The Seed of the Word (1 Peter 1:13-25)

1 Peter 1:13-25

I want to encourage you to read 1 Peter 1:13-25 from the Message Bible. It's not a literal word-for-word translation, but it's a paraphrase that puts Scripture into modern-day English and it can make it a little easier to understand.

In verse 13, The Message says “So”, other translations say “Therefore”… Why? We have to look back at verses 3-12 to really understand. Anytime you see the word "Therefore" in Scripture, glance back at the preceding verses to understand what the "Therefore" is there for. 

So, Therefore....Because you have been born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3-12) - now these things apply to you. 

In other words, because you’re saved you must do these things:

 (Keep in mind, this is written to people who are saved. If you think that might not apply to you, please please please come and talk to me. I would love nothing more than to share with you about how you can be saved.)

So because you're saved, you must do these things: 

1.     PREPARE YOUR MIND FOR ACTION.

My mind deceives me all the time. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Picture yourself in your every day life (not your sitting pretty on the pew at church life, the life where you're in the carpool line or you're helping with homework or you're caring for your sick loved-one.) Think about the thoughts that pass through your mind in those moments. Take a peek into what goes on in my head as I cook dinner for my party of seven, I mean, my family…

“I need to boil the water for the pasta… Yes 9X4 is 27…Oh shoot, I forgot to buy the spaghetti…Wait, 9X4 is 36, not 27…I stink at math…What is that smell?...Oh, man, I need to change your diaper…Ack, the pot is boiling over…Where is that pasta?”

It NEVER ends! 2 Corinthians 10:5 instructs us to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. EVERY THOUGHT! When our minds are split a thousand different ways, very rarely is our primary thought set on Christ. We have to actively take them captive- prisoner – to make it obedient to Christ. Colossians 3:2 tells us to set our minds on things above, not on the things that are on earth. Our minds are incredibly deceitful. If we “follow our hearts”, or “trust our feelings” we will certainly get in trouble. Our minds are supposed to be set on Christ and ready for action.

2.     SET YOUR HOPE ON GRACE.

We must set our hope fully on the grace of Jesus Christ. This is why I said we must preach the gospel to ourselves every day! Colossians 3:16 says to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The Word is the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Over and over we need to remember what He has done for us on the cross. Without that at the forefront of our minds, our hope will not be set on Christ. Remind yourself of the grace he has given you – He has given you everything that you do not deserve. While you were still a sinner, Christ died for you (Romans 5:8). There is hope in that knowledge!

3.     BE HOLY.

We are set apart for God. This doesn't mean we're perfect. It means that we need to live as aliens, strangers, exiles in this world (1 Peter 2:11). It is so easy to forget that this world is not our home. We are so comfortable here. We face no persecution, and live in the land of opportunity. We are not to be conformed to this world at all – we are to be holy, set apart. We should look and act differently than the rest of the world.

4.     LOVE ONE ANOTHER EARNESTLY AND FROM A PURE HEART.

Because we are saved, we love one another earnestly. Because the word of God is planted in us and because God himself is love, we have the ability to love each other from a pure heart. That person that's hard to love - don't worry, you don't have to love him with your own strength. God offers you His strength to use so that you can earnestly love him from a pure heart. Without being saved, we can’t love one another. Anyone who does not love his brother is clearly not a follower of Jesus! Matthew 22:38-39 tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and the next Is to love each other.

But WHY?????

If we look at all of these points, it looks like you and I are supposed to follow all the rules and live righteously and check off all the boxes of having a “good life”. Even non-believers can do that. We all know some really "good people" who don't follow Jesus Christ. If being a good person is the reason for our following these “commandments” in 1 Peter 1, we have missed the point entirely. That’s legalism. Let your mind grasp this for a moment...

I have prepared my mind for action. Check!

I have set my hope on the grace of Jesus. Check!

I am holy! Check!

I love everyone purely and earnestly! Check!

I must be pretty amazing! Check!

No way! Why do we do all of these things? Is it simply so we can check off all the boxes? This is where 1 Peter 1:23-25 comes in. Because we’re saved, because we love each other, because an imperishable seed is planted in our hearts…then WHAT???

And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Wait a minute, what word? THIS WORD. If you back up a few verses, you will see that verse 23 says that we have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding WORD OF GOD. And then in verse 25 it says “The WORD OF THE LORD remains forever.” 

