Holy Kisses

1 Peter 5, 10-14 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God.

Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. You may be seated. So we're in the very last chapter of the book of 1 Peter, and we're in the very last section of verses.

And so if this is your first time here, it's like walking into the last five minutes of a movie. You might miss a little of the context, so forgive me if there's things that I overlook that I know we've talked about before. But I'm just really excited to talk about kissing tonight. and I was just waiting I was kind of looking at some of the young people to see how they'd react when I said that but that is part of this section and so we want to take a look at this section and one of the things that's interesting about what Peter says in this section is that he gives us a bit of a clue I think as to how we should read scripture and I don't know if when he wrote it if that was his point, was trying to teach people how, but I can definitely gather it from there in verse 12.

But let's start with verse 10, and we'll just continue to go verse by verse. Also, this is another call to you. If anyone here is itching to try to help decide what the next book will be that we go through, like you're getting up to the deadline where it's going to be selected without you, my plan is next week we will do an overview of 1 Peter so it's going to be kind of a review and we'll highlight some of the things that maybe we've forgotten and just tie it all together and then I may go through some of the psalms that we sing including Psalm 51 which should be 3 or 4 weeks at least so we may have a few weeks as I would be preparing for the next book that we would do but here in verse 10 Peter starts out by saying and after you have suffered a little while and he gives us the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ we'll do some things so you have the action verbs at the very end of the sentence and we'll get to those but what we have to remember is the context of 1 Peter the context that Peter has provided for us is that this is a church that's going to live in the midst of suffering they're going to be considered strangers in a strange land citizens of heaven who are residing elsewhere and while they're in this exile if you will they're going to have suffering it's actually a promise that they will suffer that there will be difficulties and trials and tribulations.

And after going through this entire ordeal, explaining to them how to live through suffering, what to think and then what to do as the result of the thinking, he gets to the middle of chapter 5 and he starts telling them about the devil being like a roaring lion and seeking to devour Christians. And then he tells them, after you've suffered a little while, and some people might think okay what's a little while mean right that's subjective you know anybody in here that's ever been in intense pain I see about 17 kids at least 17 instances of intense pain people in here have gone through right it is interesting I think for some of you ladies to look back and realize you don't remember the pain that vividly anymore. And for even men who've been through different kinds of suffering, that after it's gone, it does seem like, well, it wasn't that bad.

And so how do you measure a little while? Is 40 years a little while? Is just 8 hours a little while? For some of us, eight hours is a long time at work, I think. Or if you're sitting in a car traveling cross-country with kids, maybe that's a long time. But so, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 8, and I want to remind you of what the Apostle Paul told us about our momentary affliction that we will face in this world.

Romans chapter 8, Paul says in verse 18, He says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. When Peter says you're going to suffer for a little while, he's not being tongue in cheek or mocking them. He's not trying to paint a picture different than what it really is. I think Peter has in mind the eternal dwelling.

I think Peter knows that these people may suffer longer than he will. Peter suffered a lot. Peter suffered for the entire rest of his life the regret of having denied the Son of God after saying he wouldn No matter how well you understand justification by faith there a constant loathsome for our former selves as Christians, and I cannot imagine how that would feel.

Some of you who have been saved and walked away from the Lord, some people might say backslid, you know that feeling of knowing that there was a God who had saved you, and you knew he saved you, and you walked away for a time. And that's a regret that you'll live with. And it's something you should be able to remember and hate, and at the same time you understand you've been forgiven, so you don't live under condemnation or some yoke of penance you have to do.

But Peter suffered from that, but Peter also suffered physically. the story of Peter is that Peter first watched his wife be crucified is the story and then Peter was crucified himself and he said I am not worthy to be killed in the same way that my Lord was and so to respond to him what they did is they crucified him upside down like doing him a favor and yet Peter says after you've suffered a little while what we want to remember when we're experiencing what we're experiencing in this world, whether it's the suffering of the temptation of sin in your life, and you don't think you're going to be able to make it through the temptation, whether it's the affliction that you face because family members and friends and neighbors are oppositional to you because you're a new creature and they're not, whether it's people at work, whether it's a society at large that is becoming increasingly anti-Christian. Whatever the suffering is, Peter wants you to know, as well as these people he wrote to in the first century, that your suffering is, in fact, temporary. I think when it's compared with the eternal glory.

