Sunday 08 • 11 • 19

Today we are completing our series on First Peter. We are going to be reading First Peter chapter one verses 22 through chapter two verse 3, and the very end of First Peter chapter five verses 12 through 14.

You may be asking yourself: he just said this is the last sermon in the series. Why are we looking at chapter one and two in addition to chapter five? Why not just the end of chapter five? There's a very good reason for that.

As we were preaching through First Peter, we accidentally skipped that section. I don't think I was supposed to admit that, but I am admitting it because here's what's kind of funny about that: isn't it great to know that leaders make mistakes? But isn't it great to know also that God doesn't? We want to look at all of God's word because all of it is useful for training and equipping, and we didn't want to skip over this. We made a mistake and we wanted to go back and incorporate it into this concluding sermon.

So with that said, let's read this together as it's been our custom for this series.

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 the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings and so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. — 1 Peter 1:22–2:3, 5:12–14

Let's go to God in prayer. Lord God, we pray that you would illumine our hearts to this reading of your word. Lord, we pray that you would soften us, that you would humble us, that you would allow us to engage with your word, to engage with you. Through this process, we would become more like Christ and that we would be equipped to go forth into the world as his representatives, as sojourners, aliens in a foreign land who are suffering and yet not perishing. Lord, work through us, work through your word. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Outline

Alright, the outline for this morning is three points. The first point is: Who's Your Daddy? Second point is: Got Milk? And the final point is: The Family Business.

Point One: Who's Your Daddy?

I want to look closely at verse 23:

You've been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. — 1 Peter 1:23

Recently, not too long ago, Katie bought me a DNA test. Have you seen those things like ancestry.com, 23andMe? She got me one of those and I got the little test tube and you spit in the test tube, right? You seal it up and mail it off, and then they send you some login information. You learn all kinds of fascinating things about yourself.

I learned that my dad is 100% surely my dad. I learned that my maternal grandfather is 100% surely my maternal grandfather. So all those stories that my mom and dad were telling me growing up, all of that's apparently true.

I also learned where my people are from. This was shocking. They're mostly from England and Germany, maybe a little tiny smidge of Norwegian. Nothing shocking, right? But it's kind of fun. It was interesting to learn about migration patterns of some of my ancestors.

I learned that I have like a fifth cousin somewhere in North Raleigh. She's 54, and there's a way I can contact her. I haven't done that, but it was fun and interesting.

There are also other uses for these things where you can buy packs and learn about your DNA and some of the health implications that your DNA has—what kinds of problems you'd be prone to, what kinds of allergies you might have, that sort of thing. I didn't pay for that part, but I might.

It might be really useful, especially at 42, to start thinking about what are some things that I might encounter as a middle-aged gentleman? These things are fascinating too because people are also using DNA information as we have more and more of it and more ability to do so. They're catching criminals from cold cases, right? You've probably read about some of those stories. I have not been associated with any criminal activity as a result of my DNA test. I haven't committed any criminal activity that I know of. So I think I'm safe. But it's fascinating these things, isn't it?

Spiritual DNA

Peter wants his readers to understand that they have a new DNA, that they have a spiritual DNA, that their birth organically and physically in the material world is not the only birth that they've gone through. If you look at specifically verse 22, it says:

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. — 1 Peter 1:22

There's some very clear implications about the fact that our Christianity, our being in Christ has almost nothing to do with us, right? That it's like birth, that our DNA structure isn't something that we mustered up on our own. It's something that was implanted into us. And essentially this subscribes that implantation to the very word of God.

Now, why is that important? Why is it important for you to think about your DNA? Here's why. It's because as we walk through the Christian life, oftentimes we have all sorts of reasons, all sorts of times in which we doubt our heritage, in which we question whether or not that DNA is really at work in us, right? We wonder, is our mom and our dad really our dad and our mom? Is our spiritual birth in Christ Jesus really has it taken?

Peter wants you to know that the DNA that is necessary for you to live out the Christian life has been implanted in you by almighty God, by his word, and that there is nothing that can change it. He wants you to be reassured of your salvation. He wants you as you go through life, as you face challenges to remember that it's not up to you. It's not up to your achievement. The code has been implanted in you and it is working itself out. You are growing into the image of Christ that he intended you to be.

