Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

1 Peter 1:22-25 is where we will be this week.

Back may years ago when I ran track… emphasis on many years ago.

I had a certain strategy that I employed in High School.

I knew that I wanted to win more than the other person did.

So depending on who I was running against I employed two strategies.

1st: During the 2-mile if I thought the other competitors had better foot speed, meaning in a straight sprint they would beat me, then I would run at a faster pace for the first half to 3/4 of the race.

I would let them take the lead, and then I would run right behind them just in the sight of their peripheral vision so they knew they could not slow their pace.

I would also talk to people on the side who were yelling, even if they were from other schools.

Morgan will vouch for that we went to rival high schools and that is how she knew me before we met.

I was famous for this maneuver.

Really what I was doing was playing a mind game.

If I am running a race, and my competitors are putting every piece of effort into the race, they are getting tired and they see me in the peripheral vision and they hear me talking not out of breath, what they begin to think is, I can’t keep this up over the long haul.

Either they slow the pace, and I pass them and keep talking, and in distance running when you slow the pace is when your muscles in your legs tighten, your body relaxed and all the sudden you feel the weight of the run more, it’s less of a gliding run and more of a hopping jog.

The other strategy I would employ is if they were faster than me at pacing, I would simply sit behind them, let them take the wind, let them set the pace, let them lead.

I didn’t care about my time, I just cared about winning.

I would talk, I would be in their vision, I but I wasn’t trying to get them worn out at the pacing, I was conserving energy because when you come around that last turn it’s whats called the kick.

And those were my favorite, I loved out kicking people after they had lead for nearly all of the two mile race.

This was my preferred strategy.

I trained hard, I used the mental game, and I wanted to win when I was tired.

That is what is was for me, and so those desires and that ability played into the actual races for me.

Have energy at the mile and a half mark, that is where people struggle the most.

Don’t let them know you are tired too.

In the end, out kick people… that’s just about how bad do you want to win nothing more or less.

This is the idea Peter is going to keep pressing into us.

Much of 1 Peter so far has been about who we are as Christians, and then how that plays itself out in our lives.

To go back to the track illustration, some (many) people in the 2 mile race were placed in those races by coaches, with the sole purpose of we need you just to finish the race.

There was not a lot of people entered in the 2 mile typically and so many times if you finished it meant your team at least got a point.

So those people in the races just trying to get a point, they are not running hard, they are not really competing.

For them it’s meaningless.

Pointless.

Sure the team gets a point, but in the end thats a lot of work for not much.

They are miserable, slow, and typically upset with their coach.

Peter is tell you and I as we are in this race of life, running along, we are a purpose and we have meaning.

This race isn’t pointless for us.

There is more to it that stumbling over the finish line complaining to Jesus about how you didn’t even want to be in that race!

This matters because Peter is writing to people who are suffering and about to suffer more.

Getting the foundation right is vital, understanding the motivation for life is vital.

if you don’t have the right foundation if you don’t have the right motivation then as soon as any little hint of suffering comes along… we will be moved because we were never really rooted down.

You are this… so do that.

In earlier sermons I called this a chain, where each link was dependent on the other.

You are saved by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone… so new chain link, be holy, live in reverent fear of God.

For us to be certain of this, for us to do the things Christians are supposed to do… we must first understand what our chain link is supposed to be connected to… how do we know what we know is right?

Emotions, experience, tradition, feelings, desires, etc.

All tell of various things that can be good and can be corrupted.

So how do we center ourselves, how do we know the first link in the chain is secure, how do we know who we are so we can then live that truth out?

Why are we running the race of life the way we are?

How do we stay motivated with we are tired, when we are worn out, when it feels pointless, when pressure come?

Peter is going to root us in on that this morning.

Pray

God, You know us and you know why we are here.

You know about our motivations in life, you know about what our faith is founded upon.

Father we pray that you would help us to see that everything in life will change, will shift, it will move, but You and Your Word remain.

The Truth of your Word is the Gospel.

Help us to completely and fully cling to you Jesus.

Help your Word to root us and help us to Love your Word.

It’s in Jesus Name we Pray,

Amen

22

This Since is calling back to everything that Peter said!

Your living hope is wrapped up in the triune God, the Father’s Plan of Salvation, was accomplished by the Son- Jesus Christ, and Applied by the Holy Spirit, that’s our salvation, that by God’s Grace alone we are saved when we have Faith alone in Christ Alone.

He is the unblemished Lamb.

He is the only one who can make us Holy like He is Holy.

We as human beings are created in God’s image, and if we are saved God is working in us to make us more and more like God and ridding us of our sin and making us less like the world.

All of life outside of Christ is completely empty.

In reality what Salvation does is it frees us to obey God.

Outside of being saved we cannot really obey God at all, externally we might keep the commandments, but the greatest commandment is Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and every other commandment flows from that Love God has first given us.

If you do not love the Lord with everything, then you cannot fully keep any other commandment including loving your neighbor.

This is what Peter is getting at.

You have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth…

Obedience to the truth means have faith in Jesus.

Obey means believe in the truth in Jesus.

If you recall 1 Peter 1:2, it says:

1 Peter 1:2 (ESV)

according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

That the greeting Peter is giving and he already has this obedience to Jesus in mind.

We are saved to obey.

We are purified (made holy) to obey.

Word of truth is the gospel.

To obey to the Word of truth is to believe the word of truth.

To quote the commentator Daniel Doriani

We obey the truth when we believe the gospel that Peter declared: Jesus is God’s Anointed, the Savior.

He suffered, shed his innocent blood, died and rose, and promised to restore all things (1 Peter 1:3–9).

We obey the truth when we believe that Jesus died as a sacrifice for sins and that God “raised him from the dead and glorified him” (1:21).

We obey the gospel when our “faith and hope” (1:21) rest in Jesus Christ, who “bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” (2:24).

We obey the gospel because the Word is clear and authoritative.

The Gospel demands a response to it… we either believe or we do not believe.

There is no neutrality with the Gospel.

To do anything but believe it is to reject the gospel, which is to disobey the Word of God.

So there is a passivity to obeying the Gospel, resting in Jesus.

But much of the lingo we use to talk about our salvation experience is less about being biblically true and more about words and phrases we hear the preacher or our family say.

I was saved, I surrendered to God.

Both of which can be true, both of which carry a passive element to this obedience to the Word of Truth idea.

Meaning both are incomplete.

There is an active demand from the Word of God to obey, believe.

Joel 2:32 (CSB)

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, for there will be an escape for those on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the Lord promised, among the survivors the Lord calls.

This passage in Joel is quotes by Luke in Acts 2:21, and Paul in Romans 10:13.

This in no way is counteractive to what Peter way saying in verse 2 about election.

God is not dependent on you and I to glorify Him, while at the same time God has brought salvation this way, and from our perspective these two things are a mystery.

How can God choose people to be saved, and then call people to actively obey God’s word.