That one day, when you see your Savior's face, any suffering you experience here will become completely, I don't want to say meaningless, because it has meaning. But it will no longer be at the forefront of your mind. Some of you understand what it's like to have a chronic health issue where every time you lift a fork, you have to make sure, wait, I have to make sure I can put this in my mouth or not.

We had little Ezra a couple weeks ago came near peanut stuff. thank God he thank God his body expelled it right some of you really suffer some of you have to do special treatments or exercises or eat special diets just so you can try to maybe feel sort of okay compared to other people who are able to run races and they seem to eat with impunity and some of you I know look at them and think well it will catch up with them I was talking to Matt about that a few months ago, that some of these injuries we get, you start to heal a little slower. You can't just get back out there like we used to. But Peter wants you to know it's temporary.

And he doesn't say it as if, oh, well, it's no big deal. He's not telling them it's no big deal. He just told them to resist the devil because other people are suffering as well. So don't think you're unique in your suffering. Some of you certainly have a unique suffering. I mean, the law of the transitive property of inequality in mathematics would dictate that there's one person in the room that's the biggest sufferer.

But the point is this, we're all suffering together. And none of us is suffering anywhere near like our Lord suffered. And in fact, we're all suffering less than we deserve to suffer. So even though your suffering may be for righteousness sake, you still deserve far worse because of your sin against the Holy God than you'll ever even receive. So do it for a little while.

Then the God of all grace, this God who has so much grace, it's all the grace. So if you imagine all the grace that can exist, none of it exists outside of God. It's sort of, like it's impossible to wrap your mind around you know Jason said he was incomprehensible and it's true and Bert read that but he's the God of all grace and he has called you to his eternal glory in Christ so you can suffer a little while because you're looking forward to the time that Jesus Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you well it's God as the subject who will do that Jesus Christ of course being one with God.

It's the whole Trinity. But He will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And I've heard this preached a couple ways. Well, I don't know if I've even heard it a couple ways. But one way I heard this preached was it was almost like a promise. Like, hey, you stick with God and you'll be confirmed and restored and strengthened and established.

And there is some truth to that. there's some truth that restoration has the connotation of healing. That some of your ailments will be healed. Some of your difficulty with sin and temptation will actually be healed. So for some people in here, you have sin in your life that you hate it. You do. But you don't stop.

And then you hate it. And then you pray and you repent. You really want it gone, you think. And you ask God to take it away. and it doesn't go away. And then you sin again. And that's a form of suffering.

And God does promise He going to restore you As He daily sanctifies you you are going to gain strength and healing over some of these difficulties There's a sense that you will be restored. But I also cannot promise anyone in here that some of these physical ailments will be healed. And I can't promise you that your sin will go away 100%, like you'll never even have that thought in your heart anymore. you may get to the point where you can be in a room with the temptation and it doesn't bother you as much and you're more resistant to it you may recoil from the thing that once actually tempted you that that's a goal i think we have in life as we're sanctified and made like christ but i can't promise you that somehow in this life you're going to be glorified because that's when you actually no longer have the ability to sin.

That's when you no longer have the flesh that you inherited from Adam that is pulling you to sin. So just a quick comment on, I use the word recoil. When I think about our response to sin, I think sometimes we're a little bit too easy on ourselves. sometimes we look at sin and temptation and we kind of entertain the temptation a little bit and then we eventually say no and then it's like my arm's not long enough to pat myself on the back enough for walking away from the temptation and what I want to communicate to you is when you're dealing with sin and temptation what you want is for your initial reaction to the sin to be sort of like you stuck your hand in a hot fire.

You wouldn't put your hand in a hot fire and then look at it and think, well, this is hot. Maybe I should remove it, but it's so hard because it's kind of tempting. You would pull your hand out probably before you thought about it. And some of you have areas of your life where you are naturally inclined away from certain sins where it's kind of disgusting to you.

