1 Peter - 2022

Okay. Pete is going to come up and preach in a second from 1 Peter. But before that we're going to read. So if you have a Bible, please turn to 1 Peter If you have a church bible, which I don't believe many people do, it's on page 1217, 1 Peter, chapter 1.

And we're going to be reading actually from verse 3 of 1 Peter through to verse 3 of chapter 2. Praise me to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the debt and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this, you greatly rejoice.

Though now for a little while, you've had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come to the proven genuineness of your faith of greater work than gold, which Paris is even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and I feel with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Good earning the salvation, the profits who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you. When they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ has revealed at his coming. His obedient children do not – as obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

But just as he who called you is holy, So be holy in all you do for it is written. Be holy because I am holy. Since you call on a father who judges these persons work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverend fear. You know that it is not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you redeemed from the empty way of life, had it down to you from your ancestors. But with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

He was chosen before the creation of the world. But was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him, you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other love on another deeply from the heart. You've been born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable for the living and enduring word of God.

For all people are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass with us and the flowers fall, but the word of the lord in George forever. And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, with yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy envy and slander of every kind, Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Now that you've tasted that the Lord is good?

Well, my name is Pete Woodcock. I'm 1 of the pastors of the church. Am I working? It working. I I'm gonna ask Steve to try to remember to remind me because I I've I've got a message from from our brothers and sisters in Belarus and I really can't give that online.

So I wanna do it after the last song. So that we can cut off the online stuff and tell you some of the interesting things that are going on there. But can you sort of somehow remark, I've written it down but I can easily forget, but we do need to pray for them. They're praying for us today and I want to give you some details which are very of great interest. So let me pray.

Father help us now. As we look at this amazing little letter written to real people going through real difficulties. And all of those people that read this are now eternally with you. And this is a book that's been a blessing to thousands upon thousands of people in churches. Right the way through the ages.

And so please buy your spirit. Use this spirit word to touch us, move us, challenge us, help us. Whatever age we are here, Whatever we're going through all the difficulties, the worries perhaps, the confusions of life that so many go through. Whatever circumstances will help us, bless us by your word we pray and encourage us to be the people of God in Jesus' name. AM.

Now we're looking at versus 22 to chapter 1, 22 to to chapter 2 verse 3 specifically. Now it's true to say and I think we all know this that that a human fundamental motive that we have is to be accepted. We want to be accepted in relationships and accepted by others, and we want to be part of of social groups. Our emotional need at belonging is massive as human beings. So to isolate is to become less than human.

And that's what a lot of torture is. Goes on. You put people through isolation. And it's a it's a torture for human beings because we need to be part of a group. That's absolutely important.

That's how we were designed. We're designed for social interaction and social dependence. And interdependence. So wherever humans are, they join clubs and clans and groups and gangs and societies and fan clubs and movements. We we want to identify with trends and fashions and communities and lifestyles and Even down to the place where we're from brings us sort of identity.

Doesn't we? I'm from. You know, we like to say that. Or the color of our skin is is a thing that we can go on about or ethnicity or even our education, you know, I went to So to belong is a fundamental psychological need. We all know that.

Everybody knows that. But at the same time as wanting to belong, we want to belong to a group that makes us different from other groups. And that's the funny thing, isn't it? So part of our belonging to 1 group is that we don't belong to another group. And we want people to sort of know that.

And the more you find someone identifies with 1 group, then the more they separate from other groups. And the more they identify with 1 group, the more violent they can be towards other other groups. It's called tribalism. We we we understand that, don't we? This is my tribe.

You are not part of it. Yeah. And that helps me formulate who I am and what I belong to. And I guess The best illustrations from the past in this country would be like football teams. I support West Han, Yeah.

These are the colors I wear and the more into West Ham I am and the colors I wear and and the more I support that group The more I hate you if you're from Millwall which is only up the road. You wear different colors. You support a different team. And therefore in the seventies, we bash each other's head in if we happen to meet. That's what happened.

