Training Ground (#15) — Matthew Goode (05-05-24)

e e e e I reckon we can go ahead and get started uh appreciate you Pastor Mark for allowing me the opportunity to get up here and uh preach a sermon uh it's been really enjoyable having everybody go and getting to see the different guys uh get up here and encouraging to see all the young guys uh get up here and uh just do what God has called those young men to do calling them into the ministry what a wonderful thing that is as we got to hear a little bit about that this morning but let's pray and then we'll get into our text dear heavenly father we come to you tonight and we thank you for just all the many blessings that you have given us Lord the ability to gather together and open the scriptures and study your word and worship you and Lord we thank you most of all for your son for his life death and resurrection that uh give us access to you through eternal life Lord I pray that you would uh just use me as a tool in your hand as we open uh your word and look at this text I pray that I would be faithful to it and that we would all respond uh how you would have us respond Lord forgive us when we fail you help us to have uh clear minds and clear hearts Lord uh as we start we thank you we love you it's in Jesus name amen uh so let's turn to First Peter and we'll be in chapter one this evening first Peter was written by the Apostle Peter as so many of the Epistles are named after uh their writer or who they are written to Peter stood out as the spokesperson for the apostles and always is LIF listed first anytime that the apostles are named uh he spoke up on many occasions speaking for the group showing his leadership uh in his letter here he is writing most likely to a gentile group of Christians to encourage them and strengthen them during a time of severe persecution Rome had just burned during this time uh around ad 64 or 65 and the Roman Emperor Nero had put the blame of the burning of that City on the Christians and so they were experiencing very very severe persecution and part of Peter's encouragement too this group of Christians is to have their hope in Christ to remind them of their hope in Christ and to remind them that they are called to be holy in an Unholy world and so since I've only got one sermon lined up and I don't get to do a series uh we're going to read through the first chapter to give us a little bit of context uh and we'll do that starting in verse one and we'll go through 21 Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect Exiles of the dispersion in Pontius galatia capid dohia Asia and bethenia according to the forn knowledge of God the father in The sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood May Grace and peace be multiplied to you blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great Mercy he has caused us to be born again to a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead who by God's power excuse me to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a Salvation ready to be revealed in the last time in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuiness 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 though you have not seen him you love him though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with Glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls concerning this salvation the prophet who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit Sent From Heaven things into which Angels long to look and starting in verse 13 that's where we'll focus on tonight there therefore preparing your minds for action and being sober minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but as he who called you is Holy you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written you shall be holy for I am Holy and if you call call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's Deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout your time of Exile knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot he he was forn before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last time for the sake of you who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your Faith and Hope are in God now that we've gone through that we have a little bit of context to what uh Peter is saying to these believers let's take a look at verse 13 it says therefore preparing your minds and being sober minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ and as we've heard so many times in here when we see therefore we have to ask ourselves what is that therefore therefore and so here we look back at the text and we see because you are elect according to the forn knowledge of God because you are Sanctified in the spirit that you can be obedient to Christ and because he caused you to be born again to a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading because God's power guards you through faith for salvation because the grace that was to be yours was prophesied about by the prophets and because he prepared you to obtain the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls so because of all these things we are to have hope he says to prepare your minds the King James says to gir up your loins the loins of your mind what does it mean to guard up the Lo of your minds it means to get rid of the obstacles in your thoughts to set your mind on the things of God and to focus on his grace and he calls us to be sober minded this means that we are to be self-controlled and thinking clearly having a disciplined mind what do you allow yourself to see like col reminded us this morning what do you allow to enter in through your eyes what are the things that you do do you actively work in growing in Holiness or do you go with the flow of life and do no more than come to church on Sunday and think that that is enough to be conformed to the image of Christ what do you read are you filling your mind with the scriptures and with other god-honoring books or are we reading the comment section of town gossip over and over and over scrolling mindlessly through social media what do you focus on when you're alone where does your mind go do you allow it to wander or do you you have a focus where do you go do you go to places that tempt you or do you actively avoid such places and who do you spend your time with and I don't mean spending time with those you have to be around you know in the workplace or in school or college but what relationships do you cultivate be sober minded be self-controlled think clearly think about all these things with a focus and then he tells us to set our hope fully