So we all have, I think, things that we suffer a little more with and things that just aren't as big a problem. The things that aren't as big a problem end up being points of pride, usually. Well, I'm not like the other guy, right? But what I want to communicate to you is these things that aren't quite the problem, those should be the example for you of how you should feel about the other sins.

So just like if you stuck your hand in a fire, you'd pull it out quickly. And you might say, well, that's just reactionary. Well, yeah, what's wrong with that? Wouldn't you like your initial reaction to sin to be to recoil from it? And we have the God of all grace. And so rather than get on your knees and pray that he'd give you a little more money at work or pray that, you know, all the different things we pray for, some of them are very good things. how much do you just pray like God sanctify me make me hate sin so much that I would stop entertaining it even for a moment make me so disinterested in the sins you know the sins that are your struggle I hope you do if you don't we need to really dig in with some discipleship and help but pray that God would make you so loathsome of these things that even getting into the presence of the temptation to it would disgust you.

That is the prayer that you should have. And then when you fall, you confess. You get a good brother or a good sister, or hopefully I would say a group of brothers and sisters that you can really talk to, people who understand the grace of God. You can tell them, this is really hard for me. And you know what? I hate this so much that instead of being embarrassed, to share with you that it's a difficulty.

I actually want you to know that this is a struggle of mine so that you'll pray for me because the effectual and fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much. So you go to your brother or sister and they pray for you and then you have more of this God of all grace, more of His grace available. And that you may be healed. Read James 5. It's about restoration, about healing from sin, from sin sickness.

So you want to be restored, you want to be healed of these things, and I think you can be, but I do think that these things, and I also think in the context of what Peter's writing, these promises are things that are promised when you're glorified. I think if you read through the entire New Testament, and all the times when, if you understand the way theology works, and salvation, you get justified by faith, and it's by grace through faith alone you're justified, You're declared righteous. You're accounted righteous in the eyes of God because of faith in Jesus Christ.

Faith that was granted to you by God himself. You're declared righteous, but you're not. You weren't given any righteousness. You weren't infused with righteousness. You weren't made righteous in any meaningful sense other than you were accounted righteous. It was credited to you.

And then you spend the rest of your life being sanctified. Being sanctified, it's a fancy word, just means being made holy. without which no one will see the Lord. And that's why if you meet somebody who is a Christian, sometimes you meet somebody, and I don't know, some of you haven't known me very long. If I tell you about what I used to be like, I've had some people just say, I can't even imagine it.

I mean, my wife can't imagine it. The type of person I used to be. Well, that's because after I got justified, God has been sanctifying me. It's not something I'm bragging about. Jesus Christ did it. but to not have it happen is actually a problem you want to be sanctified so you're growing in holiness as you slowly learn what God law says you start to see in your own heart how you violate it and you ask God to help you and other Christians teach you as well Men and women.

Women know stuff about the Bible, and they talk to men and help them. Men know stuff, and men teach each other, and men can talk to women, daughters. We're a church. We help each other. And chances are there's somebody in here who has struggled with the sin that you're right now struggling with, and they've overcome it. Or there's somebody who, that was never their little affinity.

And don't ignore that person. If the requirement for someone to help you with your sin is that they had to struggle with it themselves, then Jesus Christ can't help you. So don't ignore somebody that happens to maybe not have had the same struggle as you. That's this thing with empathy that is kind of a big deal now on parts of the interwebs, is that someone has to totally understand me to be able to help me.

So I'll tell you what, I'm overweight and I'd like to lose weight. If somebody that happens to already be thin and never got fat wanted to help me, they probably know more than I do. They don't need to have made the error in order to know how to fix the error. So that's how we look at our sin. We love going to other people and wanting it changed. If you keep it to yourself, that's the sign that you really don't want it gone.

You're more concerned with your glory than God's glory. But God's going to confirm, strengthen, and establish you. These are building words. You can look up definite. We could have done a whole sermon on each word if we wanted. You can look them up.