But today, increasingly it's post codes. So if I'm part of this post code, I identify myself with this neighborhood, the hood. This is my hood. And and I'll even have a haircut that's gives the sort of indication that I am part of this hood and you're not part of that hood. And so we get we boil ourselves down to this is my tribe.

You belong to another tribe depending on what what post code. Or increasingly gender identity. That makes a tribe and there's, you know, if you know what's going on this, split after split after split after split after split after split of gender identity. I'm in this group and I get a smaller group because I feel more secure and that's more a group. And I hate you if you're out there.

Or social media. You know, we could be on social media groups. We identify with this and you identify with that and so we can speak quite violently to each other. Now here's my first point that I want you to get. All groups will fade and die.

Every single group will fade and die. All those tribes that seem to be so important when you're in them at the time, they'll die. All those groups that you bring you identity will be ashes soon. Even though they feel so important, they're actually shallow, they're without real substance, and you shouldn't build your life on them. Some of them you can be in, but you shouldn't build your life on them.

Peter is the writer of this little book that we're looking at, and it just shows you how up to date this book is. Because Peter comes to a part in his letter where he's not just talking to individual Christians who he calls scattered all over the Roman world. He's not just talking to individuals. He's talking to gathered community of Christians or the church that are scattered all over the world. By definition, Peter is saying that when you become a Christian, you belong you belong to a group.

And he's going to use as his first picture of belonging family. You're in this hood. You're in this family. Next week, he'll use another illustration, the temple, but we'll see that next week. But first, the first community he's saying, you Christians are, you're not individuals.

The first community you're in is a family group. He's already talked about God as father. He's already talked about them being children. And now in this section in verse 22, He uses a word love. We should have love for each other and 1 of the word he uses is brotherly love family love.

And then he uses words about being born again and newborn babies. They're all family words. So Christian, you belong. You belong to this family of God. You are born into the family.

You are born to love the family. Your identity is in the family. You have God, none other than God, none other than God as your father. Now, this is the point that I want to get to. Peter is not just thinking individually when he writes verse 24.

He's thinking of these groups, he's thinking of communities. So in verse 24, he says all people are like grass. And all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the lord endures forever, And this is the word that was preached to you. So all peoples are like grass.

All those groups that feel like really important to belong to when you're belonging to them. They're all like grass. They're all like the glory. They're they're they're here 1 minute and they gone the next. With with all their attractiveness, And when you first smell the scent, it will lures you to join the group.

Oh, yes, I must join that group. There's something about them. It the people in it, the attractive people in it. You're attractive to that the plural, the allurement. The the commitment to that group.

What whether they have all the colors of the rainbow in their group. Whether they have all the colors of the flowers of the field and the rainbow in that group, all of those colors and that rainbow will die. And fade. However, attractive and important it may feel. I was thinking through because obviously I was doing this talk about the sort of groups and you you should hear there's some people that the subculture groups that have just been around in my lifetime, particularly sort of based on music.

And some of us were committed to and actually someone sort of slightly committed to now. Yeah. The the the trouble is with young, you you don't realize that those of us that are old We were you 1 day. Oh, at at 1 time. Yeah.

We were young. Yeah. We thought we knew everything and we realized now we know nothing. We were young and we were in groups. There were peer groups that drew us and some of you people here Some of them here were in these groups, beet nicks, ever heard of them?

Yeah. There'd be all. There's a beet nicked there. Alright? Hipies.

Do you remember them? Mods and rockers. These are all groups that have come and gone. You're a mod or a rocker. Yeah?

And they fought like anything down in in the Brighton, big fights, motorbikes for the rockers and little scooters for the mods. But there were more mods than there were rockers so the mods could win against even though the rockers were really hard. But see them now and they work. They they they drive 3 wheel motorbikes because they could hardly stand up. Punks Remember when the punk music came, the divisions and the tribalism in punk.

