Astonishing

The more we know Christ, the more we know life

The news is getting more and more insane.

We had a senate hearing on the abortion drug Mifepristone where a renowned baby doctor wouldn’t answer the question

Can men have babies?

Seven times the senator asked the question and seven times this world renowned baby doctor refused to say yes or no.

The senator had his reasons for asking the question.

And she had her reasons for dodging the answer.

But Al Mohler, the president of Boyce College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called her reason “idiotic.”

And he even said her answers made her sound like an “idiot.”

I have followed Mohler for a while - I’ve never heard him speak that strongly about anybody.

So the question, why did her answers make her sound like an “idiot” to us?

In other news, as they say, in Minnesota where it appears a bunch of folks have let the cold freeze their brains solid

A reporter interviewed a mother who was at one of the protests

You know, the protests where people were harassing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents which have been all over the news.

You know, the ones where pepper ball guns, tear gas and pepper spray are being sprayed at the crowds to push them back

This mother had her babe in arms wrapped in a blanket with her.

And she told the reporter she was there to “love her neighbor,” and I’m going, “no, baby, no.”

“You are wrong on so many levels.”

Now, you can ask and should ask, what makes Pastor Randy think he is right and this lady is wrong?

1 Peter 2 - and a whole host of other scriptures - but we’re in 1 Peter 2, so we’ll deal with that.

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 2, verses 1 - 10.

While you look, let me talk to the kids.

Listen to me guys, when I was your age, no one challenged me to think deeply about Jesus.

They wanted me to trust Him as my Savior.

They wanted me to get baptized and then, hang out with church kids and be a good boy.

Nothing wrong with that - I want that for you - except.

I want you to think deeply about Jesus.

I want you to study Jesus just as hard as you study math, science and history.

I want you to know Jesus as best as you can know Jesus.

I want you to learn so much that you teach your mom and dad some things.

I believe - no, I know - that you are capable.

You study hard stuff in school and you do it.

You need to study hard stuff here too.

And I know, I know, because it worked that way with me, that sometimes my teachers at school sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher

You know, wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk.

But one day the light comes on.

What you hear me preach might sound like wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk

But one day, the light is going off in your mind and your eyes will light up

And you say to your self, “I get it.”

And you will, because God wants you to.

So listen as carefully as you can.

Listen for Jesus and what He is doing for you right now.

And come tell me when your eyes light up and you get it.

I love you guys and I know you can do it.

Now, everyone, with your Bibles open, hear now the Word of the Lord from 1 Peter 2:1-10

1 Peter 2:1–10 ESV

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. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 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. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray:

Dear Father,

We want to know Jesus.

Please search our hearts and call to our minds how far we are from what you designed us for.

And then in our despair, remind us through Your Word of Your astonishing love for us.

In Jesus’ name, Amen

Stop these five things right away

And maybe more, but at least these five things.

So, in chapter 1, Peter is all excited about how we are alive in Jesus

He talks about the resurrection and how we have a living hope

And we said a living hope is a hope that grows and grows the more it knows and knows.

He can’t contain his excitement as he tells us all of this

And then he tells us to “be holy in all your conduct.”

And he quotes from the Old Testament book of Leviticus where God says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

And we take that to mean, we need to act like Jesus.

Jesus is holy.

Act like Jesus.

Yeah, we’re going to stink at it, but the more we try, the better we will get over time.

Over time , over time, - everything happens over time.

So, not being one to leave us without a practical application of what being holy might start with, Peter says,

1 Peter 2:1 “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”

Five things to stop doing - to put away right now.

Put away is a phrase Peter would use if he told us to take off our coat when we come inside.

Taking off your coat’s not hard is it?

You just make up your mind, and you take it off.

Now, was it easy when you were a baby?

Of course not, that’s dumb.

But you practiced until you could do it.

And now you do it without thinking about it.

So Peter identifies five things for us to practice taking off into we do it without thinking about - until we are holy.

First is malice - that’s wickedness, it’s evil behavior.