These are building words. It's confirming and strengthening and establishing. When you establish a building, that's when it's complete. You have the foundations there, but it's not established. If you walk outside this building, it says EST 1995. This building was established in 1995.

God's going to establish you. He's going to strengthen you. Confirm your calling and election. These are things that you'll experience tastes of in this world. But I won't tell you that I think these are promises where you'll somehow have a full knowledge of them. I do think that Peter's talking about what will happen one day, ultimately.

And that you will experience tastes of these, though. as we are all being built up as part of this spiritual house so that we can make sacrifices to God that are acceptable to Him through our spiritual worship. He's going to do these things in your life, but you're going to experience these things on the day you die or the day Jesus returns. And in fact, on the day you die, you won't have been resurrected yet, and so you may not even fully experience these things until the resurrection.

So if you think of it that way. But this is the God of all grace who's called you to his eternal glory in Christ. This is just another promise. You will, God will finish the good work he began in you is what it's saying. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

It's a reminder that God is the one in charge. He's sovereign. So in the context of suffering at the hands of Satan himself, in the context of being accosted by demonic activity, temptation to sin, persecutions and sufferings. And a lot of times the little persecutions, it's not that I think the devil has all this fun like watching Christians suffer with pain.

I think it's that when we're in pain and when we're tired and when we lack food, we'll say, if you're hungry, when you're in these situations, that's when you're most likely to sin, I think. Some of us, when we feel good, like life's a little easier, it's when we didn't get a good night's sleep, that's when all of a sudden we lash out against the wife or the husband. That's when you're snappy with your kids.

Or even some of us, we get outside the home and we're snappy with people at work or we're a jerk to someone at the gas station or wherever it happens to be. And it's easy to say, well, I was, what do we say, I was hangry. Right? That's like a common word now, hangry. It means I was hungry, so basically I'm justifying that I was angry. So I treated somebody with contempt.

I sinned against God and another human being because I hadn't had a Snickers for two hours or whatever. It's a funny commercial, but it's really not. When you think about using the fact that you're hungry as an excuse to do something that God calls evil. So take care of yourself. Don't get too hungry, angry, lonely, tired. That's halt. take care of yourself properly put yourself in an environment where the temptation is not so strong but the goal here of Satan is to get you to sin against God's law and sometimes the suffering comes and the lack of sleep comes because you're up with kids all night taking care of things like that or difficult things are happening all around you and a lot of it's designed just so that you're more easily tempted to sin and so you resist the devil and he'll flee from you so Peter gets down here and he says in verse 12 by Silvanus a faithful brother as I regard him I've written to you so Silvanus is Silas which I wouldn't have figured out on my own just other commentators said that so I guess if they're all wrong I was just wrong but that's what I read pretty consistently so if you go through the New Testament you see all this stuff with Silas And you know, Peter and Paul and these guys, they were crossing each other's tracks.

They were doing some different things. But Peter says, by Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I've written briefly to you. And I always thought it was a weird phrase, as I regard him. And it almost was like, I guess I never really thought about it much. But it sounds kind of like, you know, Jason's a good brother, well, as I regard him. It almost sounds like a concession. like well maybe he's not but he's good enough to pray at this church you know like That's not what the word means.

The word means, like, I have absolute certainty that he's a faithful brother. And I'm not sure it's the best translation in a way because of that. But if you actually do one of those word studies where you find what the Greek word was that was used there, and you look at other places it was used, it's about having a certainty and a surety about things.

And so what Peter's saying is, by Silvanus, this man that I know is a faithful brother. I have written briefly to you. It's a short letter, Peter says. He's letting them know, there's a lot more I could say, right? John said, if he wrote down everything Jesus did, the whole world couldn't hold all the books, right? All the works of Jesus.

Peter says, there's more I could say, but I've written briefly. He wants people to actually read it, right? He doesn't want them to just go through the first chapter and then be tired of it. He says, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God, stand firm in it. So now this is interesting. Exhorting means to persuade.