You know, if if you're a punk and I like punk music, but if you also like the guitar solo on Pink Floyd, my goodness. You're out of my punk life. Yeah. You weren't allowed. If you like the stranglers, you weren't allowed to to to to like, you know, Pink Floyd.

It's amazing. The new romantic skin heads, suede heads, These are all groups that have come and gone, glam rockers, metal heads. They're still around. Leather head. That's just up the road.

Goughs, emos, hip hop. All of those groups have come and gone and some of us have been part of them. Yeah? And I want to say that Peter is saying whatever group, whatever tribe, whatever club, whatever hood you are in, or you want to be in or you think you're in or whatever label has been put on you or you've put on yourself whatever it is, all those tribes, all those groups, will fade and die like the grass and the flowers in the field. They're all be gone.

They all seem so important but they're all begone. Just look back at verses 18 and 19 of chapter 1. Peter writes, for you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold, that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish. You've been redeemed from and many picks on a family group. The empty way of life handed down by your ancestors.

He's saying that life outside of this redeemed group is empty. In the end, it will fade and die. Everything you thought was important in their ancestry. Your exams They're the most important thing. You must pass them.

You'll never live if you don't get those a levels and go to that university. They all fade and die. And the universities come and go. They all fade and die, whatever fad you're in. So whatever group you're in, make sure you're also part of this redeemed group.

The imperishable as I'm gonna call them. The aliens and strangers as they say in verse 1. That's a group to be in, isn't it? You wanna stand out at school. What group were you in?

I'm an alien and I'm a stranger. You know what I mean? And you can put we're a big a. Yeah. Or you're in the born twice group or you're in the family of God or the imperishable.

Whatever group, whatever crazes. However, the world is telling you you must identify yourself in this way All of that will fade and die, and there's only 1 group that will last the imperishable. Look at verses 3 and 4 of chapter 1. It's such a group. There's such security here.

There's such joy here I tried to preach on these verses and you can go and hear the sermon, but you just can't sort of really get the vigor of this. Here's the group. Here's the impression group. Praise be to God and the father of our lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you. That's the imperishable group that you're you're belonging to. Eternal. It's kept in heaven for you. And if you go up to heaven, which you can do in the book of Revelation, and see what's going on there.

John goes up to heaven and what's going on there. There before me, he says. He's looking around in heaven, the new creation. There before me was a great multitude of people. Millions upon millions.

Listen to what he says. No 1 could count from every nation, every tribe, People and language standing before the throne and before the lamb and saying, worthy is the lamb to receive glory and honor and power. What's the group to be in? The imperishable group that has an inheritance that lasts forever is drawn up from people from every tribe. And all the best things from all of those tribes are brought together.

All the worst things are thrown out. All the horrible things are The things that will do you damage as we'll have a look at in a minute, they're gone. But all Imagine that. Just going to dinner here. You've got foods from around the world.

How extraordinary we went to a Chinese what was it? New Year celebration. All these wonderful Chinese foods with these peculiar flavors and sort of rubber bands that what was called noodle. It was like really chewy, you know. And and and it's good.

It's it had something everlasting about it when you put it in your mouth. You couldn't swallow the thing. But you know all these delicious food that would probably be excluded but that all these delicious foods and different characters and there's diversity. There's a rainbow on a plate. There's the people from all over the world with all the colors and all of the good things coming together in this group.

Every tribe, and all of the bad things about the tribes are excluded. That's the group to be in. The imperishable. Yeah, that's what you should be desiring. Be in that group.

Here's my second point then. Becoming a member of this imperishable group. How do you become a member of this family, the imperishable? Well, it's all tied up with the word of God. That's how you become a member.

So it's in, it's by and through the word of God you become a member. So verse 22, you've purified yourself by obeying the truth. I would take that word truth to be the word of God there. Verse 23, you've been born again through the living and enduring word of God. Verse 25, right at the end, the word that was preached to you.

How do you become a member of the imperishable by the Word of God, the Word of God. There is a word from your creator. There is a word, a message a book that tells you all about you. God who made you knows more about you than you know about you. God who made you knows more about you than any other person in the world, they come and go.