The Word is the seed that brings us salvation. 

This WORD is the good news of Jesus Christ - the Gospel! This word has been preached to us! This word has been shared with us! This imperishable seed has been planted in the good soil of our hearts. We have received this Word. YAY! But so many around us have not. They are trapped in darkness and they don’t know the truth. Here’s how verses 22-25 would read if they’d been written to an unbeliever.

Having dirtied your souls by your disobedience to the truth, you despise one another from your ugly hearts. Since you haven’t been saved, the word of God does not live or abide in you. 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. But this good news hasn’t been preached to you.

We are responsible for taking this good news to everyone on earth! Matthew 28:19-20 is the Great Commission. Jesus tells us that we are to GO and preach the Gospel and make disciples and baptize people. But we don’t because we’re comfortable and we have no sense of urgency. We’d rather focus on the things of this world.

Read Romans 10:13-17. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. Several years ago, a trend began that encouraged us to all let others see Jesus in our lives. It is not enough to just say the words - people need to see us living out the gospel. While this thought process is true, it created a generation that was satisfied with living "good" lives, being "good" people, without putting into words the reason for the hope that they had. We MUST use our words to share His Word, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The purpose of Bible Study is not to simply make your head swell with greater knowledge. The reason for a pursuit of holiness is not so that we can check it off of our list and declare ourselves holy. The reason for righteous living is not legalism – following all the rules just for the sake of following the rules!

We follow Jesus, we study his Word, we pursue holiness because the gospel needs to be taken to every person. Plain and simple. The Word was preached to us. We are responsible to preach the word to others. 

I encourage you to allow His Word to penetrate your heart. Let it pierce through all of the old, dead things of your old self and plant a seed in fertile soil. It will bear fruit! Then don't keep it to yourself. People all around us are dying and going to a real place called Hell. This gospel that has been shared with us is good news for all people. Share it with everyone you can!

Your Words

I spent some time praying this morning before Bible study. (I was in the shower and it was quiet, which is a glorious thing because let's face it, even the shower isn't always a quiet place during this season of raising lots of little ones!). I was just praying and asking God to speak fresh words to all of my fellow BIble-studiers today. I want you to know that God has to do some major refining of my heart each week before I come to you with a lesson. I've always seen my husband go through this process before he preaches, but it wasn't until I started preparing and teaching a Bible Study class that I realized how painful that sanctification process can be. I'll be completely honest here - I sat at my computer last night, Bible open, commentaries at the ready, and really felt like I had NOTHING to offer. I bowed my head to ask the Lord to speak through His Word as I prepared and let me tell you, He came through! He is so faithful.

But back to my shower-prayer. As I offered my words to him, offered my day to him, offered myself as a living sacrifice to him, He brought a passage of Scripture to my mind. The Armor of God. Being that I was in the shower, I didn't have a Bible handy, so I had to rely on my memory to remember what Scripture says. In my own paraphrasing version of Ephesians 6:10-17, I recalled a few things - "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take a stand against the devil's schemes...Put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth...Take up the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God..."

Well, that's what made me stop in my showering-tracks. Several months ago as Chris preached through Ephesians, we spent several weeks studying the Armor of God, so I remember that all of the pieces of the armor of God are defensive weapons, meant to protect and defend the believer, except one - the sword of the Spirit. That sword is the only offensive weapon that is listed. We can use the Word of God to tear down strongholds and defeat the devil. We can use it in times of temptation and testing and trials and in times of joy and celebration and gladness. But God showed me something new this morning in my time with him.

Before I can ever use the Sword of the Spirit to slay the enemy, I must first allow it to pierce my own flesh and penetrate my own heart. 

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

One of my favorite songs lately is "Your Words", recorded by Third Day. Check out these lyrics:

"Let us speak your words more than ours, more than ever,

Let us share your love with all the world.

Your words give us life that's never ending,

Your words bring us love that never fails,

Everything else will fade away but what will remain are your words."

My personal prayer lately is that God would give me a hunger for His Word and drown out all the other voices that try to distract me. As I prepare to teach His Word, I pray that I would speak His Words more than my own and that I would point you ladies to Scripture as your source of life and love and joy and help and forgiveness and grace. His Word is SO GOOD. 

