to be holy in all our conduct because that is what was written, I believe, in Leviticus. and the next couple weeks we talked about how verses 17 to 21 were the outworking of what it means to be holy it was a bit of an outline of things that you can do to help you to live out the holiness that I told you the rest of 1 Peter is going to teach us so 1 Peter 2, 1 all the way through 1 Peter about 5, 10 is all these various commands and implementations of your holiness.

And this last section of 1 Peter is even more motivation to be holy, and it's more explanation of how. And so what we're going to see is that God, through Peter, is telling us more ways to be motivated to be holy, and he's reiterating some of the same things he's already said. and we're going to be motivated by Peter's splendid use of the Old Testament because Peter was he was a Jewish boy and I don't think he was a big scholar but Peter knew the scriptures well enough that he was one of the first people to recognize the Messiah when he came it wasn't the teachers, it wasn't the scribes it wasn't the lawyers and the Pharisees and the religious leaders that recognized the Messiah actually they're the ones that murdered them, right? Peter was the first one really I think that really recognized them And John the Baptist I mean there was a couple other people But Peter was the apostle that fell down and said you know stay away from me I an unholy man And so Peter knows the scripture, and so when Peter uses Old Testament scripture, we should listen, because he is also teaching us a little bit about what the Old Testament is saying.

Because Peter's led by the Holy Spirit. So 1 Peter 1, verse 22, Peter says, Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. And so there's this concept of purification. And it reminded me of 1 John 3. If you turn to 1 John 3, verses 1 through 3, John, another apostle, someone who would have been very close to Peter. If you read through the Gospel accounts, you'll see that Peter, James, and John were together on a regular basis.

And so most certainly they knew each other. They had heard the same things that Jesus taught to each other when they were together. And John says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us. That we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. so John is drawing on the same thing that Peter was just drawing on for us as our adoption there's a reminder that because you're adopted you ought to be pure and we're going to see the purity in a second but he says the reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him and this is one of the keys that you need to understand are you so united with Christ that people recognize Christ in you or that you're unrecognizable from Him?

He's saying the world doesn't know us because it didn't know Him. John and the people he's writing to were so united with Christ that they couldn't be understood by the world around them, just like Jesus wasn't understood. And so that's how we want to be. And John says, Beloved, we are God's children now. This is a huge theme in Scripture, becoming God's child.

He says, The covenant where Jesus Christ is our federal representative rather than Adam. So we're different. But at the same time, as long as you're in this body, as we just read in paragraph 6.5 of our confession, you still have this corrupt flesh that is constantly pulling against you, constantly warring against your spirit, which actually is supposed to love God.

And so we have this hope that when Jesus appears, we shall be like him. He's going to change us by the power that enables Him to make all things subject to Himself. He's going to convert your flesh from its sinful flesh to a new flesh. A new flesh that will be able to last forever without sin. And then in verse 3, John says, Everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as he is pure.

And I think this is where some of us need to dip our feet in the water a little further sometimes. We know Jesus is coming. We know He's going to do the work that's required for us to be able to go to heaven. We know He did the work for us to be justified in the first place. It was the Holy Spirit that did the work for us to even believe. God's the one that granted us the faith.

Here at Covenant Bible Church, we're monergists. That means we believe that salvation is of God. It's all for God's glory. and he's the one that performs the actions that are effectual in our salvation. But something that we miss sometimes when we talk about our monergism or our Calvinism too often is we miss the fact that men and women are required to do things.

Men and women are told to believe. If you don't believe, you don't go to heaven. It's that simple. You have to believe in Jesus Christ. You have to believe that he died for your sins, that he rose again from the grave and that he's your Lord. You have to believe.

Now, as a good Calvinist, I would say you will believe if God grants you the belief. And he's going to make that happen. But showing that in your life is something you are supposed to do. You are responsible. Human responsibility is a very real thing to Bible students. But along with being required to believe, you're required to work out your salvation with fear and trembling salvation although somewhat I want to be careful how I say it although we're passive agents when it comes to God regenerating us and granting us faith and when we're glorified it's not going to be because you went and glorified your body God has to change you but God has commanded that you work out your salvation with fear and trembling now he's promised that it will happen but you are responsible to wake up in the morning and fight sin.