Their ideas are here 1 minute, flowering and then die. God, the creator. He knows you. He understands you. Better than you understand you.

But than anyone else can understand you. He made you. He's been intimate involved in your life. He knows what is best for you. He knows it.

He's about your best. He's about your good. And he's spoken a word. He speaks obviously through our conscience. He speaks through the world around us.

We can see God and something of God there and when conscience and and the world around us work together we know that God is big and beautiful and powerful and I'm not so big and beautiful and powerful, and I need to get right with him. But we need more than that word we need a spoken, intimate word. And so God sends by his holy spirit, prophets and apostles, and we've seen that in 1 Peter already and supremely the word of God becomes flesh. You'll see that on Sunday evenings when we're in John's gospel. The word becomes flesh Jesus comes into this world.

He's the Word of God and so that we don't forget it and we we we can read about that that word. It's written down for us in Scripturated. It's put in words in the bible. And we have the Word of God. 39 books in the old testament, 27 books in the new testament, the Word of God.

But it's not just a history book. About what happened. It's living and enduring. It's alive like the word of God always is. When God spoke, the world came into being.

Let there be and there was. That's the power of his word, isn't it? Let there be. It wasn't like let there be and there was a big silence and people going let there be the sun in the sky. Says creation.

I don't know about that. Have a think about it. What do you reckon moon? Yeah? It's let there be and there was.

This is a living enduring word of God that can speak into your life. But it's the word that brings you to life, brings you into the family of the imperishable. Look at verse 23. For you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. It is by and through the word of God that your Christian life begins.

When God does the miracle in a life, when someone who is blind sees, the glory of the Lord Jesus. When someone who is deaf hears the wonder of the Lord Jesus. When someone who doesn't understand comes to understand, there's been a miracle. God has spoken his word into that life. And where there's new life, there's the obeying of the truth.

It's the first thing you look out for. If someone's been born into the imperishable, born by their living word of God, they obey. Look at verse 22. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have a sincere love for each other. When God speaks into your life you obey, When the seed is in your life, there's new life and its obedience to God.

It's not to self anymore. It's to God. It's not to words that will fade and die. It's to the living word. And what is disobedience?

Well, the word purified here means to be washed, means to be clean. You become a member of the imperishable family by being washed and being cleaned, how by obeying the truth. And that word obeying the truth simply means submitting to what you heard preached. By submitting to what you heard preached. This isn't the teaching of good works.

This is the teaching of listening and submitting to what you heard preached. And what did you hear preached that Jesus the word of God came into the world for sinners like you and me and died on a cross to take your sin to cleanse you of your sin. He rose again, sent the Holy Spirit to open up your eyes and cleanse you so that you could be right in the family of God and call Godfather. And what it is to obey that is simply to submit your my savior, not me. And as you do that, there's this washing of the word, and you're an imperishable Right?

I mean come on. Imagine that. Going into school. How do you identify? Alright.

Thank you for calling. Let's go around and see who you identify as. I'd like to be content, then identify as this and I'm identify that and I'm offended, and identify okay. And how do you identify? I'm an imperishable.

Oh, that's a new 1. What does that mean? I'm a born twister. I'm an imperishable. Imagine Christians say that when you have to go around to those awful meetings to say what you are.

I'm an imperishable. What do you mean by that? I'm glad you asked. Now if you turn in your bible, We'll have a look at the Greek. I'm an imperishable.

Right. To be an imperishable, marvelous. Okay. Third. Let's live as a member of the imperishable.

How do you live as a member of the imperishable? Look at verse 22. Hope you're with me. Now, that you have purified yourself by obeying the truth so that you have a sincere love for each other, Love 1 another deeply from the heart. If you're going to live as an imperishable and say you're an imperishable, you have to love.

The foundation of this group is love, love. Peter here uses 2 different words for love. Philadelphia, which means brotherly family love, there's the family word. And agape, which means God love. Love to those who don't deserve love but going to get love anyway.