We studied the parable of the sower a few weeks ago in Matthew 13. My prayer for you, dear reader, is that your heart would be fertile soil that the seed (the WORD of God) would take root in and bear fruit that brings God honor and glory. May it be so.

Saved and Sanctified! (1 Peter 1:1-12)

What a fantastic day of Bible Study! I'm in awe of how God is working in the lives of ladies all over Gonzales. I love hearing stories of what God is doing in your life through our study, so please keep sharing them with me! One friend of mine shared with me this morning that she is a relative "newbie" in the faith and she's discovering just how much she has to learn! She's hungry for it! That's just what I've been asking God for - that He would give us a hunger for His Word. He is faithful and He will do it!

Remember your basic facts about 1 Peter? This letter is written by Peter in the mid-60s AD to new believers in Asia Minor. Peter wanted to encourage these "newbies" in the faith as they persevered through suffering and trials. Believers were suffering physical persecution (as well as familial, financial and social persecution) and false teachers were confusing the spread of the gospel message. Last week we talked about the importance of growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so that we can stand firm against false teachers. We have to know how to identify false teachers so growing in our faith is super important! But we haven’t talked much about what we believe in as Christ-followers. We’ve got to know what we believe if we're ever going to grow in the knowledge of it or stand firm in it!

Read 1 Peter 1:3-9.

Peter tells us right from the start the good news that we’ve been born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead. This living hope is what we know today as "salvation". You've probably heard lots of "church words" thrown around like "saved" and "born again" and "asking Jesus into your heart". We are saved when we place our trust in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We understand that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We understand that Jesus is our Savior and that he died and rose again to offer us the free gift of salvation – a living hope and an imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance. Not only do we have abundant life on earth, but God is holding a place in heaven for those who are saved.

Check out these verses. And side note - this may be a review of the basics for you. Try to read it with fresh eyes, like you're reading a love letter written specifically to you! It's amazing how that puts everything into a different light. 

Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

Romans 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 10:9-10 – “But if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

THIS is what we believe. THIS Is what we stand firm in.

Every single one of us is a sinner! In this morning's Bible Study class we called out some of the sins that women struggle with. Gossip, Pride and Jealousy were at the top of the list. But other sins like sexual immorality are important to note too - it's mentioned so often in the Bible because so much of humanity struggles with this exact thing! We are all sinners in need of a Savior.

The price that had to be paid for that sin was death. In Old Testament times Moses would throw blood on the altar as a sacrifice was offered to signal purification and cleansing from sin. This had to be done over and over and over again. God knew there was a better way, so He sent His Son, Jesus to pay that blood-price once and for all! It's a free gift that is offered to every single one of us; all we have to do is accept it.

The way we accept it is believing that what He says in His Word (the Bible) is true and confessing Him as Lord. That just means we have to make Him the boss of our lives - open hands, open heart, relinquishing control of ourselves and giving it to Him. It's the best decision I've ever made and I hope you've made it too. Maybe you've just been going through the motions of this whole Christianity thing. We're nice people to hang out with and we seem to have fun together. So maybe you just jumped in on that. But let me tell you, THERE IS MORE! Don't be afraid to admit if you've never made the decision to follow Jesus with your life. Come talk to me - I will be THRILLED to share with you!

And for others of you, you made that decision long ago. That's awesome. By coming to Bible Study and reading this blog, you've shown that you know how important it is to study the Bible. But I will tell you that THERE IS MORE for you too! There's a process called sanctification that God wants to take you through from today until the day you take your last breath.

What is sanctification?

1 Peter 1:7 refers to the refining process that gold goes through for purification. The gold is melted to a super high temperature and the impurities are skimmed off as they rise to the surface. Anything that is not genuine does not remain. Our faith is the same way. It's often through the trials, when life gets heated, that we are refined and purified if we let Him work in us. There are other choices we can make, of course. We don't have to let Him sanctify us - He will never force that on us.

Read Matthew 13:1-9 and 18-23, the Parable of the Sower. 

What kind of soil is your heart made of? 

The dirt on the path? These are the people who hear the Word of God, but they completely reject it right from the start. You and I were most likely both like that at some point. Thank God He didn't give up on us!  

