Gospel People
Notes
Transcript
Good morning!
If we haven’t met..
My name is Chris, I’m the pastor of Gateway Chapel, the lovely church family that gets to worship in this building. We are a church family that seeks to encourage each other as we hear, love, and obey Jesus together.
If you want to learn more about following Jesus with us, you can grab me after the service or go to our website gatewaychapelpnw.com. There you’ll find a contact page you can fill out and let us know how we can serve you as well as sign up for our weekly email. Also there’s a page for prayer requests which goes directly to our elder team. And you’ll also find a link to give online if you’d like to partner with us.
Two things coming up in March
Next Sunday March 3 is a church potluck. Scripture paints the hope of humanity like a meal - that one day we will have an amazing feast when God remakes all of heaven and earth, and as a church family we model that hope when we share meals together. So next Sunday, bring something to share. Gateway will provide drinks. Right after the service we’ll move the chairs, set up tables and feel free to hang out together until we kick you out eventually.
And then March 17 is a membership class right after service. Membership is a biblical picture of what it looks like to devote ourselves to one another because of the gospel. Lunch and childcare will be provided. Please RSVP by emailing info@gatewaychapelpnw.com and let us know if you need childcare or have any dietary restrictions.
Before Hannah comes up to read our Scripture, we are going to spend a few moments in prayer.
And this morning we’re going to pray over our church family here at Gateway Chapel and use texts from 1 Peter as a guide for prayer.
I don’t know about you but prayer can be hard. Maybe you’re like me and you want to pray more but prayer can feel boring because you end up saying the same things over and over and your mind wanders all the time. I came across this book this week - “Praying the Bible” and I found it tremendously helpful. It’s now a part of the lending library so please read it, put it to practice, and tell your friends.
But let’s practice this together this morning.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Scripture
I
A few weeks I got to do something really fun, I got to drive to Renton.
Now that may not sound very fun to you but I really don’t drive much anymore so I was quite tickled by the whole experience.
Partly because I got to listen to podcasts which I used to do all the time when I drove 3 hours a day for work but now not so much.
The podcast I listened to recommended a book called “How to Think”
And I thought, I’d like to know how to think, so being a millenial I didn’t read the book I just Googled it and watched a 20 minute youtube video by the author about the book, so basically the same thing.
In 2017, Christian and academic Alan Jacobs wrote a book called
How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
And in this book Jacobs points out the need for every human being to belong.
We all need to be included. To be part of something. I need to find my people and then entrench myself in that group.
So how do we do that?
Often, Jacobs says what we do in today’s world is that groups identity themselves not by what they’re for, but by what and who they’re against.
I’m with you because I hate them.
But if you want to really entrench yourself in a group and find your people, then you hate the other groups even more.
Oh you boo the Astros, I boo them ever louder! Oh you’re against that thing? I’m against it even more! Oh you don’t like that person, I hate them even more!
Jacobs says this is how our world attempts to feed an innate human desire to belong.
As I considered this on my commute I thought yeah, I see that. I see that in the world and I see that in the church too.
Our desire to belong and feel safe actually fuels groups and communities marked by anger, hypocrisy, and hurtful speech.
Do you feel that?
WE
How do we - the people of God, the family of God - live in a world at odds?
To live in 2024 feels like to live in a world at odds.
When it seems like all we see is conflict, in-fighting, division, and anger - and that’s just in the church - how do we as Gateway Chapel live together?
GOD
Thank God for 1 Peter.
I am falling more and more in love with this letter because it speaks to with wisdom and clarity to where we are today.
Our situation is nothing new.
Peter’s audience, Christians in first-century Asia Minor, can relate to us.
And he calls them chosen exiles. Holy strangers. Godly citizens of another kingdom.
Their world was filled with tension, rivalries, and an increasing antagonism towards their values as followers of Jesus.
And Peter says be filled with hope! Suffer now with Jesus and share in his glory forever.
How did Peter instruct the early church to live together as the people of God?
Let’s read together.
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
When did we have our souls purified?
When you were saved. And namely, when you were baptized.
Purification is the language of washing which is tied to priestly language of the OT when God asked his people to wash in preparation of being with Him.