on the grace what is our hope our Salvation which will be fully realized upon the second coming of Christ that is the hope that we set our mind on Hope is Faith for the future future and it is Faith in what God has promised to do and then he says to set your mind on the fully on the grace so then we say what is Grace Grace is typically referred to as undeserved or un uh undeserved favor or Merit or God giving us what we do not deserve and so the grace that we've received here is the unmar favor of Salvation we've heard heard it time and time again in church but it Bears repeating again that we bring nothing to the table when it comes to our Salvation no number of Good Deeds no amount of following the law following uh the desires of our own Hearts will do anything to add anything to our Salvation the only thing that we bring as I believe Jonathan Edwards says is the sin that made it necessary for Christ to come that's the only thing we add to our Salvation is the sin that made it necessary and then when he says to set your hope fully on the grace Peter is using this as a motivation to encourage us that we should have hope because of the amazing undeserved unmar favor that God's given us and we so often fail to understand who God is and who we are and the better we understand God the better we understand our relationship and our relation to him when we understand his Holiness his Justice his righteousness and the standard that we must attain which is perfection then we better understand our sinfulness our wickedness our hopelessness apart from his his divine intervention so when Christ is revealed to us and we gain an understanding of the Gospel we receive a hope that we previously did not have and the better grasp we have of our situation apart from God the sweeter and sweeter the gospel message is and the deeper and deeper Our Hope grows and so continuing on in verse 14 he says as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance live like an obedient child do not go back to the way that you were to the things you used to love to the way you used to go don't go back to the way you were when you were ignorant of the things of God he's writing to Believers and so they they know the father they know Christ because you know him live like it when he tells us not to be conformed it reminds me of Romans 12:2 sayso not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what the will of God is what is good and acceptable and perfect so if we want to be obedient we don't need to be confed formed to this world we don't need to be the way that we used to be we don't need to follow the path we used to be on we are to be transformed and how are we to do that by the renewal of our mind by washing it in scripture by setting our hope fully on his grace Romans chapter 6 it says let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from Death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law but under grace sin was formerly our Master we were enslaved to it but upon our acceptance of Christ Jesus is Lord of our life which is why we believe in lordship Salvation that he is not only my savior but he is Lord of my life I am to be obedient to him because he is King he is Lord he is in control and continuing on in Romans 6 it says in verse 15 what then are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace by no means do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves you are slaves to the one whom you obey either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness but but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness so now present your members as slaves aves to righteousness leading to sanctification it is not enough to know that you're no longer a slave to sin you have to take action you have to act you have to do something John Owen said you must be killing sin or it will be killing you you must fight against sin not let it reign in your life you are set free from it so actively enjoy the freedom from sin by not going back to the muck and mire of a sin-filled life Jesus said in John 15 14:15 that if you love me you will keep my Commandments if we love him we will obey him we show our love and affection to him by our obedience we set our Hope on his grace and when we do that it produces a deeper love for Christ remember that sin promises pleasure but cannot deliver it only delivers death and destruction it may be pleasing for a time but ultimately it will leave you in ruin then continuing on in Peter in First Peter in verse 15 he says but as he who called you is Holy you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written you shall be holy for I am Holy Peter cited this from Leviticus chapter 11 verses 44- 45 and it says for I am the Lord your God consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am Holy says set yourselves apart be holy because that is how how I am if we look at this verse in Leviticus and we look at the law as a whole we will see that there were rules for seemingly every mundane part of the Israelites life and we can reason that God is showing them that they are to be completely set apart different than the world for his sake even the smallest detail of their life and he is adamant about our Holiness because that is what he is but what does holy mean means to be set apart to be separate to be other he is not like us he is the Creator and we are the creatures while we are made in the image of God we only receive the communicable attributes that he has such as wisdom knowledge Consciousness Holiness righteousness but not to the extent that God has God is other in that he has incommunicable attributes such as his omniscience his omnipotence his omnipresence he is self-existing he is eternal and so on so we are like him in the fact that we were made in His image and he has given us the ability to do some of what he does and some of who he is but there is no one like him Isaiah 6 verse one it says in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up in the train of his robe filled the temple above him stood the seraphim each had six wings with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew and one called to another and said holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and we see this exact same picture in Revelation and the four living creatures each of them with six wings are full of eyes all around and within and day and night they never cease to say holy holy holy is the Lord God God Almighty who was and is and is to come and then a beautiful Psalm about the Holiness of God Psalm 99 it says the Lord Reigns let the peoples tremble he