Rocky ground? This kind of ground represents those people who really buy into all of this "Jesus stuff" at first, but at the first sign of trouble, whether trials or tests or any of the thousands of excuses we make, they take off and run away. There's no root to hold them in place!

Thorny ground? Sometimes the cares of this world choke out all the good intentions that we have when it comes to following Christ. We make idols of things that are good - our husbands, our kids, our jobs, our churches, our friends, our money - and as we start to put our focus on those things, we are no longer following Jesus. The thorns have choked out the Word in us.

Good soil? I hope this describes you! The hearts of those that are totally surrendered to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives are the good soil. Those who hear the Word and read the Word and willingly allow it to take root in their lives are the ones who bear the good fruit that God has called us to bear in Galatians 5:22-23.

Sanctification happens when the soil of our heart changes. Maybe you wouldn't classify your heart as good soil right now. No problem - just tell God that you want Him to change that. HE WILL!!!!

The last part of this section of our Scripture today concerns Old Testament prophecy. Take a minute to read 1 Peter 1:10-12.

Old Testament prophets like Isaiah (read Isaiah 53 for some very specific prophecy) longed to see the prophecies fulfilled. They received messages from God to deliver to the people, but they didn’t get to see the fulfillment of those prophecies. How did they know what to say and what to write? They searched and inquired carefully. They had the Spirit of Christ in them (an amazing gift, considering the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit wasn’t given to believers until Pentecost!). That Spirit of Christ in them told them what to write, told them all about Jesus and what would happen hundreds of years after them. The Spirit of Christ showed them that they had a wonderful message to deliver but it wasn’t for themselves, it was for US! Prophets and angels longed to look into the future to understand this grace they predicted. While they offered sacrifices on the altar, by faith they proclaimed a new sacrifice, a once-and-for-all sacrifice that they would never even get to see for themselves.

They experienced direct revelation from God, but they never personally experienced God's grace on earth! Grace is God's (unmerited) favor toward us! He offers us eternity in heaven, which we certainly don't deserve and can't pay for ourselves. He offers us abundant life in this lifetime through His grace. Read Ephesians 2:4-8. It's a beautiful explanation of God's grace. 

This summer we studied Scripture as a whole in our study, Seamless. We saw that there was a thread woven throughout Scripture, connecting all the pieces together. That thread is Jesus! He’s there in Old Testament prophecy and he’s there in the New Testament – prophecy fulfilled. All of Scripture points to ONE man – Jesus – and the salvation that He has provided for us through his life, death and resurrection. All of it exists because of his undying love for you. These words that you hold in your hand are a love letter to you from Him, detailing what he did and why he did it and what comes next. Read it. Study it. Let it sink in and change you and move you to action. Share it. Offer the same living hope to people that you come into contact with because they deserve to know the reason for the hope that you have – JESUS!

A Faith More Precious Than Gold

As we dig a little further into Peter's letters, we discover that believers in the 60s were not so different than believers in 2015. In the same way that the early church anticipated Christ's return at any moment, we wait eagerly for the day when He comes back for His bride, the Church. We are living in the end times just as they were. So the advice that Peter offers the church in Asia Minor is advice that the church in America, even two thousand years later, can take and put into practice.

In 1 Peter, Peter explains to the church that their focus should be on Christ as they experience trials and suffering of many kinds. Peter was writing to Christ-followers who were a part of the Diaspora, or “Dispersion”, which derives from the Greek word for “strangers.” That's a fancy word that means this: As the message of Christianity spread to new countries, the gospel message was no longer limited to the nation of Israel. Under the Old Covenant, the children of Israel were God's chosen people. But since the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, a New Covenant came into play. God's chosen people are no longer limited to the Jewish nation, but now include any believer, Jew or Gentile, who chooses to follow Jesus Christ.

As people came to faith in Jesus Christ as Messiah, they spread throughout the earth, taking the gospel message with them, first into areas like Asia Minor, where Peter sent these letters, and later to the ends of the earth (like America!). Since the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s chosen people were no longer in one physical, geographical nation. They are scattered among the nations!

As the gospel spread, persecution became rampant. Many believers suffered physical persecution, even to the point of death. At the hands of the Roman Emperor, Nero, many believers were tortured, burned alive or fed to hungry, wild animals. Many other believers suffered in lesser ways through social, financial, professional and familial persecution. While we may not be suffering physical persecution today, we have many trials in our lives. We all have various “burdens” that we carry. 

