Sermon Tone Analysis
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*THE GOD WHO SANCTIFIES*
*2 PETER 1*
Pauline and I were once travelling up the A49 going North from Abergavenny, heading towards Manchester.
Our splendid Beagle, Marcus, was travelling as he always did with his back paws on the rear seat, his front paws on the back of the driver's seat and his head over the right shoulder of the driver.
I was doing the driving on this day when something warm and half solid was felt to be pressing against my back, between my body and the seat.
It was a tin of partly digested Pedigree Chum.
I couldn't move forward because that would make the lump fall further down my back, and I couldn't sit back for fear of causing a squashing event.
The situation was eventually resolved.
The strange thing is this; if he'd been given half a chance Marcus would have re-eaten his late departed breakfast.
Dogs can do that.
Snack on their own vomit.
It seems repulsive to us, but natural to a dog.
It's canine culture.
C.f.
*2 Peter 2:22*.
The apostle Peter is using that proverb to describe a process that's observable in the lives of numbers of people in the Christian church.
It's a pretty radical and shocking ddescription of some people who are sitting in this assembly this morning.
They're in most churches, so they're probably in ours.
Peter has some other powerful pictures to describe them.
Waterless springs (*verse 17*); mists driven by the storm (*verse 17*).
Waterless springs is an Eastern picture of disappointed hopes and false promises.
You come to the well, remove the stone slab from the top, let down your bucket, lick your parched lips, pull up the bucket and NOTHING.
The other picture is of powerlessness.
Mists driven by the storm winds.
Helpless to resist.
The man who wrote those words and used those disturbing pictures was an angry and concerned Christian pastor.
There was a distorted version of Christianity creeping into the churches which was being spread around by men for whom the Gospel of the apostles wasn't quite their scene.
They liked to be in the Christian arena but they carried the world in their hearts.
They functioned in the church, but they got their motivation from the world.
The version of the Christian message they bring makes big promises but delivers nothing.
See *verse 18-19*.
The impact of this phenomenon in the church is to produce disciples who are still worldly.
Thye have the name of the Lord on their lips, but the world is still Lord in their hearts.
They're dogs that return to their vomit.
They repudiate the world and its lusts for a while, then they return to snack on that which they vomited up a few months or a few years ago.
And what you have, and this is what we're looking at this morning, is people in a Gospel church who're not being transformed by the Gospel.
Look at the way they spend their time, their money, their energies, and you'll see that it's still worldly.
Self-centred personal fulfillment is still their personal centre.
Their attitude to what's best for their children is exactly the same as those parents to whom Christ means nothing.
The fundamental philosophy in their hearts is this, */what's in it for me?/* See *verse 15*.
Balaam was a man with a prophetic gift, he had a ministry, a gifted individual, who used his God-given abilities to get something for himself.
To satisfy something he wanted or needed to make life work better for HIM.
Waterless springs.
Mists driven by the wind.
Dogs returning to their own vomit.
People who say they love Christ but who are using the Gospel and the church selfishly.
What's in it for me?
That's why the opening chapter of *2 Peter*'s about the God who *sanctifies*.
THE sign that the Gospel has taken you out of the world is that the world is being taken out of you.
Look at *2:19* - what is it that */overcomes/* you.
What is the most powerful controlling principle in your life.
What rule are you really under?
Which master commands your best obedience?
It doesn't matter what you promise, what you say with grand words, it's whether you're being changed by obedience to the Lord God, that's what counts.
That's what's so disappointing about these church leaders and preachers with their grand words and their fine sermons, when you get close enough to take a drink, to share in their life, you find there's no real water there.
No life of Christ bubbling up from the internal well - just a re-working of the world's tired old mediocrity.
C.F.
Larry Crabb.
/I'm learning to distinguish between the dragon's voice and the Spirit's.
The dragon directs my attention from the person of Christ as the source of the deepest joy toward the blessings of life as what I really need to be happy.
If those blessings can be gained only by obvious sin - fine; if living a good Christian life keeps life working well, that's fine too.
The dragon doesn't care, as long as I chase after the better life of blessings.
The Spirit exposes a problem in my soul worse than my suffering, then reveals the grace of God.
He tells me I can know this God; I can know His heart, rest in His power and hope in His purposes.
And I can see it all in Christ.
He keeps stirring my heart to say, "Just give me Jesus"./
Now, chapter 1 is about growing up as Christian believers.
When we're babies and infants, we're selfish by nature.
We need to take whatever's on offer.
We nurse at our mother's breast.
We cry she gives.
We soil our nappy she comes to make us comfortable.
It's a bit like that when we first become Christians.
We have needs that must be met by the care and nurture of our mothers and fathers in the faith.
But one of the signs that you're a true child of God is that you grow up, you mature.
You don't turn into a waterless spring, or a mist driven by the wind.
You become a person whom God is changing.
The process is called *sanctification* by the scholars.
A life changed by God, set apart for His glory, being transformed into His likeness.
Let's look at it briefly in *chapter 1*.
*1.
SANCTIFICATION IS A WORK OF CHRIST IN YOU*
*verses 3-4*.
So, Peter's writing to a group of Christians who're being tempted and maybe taught to think that separation from the world's lifestyle, to a distinctively godly lifestyle wasn't especially important.
His first emphasis then is on the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ has *divine power*.
Here is the One who made the heavens and earth.
He created all things.
His purposes are invincible.
What He plans for the world cannot be frustrated.
His mighty power guarantees that His perfect purposes will be carried out impeccably.
And His purpose is to call a people to Himself, to give them what they need to reflect His divine nature in the world.
If you're a Christian He's done for you exactly what he did for the children of Israel in the land of Egypt.
He's *called you* (*verse 3*).
You're not a Christian because you wondered into a Christian church accidentally, but because an Almighty King called you irresistibly to Himself.
Your faith was actually an act of obedience in response to the summons of the Gospel.
But He didn't just call you to impersonal membership; he called you to *life and godliness*.
He called you to a godly life.
He called you to a lifestyle characterized by his own *glory and excellence*.
This lifestyle will flow out of the *knowledge of Him*.
You come to know and participate in the knowledge of a glorious and excellent King.
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