sits enthroned upon the cherubim let the earthquake the Lord is great in Zion he is exalted over all the peoples let them praise your great and awesome name holy is he the king in his might loves Justice you have established Equity you have executed Justice and righteousness in Jacob exalt the Lord Our God worship at his foot stol holy is he Moses and Aaron were among the priests Samuel also was among those who called upon his name they called to the Lord and he answered them in the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them they kept his testimonies and the statutes that he gave them notice that they are obedient oh Lord Our God you answered them you were a forgiving God to them but in Avenger of their wrongdoings exalt the Lord Our God and worship at his holy mountain for the Lord our God is Holy so we see clearly that scripture teaches over and over and over that God is Holy he is above all creation and in this Psalm we see that he requires obedience that he is the Avenger of their wrongdoings but he is also forgiving you know our view of God affects our desire to live a holy life there is a quote by Steve Lawson one of my favorite preachers that says a high view of God leads leads to high and holy living and a proper understanding of who God is and who we are will completely change your perspective and your desire to please God if you hadn't seen Colt sermon from a few weeks back I recommend you go check it out it is tremendously helpful in putting into perspective what it means that God is Holy I've only given you a short bit he gave a full sermon on the Holiness of God which I was going to do and then he did it before me so if if we examine our life closely would it please God does your conduct reflect Holiness does it reflect christlikeness can you look at your life and see a pattern of growing Holiness something I say often when teaching Sunday school is that our life the Christian Life is should be on a constant upward Trend in Holiness and sanctification there will be dips and there will be low spots but at the end of my life when I get to the end I should be holier than when I started we are to be conformed to the image of Christ if you can't look at your life and see that do you see a stagnant life or do you see one that's backsliding even worse one that leads to apostasy 2 Corinthians 13:15 says to examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith a person that does examine themselves and is striving to be holy often times will not fit in with the average professing Christian he will likely be despised and accused of being a legalist and unloving a legalist because the person that is striving to live this holy life that is pleasing to the Lord will be living a life of obedience and one that is above reproach and they will typically be a rule follower even into the most mundane detail of the rules and why because they are trying to be like Christ they are trying and striving to grow in Holiness and it does not look like the world he will be called unloving because when he sees sin in the life of a brother or professing another professing believer he'll call it out even though it is done out of love and concern for the other person's often met with hostility and a voice crying legalism the church in America today has been steered so far from the sermons of old where hell was warned against God punished Sinners that now what is preached so often is God Is Only Love and Jesus loves you just like you are come as you are and stay as you are don't worry about changing just ask Jesus into your heart and you're good to go but that is not the gospel message that is not what scripture teaches the gospel message is that you are a wretched sinner who has violated the perfect standard of a holy God and you are under his judgment and there is no escape from the Wrath to come except one way and that way is through his son the Lord Jesus Christ and God whose mind we cannot comprehend saw fit to save Sinners even after we've rebelled against him and in his Holiness he will not tolerate sin so he set in motion before the foundation of the world a plan for salvation and his plan required a perfect sacrifice to pay the price for sin that has been committed against him and the only one worthy to be that sacrifice is Jesus Christ the son of God so Christ came lived a perfect and sinless life died a sacrificial substitutionary death paid the price for our sin for your sin for my sin and then he rose from the dead on the third day and he defeated sin and death and by placing our faith and trust in Christ alone you can and will be saved no verse to me says it better than 2 Corinthians 5:21 it's my favorite verse for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God and so if we just break that down it explains the gospel so well so for our sake because of his great love for us and because we are completely helpless apart from him he made him to be sin God put the plan in motion that Christ would take on the sin of every person who will ever believe who knew no sin Christ is perfect and lived a perfect life he is the Lamb without blemish or spot as it says in the text we're looking at tonight so that in him so that through faith in Jesus Christ Alone in him only we might become the righteousness of God he gives us his perfect righteousness so that when the father looks at us he sees the righteousness of his son son and it's my opinion that there's not a better single verse that explains the gospel so clearly and so simply and it's exactly because of this incredible message of the Gospel that we owe everything to the Lord every part of our life down to the most minute detail Jesus Paid It all all to him I owe so continuing on in First Peter verse 17 he says and if you call him his father who judges impartially according to each one's Deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout your time of Exile if you call him father Peter's saying since you know God well enough to call him father because remember he is writing to Believers since you know God so well that you call him father then you know that he judges impartially according to each one's Deeds Hebrews chapter 12 says it great for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives it is for discipline that you have to endure God is treating you as Sons for what son is there whom the father does not discipline if you are left without discipline in which all have participated then you are illegitimate children and not Sons besides this we have had Earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live for