Now, what kinds of reassurances from scripture can I point you to? What kinds of ways in which can we be certain that it's actually taken, that it's actually happening? Verse 22 is a great point. Having purified your soul by obedience to the truth. You, by virtue of the fact that you have proclaimed Christ, right, are being obedient to the truth that was preached to you. The gospel, the word of God has been preached to you and you have said, hey, I'm a sinner and I need Jesus.

Now I want to submit to you that that is very distinct from the rest of the world. Recognizing your own faults and your own failings, humbling yourself, recognizing your sin, recognizing how in and of yourself you have no hope is very countercultural from the world standpoint, right? It's very alien behavior. Putting your faith in a guy that lived two thousand years ago who suffered and died on a cross as a criminal and supposedly rose from the dead, right, is equally as crazy and countercultural. All I'm saying is essentially by simply putting your faith in Christ, you are starting to show forth family resemblances. You're showing forth the DNA, the code that is at work in your heart by simply showing up and saying, I'm a sinner and I believe in Jesus.

Just like the Lucketts did this morning when they took vows. You've essentially differentiated yourself from the family of the world and you have identified yourself with the DNA of heaven. Romans 10 puts it this way:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. — Romans 10:9

Doing that is crazy. If you're starting to kind of look like the family when you start doing stuff like that. And there's probably other things that you've started doing if you are indeed of Christ, right?

Think about some of the people, the saints of old, the Old Testament. Think about David, for example, right? David. What was the craziest story of David's life? There were lots of them. In my mind, the craziest story of David's life was that time when he was a kid and he showed up for a battle with a giant with a sling and a rock. And everybody was telling him, hey, you are crazy. This is a crazy plan. Do not go fight that giant with the big sword with your little sling and your little rock. And David said, hey, it's okay. I'm putting my faith in the Lord. He didn't trust in himself. He didn't trust in the sling and the rock. What he trusted in was God and people told him he was crazy. Do you see the resemblance between him and what you do when you proclaim your need of Christ and your trust in him?

Hey, I can't win this battle, but God has won it for me. The world will tell you that's crazy. Peter will tell you if you're doing stuff like that, then you're displaying the DNA of a Christian. You have been transformed by the word which is at work in your heart and your life. I want to encourage you CTK, you go through life, remember that this is the DNA of the word at work in you. It doesn't return to God void. If it's taken hold in your heart, truly, if you've confessed this, then you have reason to have confidence that God is at work.

So another thing that I want you to point out from chapter five: Notice the similar DNA of Peter, Silas, and Mark at the end. It says, by Sylvanus—that's Silas, Silas of Acts who traveled with Paul, one of the great missionaries of the Book of Acts. Apparently, he's hanging out with Peter and Peter sends him to deliver this message of First Peter. He says, "By Sylvanus, a faithful brother." Do you notice the family language of that? He's a brother. Notice also Mark, who is probably the author of the Gospel of Mark and who probably got the material for his gospel directly from Peter. Later in chapter five, he writes, "Mark, my son," right? All of this—all of this believing in the gospel and actually living out the gospel—that is like family resemblance. It's the DNA of the gospel, the word working itself out through us.

Your Imperishable Nature

Notice also: your spiritual DNA means that you're imperishable. This is just great to meditate on. You've 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 its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

I've used this illustration before and I know it's cheesy, but I can't hear this passage and not think about it. Several years ago, I was preaching up at Redeemer, our mother church. I got done preaching. We were out on the playground playing with our kids. I was talking with a bunch of the people up at Redeemer. And my wife, she got kind of tired of that. She said, "All right, I'm going on home." I said, "Great, I'll see you there." She left. I went to go pack up my things and I couldn't find my Bible. I had misplaced it. I had no idea where it was. I searched the entire church. I probably spent about a half hour scouring Redeemer Presbyterian Church looking for this Bible because it was the Bible that I got when I was ordained at this church. I loved that Bible. I didn't want to lose it.

Finally, I gave up. I told the senior pastor, Dan Seal, "Look, I know I left it around here somewhere. Just when you find it, let me know. It's got my name in it. You know, I'll come back up and get it." So I left. I'm driving down Creedmoor Road. I noticed that there's something in the road and as I go boom boom over it, I think to myself, "Man, some idiot left a book in the middle of the road." And then about ten seconds later, I realized I must have put my Bible on top of the minivan that Katie drove down Creedmoor about half an hour earlier.

