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Our scripture this morning comes from 1st Peter 1 verses 22 through chapter 2 verse 3. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls but the word of the Lord remains forever and this word is the good news that was preached to you.

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. This is the word of the Lord. Well, question for you. 

First question, is this microphone too loud? Second question, have any of you ever done a science fair project? Yeah, you guys maybe know what I'm talking about. They always seem a little bit more glamorous in the movies when they're depicted in fiction. They seem a little bit more exciting than what I ended up doing, right? But it's this experiment where you take a topic and then you exercise a scientific method with it. 

You form a hypothesis, you do some experiments, you take pictures of it, you do graphs, and then you report it all out on construction paper and printouts, right, on a foam core poster board. You put it all together like the night before it's due. Just me? No? Okay, great. 

It's usually like it's moms yelling at their kids, it's two trips to Walmart for supplies because you find out on the first trip that those blue glue sticks are worthless, you got to go back for the good white paste, and somewhere around 2 a.m. it all gets put together, your masterpiece foam core and construction paper, and you take it and some teachers walk around and judge it and you get a grade. You have no idea what that grade was, do you? Let me ask you this, does anybody even still have it? Did it even make it home? I remember specifically seeing several of those poster boards in the dumpster behind the school when the science fair was over, okay? If you did take it home, I mean there's this sense of like an obligatory amount of time you need to preserve it because you put so much effort into it, but you know it stays in the corner of the kitchen for a while and it goes into the attic and then like one summer's heat melts all the glue. Listen, your parents don't still have it, it doesn't exist anymore, they threw it away when you weren't looking, it's gone. 

And I think if Peter were writing today, he might have, maybe I'm wrong, but he might have chosen to compare our fleeting lives, instead of comparing it to grass and flowers that fade, he might have called it foam core and construction paper. The point is the same, why are we so focused on the trappings of life that barely outlast the science fair, right? That barely make it home. There's something that doesn't perish, doesn't fade, that lasts forever.

So that's our text for today. If you guys would open your Bibles, you'll be benefited by having this open in front of you. If you have your own Bibles, we're in 1st Peter, we're near the very end of chapter 1 going into chapter 2. If you are using the black Bibles in the seatbacks in front of you, it's going to be on page 1203. 

It's very near the end. So this is close to the end of your Bibles. If you're thumbing through your own, you're going to find it after Hebrews and the letter of James. 

But if you should have that open in front of you, we're, like I said, at the end of chapter 1 in verse 22, it begins by saying, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again. So I'm going to stop right there for a moment. And up front, I want to point out something that may seem kind of small, but it's actually key to how we think about this and frame this text that we're looking at. 

And it's this. Did you notice that Peter is writing here unequivocally to believers? He's writing to an audience that is decidedly Christian, having purified your souls. You see that? He writes, and then the next line, since you have been born again, since you have been born again, having purified your souls. 

So if you're here today, and that's not you, that's okay. Because if you're here, and that's not you, or you're not quite sure if that's you, I'm guessing that you're here because you're curious. You're maybe evaluating should that be you. 

You're trying to figure out if maybe that's a step that you want to take, and that's a great thing. It's a good thing, because you should probably have an understanding of what it looks like when you are a Christian. And that's what our text today is going to deal with. 

If you want to know how to become a Christian, that's what Tom talked about last week. So you can go back and you can listen to Tom's sermon from last week, or you can ask me afterwards. It's not like I'm trying to keep it a secret. 

It's just that that's not what today's text is about. If this is your sneak peek into what life holds as a Christian, I mean, honestly, like why do we keep getting back together every week, week after week? What are we doing here? What is this about? And you should probably be brought up to speed on that. And the first thing that you are going to notice is that we still die. 

So you got that going for you. All flesh is like grass and the flower fades. Fortunately, Peter has a little bit more to say than just that.

It's a little deeper right here in our first sentence today. Verse 22, we get a for statement. If you look at that, having purified your souls there in verse 22, you see that having purified your souls for a sincere brotherly love, a sincere brotherly love. 