You're the one who's responsible. Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. You're responsible to deny yourself. And John says, everyone who hopes in him, everyone who hopes that Jesus is really our elder brother, who when he appears, he's going to make us like him, everybody who hopes for this, who sees how discouragingly impure they are right now, everyone who hopes for this purifies himself, he says.

Because you're sitting here, it's like you know he's coming, and you know he's going to take you, no matter what. It's a great salvation it a great assurance but there is some part of you that like I want to be as cleaned up as I can when he gets here Not so he love me not so he take me not in order to earn love or affection from him but I'd rather him have less to fix in me than anybody else. That's fine.

I'd rather have fought my sin here. I'd rather have enjoyed purity here in this world. They say if you don't enjoy holiness and purity here, you're not going to like it in heaven. What it means is you're not going to heaven if you don't like holiness and purity here. If you like sin and filth, you'll hate heaven. You're going to hate hell too, so better to just repent.

Let God change you into someone who loves heaven. But so, purify yourself as he is pure. And so Peter says the same thing, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. So we purify ourselves by obeying the truth. what did Spurgeon say Spurgeon said some of you have enough dust on your Bible that you can write damned with your fingertip on it the reason some of you aren't pure is because you don't even read the truth you not only have to read it you have to read it and then understand it and then you have to try to work it out so if you're not even picking it up and reading it in the first place how are you going to know it?

How are you going to be purified by truth if you refuse to even let it come into your mind? So your obedience to the truth is what Peter is lauding here. But then Peter shifts gears, I'll say, a little bit. So you've purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. You're not going to be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. And Peter says, for a sincere brotherly love.

So having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. So we have this idea of purity and love. And Peter is now getting into the weeds, I'll say, a little bit with Christians. And what has to happen is we have to understand, why would Peter have to tell people to love one another?

Is it because everyone's probably already doing it all the time? God tells us some things that aren't as hard for us maybe but I think one of the reasons we're commanded to love one another so often in the scripture is that we're unlovable and we're unloving so you take unlovable person A and then you take unloving person B even regenerated corrupt nature in person B makes it hard for them to love others corrupt nature in person A makes them hard to love and you've got a recipe for just heads hitting each other but Peter's going to tell us later to have tender hearts and brotherly love and sympathy and so we need to love one another and loving one another is how we act out our holiness a lot of people like to think that love and holiness are these completely separate concepts but with God it's one thing God is holy and God is love there are the two attributes of God that I can think of off the top of my head at least where it actually says God is and it's just like that's the noun it's not describing him God is merciful and gracious those are adjectives God is love, God is holy and these are things that are absolutely true about him love and holiness go together so you want to purify your hearts by your obedience to the truth love one another because one of the ways you're going to grow in your Christian faith one of the ways that you're going to learn how to be obedient children not conform to the passions of your former ignorance one of the ways that you're going to keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable is by having a pure heart that loves especially other Christians now we're supposed to love everybody but just to prove it to you here if you turn to Galatians got to finish my intro here sorry but in Galatians 6 Paul says so then as we have opportunity in verse 10 6 10 he says let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith and so there is a special love that we are to have for God's church and God's people and so we need to work on that and how do we do that and now it's where I think the following verses are here to help we're told to love one another from a pure heart and then Peter tells us since you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God so here it is you're unloving by nature because of your sin that you've inherited from our forefather Adam other people around you are going to completely fail you they're going to sin against you sometimes on purpose, sometimes unknowingly or they're just going to do things that aren't sin but just bother you, it's just part of life not all of us are the same, we don't all think the same way and so in order to love people we have to have some motivation to do that if I just told you love people and then tomorrow you die that's kind of weird actually. It's one of the reasons why our country is so backwards right now because we're being told by people that we're supposed to somehow love but then they don't have any definition that's helpful and they really don't have any future hope to base any of that love on.

But Peter tells us that you have been born again and that because you're born again you're to love people with a pure heart. and you were born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable so what does that mean? well a seed is the little thing that begins life right if you planting a garden if you planting a tree or in the Greek this is a word that we would use to describe when humans get together, they have a seed that goes and makes the baby. And it's a Greek word, sperma. And so what Peter's saying is that we're not born of perishable seed, but of imperishable.

