Born Again to be Like Jesus

Introduction

Good Morning, please open your Bible’s 1 Peter 1:22-2:8. That is on page 1014 in the Bible’s spread throughout the chairs. Well, perhaps you have been watching a movie right as about the characters are about to embark on dangerous venture, a life changing moment, or climactic moment in the film one will turn in to the other ask, “Are you ready?” And the other will respond, “I was born ready.” Or maybe you come into a new career or find a new hobby and you think “I was born for this!” I often look at the height, weight, strength, and agility of Lebron James and think that man was born to play basketball. The feeling on being born to do something brings with the sensation of fulfilling your destiny. It produces joy because it seems like the task just comes naturally. What a feeling to do something you were born to do. In fact, many people live a life of constant disappointment because they are seeking to find that thing they were born to do, and yet never find it.

Perhaps, it is because they are looking in all of the wrong places. In today’s text we find the answer for Christians. Christians have been given new birth in Christ and with that new birth comes purpose. That doesn’t mean it will always be easy, in fact our purpose is anything but east. However, Christian if you live to do that which you have been born again to do, I promise you. You will experience joy that can only come from God. You have been born again to be like Jesus Christ. Let’s read out text for this morning as we seek to specifically understand just what it means to be born again to be like Jesus. {Read 1 Peter 1:22-2:8}

Born to Love One Another v. 22-25

In the opening of this text we are given a command to love one another earnestly. This is the way we are to be like Jesus. We are born to love one another. Now, as we work through 1 Peter we must learn that the commands of God are never given to us apart from the promises of God. God does not put the burden of obedience upon his beloved children by commanding us to obey what we cannot hope to obey. Rather God’s commands for the Christian are a source of freedom when the Christian obeys them because the promises of God enable the Christian’s obedience.

In an interview with Ligonier ministries deceased Christian author Jerry Bridges explains, The emphasis of my own ministry has been the believer’s personal pursuit of holiness. But years ago I came to realize the gospel has to be the foundation and motivation for the pursuit of holiness. Believers need the gospel to remind them that our standing with God is not based on our own obedience but on the perfect, imputed righteousness of Christ. Otherwise, the pursuit of holiness can be performance driven: that is, “If I’m good, God will bless me.” Bridges is explaining that the gospel is a necessity for Christian obedience. We don’t obey jus because God said so, we obey because God loves us and we love him.

The command here in 1 Peter 1 to love one another earnestly is no exception to this Gospel rule. God provide’s promises in this passage that leads to our ability to obey the command. The text tells us, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere and brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” The word purified is a present participle. This means is a past act that carries with it ongoing results. They were purified in the past, but that purification continues to impact their everyday lives. The first 21 verses of 1 Peter have made clear that the people Peter is writing to are Christians who have given their lives to Christ. They have been born again to a living hope, they are guarded for a salvation ready to be revealed at the day of Jesus Christ, love him and believe him though they have not seen him, they were ransomed from their old ways of life and bought with the precious blood of Jesus.

Peter is saying because you are a Christian, love one another. He drives this home in our text this morning by saying love one another earnestly… 1 Peter 1:23 “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;” The salvation of God’s people can never be disconnected from the obedience of God’s people. We obey, because we are born again.

How did this new birth take place? Through the imperishable seed that is the living and abiding word of God. The word of God that is not like the things of this world which which wither and fade like flowers of the field. You love for others cannot be rooted anything other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. A gospel that will endure forever and ever.

Your love for one another can transcend age, ethnicity, life-experience, like and dislikes because its foundation is nothing less than the eternal word of God. The people this letter is written to are experiencing persecution from the worldly people around them. They are tempted to abandon one another as the heat of persecution continues to rise. If I stop loving these other Christians, stop gathering with them for worship, stop caring for them when they are hurting, stop associating with them when that association threatens my livelihood or family relationships. Then just maybe the persecution will stop.

Perhaps they are tempted to abandon the church and think they can still maintain their relationship with God in private where no one else with know. And Peter urges them to love one another earnestly because their love is rooted in the very thing that will never fade, the word of God. He explains in verse 25 that this word is the good news or the gospel that was preached to them. The good news that Jesus saves from sin. The surety of salvation in Christ is the foundation for continued obedience even in the face of tremendous pressure.

We love one another because we have been born again through God’s eternal word, the gospel. The apostle John says it like this 1 John 4:7–11 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

So, we love each other because loved us and sent his son to die for our sins. Simple enough right? Loving one another should be easy? Yet, it’s not.