So love for one another in community, in a building like this, in pews like this, in church gatherings, at cookouts and campouts and retreats and in small groups and in youth group, loving one another sincerely is what this is for. And that word sincere, it translates literally as unhypocritical, unhypocritical. So think about that, a brotherly love that is not a hypocritical brotherly love. 

When we think of the word hypocrite, we usually think of somebody who says one thing and does another. That's not a harmful way to think of it. Hypocrites actually played a key role in Greek culture. 

So Peter had a very specific idea of what a hypocrite was. A hypocrite in their culture was a role-playing in theater because they often had more characters in the play than they had actors to play them. So if the same actor had to play multiple roles, he would put on a mask when he was a different role. 

Maybe it's like foam core and construction paper. Hopefully he didn't use the little glue, or the blue glue sticks, but he'd have a mask up so that everybody knew he was a different role. And so this idea of this hypocrite, it's like wearing a mask, playing a role, pretending to be something you're not. 

That's what Peter has in mind. And so he says that we've been purified for an unhypocritical, a non-mask wearing, sincere brotherly love. I like the way the old King James translation actually put it.

It says an unfamed brotherly love, a not fake brotherly love, a sincere brotherly love. And then he goes on, love one another, he goes on earnestly from a pure heart, from a pure heart. How did you get a pure heart? Did you purify your own heart? Well, again, go back and listen to Tom's sermon from last week. 

But if you believe in Christ, if you are born again, what he's saying is that your heart has been purified, and it's been purified not just for you, but for the purpose of a sincere brotherly love. There's this other word in here, born again. That's more Christianese, isn't it? It's this kind of insider jargon that we get accustomed to, but it's not hard to decipher.

Born again, it means into a new life. If the old life is like poster board and construction paper, and he says that you've been born again into this new life from an imperishable seed, Peter says, imperishable, one that doesn't go into the dumpster the next day. And what is this seed that Peter's talking about? That's the question. 

Is it our ancestry? Is it our heritage? Oftentimes, that's what seed meant in the Bible. Is it our upbringing? Is it our cultural context? Is it my good behavior? Is it a confirmation class or church membership or affiliation? No. Peter says this imperishable seed is a word, a word. 

Look at verse 23. You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. A word. 

Some of you might know this, but the Greek word for word is logos. Logos, it means more than just a group of letters that form a sound and have a definition. This idea, this logos, it means a concrete idea, a complete truth, sort of an anchoring idea.

It's where we get our word logic, if that helps. It's where we get our word logic. And so he goes on to quote the prophet Isaiah, all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. 

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever, remains forever. And then Peter adds his own little comment here in the end of verse 25. And this word, okay, this true concrete anchoring idea is the good news that was preached to you.

It's the good news that was preached to you. The word that lasts forever and the word that births new life that will last forever is the gospel. It's the news that Jesus Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures and that Jesus Christ rose again according to the scriptures. 

And because he did that, even though all flesh is like grass and the flower will fade, because he did that, you will be raised again. The imperishable word of God will raise you from the dead, imperishable, incorruptible. And so Peter wonders, why are we spending so much time and effort focusing on are these poster board lives that are destined for the dumpster? Do you see what he's doing here? We have the living and abiding word. 

I mentioned earlier this morning that I mentioned onlookers could gather here and get a glimpse of what it is that we actually do as Christians. What are we doing here week after week? What is it that we study? What are we working on? What are we singing about? What are we doing here? And the answer is the gospel. That's it.

And then the rest of you might say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe that. So check, right? I'm born again. What's next? The gospel. 

Oh, no, no. I got that part. We did that step. 

What comes after that, Nick? The gospel. That's what Peter's saying. He's writing to believers. 

You get that? He's written the letter, and he's circulated it to believers, and he knows they're believers, and he writes them they're believers, and he tells them again the gospel. And it's not because he thinks that they're dense. It's because the gospel is the logic behind everything that makes up Christian life.

