1 Peter 1:1-2; John 21:15-19
Theme: Our Identity
Title: Christianity’s SOS – Salvation, Obedience, Sanctification
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
In the Gospel of John chapter 21, we have the story of Jesus and Peter engaging in this deep conversation concerning Peter’s commitment to Jesus. Jesus asks him over and over to state the depth of His love – does Peter love Jesus with all his heart, mind and soul or does he just love Jesus with a more superficial love?
With each response, Jesus reminds Peter of the mission that has been set out for him by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – feed the young sheep, feed the mature sheep and help all of them grow in grace, mercy and love.
Peter spent the rest of his life doing just that – helping people come to faith, grow in faith and experience the best life they could on God’s Good Earth.
Our passage ( 1 Peter 1:1-2) this morning comes from the heart and mind of this man we call Simon Peter.
+A man whose life was radically transformed by Christ Jesus.
+A man who was elected by Christ to be a disciple.
+A man who became a part of the inner three – Peter, James and John.
+A man who at times said and did the most amazing things and yet also did the most foolish of things.
+A man who was able to walk on water and yet on one occasion Jesus calls him a devil.
+A man who witnessed the Transfiguration and yet denied Jesus three times even to the point of cursing Jesus’ name.
+A man who was able to preach one of the greatest sermons of all times on Pentecost and yet had to be called out by the Apostle Paul for acts of racism, hypocrisy and snobbery.
Peter was a complicated man. But then again, how many of us have experienced those wonderful moments when it seems like we could immediately be ushered into heaven only to experience those other moments when we wondered why we had not already been cast into hell.
In our passage Simon Peter is writing to a group of house churches that were located in Asia Minor or modern day Turkey. They were a mixed group of people. Some had grown up in the area, others were there because of political reasons while still others had been brought there as slaves. Some were Jews, others were Gentiles, and a few were mixed; both Jew and Gentile. Most of them were hard-working blue-collar types but there were some who were quite rich while others who hardly had enough bread to eat each day.
In other words, they were like people that today we find all over the world.
Peter writes to them from Rome to help them grow in Christ. We don’t know if, like Paul, he is under house arrest, but we do know that less than five years after he wrote this letter that Simon Peter was murdered by the Roman Government for his faith. He was crucified upside down.
Peter’s goal was for the different house churches to read his words, copy them and then pass them along for others to read. He wanted them to study them, to think about them and to see if what he wrote can help them understand Jesus better, the mission of the Church better and be able to live a better life.
I believe that if we take the time to read this little letter that it can help us as well. We may not all be in the same position as those who first read the letter but if we listen to what Peter wants to share with us, I believe even though he has been gone for almost 2,000 years, he still has something vital to say to the Church today.
Let’s look at just three of those things that we find in the first two verses of his letter.
I. At the Very Core of Christianity is the Story of Salvation
If you want to know what is at the very core of Christianity, it is the Story of Salvation.
+It was for Salvation that Jesus came to our Earth.
“18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:18-21
“For there is born to you this day in the City of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” – Luke 2:11
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” – Luke 19:10
“Messiah Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” – 1 Timothy 1:15
“For God so loved the world that He sent His Only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but experience everlasting life.” – John 3:16
This is our core belief. This is the reason why we as the Church – the Physical and Spiritual Representation of the Body of Christ exist to share the Good News of Salvation.
While we may do other things – while we may educate, feed, cloth, nurse, provide shelter and assist in all manner of things – the Story of Salvation – the Dedication of Sharing the Message of Salvation is our Primary Focus and Mission.
At our very core – at the very center of why we exist as a body of believers is to share the message that mankind desperately needs a Savior and that Savior’s name is Jesus Christ.
That there is only One Way to the Father and that way is Jesus Christ.
We believe that there is a Hell to shun and a Heaven to gain and that everyone needs to:
+Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord – “If you only declare that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9
+Repent – To turn from our sins and rebellion against the LORD God and invite the LORD through the power and presence of His Holy Spirit to take charge of our lives.
In short it is what Peter preached in Acts 2
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
That is it – that is what we stand on and that is what we stand for as a Church – we stand for Salvation – that in Christ the LORD GOD has made a way for us to be free from both the penalty of sin and the power of sin. That in Christ Jesus we can experience a New Birth from above. That in Christ Jesus we are not bound for a devil’s hell. In Christ Jesus we are invited to experience today and one day experience in totality all the benefits and joys of Heaven and Everlasting Life.
At times throughout the history of the Church we have gotten off center. We have found ourselves fighting with the government and at times fighting with one another. We have spent more time trying to fix things in our own strength than in pointing towards the One who can fix all things. We have focused more on how we can leave this earth than how we can share the message of salvation with those still on the earth.
But time and time again the Holy Spirit has gently brought us back to center – our focus, our reason for existing is to share the Good News – the news that in the Risen One – in the Messiah – we can find forgiveness, New Life and receive the infilling presence of the LORD GOD HIMSELF. In Christ we can live the Abundant Life.