So I pulled over, I ran back, I got the Bible out of the road. I'm dodging traffic. It was like Frogger. I got it and here it is. Amazingly, it was fine. There were some pages that were folded but nothing was ripped, nothing was torn. And you know what the moral of the story is, right? The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Now, I know that's cheesy, but I think about that because this isn't really—you know, this is a copy of the word of God. This is a manifestation of it. But God's word, his actual word that he's delivered, is imperishable. Nothing can destroy it. And it's great that this wasn't destroyed. Eventually, this Bible will probably be destroyed at some point. It is perishable. It is a perishable copy. But the word of God itself is imperishable. And that is what has been implanted in you.

God's not going to let his word fail. And no matter what the world does, no matter how many cars drive over it, no matter how much suffering exists, that actually will do nothing but reveal the beauty of it. And so it's important for you to remember your DNA heritage because it not only talks to you about your heritage—about the fact that, "Hey, this is your DNA seed working itself out"—but it also says something about your health. You're going to last forever because God's word is alive and at work within you. This is great news. This is great news especially on a week like this.

This has been a hard week. It seems like almost every week is a hard week these days. There's so much news of suffering and dying, shootings, division, angst. In some of your personal lives, in my personal life, there are hardships. There are sufferings that we go through as believers. There are things that sometimes we think, "Oh gosh, this is going to be it."

This is horrible. This is the end. Brothers and sisters, it's not the end. God's word is imperishable. It is unchanging, undefiled. It will never go away and it has been implanted in you. You have the DNA super gene of Jesus Christ, his word implanted in you alive and well and that speaks to your future.

Just like my DNA, if I ever get the health test, it'd be amazing if I got it back and it was like, "Hey, good news, you're never gonna have cancer or any kind of suffering or any kind of sickness." That would be really surprising by the way because I've already had suffering and sickness. But that's the promise of God's word. It's DNA at work in you. You can trust that it will not ever fade or spoil. It's in you. The DNA test is positive. You are not of this world. You're an alien. But this new birth you've experienced is relatively new. You're a baby and you're going to need to grow.

Got Milk?

So that brings us to our next point. Got milk? Got milk? Peter exhorts us to long for the pure spiritual milk. Notice this in verse two of chapter two:

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. — 1 Peter 2:2-3

Long for the milk, he says. What is the milk? The easiest thing to do is to say that the milk is God's word, right? Because he's talking about the word of God never fading or spoiling. He's talking about that and then he moves into the milk. I don't think it's God's word though. I think the key is in verse three of chapter two. He quotes Psalm 34 there. He says, "If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." The milk, the thing that you've tasted, is the thing that you're supposed to long for. What is the milk? The Lord. It's God himself.

Yes, the word is something that often points you to the Lord. There's lots of other things though that we call the means of grace—things like prayer, fellowship, the sacraments. Celebrating the Lord's Supper is a great way of being nourished by spiritual milk. It's essentially a longing for Christ himself, for God, for a deeper relationship with him.

And so Peter is exhorting his readers. Notice he doesn't say, "Drink the milk." He doesn't say, "Hey, get yourself a healthy dose of Jesus every now and then because you're going to need that." He just says to long for it. Why would Peter need to tell us to long for something so fundamental to being a Christian? Why would he need to tell us to long for Christ? Well, the answer is in the text. Here's why. It's because we're babies.

I've had five babies. Well, not me personally but my wife and I together have had five babies. And so I've gotten to witness firsthand the feeding and digestion process of infants on a number of occasions. I would like to share with you, there is nothing easy about the feeding and digestion process of infants. From beginning to end, none of it is easy, right? It's incredibly hard from the day that they're born and the nurses send in consultants to help you figure out how to feed your child. And you're like, "I thought this would be natural." No, a lot of times there are challenges. We gotta work through some of these things.

Let me just talk about some of the challenges with infant feeding. First of all, one of the biggest challenges about feeding an infant is that they can't feed themselves. Think about that, right? Babies don't just get up in the middle of the night when they're hungry for a snack and let their parents sleep. That has never happened in the Sutton household. I wish it had, right? It'd be so nice if we could sleep through the night when you have an infant but that's not the case. Babies can't feed themselves. They're helpless.