You were purified for a sincere brotherly love, and the logic, okay, the word, the truth, the way, the whole perfect order that reveals how to love sincerely and earnestly is embodied in the gospel. So when you hear it said, we preach the word. At this church, we preach the word. 

I hope you realize it doesn't just mean that we preach the words, plural, that are found in that Bible, but that we preach the word, the imperishable word of God, and this word is the good news that was preached to you, Peter writes. Listen, the logos by which you were born again is the logic by which you will live for a sincere brotherly love. Let me say that again. 

The logos by which you were born again is the very logic by which you will live for a sincere brotherly love. That's the gospel. Now, I know I've been saying this word logos is about an idea. 

It's the logic of how we were saved, but don't, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that it is purely mental or that it is just conceptual, just an idea, just a intellectual assent, because Peter here, he goes on to then give us two imperatives, two actions to go and do. So if you look at the start of chapter two, verse one, he's going to say two things you're to do, and they are put away and long for. 

Put away and long for. So Peter's going to tell us what to stop and then what to do instead. So that's where we're going next. 

Put away. So if you have first Peter chapter two open in front of you, you see the list he gives. Put away, malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. 

Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. That's called a vice list. This is pretty common. 

Peter is using a mechanism of teaching that's normal to some of his contemporaries in literature. As a matter of fact, you can find it in other ancient Greek teaching. So like Plato and Aristotle, they had vice lists. 

It's kind of hard to say that in plural, isn't it? Vice lists. They had vice lists. They would tell you what the vices are to avoid. 

So Peter's drawing on that same kind of construct. As a matter of fact, you can find this elsewhere in the New Testament, too, from another major New Testament author, Paul. Paul uses vice lists in his writings and in very much the same context as Peter.

So Paul and his readers were both keenly aware that this body is perishable, it's going to die and go away and rot. And so Paul addresses that just like Peter does here, except Paul encountered an altogether different problem in the churches where he ministered than what Peter's addressing here. And I want to highlight that difference. 

Peter, he's reminding people that they're taking a little too much interest in the poster board, if you will. They're a little too focused on the display, right? It's occupying too much of their focus, and so he's going to here tell them to put away these things that describe a life that's too focused on the poster board display. For Paul's readers, their problem understanding of the perishability of the body was a little more akin to the idea of like, hey, if it's going in the trash eventually anyways, why don't we use it like trash now? Paul was dealing more with like, hey, if it's going to be filthy in the end, why don't we get it filthy during the science fair? And Paul was like, yeah, nope. 

You're right. You're right that this body will perish. That does not mean that what we do with it in this life is irrelevant. 

Because remember, you were purified for a sincere brotherly love. There are two extremes that will both fail to have a sincere brotherly love. One is to treat your own body and everybody else's body at the same time like it's already trash. 

That is not a sincere brotherly love. The other is what Peter's addressing here, is to have a different set of vices he calls a malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. And these are the vices that come from an outlook that this perishable life is so important you'll do anything to improve it.

That this perishable life is so important you'll do whatever it takes to protect it, including, and he gives his vice list, malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. Listen, Paul's vice lists, the debauched behaviors that you can find listed in his writings that we cringe to even read in those letters, they're easy for the church to denounce. It's not to say that Christians don't struggle with those same sins, they do. 

But almost universally, those of us who are born again are repulsed by some of the things that he lists. And when we read Peter's vice list though, we are dangerously comfortable with these words. We're even permissive of these vices. 

They don't make us cringe to read it. We don't lower our voices and wonder, am I allowed to say that word out loud in a church building? When we read Peter's vice list, do we? But I think instead of these becoming the more domesticated and then therefore the more tolerated vices, what Peter actually has in mind is that we would recoil just as much at deceit as we do at debauchery. That we'd be as quick to condemn and to rebuke someone over slander as we are sexual immorality. 

These should not be the smaller vices, the tamer ones that we tacitly approve, Peter says, to put them away. They are corrupted, perishing, they are disgusting. They are disgusting. 