Sacrificial love. They have 2 words. And it's important that if you are born again of this imper if you are an imperishable you'll have those loves to some degree. You'll want to grow in those loves more and more. We share brotherly love because we're brothers and sisters in Christ.

And that brotherly love word has the sort of idea of affection. I'm affectionate towards you. It's a family love. I'm warm towards you. I can't boast because we're all the same father.

We're children of the same father. I can't say I'm better than you. Yeah? Because what Was it your choice? Father, God.

I'm born into the family by the father. It was the word that was implanted in me. I can't show off or boast. Amazing thing, isn't it? So we're brothers.

I think I'm better than you. I need to sort myself out and say, oh, hold it. We're from the same family. And then we're sharing God's love because we belong to God. And there's this laying our life down love.

For our brothers and sisters. Even even if they don't deserve it, I'll give it anyway. Because we obey the truth, God purifies our souls and he puts this love in our heart. We were reading Romans during the media fast as a church. And Romans 5 5, listen to I mean, I know it's very interesting, isn't it?

Because there are loads of questions about Romans and particularly Romans 9 and 10 and 11, you know. And we're good at asking the questions about things that are slightly, you know, we don't really understand and here's 1. And and and sometimes we ask questions to avoid things like this. Listen to this. God's love has been poured into our heart through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

I mean there's a question If that is true, if God's love I mean, God's love has been poured. I mean, you're gonna have that's like how does he get that love that's so vast and great and he's pouring it into our tiny little lives? It's like you've got A massive funnel with a tiny little hole, hasn't it? You know, there's this universal funnel of God's love and it shooting out this tiny and so well at least I'll drip it in. You know, I'll try and drip it in.

We need 1 of those things where you're in hospital and there's a drip going in. You can't flood it in. We just fall over. God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Love 1 another.

That is evidence that you've been born of God and you're an imperishable. And he says a sincere love So our motives are sincere. There's loads and loads of popular psychology books that are basically how to win friends and influence people books. In other words how to be or or how to be loved and admired. If you do these various things, lots of people will like you.

That's all to manipulate people, isn't it? It's all about manipulation. If I can get you to like me, Hailey, I can do it all around. And I can manipulate you to do what I want, because some such a nice bloke. That's not love.

And there are lots of groups that are all about manipulating you or just getting numbers to manipulate you to do things. Lots of groups like that, but the imperishable are givers. Their sincere love. We're doing this because it's best for you. I give to you.

It's agape love. He says about having a deep love. Look at verse 22 again. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have a sincere love for each other. Love 1 another deeply.

The word deep there is used of horses galloping. It sounds a bit odd but it is used originally of horses galloping. It carries with it the whole idea that the horse will go or run the distance. We're gonna do the distance. I'm going the distance.

And that's turned into keep on going and that's turned into not being shallow, not giving up, not being easily rooted, you know a little storm comes along and the tree falls over. No. No. No. This tree has got roots in it.

It's dug deep whatever storms come. It's deep, it's sincere. God has put that in our hearts. It has a purifying effect on us. Because naturally we have self biases and self distortions and self superiorities.

But when the love of God comes into us, and we see that God is our father and we are all the children of God if we're in the imperishable family, then we love and we put up with the differences and we put up with the the irritations of people. We love. Even though we may see faults, Even though those faults and others may need, you know, dealing with, we have the glue of God's love that cements us together. I had a new age friend is Eric, his name is and He's a pastor of a church down down south now, Eric Karma, who's name. He's actually I was trying to remember his name, Eric Karma.

And Eric was a new age traveler and lived with new age travelers, and it was right at the time, we had him at Church when when that was the big 1 of the big groups to be in. There's another group, new age travelers. Yeah? And they were known for love and peace, man. And everything's chewed out your man.

Yeah. And he said he was part of that group and he said it was anything but that. Because there really wasn't love there, there was law, a legalism. There wasn't sincere love It was who have you been speaking to. So he was in a caravan, you know, in a field around what's the big stone henge?

