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Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date March 16, 2025
TEXT: I Peter 1:1-13-2:3
Pastor Paul Lehmann
A LIFE OF REVERANCE, LOVE AND GROWTH
We are told in verse 17 to: “Live our lives as strangers here in fear. A fugitive is one who is running from home. A vagabond is one who has no home. A stranger is one away from home. A pilgrim is on his way home. The picture is of a person living in a “foreign land,” alongside people who are not like him. Here it refers to children of God living far from their heavenly home, in foreign territory, on a planet that has Satan as reigning monarch, the people of which are his subjects. We sing the hymn: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue. They’re all expecting me, on that great peaceful shore, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”—-The problem is; too many Christians feel very much at home in this world, and they don’t have a clear cut testimony that they will have eternal life in heaven with the Lord someday. The Christian should always live in consciousness of the fact that he or she is being watched by the unsaved. Our responsibility is to: Bear a clear testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, by the way we live and what we say.
Peter says, we are to do this in “fear,” that is, with REVERENT RESPECT which is spoken of in opposition to high-minded men—“be not high-minded” (that is, proud), but fear the Lord.” This means that because we respect Him, we don’t just say or do anything we want in his presence, (which is all the time.) It is being careful because we might fall, it is a constant apprehension of the deceitfulness of the heart, and of the power of inward corruption. It is the caution which shrinks from whatever would offend and dishonor God and this Savior. The British commentator William Barclay says, “The life of reverence is the attitude of mind of the man who is always aware that he is in the presence of God.” Hebrews 12:28 says, “since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship or serve God acceptably with reverence and awe.: The combination stresses the greatness of God and the lowly place his people should take in relation to him. We are to have this reverent fear (in view of the fact or) since we call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially. Outward appearance, wealth, culture, social position, family background, education, beauty, intellect, all things that more or less sway the opinions of people, do not count with God when it comes to judging a person. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart” we read in I Sam. 16:7. (When God was instructing Samuel to anoint David as King. ) Even though at times these words are comforting it also should create in us respect for God to realize he is critical, and he is fair, but we can’t fool him. No pretense is possible before God. His impartiality is an honest appraisal of things, and in this verse, it means to put to the test in order to approve the good one finds in the person. God expects to find the life of good works produced by the Holy Spirit, depending on the degree we are subjected to His control. There was a man blinded in World War II. He married his nurse. At a party years later he overheard someone remark. “It’s a good thing he’s blind, because he would have never married her since she is so homely looking.” The man replied, “I’m glad I’m blind if seeing would have kept me from seeing the inner beauty and nobility of character in my wife.” This is how God sees us. Not what is obvious to people, but remember God looks on the heart.
THEN THIS LIFE IS ALSO A LIFE OF LOVE AND GROWTH.
The Christian way of life must reflect God’s love in us, it is added to the command to be holy and to obey and have reverence for God. This means that we receive his LOVE, and that love is shown to others.
The Christian life is lived out of knowledge of the redemption that Christ has accomplished. What do Christians know? Peter reminds us that the cost of redemption by the blood of Christ, and the value of redemption is by the righteousness of Christ himself. This word redeem goes back to the institution of slavery in ancient Rome. Any first century church would have three kinds of members; slaves, freemen, and freed men, People became slaves in various ways. Through war, bankruptcy, or sale of themselves to pay debts. Sometimes the sale was by parents, or by birth.
Slaves normally could look forward to freedom after a certain period of service and often after the payment of a price. Money to buy his freedom could be earned by the stave I his spare time or by doing more than his owner required. Often the price could be paid by someone else. By the payment of a price, a person could be set free from the bondage of servitude. A freed man or woman was a person who formerly had been a slave, but was now redeemed. The redemption of Christians is from the “empty” lifestyle of their ancestors (who lived in sin and was part of a pagan lifestyle.) The New Testament stresses this emptiness rather than being saved from the misunderstandings of Judaism. Paul addresses what the pagans were like, when he wrote in Romans 1:21; “For although they knew God from creation, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Then in Eph. 4:17; “You must no longer live as the Gentiles (Pagans) do, in the futility (or uselessness) of their thinking.”
Verse 19 of I Peter 1, stresses the value of the purchase price (without blemish) perfect. This was the sacrificial Lamb of God. Not just a “plan B,” since the children of God were disobedient and didn’t follow him, not even since Adam sinned, God didn’t say, “uh oh—–I have to figure out a way to get my creation back. No– verse 20 says before creation, Christ was chosen, but then was revealed in these last times. It was for our sake, so that we can believe (and have faith) in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
We see the reason for this life of LOVE; it is that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth; by obeying the gospel. In Acts 15:9 we read; “he made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.” But Paul tells us in Romans 10:16 that not all the Israelites accepted the good news. Then in II Thess. 1:8; “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”
The Good News carries with it a command to repent and believe. Being purified from sin enables Christians to show genuine family love for God’s children.
Verse 22 “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brother—-love one another deeply from the heart.” THERE IS THE COMMAND TO LOVE.
The recipients of this letter had purified their souls with the result that they came to love their Christian brethren with a sincere love—not a fake love, that wasn’t sincere. The word used here is the same one from which we get our word “hypocrite,” with the letter (a) prefixed, which makes it mean NOT A HYPOCRITE. This word hypocrite was used of an actor on the stage who played the part of another. Literally it means “to judge under” used of someone giving off his judgment from behind a screen or mask. Some of these to whom Peter was writing had put a mask of insincere love over their facial expressions, when associating with other people in the church.