So why? Why does that matter? It's because what's happened to you is not temporary. That's the whole point. You're going to be in this land in exile. You're going to be in a difficult place.

You're going to be around people who are difficult to love. You're going to be afflicted on all sides. You're going to be not known by the world, as John just told us. And you're going to have difficulty, and it's going to be hard. And the only motivation that you have to get up and love people who don't even deserve to be loved in the first place, ultimately the only power to do that is because you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable.

Because your born-again-ness will last forever. Your soul's been redeemed. Your body's going to be redeemed one day. But you've been made new already. And so you have this living hope that Peter talked about earlier. You have this living hope that you will one day go to heaven. and because one day you're going to go to heaven and be released from the afflictions and difficulties of this world Peter's saying you can do the things that I'm telling you to do you can love people who aren't worth loving the other reason is you've been given the seed by the Holy Spirit and it's the Holy Spirit who's commanding you to love it's the Holy Spirit who ultimately offered 1 Corinthians 13 where he tells you what love is so if you ever want to see if you had a good day with sin you can look at the ten commandments and you can see well did I violate this one that one or the other one and those are good ones to do and most of us I think as we mature start to be pretty good at just not lying and some of these basic outward we'll say conspicuous sins right the things that people see but read 1 Corinthians 13 love is patient and kind Love does not envy or boast.

It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Now ask yourself, instead of just, did I not dishonor my parents today? Did I not steal today?

I didn't commit adultery today. I didn't murder anybody today. Ask yourself if you fulfilled all that law of love though. that Paul told us about. And then ask yourself if you did it with the people that are hardest to do it with. Jesus said even the Gentiles love those who love them. That's easy.

I don't want to add to the Bible, but I can almost see Jesus laughing about it. Even tax collectors love the people who love them. You know what I mean? I mean, you're doing nothing special when you love people who can give you something back, when you love people who are giving back to you in the moment. You're doing nothing at all glorifying to God. When you love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.

Now you're living like a Christian. Now you're living like a person who's not being conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, and you're keeping your conduct holy among the Gentiles. Pure hearts are important. Spurgeon said, the true test of any action lies in its motive. it is not enough to do the correct thing it must be done in a right spirit and with a pure motive a good action is not wholly good unless it be done for the glory of God and because of the greatness and goodness of his holy name so while you're striving to love one another earnestly from a pure heart, remember the pure heart part because everybody honestly most of the world is good at just being good outwardly there's a huge small percentage of people that are just completely savage even some of the people we see in America right now that I would probably call savage most of them I'd still sit down and have lunch with these aren't people who I'm afraid are going to cannibalize me within 15 minutes but God looks at your heart and when you're serving your employer, when you're honoring your parents, when you're loving your spouse, when you're submitting to your husband or loving your wife, when you're doing the things that you're supposed to do in the church, when you're doing things at school, when you're doing things at work, when you're in your community, when you're helping at a food pantry, when you're going to a mission, whatever it is you're doing, you should be suspicious of your own heart you should be asking yourself am I really doing this with pure motives for God's glory and because he wants me to do it or am I somehow getting something out of it for myself there's nothing wrong with necessarily getting something for yourself like I go to work to get paid I'm not saying it's wrong that you might get something but you have to look at your motives do I really love people do I want to help people you know you can stand on a street corner and preach the gospel and you can hate people you can hand out tracts and not really care if the person gets saved you can preach in a church and you can just be a complete pagan you can sing all the words to all the songs today and go to hell because God sees the heart and your purity of heart should be a concern for you because it's his concern so Peter quotes Isaiah 40 a really great chapter of the Bible what did the Hebrews writer say time does not permit going into great detail about these things right now.

But if you look at Isaiah 40, especially some of you kids might think this is neat, if you read from verse 9 or so down to the end, what you'll see is that the people who wrote that song, Behold Our God, you know that song we sing? They used this chapter to write most of those lyrics to that song. And you'll see that that's where they got those words from.