Perhaps you have heard of the honeymoon stage for a newly married couple. The stage of marriage that is easy, your both still infatuated with each other, nothing is annoying yet, snoring is cute, morning breath is funny, and that thing he/she does all the time… is yet to be discovered. But happens to all honeymoon phases? They end. Snoring interrupts sleep, morning breath is gross, and one day you notice that thing or things about this person you are now stuck with until one dies and you think that day might be coming sooner rather than later… Love each other in marriage can get a little harder with time. But for those of us who stick through it, it can also get a whole lot sweeter. The honeymoon phase is fun, but isn’t very deep. Marriage offer so much more than the joys of an all-inclusive resort. But you have to determine to love through the hard stuff if you wish to experience the really good stuff.

Too many Christians treat their local church as if the honeymoon phase is going to last forever. Our church is barely old enough for anyone to be out of the honeymoon phase just yet. Thought some of you have gotten there. You’ve come face to face with my flaws, which are many. You have endured community group that is awkward and silent sometimes. You have sinned against someone or they have sinned against you. While others, our very new members which is about a third of us, are still enjoying the honeymoon.

And I want to encourage the members of our church to love one another earnestly especially when it is hard. And you can only hope to do that if your love for your fellow Christian is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are hear cause you like the music, kids ministry, community groups, or even the preaching style. It will fade. Preferences are grass and flowers of the field with time they lose their glory. But the word of the Lord, the message not the model, endures forever.

If that’s true, do you think you could make at least a decade or more? The true joy church membership isn’t found in years one and two. That’s when its easy. The real joy, is found in years 10-20 and beyond when you really learn what it means to love one another earnestly from a pure heart. To love in way that Paul describes in Colossians 3:12–15 “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” Do we love one another earnestly… Does it look like Colossians 3?

T/S- I pray it does. If you endure the difficulty of church life I believe God will use it to grow your faith. It is a necessity for spiritual growth and make no mistake, we were born to grow up.

Born to Grow Up v. 2:1-3

1 Peter 2:1–3“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

We have been commanded to love one another and now Peter tells us to put away the things that are the opposite of love. The main thrust of this sentence grammatically though isn’t to put away, but instead to long for. Putting away malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander is a part of longing for pure spiritual milk. We cannot claim to long for God while practicing things that are contrary to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is so serious that Jesus tells Matthew 5:23–24 “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” We cannot hope to have communion with God if we are at odds with other Christians. If we are against them, lying to them, jealous of them, speaking evil against them. We put these things away if we are to long for God and grow up into our salvation.

And as we long for the pure spiritual milk of God we must do so as infants. Peter is this particular instance isn’t using the simile of an infant to describe the maturity of the people. But instead is using it to modify how they are supposed to long or crave the pure spiritual milk. We are to crave it like a newborn craves their milk.

This is powerful illustration in a congregation filled with young parents and grandparents. You all know too well the manner in which an infant craves for their milk. What do infants do when they are hungry? They cry. What do they do if you don’t feed them right away? They cry louder. Infants demand the real thing and they will not stop their crying until they are fed. We have all struggled to get the bottle ready and tried to buy ourselves so time by providing a pacifier. However, eventually that baby figures out that that pacifier is not producing milk. They will spit it out and demand the real thing.

What are Christians told to crave in them passage. Pure spiritual milk. The word translated spiritual is logikos. It is an adjective that means reasonable or logical. It is very closely related to the word logos which is translated as “word” in verse 23. That word, logos, is said to be the “living and abiding word of God.” What are we to crave? We must crave the word of God.

Christians might be pacified for a time on bad bible teaching by eventually you will discover that the nutrients necessary for growth just isn’t there. We have to spit it out and cry for the real thing. Like and infant must have the nutrients of their milk, so Christians must have the word of God in order to grow. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

It doesn’t seem that Peter is testing the Christians to whom he writes his letter, but rather is saying since you have tasted God’s goodness you won’t be satisfied with anything less. He is reminding them that the word that was the seed that caused them to be born again is the same word necessary for their growth.

When I was a boy I remember asking a deacon of my church why Christians needed to attend church since we are all saved by grace and since God exist everywhere. Why did I need to come to church when God could be found out in the woods or on the soccer field? And he said Josh, “Cats like cat food, dogs like dog food, and Christians want to fed on the word of God.”

We must love one another and we must crave the word of God in order to grow into our salvation. As we discussed two weeks ago our salvation encompasses all that God does in the life of a Christian from the moment of our conversion, including our growth in sanctification (being holy), and it all culminates when we are stand before Jesus on judgement day and are pronounced innocent even though we are guilty.