The imperishable word of God is the gospel, so put away malice. Malice, that's that temptation to kind of wish that something bad would happen for somebody else. You ever feel that way? I feel that way sometimes. 

But the imperishable word of God is the gospel, and that word tells us that Jesus was beaten, mocked, stripped naked, spit on, and then prayed, Father, please forgive them. So put away malice. Put away deceit. 

If you believe the gospel, if you're saying, yes, Nick, I'm born again, I've believed the gospel, that means you have agreed that you are a sinner, that you are unworthy to be in the presence of God and welcomed in purely by grace. And if that's the truth, then what do you still have to lie about? What is it that you are still deceiving others to power up and to polish up, spinning tales, stretching the truth of the glory that you have or you think you have that will fade? Put away hypocrisy. Comes back up here in this list, doesn't it? You remember that word.

Put away the mask. Look, if you are wearing a mask, hiding behind a mask because you think others will like that better than the real you, a couple problems with that. One is that means that the brotherly love that other people are giving to you isn't really landing on the real you. 

They love a mask that you put forward, a persona that you're pretending because you think that they'll like that better. Listen to the gospel. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, he loved you, the real you. 

He knows who you are and he loves you. So why are you wearing a mask? Put away envy. The imperishable word of God is the gospel, and the gospel tells us that when God looks at you that he sees somebody who Christ loved enough to die for and wants you to be his co-heir so that you can inherit everything that he has secured on your behalf. 

So if you are a co-heir with Christ, what is there in anybody else's life that you have to be envious of? Put away envy and put away slander because the imperishable word of God is the gospel, and the gospel tells us that God sent his son to redeem you and to redeem the others in this room with you. And so if he paid that price for them, what is it that you have to say slanderous about your brother and sister? Put away slander. What is it that would draw us to do these kinds of actions? Peter knows it's because we have too much invested in the poster board lives.

And Peter understands the temptation that even though we have seen and heard and believed the gospel, this fading glory of this life, it's really all we perceive and can understand and it's difficult for us to imagine what's in store. So we're spending our times polishing it up, and when we do, it leads to malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander, and he calls it disgusting, and he says, put that away. Put it away.

And then what? And what's next? Peter says to put that away, and then he goes on, look in verse 2 with me. He says, like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, pure spiritual milk. I'm guessing maybe that's not where you thought he was going with this.

Maybe, you know, hearing like, hey, put away malice. You big baby is not the most attractive way to teach this, and that's not exactly what he's saying. Why is it, by the way, that baby is such an insult? I mean, everybody loves babies, right? Why is it such an insult? Well, I think it has to do with the connotation that it means immaturity, like you don't know what to do or how to act, and that's what Peter is saying. 

He's saying, listen, the imperishable word is the gospel that was preached to you, and you believed it, and you're a Christian, and you're born again. That doesn't inherently mean that you know how to live and act, that you know what life could and should look like once you've accepted that this life is headed for the dumpster, but there is an imperishable life in store for you. You have to learn what life is like all over again, like a newborn infant, and all infants ever want is milk. 

Pretty much universally, that's it. That's all they have their hearts and minds focused on is milk. This is actually the way that I encourage first-time parents. 

If you've ever seen like new parents, they got a new baby, and they usually have this terrified, like anxious look, like they think they're going to really mess it up, and they are, but not the ways that they think they are, right? They think that they're going to put a diaper on backwards or something inane like that. Look, I just tell them, listen, calm down. It's okay. 

It's like taking care of a plant. Just keep it watered. It's not that deep.

It does get hard, and you will mess it up, but that's years away. The hard stuff is years away. You've got a decade before you have to explain to this little poop factory Paul's vice list, for example, okay? You got time, but for now, keep it watered. 

Keep it watered. Keep it fed. Peter is saying the same kind of thing to his readers. 