It means to tell someone to try to do something. So when you exhort someone, you're actually trying to get them to do something. It's a little different than the word extort. They're two different words. And so don't say that Peter was extorting. He was exhorting. and then it says he was declaring.

And so there's a couple of words that you use if you do grammar and they're words that you'll use a lot if you study the New Testament. And the words are indicative and imperative. And so if you do grammar stuff, an indicative statement, it sounds like what it is, what it sounds like. It indicates something. An indicative statement is a statement of fact.

It's a declaration that here's a fact. Now, there's other kinds of statements. I mean, there's greetings and there's announcements of other things. But throughout the New Testament, what you're going to see repeatedly is indicatives and imperatives. An imperative is telling someone to do something. You're compelling someone.

And what the New Testament does frequently, and particularly you follow this logic a lot in Paul's writings, is Paul says, here's an indicative. Here's what happened. Jesus Christ died and rose again and then the next statement is therefore you should do this so you should walk in holiness we'll say well why do you walk in holiness well I walk in holiness not just because it was said in scripture that in theory would be sufficient but I walk in holiness because of the statement that came before because Jesus Christ died for me and rose again giving me newness of life as well And so when you go through the New Testament, something to look for are indicatives and imperatives.

The third thing to look for is promises. There's more, but if you leave here with three thoughts, three basic things to look for, look for promises that God has made, and then look for indicative statements where God indicates what has happened, and then imperatives, where he tells you what you ought to do. And what I'll challenge you is, as you find imperatives, you should be able to usually look for the indicative somewhere around there.

Usually it's connected by the word therefore, or moreover. So therefore, the old saying when you're studying the Bible, what is the therefore therefore, right? Well, the therefore is therefore the fact to tell you that, oh, something was said that's an indicative. And because of what was indicated, because of what was declared, because of what was plainly stated as fact, now I am being told to do something as the result.

So Christianity, a lot of people say Christianity isn't a religion of do, it's a religion of done. And I'll tell you what, Christianity is a religion of do. it's just you don't do in order to gain God's favor or to gain your salvation but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves is what James said so I like some of the pithy little phrases but man you can drill holes in them if you want so when you read the Bible look for exhortations and declarations Peter says I've been exhorting I've been telling you what to do right I mean that was like from verse 1 13 in the first chapter all the way to now it's almost been non-stop exhortations do this do this do this wives submit to your husbands husbands live with your wives in an understanding way be subject to the ruling authorities in your life servants be subject to your masters but then remember he said servants be subject to your masters and he said why well because Jesus Jesus submitted to the authorities that he had to submit to and so there's all these exhortations and declarative statements and what Peter's saying he's declaring this is the true grace of God so Peter declared what the true grace of God was at the very beginning according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit and for obedience to Jesus Christ and the sprinkling of His blood right? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has caused you to be born again That's what he says in the very first chapter.

He declared the truth of your salvation. Peter took for granted some of the systematic theology of it all by now. Peter didn't send them Romans. He just kind of assumed they knew some of those things. He went right into some of it. But he tells them, stand firm in this.

So in your day of suffering, you're going to be tempted to not stand firm. when somebody makes fun of you because you think the earth is only 6 years old you think Adam actually lived with dinosaurs or whatever When somebody makes fun of you because you think there was really a big boat that Noah made that people actually piled on and there was a flood that killed everyone? When somebody makes fun of you because you think the reason why we have all these languages is God simply created them at Babel? When people make fun of you because you believe a guy died and rose again and that has actually a profound impact on everyday life today and should.

If you're even persecuted for these beliefs, if you lose your job, lose friends, lose family, Peter's saying stand firm in it. That's what he wants. He knows people are going to have a tendency to maybe not be firm anymore. Or maybe they'll change things a little bit. Oh, maybe Jesus isn't as strict as my church says He is. my church says we have to go to church every Sunday.

But the other church says we don't have to obey that law. That that's legalism. You go to more than half the churches in Columbus, I bet you we could get more than half of them to say that actually telling people they should go to church and worship Sunday is legalism. They might not use those terms. But a lot of them would try to say that. Are you going to stand firm in what you believe?