Peter doesn’t stop there in these first two verses – he reminds his readers that following our salvation there are two major things that are to happen in our lives.
A. We are to become obedient people.
Salvation leads us to begin a lifelong journey. It leads us to become the people of God. In essence, that means that after we are Born Again, we are then called to learn what it means daily to be God’s People and to follow God’s leading.
Again, we see this in the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus called for the people to repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
That was quickly followed up by the words “Follow Me”. In other words, watch me – listen to me, walk with me and obey my words.
John 14:21 –
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, they are the ones who loves me. And who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and make myself known to them.”
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. (Romans 12:1, NLT)
Perhaps no one said it any better than the Prophet Samuel
But Samuel replied, "What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice?
Listen!
Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols.” (1 Samuel 15:22–23, NLT)
Aside from salvation there is nothing more important for us to do as followers of Jesus than just to obey the LORD.
How do we know how to obey?
We know how to obey the Lord by reading His word, by praying to Him, by sharing life with others in the faith and by allowing His Holy Spirit to speak to us and to lead us day by day.
Obedience is not always easy. Just ask Abraham, David, Jonah, Esther or Martha.
The Bible is full of story after story of people who faced a multitude of moments when they either had to choose to obey the LORD or disobey the LORD. Some choose wisely and obeyed the LORD and received blessings. Some choose foolishly to disobey the LORD and as a result received the horrible wages of their sins.
Jesus shares the story of the Wise Man and the Foolish Man. One builds his life on the Rock – meaning a life solid in the LORD. A life that is built on obeying God. The other person chose to build their life on sand – on a life that doesn’t obey God.
When the storms of life came, we know what happened to the person who built their life on sand; on not obeying God – everything was lost.
When the storms of life came for the person who built their life on obedience to the LORD – while they may have been battered and bruised, they were still left standing.
There is an old saying that was attributed to Jesus that we find outside of our Bibles – it goes like this:
“The world is a bridge. The wise man will pass over it, but he will not build his house upon it.”
While we don’t know if our Messiah really said those words, I think we could say that He would agree with those words.
We are challenged to live a life that takes you from one part of the bridge to the other part – from this Earth to the New Earth and New Heavens. You walk the length of that bridge by living a life of salvation and obedience.
Now, how do we know we are obeying?
Well, that leads us to a final thought that Peter had in this little passage: Peter uses that odd word – sanctification along with a rather strange word picture of being sprinkled with Christ’s blood.
b. A life of sanctification
The word sanctification points us to the word HOLY – or being separated or set apart.
It’s not a bad word or an old-fashioned word.
It is just this idea that as we obey God that over time, we will find that our hearts, our minds and our souls will look like, smell like and be more like God’s than the world’s.
In the natural you see it happening all around you – you take a young person and have them begin to study medicine either as a nurse or a doctor. Go back in a few years after they have graduated and been in practice and you see a whole new person. Their language, the way that they think, and their actions have been saturated by being in medicine, being in the hospital or the clinic. They have transformed and as time goes on they will continue to transform.
It happens when you see someone begin working on cars and becoming a mechanic. Over time they transform. They love to talk about engines and how they can be fixed or modified. Before you know it, how they look, how they talk and what they think is important revolves a great deal around machines and vehicles.
The same can be said for teachers, secretaries, bankers, bakers etc…
The Apostle Peter is here reminding his readers that while they work in all kinds of jobs it is important that they remember that they are to allow the LORD to work on them as well. The more obedient they are to God’s Word, to talking and listening to God, to listening and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit the more they will be transformed – sanctified as well.
Simon Peter then ends this little section on that strange word picture – sprinkling the blood of Jesus the Messiah.
It is strange to us but not so much to many of his readers.
Within the Old Testament law there were three major times that blood was sprinkled on people:
+When a leper was healed of their dreaded disease. The blood of a bird was sprinkled on them to announce that they were clean. (Leviticus 14:1-7).
+When a person was being set apart for a special service to the LORD – usually as a priest – some blood was sprinkled on them. (Exodus 20:20-22).
+When the People of Israel declared their total commitment to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY – when with one voice they declared – “All that the LORD has said we will do …” – (Exodus 24:1-8).
Healing, being set apart, obedience – Peter was reminding his readers that is what it means to be a person of salvation.
And today, that is still true.
We preach, teach, share the message of Salvation – that all people who confess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord – all who repent and are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit shall be saved and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We preach, teach and share the message of Obedience – to Follow Me (Messiah Jesus) means to Read God’s Word, Obey God’s Word, to Talk to God, to Listen to God and to allow His Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you as you share life with other believers.
We preach, teach and share the Message of Sanctification – that we have been healed of a disease greater than leprosy – the disease of sin – that we have been set apart to be His disciples – His ambassadors – that we have been called to live a life where when God speaks, we listen and obey.
Wow!
Now, that’s a lot said in just a couple of verses.
That is a lot to take in on a Sunday morning.
But that is our call this morning.
Invitation to Holy Communion