Just as God washed Israel free from Egypt through the red sea and made a covenant with them so now God has washed us through faith in Jesus and in the waters of baptism.
What was the purpose of this washing?
1 Peter 1:22 (ESV)
22 …for a sincere brotherly love…
God saved us so we can love each other sincerely.
In an honor/shame society that these early Christians lived in, it was easy to put on a show. Show honor but inwardly and behind clothes doors dishonor someone.
That’s not how these Christians are to live.
God loved with a sincere love and brought you into his family.
Just as God brought Israel through the water and made a covenant with them and gave them his commandments to know him, serve him, and love him, now God has brought us through the waters of baptism and Jesus has given us his great commandment which is? Love one another.
What does this brotherly love look like?
1 Peter 1:22 (ESV)
22 …love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
The CSB says constantly. It’s the same word used in the NT when we’re told to pray constantly or earnestly.
Don’t stop loving each other.
Peter is saying, constantly love one another because you’re a part of the family of God.
Why constantly? What does that have to do with anything?
23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
What’s he saying here?
Because of the gospel we can love one another.
What is the gospel?
It’s the good news. It’s what was preached to them.
Like Peter preached to the Jews in Acts 2, “This Jesus whom you crucified God has raised from the dead!” Now someone has gone to these churches and proclaimed the same good news that God has come to die for our sins and be raised to new life so we can have a living hope.
Peter says through that preaching, you have been born again into a constant, unending, imperishable famiy.
Because of the gospel, we can love each other.
Notice in verse 24 he is quoting directly from Isaiah 40. So let’s go there ourselves.
1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
6 A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
In Isaiah 40, God’s people are exiled.
But God sends good news! I’m coming for you. Comfort, comfort, my people. It may seem like Babylon will endure forever, let me promise you, it will not.
My word will last forever and I give you my word that I will bring you out of exile and take you home.
Peter says, the same thing is happening to you.
You, Christian Jews, Gentiles, males, females, slaves, free people, rich and poor, you are under persecution living as chosen exiles in Asia Minor and life is hard!
But God sends good news to you! I’m coming for you. Just as I saved you from sin and death through the blood of Christ, so I will send him again to bring you home.
It may seem like the ways of the world - conflict, war, division, hatred - will last forever but I can promise you they will not.
By the way, that’s the good news of the gospel for us, too.
Therefore, don’t live the kind of life that is just passing away!
Exiles, strangers, foreigners of this world, don’t forget your native tongue: love. You’ve been born again through the eternal gospel so therefore love one another with an eternal love.
How do we live as the family of God in a world at odds?
Because of the gospel we are to love each other.
We could not do this ourselves. But Jesus - the imperishable Word himself - came and took our perishable flesh on and died for our sins to purify our souls so we can be people who obey him and love each other.
Gateway, you do this so well.
Keep going.
Remember who you are: gospel people.
This is why we preach from the Bible and sing songs with words from Scripture and study the Bible in community groups and teach our kids about the Bible because it is the living word of God and it is the good news that God is good and can be trusted.
Remember that we are not a church merely because we like each other but because of God’s love for us therefore we are to love each other. Want what is good for each other, work for what is good for each other, because of the gospel.
Peter’s not done…
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
What do we notice about this list of things Peter tells us to put away?
These are things that destroy community.
Malice - evil behavior. Behavior that intentionally harms others.
Deceit - not being honest. Dishonesty ruins community.
Hypocrisy - don’t just put on a show to make people thing you’re something that you’re not.
All slander - speech which cuts other people down is never allowed in the family of God.
As Gene mentioned a couple of weeks ago it is easy as Christians to be anxious about things outside the camp.
But Peter reminds us the real dangers are inside our own hearts.
Thinking poorly of others, lying to each other, pretending to be something we’re not, speaking poorly about each other. Nothing is more destructive to gospel people.
If I’m honest, I am a part of the problem.
I don’t put away these things and can feed them in my own life.
So how do we grow?
2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Put away what is impure and take in what is pure.
What is the pure spiritual milk?
2 Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
What is the spiritual milk? It’s God’s Word. It’s the gospel.
The gospel isn’t just what gets you in, it’s what helps you grow.
