Born Again and Growing Up
Elect Exiles • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsEven though our salvation is initiated by God, we still need to participated with God as we grow up into salvation.
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If you have your Bibles, please open them to 1 Peter 1:22
One quick announcement… on Friday July 23rd we are going to have a lock-in here at the church.
We are in our series through 1 Peter that we are calling Elect Exiles.
Throughout this letter Peter is writing to Christians who are God’s elect people… that is as God’s chosen children. And as he writes God’s elect, Peter gives us instructions for how to live as exiles and strangers in a world that is hostile to to God, hostile to gospel, and hostile to God’s people.
So 1 Peter is an incredibly practical letter that gives us instructions on how to live our lives. Throughout this letter, will see that gospel isn’t simply something we believe and something we talk about at church in our homes… but the gospel calls us to a new way of life. And Peter is giving us elect exiles instructions on how to live the the world.
Tonights sermon is titled “Born Again and Growing Up”
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Let’s pray.
The miracle of birth is an amazing thing.
Consider for a moment, the way in which you were born. Consider where you were born, consider who your parents were, consider the day and year that you were born, and consider your genetic make up… the color of your hair, and your hight, and your gender…
Out of all these things, who among us had any say how we would be born?
None of us
I didn’t chose to be born on June 26, 1992
Regardless of what the culture says, I did not choose to be a male
I did not choose to be born in Montana.
I didn’t choose my height or my hair color
Hopefully we all that none of us had anything to do with the way in which we were born. We can’t take credit for any part of our birth.
If we recognize this about our physical birth, then we might get an idea of what our second birth was like when God saved us from our sins. Peter puts it like this.
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
Peter tells the us as Elect Exiles that they are to love one another, because they have been born again.
I want us to just consider what what he is describing when he says that the Christians have been born again.
Most of us have likely heard people refer to themselves, or to other believers as “born again believers”
But I wonder, have we stopped to think about what that actually means?
The this term born again doesn’t come from Peter. We actually hear first hear this term from Jesus was talking to a man named Nicodemus.
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
If we wish to be saved, or as Jesus says it, if we are to see the kingdom of God, we must first be born again.
Now we understand what it means to be born… because any of us who are alive are breathing because we were born from a mom and a dad. This concept is understood in some sense even by infants. And yet Jesus here speaks about being born again. This is a strange idea that Jesus introduces to Nicodemus. In fact even Nicodemus doesn’t really get what Jesus is talking about here.
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
What Nic has in mind second physical birth where an old man comes from his mother’s womb in the same way that he did when he was a baby… This is a ridiculous image…
But this is not what Jesus was talking about when he said a person must be born again if they are to see the kingdom of God
Jesus clarified
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
So being born again isn’t saying that there is a second birth from this the flesh of our parents… rather being born again is something that comes from the Spirit of God.
When we talk about being born again, we can compare it to our first birth in some ways, but all at the same time it our second birth is quite different from our first birth.
Peter similarly contrasts the second birth from our first one when he says,
23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
Being born again is different from our first birth, in that the seed of our second birth is not perishable like the first seed that brought us to life. Rather Peter tells us that in our second birth, we have been brought to life because of the Word of God that never dies!
Look at the difference between man and God’s Word;
24 for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
Notice the difference between our first birth and our second birth?
Our first birth was one that brought us to a fleeting life that would soon quickly perishes… but our second birth came from the living and abiding word of God that will remain forever!
and since the second seed that gave us second birth will never perish, so too in our second birth, we will have eternal life that will never end.
So understand, there is a difference between the first birth and the second birth. But these things have similarities too… that’s why Jesus used the imagery of birth when when he talked about our need to be born again.
Remember, how much you had to do with your first birth? Did you go through the pains of child birth? Did you decided to be born on a certain day from a certain family? No....
So too, we had no part in being born again.
1. We do not contribute to being born again.
1. We do not contribute to being born again.
Our first birth and second birth are different in this sense in that our first birth is temporary and fleeting while the our second birth is eternal and unfading.
And when we are born again, we are made into a new creation by the Word of God that will remain forever! As such we have eternal life because the seed that gave us life is an eternal seed that will does not perish.
While our second birth is different in this sense it is similar to our first birth in that we had nothing to do with either our first birth our our second birth....
Peter Tells us that we have been born again through the good news that was preached to you (v25)
Because of Jesus finished work on the cross, because of his resurrection, and because of the Spirit that came to you as through the preached Word of the cross, you have been made alive with Christ! And none of us can take any credit for being born again.
John says it this way
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
God caused us to be born again… Just just because you had nothing to do with being born again doesn’t mean that it won’t be evident in your life that you are born again.
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
I want us to recognize that the is a relationship with our second birth, and the love that we have for one another…
V23… since we have been born again Peter connects to our need to love one another in v 22
2. If we have been born again, then we will love one another.
2. If we have been born again, then we will love one another.
We can think about it like this… what are the signs of a healthy baby when he or she is born?
Their hearts will be beating
They will be breathing
and most obvious, they might be crying.