Are you going to sit down and go through the scriptures yourself and make sure you understand it so you can defend what you believe? Because when you're all alone in front of the firing line, my pastor said isn't going to help you. My dad told me he's not going to help. Those things aren't going to be strong enough to get you through tough times. You, having communed with God by reading His Word on your own, and letting the Holy Spirit work in your heart while you pray and you commune with God.

That's what's going to give you strength on the tough day. And you come to places like this for the means of grace and you get communion and you get the preaching of the word and you get all the other stuff we did that's part of the means of grace you get every Sunday and that's going to strengthen all that. But your personal relationship with God has to happen.

It's not going to happen magically. You're not receiving anything magical right now. If it was magical, I'd stand on a street corner and I'd just shout Greek at people. And I'd say, I'm reading God's word, so therefore I'm preaching. And if it was just magic because the words were out in the air, everyone would get saved, or maybe they wouldn't, but at least I'd never be persecuted because nobody would know what I was saying.

It's the communication of the actual thoughts of God based on the language that God's given us in our language into your minds, and then you actually taking it in and with cognition, understanding what it says and then letting it affect you in your heart that's going to change you. And God's going to do that when you're all alone as well. So you want to go to church, you want to learn from others, but John also said you shouldn't even need a teacher.

You have the Holy Spirit in you. You should be able to sit and read that scripture yourself and if you need help learning it, we'll teach you. People will help you learn how. It's one of the reasons why I'm giving you instructions on how to interpret the scripture. I don't want to feed you. Like, I don't want to spoon feed you.

I want eaters. Church full of people that feed themselves. And then more people come and we feed them while they can't eat yet and then we teach them to eat themselves. And everybody who has a kid in here understands that it's a great day when they can pick up that fork all by themselves, isn't it? It's a great day. When they start, you know, I don't want to be crass, but when they start being able to use the toilet paper on their own, it's a nice day, isn't it?

You know, we don't want babies for life, and we don't want Christians to be babies for life. So stand firm. And at verse 13, 1 Peter 5, She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings. This is really sweet. Some people think it's maybe a lady that was around Peter. I would tend to think he's talking about the church.

There's a church there where he is in Babylon. And I'll toss this out there for fun. I think Babylon may actually be a reference to Jerusalem here. And we can get into all that later. But I think he's just saying, hey, the church, this other chosen church, this other elect group of called out people for God, they send you greetings. They miss you.

They love you. just imagine you know it's April 2021 right now imagine five years from now some of you are actually part of some church plant that maybe we sent out we have this other church that you go to now on Sunday and we still go here some of us and people who have loved each other very deeply are now separated and we write you a letter and yeah the whole church is going to greet you we're all going to be happy to have you know hey we still think about you and love you and we pray for you That's how Peter feels about these people, and that's how the people with him feel. He says, they send you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. This is a reference to John Mark, the guy who wrote the book of Mark.

And so he was John Mark, and then the other guy was John. And so the one guy got his first name as the name of a book, and the other guy got his surname as the name of a book. And the way people understand Mark, basically, is that Mark was a disciple of Peter. Peter calls him his son, it's unlikely he was really his son. It's more likely that he was his son in the faith.

That Peter was instrumental in Mark's salvation and discipleship. And that Mark, a lot of people think that the book of Mark is actually just Mark having penned Peter's thoughts. So Peter was just kind of old and talking, and Mark just jotted it down. Of course it was led by the Holy Spirit but it was really more of Peter eyewitness account of all the events And it one of the reasons why if you read Mark it really neat John MacArthur pointed this out that Mark actually degrades Peter more than all the other books, because Peter in his humility and in his shame for having denied his Lord didn't want any glory when he wrote his own little biography, basically, of what he saw.

It was more important to him that Christ was exalted in that story. but so the she who is at Babylon the church sends them greetings and then greet one another with the kiss of love now here we are Ron loving kisses yep I was just watching to see Mary's reaction I almost was going to get a camera just so everybody else could see her reaction I knew it would happen but real quick turn to Romans 16 16 Romans 16 16 There's a few verses. This is a conviction of mine that I myself, as well as a lot of other Christians, we do not actually take the command to greet one another as seriously as we should. So greet one another, what kind of statement is it?