Thank you. How did you know that from that? He's my wife. See. She knows everything.

She wrote the sermon so there you go. So Stonehenge, he was in a field around Stonehenge, and at the at the gate of the field, there were police, and here, it went down and he was just chatting to the police. Having a laugh with them just chatting, just like human to human. When he came back to the caravan, they locked the caravan door and they said, why were you talking to a pig? You don't talk to pigs.

They're the enemy. Why were you talking why were you treating them as a human being is a pig? And he was severely told off for just talking. Yeah? Then someone else later on gave him some shoes.

They were leather shoes. He didn't have much money. He put the shoes on. He was brought into the caravan again. Why are you wearing leather?

Lever. That's an animal. You cannibal. There were laws there. And this got him thinking, and he got hold of a bible.

And was reading the bible and someone saw him read the bible. They took the bible from him, locked him in the caravan and said, That is out of order. We don't read things like that. And the laws and the rules and the who have you spoken to and should you do this and should you do that. In the peace man, in the love caravan, there was no love.

It was all I'm better than you. Here's a rule to and it got smaller and smaller and smaller, the rules you had to follow. So Peter is saying, if you've been born again then this imperishable group is all based on love empowered by love and you're to grow in love. Just look at verses 2, chapter 2 verses 1 to 3. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, and deceit hypocrisy envy slander of every kind like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation now that you've tasted that the Lord is good.

So again, we're back to the word of God, this pure milk, you see that from other verses in the bible, that the milk of the word of God is what we thrive on and we're to crave this milk. So verse 2 like newborn babies crave scream out for it. If you're if you're a new born believer, you can tell whether you're a born believer because you want the milk. That's what babies do. Unless there's something wrong with you, then you got to go to the doctors.

You're crying out for milk as we were seeing last week. You're screaming out in the middle of the night. I want milk. Yeah? And you don't even know how to put that prayer.

It's just Yeah? And sometimes we just don't know what to pray but we need milk. God. Yeah? We just need the word of God to nurture us and grow.

If you don't have the milk, you won't grow. If you're not suckling on the milk, you die. And so he says, crave it strong word, desire it. It's a baby word, scream out for it, yell for it, get attention until you get the milk. But he says, there are clearly things that get in the way.

Of craving for this milk. That you need to put aside. Notice what he says, put aside all malice and all this see hypocrisy and envy and slander of every kind, and crave. Pure spiritual milk. If you have these things in your life, you're full up with rubbish and you won't crave spiritual milk.

The imperishable's are to keep taking these things off in family life. 5 things, look you rid yourself of. All malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy slander of every kind, they're all to do with relationships. They're all to do with how to live in the group. Malice.

The general word for evil. How can you study a holy book? How can you drink on the pure milk of God if you have evil. It's to do harm to others. I want to say that the imperishable and young people, I want to say the imperishable, they have good for you.

They're about your good. Therefore, we want to get rid of all malice. Malice is to do you harm, is to do harm to other people. Malice is when you're on TikTok. Enjoying, laughing at a group of young people doing whatever they're doing on TikTok.

The innocence and joy of that, malice is when the advert comes up and says to you young girls, you're fat. And that's what happens. Malice is from an advert of a bloke somewhere who's pretending to love you, but he's out to do you harm that says you need to self harm. It's the only way to help yourself. That's what's going on in TikTok.

We're to get rid of malice. This is the imperishable group. Deceit. It's interesting that Peter uses this word because Peter was a fisherman, and this is a fishing word. It's this it's it's putting the bait on a hook.

If you go fishing half the issue is getting the bait on the hook So the hook is in the right place but the fish doesn't see the hook. Yeah. If you've got a dirty great big hook and a tiny little bit of bait on there which is sort of thing that Tom does when he goes fishing. Then the fish sees the hook and thinks, and I won't go for that. But if you if your name is Peter, and you're more deceitful, you know how to put the bait on and the fishes, I'll go for that 1.