I want to encourage you to make a list of your top five trials. We'll come back to it in a moment.

One of the most common questions people have regarding this life is "Why do we suffer?", especially as believers. 1 Peter 1:7 gives us an answer – “so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

We suffer so that God will be glorified through our genuine faith during our trials. When we fix our eyes on these light and momentary afflictions that plague us, our vision becomes quite narrow. Our world gets smaller as our problems are magnified in our minds. But if we fix our eyes on Jesus, these trials and sufferings don't seem insurmountable at all. A gaze fixed on Jesus puts everything into the right perspective.

Peter would eventually die a martyr’s death at the hands of Nero. The man that had denied Jesus three times, the man that Jesus referred to as Satan, the man that chopped off the ear of a Roman soldier…This man, Peter, would eventually give his whole life so that Jesus would be glorified.

As our 24 hour news cycle shows images of refugees fleeing their homeland and tells stories of innocent people being shot and killed, we can rest assured that there is a reason for our suffering - His Glory. So we have a choice to make. We can focus on our trials and use them as excuses or we can focus on our Savior and give Him the glory during our suffering.

A slight shift in theme occurs when we close 1 Peter and open 2 Peter.  In 2 Peter 3:15-18, Peter points to Paul’s writings. Last year we studied 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, which are writings of Paul’s. If you want to refresh your memory on some of Paul's teaching, I wrote about it here in my blog post, A Life Poured Out.  Peter and Paul both emphasize over and over again that we must be aware of false teachers. This causes us to make two assumptions:

1. False teachers exist.

Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 say “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

2. We must judge our Bible teachers to discern if they are true or false.

                  1 Corinthians 5:12 – We are to judge those inside the church, especially our teachers.

Matthew 7:5 – We are to remove the plank from our own eye so we can clearly see the speck in our brother’s eye. 

"How do I know if a teacher is true or false?" you may ask! 2 Peter 3:18 gives us the simple answer– “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” You will be able to stand firm and not be carried away by lawless people if you are continually growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

So that begs the question, "How do I grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ?"  There are several ways. First, refuse to use your trials as excuses. Remember all those trials we talked about before? Look at your list. You can choose to focus on your suffering. You can focus on your trials. You can focus on all the things in your life that are hard. Or you can endure those trials, not let them get you distracted and give God the glory by growing in the grace and knowledge of Him. 

Second, you must not neglect the habit of meeting together! You can quit going to church because you're busy or tired or because you can't find one that you "like" OR you can come even when it’s hard. You can give up meeting together with other believers in fellowship and Bible study or you can continue through your suffering, knowing that God will get the glory. 

Third, spend time in His Word! It's a habit that requires discipline and dedication and drive. Sometimes you'll run for your Bible first thing in the morning, but other times you just won't want to. So the choice is yours: You can focus on all the reasons you can’t or you can honor God by spending time in His Word. 

You can use your trials as excuses or you can glorify God through them by growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Last week we looked at Peter's life through the lens of four gospel authors. We saw a man who failed over and over, even to the point of denying his relationship with Jesus Christ. Did Jesus give up on him? No way. Peter allowed God to work in his life and as a result, Peter was a changed man. The Peter that we see in 1 & 2 Peter is not the same Peter we see in the Gospels. He has grown in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and is changed. Are you changed? Does your life look different now than it looked before you began following Jesus? Celebrate the ways He has changed you and ask Him to work in your life to continue your metamorphosis. 

So how are 1 and 2 Peter connected? 1 Peter reminds us that we are in the last days. Trials, persecution are suffering are headed our way! 2 Peter shows us that false teachers will attempt to deceive us. Some will deceive us in slight, subtle ways, while others are downright heretical! That's why it is so important for believers to KNOW the WORD and stand firm in it all the more as we see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:19-25 is a great encouragement in this. Go find your Bible and check it out for yourself! 

For those of you completing your book study with us, please make sure you read the Lesson One Commentary as well as complete the Lesson Two reading and questions. Save the Lesson Two Commentary to read next week after our session! May God bless the time you spend with Him this week.

Amber