But Isaiah 40, I want you to turn to verse 3 first. Because I want you to see the context here. So when a New Testament author quotes the Old Testament, and they only pull out a sentence or two, I want you to always think to yourself, I should go read the surrounding context of that. The New Testament is shedding light sometimes on what was said. In verse 3, this is Isaiah writing, he says, A voice cries, In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Does anybody know who fulfilled that scripture? Go ahead, tell me. John the Baptist, right? Good lesson. It's not John the Presbyterian, is it?

No, John the Baptist, right? Yep. Is it good enough for Jesus' cousin to be a Baptist? Is it good enough for us, right? But in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. So John the Baptist is the forerunner Isaiah predicts will come.

Good job, by the way, Mary. He's the forerunner who's going to come and make the way. He's going to lead the way for the Messiah to come. He says, every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.

I'm going to tell you right now, the glory of Yahweh is Jesus Christ. That's who is revealed, an all flesh psalm. but then listen he says a voice says cry and I said what shall I cry all flesh is grass and all its beauty is like the flower of the field the grass withers the flower fades when the breath of Yahweh blows on it surely the people are grass the grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God will stand forever so Peter is drawing our attention to this text. And Peter is telling us, purify yourselves.

Love one another earnestly because you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. And now he's letting us know why. Why we can do this thing that he commanded. It's because God's word will stand forever. Because when the The Lord decides to blow His breath on you, and you're no more than grass, and you perish in your flesh. When your flesh faints and fails, God's Word will stand forever.

The power is in God's Word. When you try to obey the truth that God has given you in His Word, no matter how much it costs you, no matter how painful it is, no matter how difficult it is, God's Word is what stands forever. that's where the power is. And so when you wake up in the morning, Christian, and you have a battle with sin to face, I know some of you aren't engaging in the battle.

I should address that momentarily. If you're not engaging in the battle, you have no hope that Christ will deliver you. I'm not here to make everyone feel bad or anything like that, but if you're not in the war, you're not going to be on the victor's side when Christ comes and ends the war. You have to be in a daily battle with your sin. And if you're not, you should ask yourself, well, why?

Why is that not a priority to me? Because I don't think I'm too bad of a sinner? You don't think you're too bad of a sinner because you don't read the Bible enough. You don't study God enough and how holy He is. Or is it because you just don't care that much? If you don't care that much, why?

Why is your sin not a big deal to you? If your sin crucified Christ, who you're supposed to love, why doesn't it bother you every time you sin? But if you are waking up in the morning, and every day you're battling your sin, and there's a part of you that hates it, and you give in sometimes, and you fall, and I understand that. And we're all in our corrupt flesh, and it's difficult.

But you're repenting, and you're struggling, and it's hard. And there's times that are harder than others. There's days that are harder than others. There's weeks that are harder than others. Your hope is that it's God whose word stands forever. He's the one who is one day going to deliver you from this body of death, and He's going to redeem you and give you a new body.

And all the deeds that you did in this body, you're not going to really regret things, I think, in heaven in that sense, because we're going to be made new. But you should regret them now. You should want to be different now. You should want to be preparing yourself for Him. God said even you shall faint and be weary I at the end of Isaiah 40 And young men shall fall exhausted He says but they who wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength He going to give you strength They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So this is your hope. You can love one another earnestly from a pure heart. You can do that because God's word stands forever. Because instead of focusing on your temporary flesh, because instead of focusing on the weakness that you have, you focus on God's strength that will last forever.

So when it's difficult to stand up against a world that is anti-Christian, you remember that this world will pass away, but God's word will not pass away. when somebody threatens to even torture you or hurt you or even do things to your family members instead you remember that this world will pass away but God's word will not pass away self-preservation is sometimes very wicked we are to do wise things we aren't to be foolish and test the Lord but there are times that we are called to obey God and we think, well, it really wouldn't be prudent at this time to maybe do something that would cost me my job, for example. What would my family do if I lost my job, right? They need my income.

Does God need your income to feed your family? If God told you to do something, I'm not talking about weird, I heard from God things in the middle of the night, so you're supposed to go to Myanmar tomorrow and abandon your family. I'm not talking about crazy stuff. I'm talking about if the Word of God commands you to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, and you're in a situation where taking a stand for God might cost you, you can count the cost.