So 1 is pulling out and the other isn't. That's the word. Trickery, deceit, pretending this is true, pretending this is good for you, pretending that all of this stuff that you're reading and hearing will actually bring real life but it's here 1 minute and gone the next. There's no substance to it. Hipocracy.

That's the word used for actors. They're acting. So all of the adverts are actors. Don't you get that? The things that come up, they're actors.

If you had this and they're act they're actors. They're acting. You wanna join this group? Yeah. That's why we gotta be careful when we're Christians when we're advertising things.

There is not all we Christians are the beautiful people and you only have good looking people. That's why our new campaign we've got some of you on it. You know, we've got to be careful when people come in and they See just good looking people. We're we're not hypocritical. We're ordinary people battling away or envy or slander That's what happens on social media.

It's so easy, social media, to slander and say things you shouldn't say. It's such a wrong place to do any serious talk on. And if you're arguing on social media, you will inevitably go slanderous So many groups, so many tribes, so many hoods have these things in them. So you need to ask Is the group that I'm listening to? Are the words that I'm listening to?

Are the adverts? That may attract me, but get my attention that have a whole load of blokes working through the night to get my attention when I turn my mobile phone on. Or attention to wake me up so I can have a look. All these people, are they help for my good? Are they doing it for my good?

Or is there malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander involved? Peter says that's not to be. In the church, throw them off. Like newborn babies, craves pure spiritual meal, so that you may grow up in your salvation now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. We've tasted the Lord's good.

That's what we're about. Now, Okay. Here's some implications and applications, if I haven't given you enough. Let me just bang this in a little bit. This is what I want to apply to us as a church.

First thing is, do you see how important God's word is. Do you see how important God's word is? I know we make this application a lot, because that we do it because that is important. We're born into the family of imperishable buying through the word. We live by this enduring word.

The word gives us life and the word gives us life to love. If we're to love, we need the enduring word. Constantly. You don't just give a baby at the beginning of its life, a drink, do you? Here we are, is a gallon of milk, shove that in you, see you later.

It's a constant need. We need the word of God if we're going to love. What I've noticed is when people withdraw from the people of God, when they withdraw from hearing the word of God together, they harden up become judgmental, write nasty things. So that's the first thing. How important is the word of God?

Second thing, How important to preach the word of God? Did you notice verse 25? I did think of just doing this as 1 sermon. Verse 25, the the last bit of it, it says, and this is the word that was preached to you. This was the word that was preached to you.

It's important to preach the word. I said at the beginning, and you you may work this out. But part of belonging is that we don't belong to another group and that makes us belong more to our group. Yeah? I said at the beginning, the more you find your identity with your group, the more you'll separate from other groups.

Now for the Christian, that's both true and not true. Because what happens with the Christian is the more you find your identity in the terishable group, the more you want to love and reach out to others. That's the strange difference of this group. The church operates for nonmembers. The family of God always wants to grow with people from other groups and tribes.

So we preach the living word and invite non members to come in. We preach the living word that You too might become an imperishable. So rather than becoming closed and negative, Even though we're aliens and strangers in this world, we're alien and strangers in this world that are calling out the people that are firmly secure in the world that your security is fading. Come part of the aliens and then you'll become part of the imperishable. So we preach the word of God.

And the more we're like our savior, the more we want to do that. The word of God is transmitted by preaching, I can tell you that it's a faith thing to preach. Don't think that those of us that preach just love getting up and shouting at a crowd of people. So many times hundreds of times as a preacher. You don't want to do this.

More times do you not want to do it than you do want to do it. Very often it's like, I don't want to do this. What's the point? Nothing happens. No 1 listens.

Yeah. Very interesting at the end of sermons, very often as a preacher, you get there, oh, sharp now, mate. Just shut the be careful. Just shut up, sit down. I know some of you were thinking that.

I think it. I'm thinking it right now. I don't know how to stop. Preach the word, it's important. God's call is advanced by preaching the word.