Look, have a mindset like that baby. Maybe be a little bit more useful than a baby, but he's saying in terms of what you set your mind on and how deeply and fixated you are on one thing, make it the pure spiritual milk. The pure spiritual milk. 

That word spiritual, if you're working in your own Bible, you could underline it, or even if you dare, you could cross it out, okay? If you're working in a black borrowed Bible from the few in front of you, please refrain from that, but it's not the Greek word spiritual that you might know of, pneuma, air, right? It's actually this word, logical. The pure logical milk, and when you hear that, do you notice that word again? See, here's the thing. Peter hasn't changed topics. 

He hasn't changed subjects. He says to long for the pure word milk, the milk of the word. You've been born again through the imperishable and abiding word. 

That word is the gospel that was preached. Now, long for that word. Long to be nourished by the word. 

When you feel weak and insecure, when you're tempted to put on a mask, right, and live as a hypocrite, strengthen yourself by the word, by word milk. Sounds like an awkward phrase, and it kind of is. It's actually easier for us to hear that phrase than it was for Peter's original readers, because after all, we now have, by the modern of science, oat milk and almond milk and soy milk, and so Peter is saying long for word milk. 

You guys hear that? Word milk. Make your diet a steady diet of word milk, as if you were a newborn all over again. There's only one thing that can satisfy. 

Long for word milk. Be nourished by the imperishable word of God, and look at verse 2 again with me, that by it you may grow up into salvation. Just full of some demeaning terms here, right? Grow up, you big baby. 

But that's kind of what he's saying. This milk, grow up into salvation, that you can be nourished by this milk, and then grow up into something that is not perishable, that is not destined to the dumpster, that will last forever. Grow up into salvation. 

Like newborn infants, long for the word milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. And it continues in verse 3, if indeed, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. If indeed, it's a phrase that assumes the answer, okay? So in other words, Peter here is not, he's not questioning his readers. 

He's not, he's not casting doubt. He's actually assuring them. He's reminding them that they have tasted that milk. 

You understand? They have tasted that the Lord is good. It's a quote from Psalm 34. Psalm 34 is a, an expression from David of praise for realizing that God had been his protector, and he had protected him. 

And he says, taste and see that the Lord is good. And so Peter here is, he's pulling that same thread, and he's telling his readers, God has protected you, he has provided for you, and he's preserved you. Taste and see that the Lord is good. 

He's good because of the gospel. And Peter says, you have tasted that, so come back to the milk of that word over and over. It will grow you up like nothing else can.

Do you remember the taste? Do you? Do you remember the taste the first time that the depths of your sin and the depths of the grace that was poured out through Christ, through his precious blood, do you remember the taste of that the first time it really hit you? I mean, maybe it was five days ago, maybe it was five years ago, maybe it was five decades ago, but you, church, have tasted it. You have seen that the Lord is good, but since then you have continued life in a poster board world. It's headed for the dumpster, it's not there yet, but with every dent, every crease, and every smear, and every smudge, we're getting worn down. 

Maybe there has been malice, and deceit, and slander that has smudged and smeared your poster board. Maybe you're envious, seeing the seemingly easy life that you perceive others around you get to live. Maybe you're too scared to show people the real broken you, so you wore a mask into this building today. 

That taste that you had, the flavor of grace that you once experienced when you heard the gospel and believed, it can fade. And when it does, many Christians start looking for something next, something else, a new book, a new teaching, a new idea, a new method of self-activation, a new method of self-love, a new radical teaching that promises to restore and renew. But Peter has a different approach, doesn't he? Peter says there's a different way. 

Long for the word, drink it up, over and over again. Years before he wrote this letter, Peter was sitting with his Savior Jesus, and the excitement of the gospel, the excitement of everything that was going on, it kind of started to wane. This can happen to us, doesn't it? As the real work of ministry had begun, and the teaching of Jesus started to get a little more difficult to understand, and even harder to apply, and Jesus looked at his followers, and he said, you guys want to leave? And it was Peter, the author of this letter that we're studying, Peter, turned to Jesus, and he says, Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words.

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