Just as there are obvious indications that a baby is born heathy, so too there are signs of our second birth. The most notable of those indications of our second birth is that we will love one another.
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The entire world will know if you have been born again… it will be evident that you have belong to Jesus if you love love one another.
So consider, do you love one another? And I’m not just talking about loving the people who are easy to love… do you love even your siblings when they are pills… And not just siblings…but how about those who are unworthy of your love… maybe someone has wronged you, or sinned against someone you love. Do you love even those who are unworthy of love?
If not, it is likely due to the fact that you have not been born again… but if you do love one another, it is owing to God giving you second birth
19 We love because he first loved us.
Our love for one another is an overflow of the love that God has poured out on us. Even when we were dead in our sins… even when we were unworthy of love, God set his love on us and sent his Son to die in our place so that through him we might have life.
And if God loved us even when we were unworthy of his love, then we too must love those who we might be tempted to think are unworthy of our love.
John continues with this warming;
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
We must love one another. If we have been born again, we will love one another. And if we have any kind of hatred or animosity towards a brother, it might be owing to the fact that we have not been born again.
But here lies an issue that many Christians have tend to wrestle with… sometimes Christians do struggle with loving others. And in those times, we might be tempted to think that we are not saved.
We might think things like:
If we have been born again apart from any of our good works, then does it contradict the gospel for me to strive towards doing good works?
Or to put it another way, If need to work hard to love someone, does it mean that we are not saved?
as if our striving is a contradiction to the free gift of grace…
Well if we think that through our striving we somehow earn salvation, then we are contradicting grace…
but on the other hand, if in an attempt to magnify grace, you start living a life of lawlessness that is without love, well then you demonstrate that you are not saved.
So where do we find the balance in how our works relate to our salvation… well let me give you the next point and then we will listen to how Peter puts it.
3. Growing up into salvation requires our full participation.
3. Growing up into salvation requires our full participation.
This is not a contradiction to the first point… we don’t contribute to being born again… but we do participate with God in the Christian life.
What this means is we have a responsibility and a part in the work that God calls us to do.
We need to understand that the gospel saves us from the penalty of sin… but it also saves us from the power of sin.
Saves us from the penalty of sin… that is, we are no longer guilty for the sins that we have commited…
But to be saved from the power of sin… means that we are no longer captives and slaves the sinful desires of the flesh that lead to death....
listen to how Peter says it
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Notice the first word in the sentance… so… That word so… links this sentence to the idea that came before it.
Before this verse at the end of ch 1, Peter Said that we have been born again according to the living and abiding word of God that remains forever....
So.... put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander....
the word “put away” literally means “take off....
(earlier I was hot so I took off my sweater)
so too… we must put away… or take off all malice deceit hypocrisy envy and slander…
While this short list certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of sins… they are all in opposition to love.
Because we are to love one another… we must put away all malice…
malice is the feeling of hatred or the desire to do harm to another person… Malice is in complete opposition to the love that we are to have for one another
Because we are to love one another, we must put away all deceit and hypocrisy, because these things are in opposition to love
Deceit, is to hide, or mask the truth…
And hypocrisy is similar, in that it is claiming to have a moral standard all the while don’t live according to that standard.
Because we love one another, we must put of all envy and slander…
envy being the jealousy that we feel towards those who have something that we want
and slander being the use of our words to ruin the reputation of another person
We must put away all malice deceit hypocrisy envy and all slander, because all of these are in complete opposition to love
And we must love one another because God has caused us to be born again.
So notice the relationship of being born again… God caused us to be born again apart from any human activity… and because of this, God calls us to participate with him in cast putting away the old sins that opposed loving one another.
God works in us to save us and he causes us to be born again… and we work with him to to kill sin…
But taking off sin is not the only way we participate with God in the Christian life.
Peter continues
2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Peter picks up on the imagery of newborn infants again… if we have in fact been born again… that is, if we have in fact tasted that the Lord is good… he said that we must continue to long for pure spiritual milk…
Anyone who has spent any time around a newborn knows that they long to be nourished with milk… this is a sign of a healthy baby.
a healthy baby will have a heart beat and will be breathing… but not only that, but a healthy baby will also get hungry and desire milk so that they can grow up and gain strength to begin lifting their head, and to begin crawling, and to start walking…
So too, if we have been born again we will love one another, and not only that, but we will also, we will long for the Word of God, and in longing for it we will continually delight ourself if the word so that by it we may grow up into salvation.
When I tell you to read the Bible, it’s not just because I have nothing else to say… I tell you to read the Bible because Peter tells us to long for the pure spiritual milk, which is the Word. And we must long for this Pure spiritual milk, so that by it, through the Word, we might grow up into salvation. That is, we will be given strength to kill sin and love one another. We don’t just read the Bible because we have to… but we do it because we have tasted the goodness of the God. If we have tasted his goodness, then we will long for the Word.
God has caused us to be born again… this was all his doing. And now that we are born again, he calls us to a new way of life that through the Word… So let us put away all sin, and instead, let us run to Jesus so that we might glorify him enjoy him forever.
Let’s pray.