But you are supposed to be able to obey God and trust Him with the results. God can take care of your family if you perish. God can take care of your kids, your wife this idea that you're so needed here is part of our problem this church will survive if any one of us is gone tomorrow if the Lord wills if the Lord doesn't will all the work we put in will be in vain anyway so we obey God and we try to do the things He's told us to do because we trust Him turn to Psalm 90, this is what God wants us to know when we're looking at 1 Peter 1, turn to Psalm 90, verse 9.

I think God wants us to number our days, and I think that's part of what He's reminding us in 1 Peter. I know it talks about love, and it talks about the word of the Lord lasting forever, and I think the focus is the word of God lasting forever. But without the contrast to your certain death, and the certain weakness of your flesh it's almost irrelevant God's word enduring forever shines brighter against the backdrop of your mortality he says in verse 9 this is Moses if anyone ever asked you who wrote Psalms you can just toss Moses out I think you wrote one for all our days pass away under your wrath we bring our years to an end like a sigh.

It's that quick. Some of you kids that can't wait to be older and get to do things, you can ask Nick how fun it is turning 18. Nothing special happened to him. It wasn't as cool as when I was 18, I guess. But all the things that we look forward to, that we think we're waiting forever for, they're not real. They don't take forever.

It'll be over before you know it. Like a sigh. And Moses says, the years of our life are 70. Or even by reason of strength, 80. So the average life is going to be maybe 70 years. Maybe if you work out, eat right, and get a little, I don't want to say lucky, but providentially fortunate, you might get 80 years out of life.

That's a long life, 80 years. He says, yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away. See, even if you could live 70 or 80 years, who would want to? It's just toil and trouble. One of the saddest things to see right now is thanks to modern medicine, we have people living to crazy old ages.

And at crazy old ages, people are starting to get way more weird, painful, uncomfortable stuff now. Because their bodies are weak still. They're able to live longer, but now they're suffering some people even more. So it's toil and trouble. They're soon gone and we fly away. So there's this sense that life is a vapor.

Life is short. Don put too much emphasis on it I guess So in 12 so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom Number your days so you may get a heart of wisdom. Number them. Right? Number your days. I can't number eternity.

I want you to see the contrast. Everyone in here could sit down right, well, maybe after the service, hopefully. You could sit down, you could set a date. This is a date I think I'll die. and you can make yourself as old as you possibly want to make yourself when you're going to die. You could decide you want to live a thousand years and you could number the days.

But you're going to go on for eternity and you can't number that. And your eternity is going to be spent languishing with Jesus Christ. And how much more ought we be willing to suffer here if it means a little better time in eternity. Number your days. A day, what is Psalm 84? Verse 10, Psalmist said, For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

One day with God is better than a thousand elsewhere. and we're going to get eternity with God. How can you compare any temporary pleasure that you think you might get from sin from the eternity that you're going to get to spend because Jesus Christ willingly paid the penalty for that sin? Oh, please don't jump into sin. Presumption is as iniquity and idolatry, according to Samuel. a day with God is better than a thousand elsewhere so number your days think through what you're doing the analogy I thought of was God said that the glory of grass or man's glory is like the flower of grass and I thought about this it might not be a perfect analogy but we give people flowers, right? men are supposed to give wives flowers or whatever you give them a flower because it's pretty I'm not going to give you a pile of grass I give you a flower and I thought if I had the prettiest flower in the whole world and it was brought into my house and the flower could talk so now it's getting a little weird this is why you're supposed to stick to scripture but anyway the flower could talk and the flower said to me hey, I want you to repaint the walls of this room to make me shine a little brighter, right?

Make it match a little better. Maybe bring out the natural colors in this flower better if I change the colors of the room. I wouldn't even think about it. I mean, the flower's going to die in, what, four days? You know what I'm saying? This thing isn't going to last at all.