A synonym of malice would be depravity - now I know that doesn’t help much, we use that word in church but not many other places, so let me define it.

Depravity is, listen, depravity is the perverting of virtue and moral principles from their purposes to evil ends.

Listen to me, if you watch the news you see it every day, it’s taking the truth and making it lie - or what you see more of

It’s taking a lie and saying it is the truth.

Even hinting that a man can have a baby is malice - it’s evil behavior

It’s perverting a virtue - motherhood - and using it for evil ends.

It’s an assault on creation order - only mommies can be mommies.

Second is deceit - a synonym for deceit is craftiness which means, “Being skilled in deception.”

Way back when there was a time you would get printed material in your mailbox called a “magazine.”

You might still see one every now and then, but back in the day, they were popular.

Before I got married, I had a telemarketer call selling magazine subscriptions and it sounded like a great deal.

It was like $2.00 a month for, I don’t know, the rest of your life, to get 6 or 8 magazines.

Well, I went for it - what a deal.

And then I got engaged to a girl who does the math - and essentially, I was buying the publishing house.

Shame on me for not doing the math.

Shame on the telemarketer for being crafty - skilled in deception.

Randy, that’s just sales.

Nope, that’s not sales - that’s deceit.

Third, hypocrisy.

You judge someone for doing something that you do yourself.

It’s ok when you do it, but the end of the world when someone else does.

Fourth is envy.

You have an unhealthy desire to have what someone else has, then

Finally, slander - notice it’s all slander, like it’s all malice and all deceit - in every form, put it away.

Slander is evil speech.

Another translation renders it “the ways there are of speaking against people.”

Five things to put off, right now - start practicing it right now.

Now, why these?

I mean there are a million sins he could have listed, why did he start here?

It’s simple - these are sins that hurt people.

You might remember the second greatest commandment - “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Yeah, none of these is loving your neighbor.

These five sins are acceptable sins, to the point that we can be just as guilty as non-Christians in doing them - they are they way of the world.

And that’s Peter’s point - we can’t be - we just can’t be as guilty as non-Christians

Not knowing who we know and what He’s done for us.

In fact, the only way we can put off these five things, is by looking away from everything that tempts us

And looking - or rather starving for Jesus.

You can only put them off if you want Jesus more than them

To put off any sin takes two things, God’s intervention and some self discipline - in that order.

In a few weeks we’ll have a few object lessons standing right here in front of us when we do baby dedication.

Listen to Peter is verse 2, 1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—”

Have you ever watched a newborn infant take a bottle?

When you have a newborn, pretty much mom and dad are exhausted all the time.

The cute little boogers eat and poop with absolutely no regard for what time it is.

Every couple of hours little Buffy starts screaming her little head off wanting to be fed.

So with this background music of this high pitched, “I’m about to die if you don’t feed me now” noise ringing out.

You get her bottle, warm it up, pick up the little terrorist

And put the bottle into her mouth.

Now, if you have ever watched closely, when they’ve been screaming like that, when they take that bottle

Their eyes are wide open and they suck on that thing ninety to nothing

Like death is imminent if they don’t get something in them right away.

But in a few seconds, they slow down to a steady rhythm

And then sometimes, the selfish little rats fall asleep with the bottle in their mouth while you stare at them with bloodshot, sleep deprived eyes.

Peter wants you to see that image in your mind because he wants that to be you.

The only way to grow spiritually mature to the point that you can put off the sins that the rest of the world praises

Is if you start hungering more for Jesus than you do for the other things.

You can never get enough Jesus.

That’s one of the reasons we are having Kidz Blitz coming up on February 28th.

This is an opportunity for parents and grandparents and children and grandchildren to come and get more Jesus.

To help the Kids to develop a hunger for Jesus that is more than just getting saved and getting baptized.

We need them to know how to LIVE Jesus - We need to know that to live Jesus.

There is always more to know and understand and if you ever get to the point where you think you’ve got enough

Worry about yourself, because you are just a sliver away from falling.

Peter’s point is simple - we should be starving to know more about Jesus

Because when we are feeding on the Word, we’re fasting from evil.