This growth is so vital because if we are accepted by God (all Christians are) then we will be rejected by men. We are born again to be rejected and accepted.

Born to be Rejected and Accepted v. 4-8

In our final five verses we see this pattern that those rejected by men are rejected by them because of their acceptance by God. We are living stones because in being united to Christ we are united to a resurrected Christ. Just as our hope is a living hope through the resurrection from verse 3 of this chapter so to are we living stones because our cornerstone, Jesus, is resurrected.

These living stones are rejected by men by are chosen and precious in the sight of God. In verse 6 Peter quotes from Isaiah 28 and which states the cornerstone is chosen and precious. This cornerstone is Christ. A cornerstone is the stone at the foundation of a structure that dictates its shape. The other stones used to build the structure are laid in proper relation to the cornerstone. Jesus is our cornerstone of the spiritual house he is building through us. In the OT the temple of God was the place where God dwelt, but now God dwells within us as Christians. His spirit is within us and we as the church, the people not the building, are the dwelling place of God.

It is because that God dwells within us and that God is holy that we are rejected by men. This teaching is employed by Peter, but Peter heard it from Jesus himself. In Matthew 16:13–20 “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.”

Jesus is teaching is that upon Peter’s profession, the gospel. The good news that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. He is going to build his church. The rock, the cornerstone, is Jesus. His identity as the Christ and Son of God. The church is built upon this profession and because of it the living stones conform and take their shape from the cornerstone.

Now, right after this Jesus teaches the he will have to suffer and die in Jerusalem. Peter says, No Lord this can never happen. Jesus then rebukes Peter and says Matthew 16:23 “But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”” My how Peter has changed. Jesus explains he must suffer and then says this to his disciples. Matthew 16:24–28 “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.””

Jesus teaches that he is the rock upon which the church is built as the Christ the Son of God. He teaches the he will suffer and die and then be raised again. He also teaches that if we are to follow up we must also take up our cross and be willing to lose our lives for his sake. Fast forward to the writing of 1 Peter and Peter’s audience is suffering persecution for the sake of Jesus. And Peter tells them you are living stones rejected by men though in the sight of God chosen and precious.

You need to love one another earnestly because the church is being built upon the cornerstone of Christ. As God builds this spiritual house he builds it to make us a holy priesthood that offer sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus. What are the sacrifices? Well Jesus is the temple where God dwells and then through him we are built into the dwelling place of God. Jesus is our high priest according to Hebrews 4 and in this passage we are a holy priesthood through Jesus. Jesus is also the sacrifice for our sins and Paul writes this in Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Through Jesus our lives are the sacrifice that is acceptable to God. Particularly the kind of life described in 1 Peter 1:16 “since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”” The story the Bible is telling is one of a Savior who came to fulfill all the promises of God and then through Him he has ransomed a people for himself who are then able to partake in all of those promises.

Christians are fundamentally changed when they are born again. And because this transformation they no longer belong to the world they live in. When you give your life to Christ you are declared an alien, a sojourner, an exile. This is why you are rejected by men, but precious in the sight of God.

And what we must see from this passage today is that it is an honor to be born again. Even, when we are disdained by the world. 1 Peter 2:7–8 “So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.”

Peter comforts these suffering Christians by telling them your belief has lead to the honor of being a partaker in the promises of God. However, this eternal honor comes at the cost of temporary suffering at the hands of wicked men and women. God is a promise keeping God, and all that believe in the cornerstone will not be put to shame.

And all that reject the cornerstone they will stumble over him. He will be a rock of offense. They stumble because of their disobedience the word, the Gospel. And this they were destined to do.

Conclusion

Peter desires that the churches who receive his letter remain united while they experience persecution. He reminds them that they have been born again by the imperishable word of God. That their present suffering will fade, but God’s word will remain forever. So, in the meantime put away all that is sinful and crave the living and abiding word of God. In order to grow up into salvation. And know that you are rejected by men, but precious in the sight of God. That suffering is the normative experience for the Christian. It is a sign that you do not belong to this world, but instead belong to Christ. And by being in Christ you will not be put to shame. He keeps every promise and you are now a partaker in those promises. You are honored and He will see to the stumbling of your enemies.

MMD- What needs to change in your life in light of this text? To Born again means I will 1) Prize relationships with other Christians. (seek forgiveness, deepen relationships, grant forgiveness) 2) Crave the word of God. If you are struggling find someone to walk with. 3) Trust God as I am rejected by men.