My walls are going to last longer than this flower, no matter how beautiful it is. in a few days this flower is going to be withered up and dead the prettiest actress in the world 100 years ago is dead now the prettiest one from 40 years ago we wouldn't look at twice now the greatest athletes that ever lived that held records 100 years ago, most of those records are broken Nick and I were talking about one that recently fell from Jesse Owens that's amazing, a record that's almost 90 years old records break quick I watched a video the other day of Bo Jackson I'll say the greatest athlete who ever lived most of you are looking at me funny, you've never heard of him because his glories are relevant he had real glory this wasn't a guy who was just kind of a joke this was the greatest athlete he deserved the praise and the honor he was getting for what he was doing and it still was temporary he couldn't beat Nick in a foot race right now none of us couldn't hear those so we'll give them some credit but the point is that our glory in this world fades and people in this, none of us are really that special none of us were in any movies none of us are models or athletes we're just normal people and yet we like to think we have this glory we glorify ourselves but God has given you a way that you can focus on an even greater glory His glory and you can be all by yourself in a prayer closet praying your heart out every day for a little church that wants to survive for children that you want to see get saved for a community that you want to see come to Jesus Christ and start to do righteous things for your loved ones that you want to see come to Jesus Christ you can do that all by yourself Nobody sees you. Nobody gives you a pat on the back. Nobody gives you credit.

Nobody tells you good job, great prayer, good preaching, great answer. And you can know that that's being done for God's glory. And it's going to last for eternity. Because you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. And God will not forget your labor of love that you do for Him and for His people. Colossians the writer of Colossians Paul tells us to set our mind on things above us In verse chapter 3 And when you put your mind on things above us, or things that are above us, you have to understand what the end result is, the end goal here. in verse 5 of chapter 3 Paul says put to death therefore what is earthly in you sexual immorality impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry on account of these the wrath of God is coming he basically just said don't sin right he says later put away anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk in verse 8 in verse 9 he says do not lie to one another in verse 12 he says, Put on then, as God's chosen ones, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

He basically tells us, don't do all the bad things and do all the good things. But what did he start it with? He said, set your minds on things that are above. When you are thinking about the eternal consequences of your work, you will make choices that are more aligned with what God has told us are the right choices to do. not only for this world, but for the future.

I'm not saying be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. I'm not going there. But I'm saying that you have power from the Holy Spirit to fight your sin, to fight the flesh, to do battle with the rulers and authorities and principles and powers over this present darkness, to combat a wicked culture, to be peculiar and set apart in a world that hates Jesus Christ and all those who identify with him truly.

And you'll know the difference because you'll see the people the world loves. Be afraid when everyone speaks well of you, Jesus said. It's not a good sign. If they hated the master, they'll hate the servants. so you have the power and the strength by the spirit of God to purify yourselves as he is pure to love one another earnestly especially those of the household of God because you've been born again of an imperishable seed because God's word will last forever Peter said and Isaiah said you can rely on it even when things are difficult I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow I said Lord willing I'll be on 1 Peter 2 next week maybe I'll be preaching 1 Peter 2 from a prison I don't know maybe someone else will have to preach because I'm with Jesus that would be far better so Paul said I believe God's word being with Jesus is far better than anything here the last little phrase is kind of sweet I think in this chapter and this word is the good news that was preached to you.

When you hear the word good news, you should think of gospel. You should think of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news that although we are sinners and that we were condemned in Adam for our transgression, that Jesus Christ came and he lived and he fulfilled all righteousness and that he went to the cross willingly, suffering the justice of God that was deserved by sinners because he wasn't one. and it says for he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him so instead of the imputed sin of Adam credited to your account and accounted to you Jesus took your sin on the cross and he imputes he credits you with his righteousness so when God looks at you he doesn't look at you as somebody who just never sinned He looks at you as somebody who lived the perfectly righteous life of the Son of God, who not only never sinned, but always did what was good and right from a pure heart.

So rest in that fact and go forward and try to live a life that honors that. And if you haven't believed that yet, today's the day. Don't harden your heart. Every time you hear the truth of the gospel and you do not believe it, there's a hardening that should scare you you should flee to Jesus Christ don't wait Father in heaven thank you for your word thank you that you have granted us the enduring word that lasts forever we pray today for your forgiveness for all of the times that we have violated your holy precepts the truths that you've given us to help us we thank you that that forgiveness is received through Jesus Christ who died on behalf of all those who believe in him we pray your blessing on the rest of this service thank you for meeting with us through the preaching and through the word we pray that you would continue to be close to us as we worship you at the Lord's table Amen