God preaches the word at the beginning of Genesis. E not preaches the word, Noah preaches, Abraham preaches, Moses preaches, Joshua preaches. The judges, what do they do? The prophets, what do they do? What does King David do?

What does John Baptist do? What does Jesus do when he comes? What do the apostles do? Preach. They preach.

If you go to our our history, what did Saint Patrick do? He preached, set up churches all over the place. What did Cuthbert do? He preached What did Whitcliffe do? He preached.

What did the reformers do? Preach. What did Wesley and Whitfield do? They preached if you know your history of this country. They preached they preached.

We need confidence in preaching. We need to stand up and say we need to preach the word of God. Why? Because the miracle of rebirth happens that way. So we preach.

We keep on preaching. That's why we teach our kids. It's amazing our kids Sunday school. It really is. Honestly amazing.

They're teaching little tiny kids. They're preaching now. Who's in the sundays? Who's Give us a name of someone teaching. Saskia is preaching now.

Yeah? There she is, telling the little kids about the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us another name. Who? Rebecca.

She's there preaching the word. Yeah. Now, I doubt she's standing up and saying, you teach you, but she's teaching the word about the Lord Jesus Christ. We preach because that's how new life comes. 13.

We need to hear preaching. We need to hear preaching together as a family as a family gathers round and hears the father, not just on Zoom, not just separately on recordings. We need to hear together It's important that as a church, we're craving the Word of God. What's 1 of your favorite years? Show out our favorite year.

19 60. 19 60. Were you a hippie back then? I bet you were Yeah. Those lovely dresses on peace man.

Yeah. Were you a hippie? Yeah. Not 19 60. Why 19 60?

That was music and everything. Yeah. Everything changed then. Yep. Including morality.

But but here's my favorite here's my now new favorite year that I keep forgetting but it really is a favorite year. It's 15 38. Can you remember that? 15 38. You know what happened in 15 38?

Cramna, who was archbishop, put bibles in every little church or religious building in the country, and those bibles were in English for the first time. And he had to chain. They were called the chain bible. They were chained to the church. So many people wanted to read the bible and find out what the bible said, They had to chain them because they hadn't read do not steal and they were prepared to steal the bible and then read it and then presumably bring it back.

They had to chain the bible. So many people in 15 38 wanted to hear the bible. They craved the word of God. Do you? We need to.

Then hold it. Then the last thing and then I'm finished. What group are you in? Now young people, please, will you hear me here? Because I really am passionate for you.

What group are you in? What foundation is it that that group is built upon? Is it built upon a God who came into this world and gave his life for you. Is it built on sacrifice of the founders? Or is it built on manipulating you to make money out of you?

What group are you in? What word does that group believe in and follow? Is it true or is it a fad? Is it a fashion? Will it last?

Is it full of people from other tribes who've been brought together by love or is it very specifically tribal? That makes you want to whiz off social media nasties to anyone that isn't in the group. What group are you in? Is it full of people from other tribes that have tried it, done that stuff? But know that this group, the imperishable is where you find love.

Is it a family where you can make mistakes, big mistakes, but you're forgiven and loved. Or is it a cancel culture you make a mistake in your out? You disagree and you're gone. Is it for the good of non members? Is it for you, your good?

Is the thing you're following doing you harm or do you actually know that it's doing you good? What group are you in? Become part of the imperishable. Ask God now, even now. Lord plant that seed in me.

Lord, help me listen to you, help me love, help me grow, help me follow you. I want to be a born twiceer and imperishable in the family of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Which group are you in? How many farther do you thank you so much for what we've heard this morning. We thank you that you have raised us in Christ, not to be perishable, but imperishable because of the love of Jesus in us.

But we thank you for your words that brings us life that can change us from death to life. And we do pray that you'll help us to be rooted in that word, to love to hear your word preach as a family to grow together and to long to bring that gospel out to others in our surrounding area. We thank you for what we've heard today. You pray that you'll help us as we go out from here to meditate on it and to remember it, if you just name amen.