You hear what he said, “that by it you may grow up into salvation…”

So you’ll grow up enough in the faith that you can take your own coat off.

You won’t need help with that anymore.

But then you’ll find something else you need help with.

So you keep yearning for that bottle.

I watched a video the other week - actually - it was only a 5 minute clip of a Q and A with John MacArthur and John Piper.

It was a couple of years ago - so Piper would have been in his late 70’s, MacArthur in his early 80’s.

And the question was asked, how do you handle discouragement and depression?

MacArthur said he’s never experienced discouragement or depression

And you know what, I believed him.

Johnny Mac led his church to stand in the face of the state of California over the covid closing and he and his church won.

He said, “I’m just wired differently,” almost as an apology.

Piper on the other hand said something that - kids, I talked about a light bulb going off - I had one of those moments.

Piper said in so many words, what Peter is saying right here.

Piper said, that when he gets discouraged or depressed, he does theology - now that’s Piper language.

When he explained what he meant, essentially what he said was, when he became discouraged, depressed, fearful

He preached Jesus to himself - he did theology.

He said I’ll remind myself of the sovereignty of God - that is the starting place - that there is nothing outside of his control.

That before time began that God loved me and chose me

That in Genesis when we sinned, God cared for us.

That God delivered his people over and over -and that God never, ever failed to deliver his people.

He would remember that Jesus is, using Peter’s words, the living cornerstone.

Alive, the foundation on which the entire church stands.

That Jesus endured the cross and was resurrected from the dead

And said while he was doing it - that he never lost anyone that was his

That He would send a comforter to be with us forever.

That He would come back and get us one day

And that, He would never leave us or forsake us, and then he would say, I know that, because I’ve experienced it.

And the light went off in my head.

I’ll remind myself of those things - but only as memory items.

Peter says no - not as memory items

1 Peter 2:4–5 “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

You don’t tell yourself memory items.

You tell yourself what you know about Jesus.

What you have learned and seen him do in your life, over and over.

Remind yourself of what He has done in your life.

The more you remember, the more you will remember.

And if you can’t remember anything real, you need to be scared.

Listen, we’re out of time and there is so much more - but I’ve got to give you this word.

Look down to verse 9 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

I want us to hear the last phrase - “that you may proclaim,” Listen, not just to the world, but to yourself

That you may proclaim to yourself, “the excellencies” - that refers to the excellent character of God

Without putting a whole lot of words out there about God’s character, let’s just use this one, “He will never leave you nor forsake you.”

That you may proclaim to yourself and others the excellent character of him who called you out of darkness - darkness is where bad things happen

Out of darkness into his marvelous light - and there is the word.

Marvelous - only I want us to use an alternate rendering.

Instead of marvelous - use the word astonishing.

Because that’s what God’s love is to us, it is astonishing.

Listen to me - I won’t speak to the darkness of your heart although I know the scripture says in Genesis 8:21 “… for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth…”

I know my heart.

And it is astonishing that the Lord knew who I’d be, loved me anyway and not only that

Gave me a way through the resurrection power of Jesus to become the best man I could because of Him.

How would we have turned out without Jesus?

Would we be one who says men can have babies

Or one would endanger their baby by taking them to a riot because you don’t understand the word of God.

Or would we be rioting against law enforcement

Or would we be stealing as much money as we could from everywhere we could.

But we can’t - because Jesus loves us with an astonishing love - which makes me want to do astonishing things for Him.

We know that our job is to proclaim our astonishment at how much the Lord loves us.

Chose to love us, to make us a family and promised us He’d never fail us - ever, and He never has.

Folks need to hear that.

We need to remind ourselves of that.

And if you have considered Jesus for the first time today and know you want to follow Him

Won’t you ask Jesus to save you from your sins

And repent - which means you commit your life to following Him

And allowing Him to lead you.

If you do that, when we are singing you can come talk to me about Jesus

Or grab someone after the service.

We want you to be as astonished as we are of how much Jesus loves us.

Let us pray.