Indicative or imperative? It was an imperative statement, right? Greet one another. It's a command. A command from God the Holy Spirit through the Scripture. and somehow I think we don't take it as seriously as some of the other commands but if you've ever walked into a room of people that are a little bit busy and somebody stopped what they were doing and came over to give you a handshake and a welcome or if you've ever walked into a room where nobody even acknowledged you and you know the difference between those two things you can understand how important a greeting can be and if you're like me and I'm a get to the point guy so I'm confessing here my own wife calls me when I'm at work she doesn't call me anymore I guess she just kind of comes over because I work at home more but she'd call me at work and I'd be like what do you need? get to the point and I've met some people that are really good greeters and they humble me when I'm around them and the way that they're able to refocus whatever they're doing to that person that just showed up that needs a greeting.

I've been to churches where I wasn't greeted, and I've been to churches where there was somebody that was assigned to make sure they were greeting. And that was a wonderful difference that I noticed. But just to show you, in Romans 16, 16, Paul says, Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. 1 Corinthians 16. I just want to prove to you real quick that greetings aren't that crazy.

Look at the end there, verse 19. The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss. Now we're getting into uh-oh territory.

Some of these people are thinking, where is he going with this? And there's a reason we're going to... I'll get you out of suspense. I'm not going to tell you you have to kiss each other or anything like that. In fact, I'm going to tell you the opposite. 2 Corinthians 13, 12.

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. Sorry, I didn't have notes today. so I forgot which verse I was going to turn to so it took me a second then when I found it I just read it greet one another with a holy kiss couple notes on this the first note is this if you understand what this verse is saying you'll see that what it's trying to tell people is that you're supposed to greet one another the with a holy kiss reference would be a reference to the customs of that day, which is how people would greet each other.

And some of you, if you've been to Europe or different places in the Middle East, it's customary to do like a little side cheek kiss thing, and I can't even imitate it, because I've, I think somebody tried to do it to me once somewhere, and I was like so weirded out that, you know, it didn't happen, and everything got awkward. But, the whole point is this, it says a holy kiss. And so for anybody who's thinking, you know, ew or yucky or all that stuff, or if anybody, Lord forbid, is actually thinking like, ooh, this sounds good, like I'm going to start kissing people.

The point is that it's about holiness. Your greeting is to be appropriate in holiness to each person. And I'm going to be so bold to say that is never going to be walking up to people in the United States, especially if they don't know you and just kissing them on the lips or something like that. And it's probably not even the side cheek kiss thing that other cultures actually have figured out properly.

And there's a pervert in Iowa that people have talked about, and I'm not going to say his name during the sermon, I don't want him to get any extra notoriety, but there's a pervert in Iowa who actually goes up to women that walk in his church and kisses them right on the lips. and he uses these verses to justify it. There's a whole string of people who have visited that church and even some of them have ended up joining, who have left and are trying to fight to pull people out of this cult. Because this guy thinks he can walk up to your wife when you walk into his building and he can just walk right up, grab her and kiss her right on the lips.

And if you oppose, you're against the scripture, he'll argue. and so there's real wickedness that people use to pervert the scripture to do what their flesh desires but when you greet one another with a holy kiss what that might mean in our context would be that I go up and I shake hands with someone If you're a hugger, maybe I'll give you a hug. I'm a hugger, so if you want a hug, I'll give you one, no problem. If you're a lady and you want a hug, we're going to do like the Baptist side hug thing maybe. or I have an old friend who used to do this really awkward but effective, you're not touching any part of my body but my neck kind of hug.

And it was kind of weird at first, but I knew why she was doing it. And it was to protect her own self and reputation and her relationship with her husband. It was to protect any man that she actually hugged. But she liked the embrace. She wanted a holy embrace with her brother in church. and she found a way to do it in a way that honored God, was respectful of the fact that temptation can exist when people end up touching parts when you have a hug.