they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them but he disciplined us for our good that we may share in his Holiness so in verse 18 He says knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold 19 but with Precious Blood with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot you have been ransomed you have been set free you you have been saved from the feudal ways of your forefathers and what are those feudal ways the curse of the law which Mark talked about a week or two ago you've been set free from that the law only showed them their ability to fail and sin and be under God's judgment the law and the sacrificial system were a constant reminder of their inability to live up to the standard the standard that God set that is perfection adhere to every jot and tit of the law but what does it say you were ransomed not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot there is no more precious substance in all existence than the blood of Jesus because only his blood can wash a rebellious sinner clean of all of the filth of this world and wash us clean from our own sinful nature verse 20 says he is forn he was forn before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you so in God's omniscient wisdom he set in motion the plan of the Gospel to save Sinners and to redeem them back to himself before he created the universe the Savior was revealed 2,000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ so that he could give us his righteousness and reconcile us to the father and as we can see he did this for our sake as this verse and as second Corinthians tells us because of his great love like it says in Ephesians chapter 2 and you were dead in your trespasses and sins which you once walked following the course of this world following the prce of the power of the air the spirit that is now at work in the sons of Disobedience that's how we used to be among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by Nature children of Wrath like the rest of mankind but but God being rich in Mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses he made us alive together with Christ by Grace you have been saved set your hope fully on his grace and he raised us up with him and seated him and and seated us with him in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable Riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus for by Grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them in verse 21 speaking of Christ he says who through him we are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your Faith and Hope are in God we are believers because he elected us it is through him that we believe we are to give him glory because Christ accomplished all the father sent him to do and because we know that he is faithful so our faith and hope are fully in him so why are we to be holy because God is Holy because God commands it because we are his in Isaiah God tells us you are are mine because we were bought with a price the precious blood of Jesus must have been spilt for us to be saved and because of that because of what Christ did that is why we are to be holy and how are we to do that first you must know Christ you cannot be holy apart from him as we read in Ephesians the the former way we used to be apart from him we cannot be holy we cannot be like him we are like the world apart from him we must submit to the will of the spirit so that we can be fully led by him we must be a person of prayer we must be filled with scripture how can we possibly grow in Holiness if we do not know what God desires from us how can we possibly be more like Christ if we don't know what he's like it's the most Sunday school answer there is but we must read our Bible we must know what it says that is how we know the will of God that is how we know what Jesus is like and that is how our minds are washed clean from the filth of this world so that we can be like him and never forget that the Christian Life is a life of repentance we are to be living a life of repentance as we grow in Holiness our sin becomes more evident to us it bothers us more and more and as we continue to grow in Holiness the the things that we used to think weren't a big deal become a big deal it is the closer that we grow to Christ the more apparent even the most minute sin becomes because it is not minute to a perfect and holy God but remember that living a life that is set apart unto the Lord one of pursuing Holiness will invite persecution Jesus was the only perfect person who ever walked this Earth and he was crucified for it which was part of the predetermined plan of God but the people's hatred was all their own and God used it to accomplish his purpose Jesus tells us that this will happen in John chapter 15 that we will be persecuted he says if the world hates you know that it hated me before you if you were of the world the world would love you as its own but because you are not of the world but I chose you out of the world therefore the world hates you does the world love you do you look like the world do you fit in with the world or are you living a life of Holiness are you persecuted for what you say and do and believe if they hated Our Savior and we are striving to be like him we'll be hated too will you take a serious look at your life will you examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith because if you look like the world you need serious self-examination ask yourself if you are seeking to please God or seeking to please yourself and your own interest Holiness is what we are called to but there is a price to pay for following Jesus are you willing to count the cost and take up your cross and follow him so just like Peter wrote to the persecuted believer to encourage let this text encourage you let it help us set our hope fully on his grace and let us remember whose we are and live up to the calling of being holy because the one we belong to whom we call Father is Holy dear heavenly father thank you God for just allowing me to be up here this evening and to to deliver this message Lord I pray that it was faithful I pray that it is received and I pray that we will live godh honoring lives that are holy and pleasing to you and that we will not look like the world but we will look like yours and we will act like yours and God we thank you for the gospel because apart from it there is no hope God we thank you for the person and work of Christ please help us to be conformed Into His Image help us to Bear the fruits of the spirit we love you we give you all the honor and Glory it's in Jesus holy and precious name we pray amen