You can’t put off those other practices without taking in something else.
We are saved by grace alone and we grow by grace alone.
How can we as the people of God represent Jesus in a contentious world?
Because of the gospel we are to love each other and long for God.
Because of the gospel we are to love each other and long for God.
Peter is describing our relationship with God like a day old baby with it’s mom.
A newly born baby cannot survive without nourishment.
Babies know where to get their food. From Mom.
And Mom wants nothing more - even at cost to her own sleep, sanity, and energy - to feed her baby.
What a beautifully tender picture of God for us.
Peter says like a baby wants nothing more than to be skin to skin with mom and get the food they need to grow,
so we are to long to be skin to skin with God and soak in his word so we can grow to be who we’re made to be.
Like a baby cries, shrieks, wails until it gets what it needs
So we are to cry out for God and the beauty of his gospel until we are fed.
What a vivid and relatable metaphor.
Do you have a hunger for God?
Where are you going for food?
Peter makes another OT reference by saying “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
He beautifully ties together the metaphor of milk with an image of salvation related to eating.
This is a direct quote from Psalm 34.
8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Why Psalm 34? Did he just scour his Bible looking for a verse about eating because he was talking about babies?
Psalm 34 (ESV)
Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.
Psalm 34 is a story of David as an exile. It’s a story of David trying to survive in a world at odds where everybody is shooting at him.
Peter is saying that’s what it’s like for you.
That’s what it was like for Jesus.
And rather than maliciously treating those who hated him, or lying to those who lied about him, or pretending in order to avoid suffering or speaking poorly of those who spoke poorly of Him, Jesus fed on God’s Word.
As Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he says to Satan -
4 But he answered, “It is written,
“ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Jesus longed for God.
And Jesus came to forgive us even though we fed on malice, deceit, hypocrisy, and slander and died in our place and now says come and feast on my body, drink my blood, take in my life so you can be full.
How do we survive and faithfully represent Jesus in a contentious world?
Because of the gospel we are to love each other and long for God.
Do you long for God?
Have you tasted that he is good?
What’s your spiritual diet? Are you stunting your growth by filling yourself with things that don’t help you become the person God has made you to be?
So what might it look like for us to live this out?
YOU
Because of the gospel we are to love each other with our words.
Because of the gospel we are to love each other with our words.
We’re gospel people.
People of the good news.
People of the Word.
We could not love constantly and be people of love, so Jesus came and died to forgive us and give us his new life.
We worship a God who speaks.
So it matters how we speak to each other.
Every week you walk through the day, there’s an opportunity to live this out.
What if before you left today, you thought, who is someone I can encourage or pray with today?
We all need encouragement.
Life is hard.
What mom doesn’t need to be told every so often, “You know, you’re in the thick of it and you’re doing a great job. Hang in there.”
What friend doesn’t need to be told, “I’m so glad to know you.”
Who doesn’t need to be encouraged?
Because of the gospel, we can pray for each other.
If I had a dollar for every time I said, “I’ll be praying for you, and didn’t pray.”
So what if it was our culture at Gateway to just pray NOW for each other?
When someone shares something, love one another with your words and pray with each other now.
Because of the gospel, let’s long for God together.
Because of the gospel, let’s long for God together.
Gateway, let’s be a church not known for what we’re against, but be known as a church who wants God more than anything else.
And how do we get more of God? Through his Word.
Peter’s audience didn’t have bible apps and bibles at home. They read Scripture together. Longing for God and his word was a team sport.
Paul puts it like this.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Longing for God and feeding on the gospel is a team sport.
Who is helping you grow? Who is helping you feed on God’s Word?
WE
Our world is hungry for gospel people.
Who doesn’t want a community free from gossip, pretending, and hateful speech?
Who doesn’t want to belong to such a group?
The world’s answer is to create such a community by getting rid of THOSE people whoever THOSE people are and creating a safe inner ring.
But the gospel is the beautiful good news that such a community can and does exist because of Jesus who invites THOSE people like you and me to share in his undying love that was purchased as he died on the cross.
Gateway Chapel, let’s teach the world how to think, how to live, and how to love because of the gospel.
Communion
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.