You've got to do the feeding yourself and you've got to think through all of that. And here's where I want you to apply this. Think about that with regard to you. Oftentimes, I think we think it's up to us to feed. But Peter doesn't say to feed, he says to crave because that's appropriately all that we can do. It is God himself who feeds us and he nourishes us through his word, through fellowship, through worship, through the sacraments, right? And that doesn't mean that we don't do those things because if we're yearning for it, if we're longing for it, we know that's where we can find it. We crave those things. We go to those things but we look to God and we trust him to feed and nourish us through them.

Have you ever been through a class where you just signed up for it and you knew it was going to enrich your spiritual life and heart, right? And so you signed up for the class and you did all the work and you were super faithful and you got to the end of it.

And in terms of your closeness with Christ, you're just kind of like, meh, didn't really do anything for me. Have you ever approached your quiet times with absolute diligence, like reading right on the dot? Some of you are really good at that. Like I'm reading every day and I'm pursuing Christ and it's just dry. Right? It's not up to us. We can't feed ourselves but we can long. We can cry out. Do you long for the pure spiritual milk? Do you want to be fed? Do you desire it? Do you want to taste more of what you have tasted in Christ? Are you constantly moving towards new opportunities? Whether or not they pan out, looking, longing for just a taste. Let me get a little bit more of Jesus. Is that your posture? Peter says that is the posture of a Christian. That is our DNA. We should long for the spiritual milk, for the pure spiritual milk. We should be pursuing it.

Another thing that's really hard about feeding infants is that oftentimes, babies don't really know or articulate when they're hungry. They just know something's wrong, right? That's a challenge that actually survives into childhood and even into adulthood sometimes, right? Like hangry struggles. You know hangry? Amen. I finally got an amen. That's good. Hangry struggles are real, right? It's like when it's 3:00 in the afternoon and your kids are just at each other and it's like they don't know what's wrong but they haven't eaten lunch. Oh, it's like the Snickers commercials, right? Where it's like somebody turns into Joe Pesci and they're like, oh no, eat this Snickers bar and then turn back into this nice little old lady or something, right?

That's the thing here. Oftentimes we don't know that we're hungry. We can get distracted by life and move through life and not crave food because we're so involved in the things that we're involved in. We don't take the time or move towards the means of grace because we're totally distracted by the things that are going on around us. We need to take time. We need to develop regular rhythms of interacting with these things, of longing, of crying out to God like an infant. Hey, God, I don't know but something's wrong. Nourish me. Draw near to me.

Another thing that's hard about babies and feeding is that they have small stomachs. They have to eat all the time. You give them little tiny amounts of food and they're good for like a couple of hours and then you gotta give them more food. It'd be great if you could just feed an infant and that would be enough food for them to last through the night, right? Isn't that like us? Right? We get a little bit of the gospel and in the moment, you're like, man, this is so good. This is so rich. I'm drawing so close to Christ. I'm being nourished by this. I should be good for years. You know, I went to seminary and I thought when I was done and they gave me a Masters of Divinity, I'm like, I'm gonna be good for years. And then like the day after that, I was like, oh gosh, I need more.

Our rhythms of nourishment need to be regular. Sometimes, there are some of you, and some of you I know that sometimes this is the best you can do, it's great. But you need to come to church more than once a month. Once a month isn't cutting it. Some of you it's like, hey, I know that the Bible will nourish me, but I'm only going to think about it on my way to work occasionally. Some of you are like, I know that God's put all these people around me that know me and can actually help to apply the gospel to me. And there have been moments where people speaking into my life have really shown me Christ and I've gotten closer to him and I've really experienced that, but I can't make time for those people. I'm not going to be involved in any kind of community group like the geographical community groups or the men's or women's ministry. I'm not going do that.

We need to make time. We need to build into our schedule our regular rhythm of pursuit of the means of grace. And as we're doing that, cry out to God in prayer, Lord, work through these things. Lord, feed and nourish us.

If you draw near to him, he'll draw near to you. — James 4:8

There's a promise. It's not always going to work out. There are going to be spiritual times of dryness, but commitment to the means of grace and looking for God to work, he will work. He will nourish you. He loves you and he cares for you. And he's not going to leave you without that pure spiritual milk.

