"Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love 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
but the word of the Lord stands forever."
And this is the word that was preached to you.
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."
(1 Peter 1:22 - 2:3 NIV)
The people Peter wrote to were going through a lot of trials and were tempted to hypocrisy. They believed one thing, but were tempted to act another way to make things easier for themselves.
In these verses, there are three points:
1. Revelation - 1 Peter 1:23-25
2. Regeneration - 1 Peter 1:23; 2:2-3
3. Response - 1 Peter 1:22; 2:1
The Bible is important because through it God speaks to us, so we don't need to speculate. Though Peter is talking about the Word of God, which is the Bible, he also means the preached word. Unlike other books, the Bible is the living word of God and our spirit is made alive through it. Just like the Bible is abiding and has persevered through time, we too can persevere, so Peter says, "All men are like grass", but the word of the Lord will stand forever. It has so far!
The Bible has been translated into 3,000 languages and has been read by many different people and has not been without opposition. Over the course of history, people have been persecuted in violent ways, but they have not put down their Bible. The Roman Empire banned the Bible, but though it has disappeared, the Bible is still with us.
Our view of the Bible is inextricably related to our view of preaching, so that if we have a low view of the Bible, we have a low view of preaching. On the other hand, if we have a high view of the Bible, we will also have a high view of preaching. It is God's word and so we must put ourselves under its authority and also the authority of preaching, even though it is counter-cultural to submit to any kind of authority.
There are many examples of preaching in the Scriptures. It starts with God preaching the world into existence. In Genesis 3, we have the first false sermon preached by the serpent, who tempted Eve, but later in the chapter, God brought Adam and Eve together again and preached once more, and this time about Jesus. Throughout the Bible we will see that Satan has a succession of false preachers to lead God's people astray and at the same time, God raises up prophets to reveal the truth to the people. This culminates in the last of the Old Testament prophets, namely John the Baptist, and after this we have Jesus. He states in Mark that he came to preach and once he was baptised by John, he was taken to the desert where Satan tried to preach false sermons to him, but Jesus resisted by preaching the truth.
Just like in the past, there are many false teachers as well as teachers of the truth, so we have to be careful who we listen to and who we follow. Paul speaks often of wolves coming in to the church to lead the sheep astray. We know who wolves are because they don't tend to lead people into repentance. They accommodate and excuse sin. Jesus, however, preached repentance, which is turning our backs on sin and turning our faces toward God. Jesus preached repentance so much, that the only way to get him to stop was to kill him, but even that didn't stop him because he rose three days later and continued preaching.
When the Holy Spirit came on the disciples in Acts 2, they also preached. The disciples continued to preach all throughout Acts and the only time Acts doesn't speak about the preaching of the apostles is when they were put into prison. The apostles were totally committed to preaching and they did not let imprisonment or persecution stop them. Preaching is to continue until Jesus returns where the last sermon will be preached by an angel (Revelation 14:6).
Revelation contributes to regeneration. First, the word must be preached to us and then we will change. Once we put our faith in Jesus, we will get a new heart, be born again, become a new creation, have union with Christ and in the end, be raised with Jesus from the dead. The only way we can know more about God and be passionate about him is to go to his word.
In the Bible, there is only perishable or imperishable seed. We are either sons of Adam or sons of God. All of us are born into sin and the only way out is by salvation from God.
- Psalm 51:5 - we are born in sin
- Psalm 58:3 - all fell through Adam
- Ephesians 2:3 - by nature, we are children of wrath
Regeneration is a gift to make us completely new, whereas religion is all about sinners trying to do better and earning their way into heaven. We can't do anything to regenerate ourselves because we have as much control of our new birth as we had of our old birth. Just like we had no say about us being born into the world, we have no say about being born as a new creation in God.
Since repenting and trusting in God are both signs that we have been born again, we have nothing to boast about. We were saved because God chose us and not that we chose God. After our re-birth, our desires change too. Before regeneration, sin seems good and we desire to do what we want, but after regeneration, we desire to please God and turn from sin and be like Jesus.
Finally, we come to response. We respond by obeying the word and so the last thing we would want to be as new creations is hypocritical. Religion tries to get us to change as a result of guilt and fear and we have to try change ourselves into a new person, but regeneration gives us a new heart and so our desires change (Psalm 37:4).
We will still be tempted, but we shouldn't pursue it. We should instead pursue the deep passion of our hearts and go after God. Sin and sinful desires are shallow desires next to our deep desire to please God. We shouldn't listen to Satan and we need to listen to God. We overcome sin with worship. We overcome lies with the word of truth. We overcome Satan with the Spirit. We overcome temptation with our passion for the things of God.
In pursuing our deepest desires, we can overcome the enemy.
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