Does this sound familiar? We wouldn’t do that, would we?
Charles Spurgen was emphasizing to his class one time the importance of making the facial expressions harmonize with what the preacher was preaching. “When you speak of heaven he said, “let your face light up, let it be radiant with a heavenly glow, and let your eyes shine with reflected glory. But when you speak of hell–well, then your ordinary face will do” Some of us never get beyond our ordinary faces. Others pretend!
You may recall the story from the Depression, when this fellow couldn’t find a job, but one day he saw a notice posted from a Zoo, that their gorilla had died, and they need someone to put on a costume and impersonate a gorilla. When he tried to act like a gorilla and swing on a bar, after eating a banana, he flew into the next cage. He yelled “help help, get me out of here” Then the lion said; “Shut up buddy—or we’ll both get fired. Now that’s pretending. —it is actually hypocrisy—There were two conditions in the early church which were responsible for the hypocrisy of pretending to be someone you are not. Some Christians were tempted to go back to their old associates, preferring their company to that of their Christian brethren. This is mentioned in chapter 4, verse 3; “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.” That’s quite a list! Peter suggests that they had plenty of time before salvation, to run around with sin in the world. Those Christians who went back to their former worldly associates and preferred their company to that of believers, would naturally assume an attitude of love towards them.
Then there was the other condition in which different grades of society were represented in the early church, slaves, freemen, rich and poor, educated and illiterate. The privileged were slow to take the underprivileged to themselves in a Christian brotherly way. This is hinted at in chapter 2 verse 1 in the words; “hypocrisy” and “slander” of every kind.”—which means simply the act of putting a person down by what you say about them. Watch out for that. We are all guilty of this at some time or another. Just because we aren’t sued for what we say, doesn’t mean that we aren’t slandering people.
The particular Greek word Philo for love, used here means “a love called out of one’s heart by the pleasure one takes in the person loved.” That is, what you can get out of the relationship! That’s what a lot of marriages have been or are like, as well as relationships among others.. That isn’t a Biblical love. It is a love of “liking” maybe. One likes another person because that person is like him or her in the sense that that person reflects our own personality, the same characteristics, and the same likes and dislikes that we have. It is an affection or fondness, a purely human attachment for another, and perfectly legitimate. For the believer, this should be changed, however, we know we are supposed to love other believers, but we find it difficult to even tolerate them, let alone love them, or like them in this sense.
I believe we can identify with that. Sometimes we do not really sincerely love one another. Or we may tolerate one another, but not love one another, and sometimes we are totally intolerant of one another. Let’s not just pretend to love each other.
The context for any attachment we have for a fellow believer, is concerned with one’s attitude toward one’s fellow Christian as contrasted to one’s former worldly associates. This attitude should be changed at the time of salvation (Paul says in II Cor. 5:17—we are new creations in Christ—the old has gone, the new has come. The necessity for this change comes because of the change in a person’s character from a sinner separated from God to a child of God. The saying goes, “birds of a feather, flock together”—the species has an attachment for itself, based upon similarity of character. So an affection or fondness for another based upon the likeness of that other to one’s self is in the mind of Peter here.
The thing that caused some of these Christians to resort to their former worldly associates was failure to obey the Word of God. Consequently their heart-life became sinful. Therefore, they preferred their former sinful companions to their fellow Christians. But when they started to obey the Word again, their souls were purified, and they came to have that fondness and affection for their Christian brethren which is the normal condition among saints who are living lives of obedience to God’s Word, and allowing the Holy Spirit to control their lives instead of their fleshly desires.
The love which they showed toward other believers came from the heart. Then again, obedience to the Word, would cause the upper classes of society to have a fondness and affection for the lower classes, —Christianity levels off all classes.
God gives the exhortation; “LOVE ONE ANOTHER DEEPLY FROM THE HEART.” What kind of love is this? It is another Greek word that you have heard before; Agape—This word speaks of a love which in its classical usage refers to a love called out of one’s heart by the preciousness of the person loved. In the New Testament it is used in certain contexts like John 3:16 where the idea of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the person loved is added to its classical meaning. Here it is God’s love for us. We are told to love other Christians because people are precious to God, and we are to love them with a love that is willing to sacrifice one’s own interests for the benefit of the brother or sister in Christ. That’s why Paul exhorts us to consider others better than ourselves, and not to think “more highly of ourselves than we should.” It is a love that treats others kindly, and doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. (I Cor. 13:5) It is a love that so causes one to rejoice in the welfare of another that there is no room for envy or jealousy in the heart. This kind of love is only produced when one is subjected to the control of the Holy Spirit. The Christian who manifests the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Gal. 5:22, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Paul goes on to say after this list; “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Are you growing in the Lord? If not it is no wonder that we don’t understand HOLINESS AND OBEDIENCE. It is no wonder that we are not REVERENT TOWARDS GOD. No wonder we don’t
LOVE OTHER BELIEVERS LIKE WE SHOULD.
If we don’t desire to know the Bible, it is no wonder that we aren’t growing like we should. But when we want to know God’s word and read it and ask him to help us understand what he wants to say to us through it, then we may GROW UP IN OUR SALVATION, but the beginning is when we finally recognize that we are sinners, and need a savior, when we realize that the only way we can be saved is by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. The only way to be wholly sanctified is to surrender our lives completely to Jesus Christ and the indwelling power and control of the Holy Spirit.