I can realize though that these things sound like chores and I talk a lot about them. We talk a lot about being committed to these things and we tell you, hey, you should commit to them. And it may seem like a kind of works righteousness, and even in some ways it's not. I want you to just think about this.

Peter says, like a newborn infant long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Let's just take a second to taste the Lord. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to just meditate on these words that I'm going to say. Allow yourself to digest them.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned. — John 3:16

God loved you so much that he sent his son to die for you. Think about his love. Think about how incredible that love is.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5:21

Remember the first time you experienced forgiveness? All of those sins that you confessed during our time of confession, you've been forgiven. Christ in his sacrifice has given you his righteousness. How does that taste?

What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. — Romans 8:31-39

You have victory and security in Christ. How does that taste? God has pure spiritual milk for you in the gospel, in him, in knowing him and drawing close to him. Long for it, crave it. Draw near to him and he'll draw near to you.

The Family Business

All right, I've got to hurry. My last point is the family business. Remember me saying that DNA tests can connect you to a crime? Not only does it give us insight into our heritage and not only does it give us insight into our health, but it can also connect us to a crime. Our family business is the business of love. And this passage is full of exhortations to love.

Listen, for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and evil, and envy and all slander. — 1 Peter 1:22-23

Here's the thing I want you to get from this. The Holy Trinity existed by themselves in all eternity and out of their love for each other, creation exploded. And there was a fall, but out of the Holy Trinity's love, the Trinity worked to bring about redemption so that we might be unfolded into the Trinity and be a part of the family and be connected to the family business, which is proclaiming the love that existed between the Trinity from all time. That is what we're called to do. It's not half-hearted or impure. It's pure love from a pure heart. There's a connection between the pure spiritual milk and the pure-hearted love that Christians show and are called to. It's not just for appearances. There's no malice or deceit or hypocrisy or envy or slander. This is something that we do—not as Southerners with blessings of hearts or shallow thoughts and prayers. It's sincere, very honest, other-focused, grown from the word, fed by the gospel, sometimes painful love.

As we enter into a regular season of life as a church, what would it look like for you to engage all of the different ways in which we engage each other as a church with a posture of love? Instead of looking for what you can get out of this church, think about what it is that God has called you to reveal about him to others. Ways in which you can reveal your self, your DNA, the love of God at work in you as you digest the pure spiritual milk of his love for you to others? What would it look like for you to share that with others and be engaged with others on that?

I want you to note too in 1 Peter 5, the international focus.

She who is at Babylon who is likewise chosen sends you greetings and so does Mark my son. Greet one another with a kiss of love. — 1 Peter 5:13-14

Peter was in Rome. She who is in Babylon was probably the church in Rome. We are called not just to love people in this church, but to love the brotherhood that is all around the world. To be concerned with churches that are halfway around the world and the suffering and the trials that they're going through. We are called to love and to serve them as our brothers in Christ.

And we are called to do that. And that is why we are committed to LAMP and why we're committed to church planting and why we want to engage the world all around because the family business is what we're called to. The DNA that's in us is calling us to it. It's prepared us. All of the ways in which we were born and we have been fed lead us to that trajectory.

This summer has been the summer of the Beatles for the Sutton family. We saw Paul McCartney live in May, which was awesome. I love Paul McCartney.

Last week we saw Ringo Starr and his all star band in Durham. Bless Ringo Starr's heart. It was great, but Ringo's not my favorite Beatle. But it was really cool to see both of the two living Beatles live in concert. And then in the middle, we saw the movie Yesterday. I don't know if you saw the movie Yesterday. Kind of the plot of Yesterday is that there's this guy who gets hit by a bus at the moment in which some cosmic event happens that causes everyone to forget Beatles music. And then he starts playing it and everybody thinks he's the greatest thing. He takes ownership of that. But then eventually he just kind of lets go of that and he realizes, "Hey, I'm just the vessel bringing the message of the Beatles back to the world."

Here's the truth: Beatles songs are great. They're not that great. The truth is though that there is a song of love that the world has forgotten. Everybody in the world has forgotten it, and only those reborn of the word and nourished by the spirit can remember it.

We're called to CTK to sing that song. To sing that song in harmony with churches all around the world, in conjunction with all of the people in this room as we go into Raleigh and their various spheres of influence to sing and tell of the wonderful gospel that has reborn us and nourishes us.

CTK, let's sing that song. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.