And so it's about greeting one another with holiness. It's about loving holiness and wanting the best for the people around you, but also desiring so badly to have that physical connection. Can you imagine? I mean, like the six-foot distancing thing? like the six foot distancing thing, aside from the fact that it's unscientific as possible for presenting the spread of the virus for at least as long as it was supposed to go.

I mean, in the short term, it could have helped, I guess. But that actually caused people a lot of problems. And I've read stories of children, children. It was in Canada who got the coronavirus. and the government told the parents to lock the child in a room by themselves. Little children. I'm not talking about like when my son who's 17 did that for a couple weeks because he thought he was exposed.

He had his Xbox. He was happy, I think, actually. But I'm talking about little kids that are starting to suffer from depression and anxiety because of isolation from their own parents. I'm hurt when I'm trying to hand a tract to a non-believer and they treat me like a leper I can't imagine if the people in my own house wouldn't come near me I understand if you have to quarantine you may have to do some special things but a child, I don't like that but if you come to church and you want to sit by the people you love you want to hold their hand if they're in your family and even the people that aren't in your family I want to shake your hand, I want to sit next to you at the meal pat you on the back things like that and you guys I want to give you a hug if you're not a hugger I'm cool with whatever else you ladies I don't want to hug you but if you want to do a side thing or you want to shake hands I like to do those things and I like to keep it pure and holy I like to keep it reasonable and so greet one another with the kiss of love Peter says and then he rounds everything out he says peace to all of you who are in Christ peace Peter just spent 103 verses telling you you're going to suffer and nothing's going to be fun in this life that you're going to be having affliction you're going to be promised affliction and the only way you're getting out of it I think he means is that when you're glorified so actually if the devil finally gets you to the point where you're dead and then at the end he just says peace to all of you who are in Christ and some people might think it's almost inappropriate after that but I think Peter does desire that they have peace I think Peter hopes that hey maybe maybe some of you will escape some of the affliction that is predicted and we've had centuries in our history where there was some good peace for some people relative peace we'll say and also I think that there's a peace that surpasses all understanding knowing Christ Jesus in your heart, there's a peace that you can have.

Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. And he wasn't talking about police officers, not even the best ones. Peter was talking about those who make peace with God. They'll be called sons of God. And I think Jesus was talking about, I think I said Peter, and also I think Jesus is talking about people like you and me who go out and try to help others make peace with God through evangelism.

We're peacemakers. So he says, peace to all of you who are in Christ. He wants them to know that he desires that they have peace. Just like at the beginning of a lot of Paul's letters, he says, grace and peace to you. Peter's saying, peace to all of you who are in Christ. Peter wants to have peace with them.

He doesn't want discord among brothers. He wants unity, humility of mind, tender heart, sympathy, brotherly love, right? That's what brothers should have. And Peter maybe wants to make sure anyone there knows, hey, peace to you. Maybe somebody had a problem with Peter at some point. That's purely speculative, but it's not the craziest thought that there was somebody in Asia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, one of these areas that had a problem with Peter.

And Peter wishes some peace to those who are in Christ. He's not writing to people who are outside the church. He's not writing to non-believers. He's not writing to pagans. He's not writing to the people that are causing his dear brothers and sisters to suffer in these regions. The ones that are suffering in a way where he has to write this letter to help them get through it.

He's writing to those who are in Christ. And we should love our neighbor and we should love all people. We should have an earnest desire to see even the vilest sinner that's the biggest offender toward you and your family saved by grace. And you should desire to do good unto all people and love your neighbor as you do. but there should be a special affection for those who are in the household of God.

There should be a special love and a special desire for unity and peace with other Christians. So that was the book of 1 Peter. It's almost hard to believe that we are toward the end of it. Or we are at the end of it. So let me pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that Peter penned these words for our sake too.

And that Jesus Christ reigns supreme. To him be the dominion forever and ever. May we live lives that reflect that we truly believe he is King of kings and Lord of lords. And has given us instructions while we're still here. But Lord, we pray that he would come quickly. Amen.

Amen.