Our Shared Calling, Part 2
December 24, 2017
When I was a new Christian, I soon discovered Christian radio. At the time having access to Christian radio wasn’t about the music, it was about the preaching. I would get ready in the morning listening to the likes of J. Veron McGee, John MacArthur Jr, and Chuck Swindoll. I liked them all because they taught me truth that I was hungry to hear. At some point I started reading some of their books. And I remember one by Chuck Swindoll that really helped me. It was called “Three Steps Forward and Two Steps Back.” It described the ups and downs of walking with God. Sometimes everything is smooth sailing; you make great strides in your faith; life is good; God is good; and everything is a blessing. But sometimes things don’t go so well. Doubts creep in; you get tripped up by an old sin; you get discouraged by your lack of progress and sometimes you just get stuck. It’s like you really are taking two steps back. And for the most-part that is often what the Christian Journey is like. It is three steps forward and two steps back, and sometimes two steps forward and three steps back. But just knowing that reality is half the battle. Knowing that there are ups and downs; knowing that we all we get stuck now and then is actually helpful. Just knowing this reality can spare you from wallowing in guilt. And just knowing this protects you from faking it; protects you from the performance treadmill.
But just knowing that the Christian journey is three steps forward and two steps back, is not enough. God doesn’t want you stuck in a rut. God wants you to move forward with Him. But sometimes there are factors that HINDER your moving forward with Him. Sometimes there are factors that INTERFERE or even block your progress in the faith.
So if following Jesus seems more like two steps forward and three steps back or if you’ve ever felt like you are stuck on a spiritual treadmill; then what God’s Word has to say today should be of great help to you. And if that’s you, then let me encourage you open your Bible to 1 Peter 2:1-10, where we’re going to dig into three aspects of Our Shared Calling, that exposes these factors that interfere with our moving forward with Jesus. And the first aspect of our shared calling we see in verses 1-3 is this:
We Are Called to Grow Peter writes: Therefore, rid 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 have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:1-3 The first factor that INTERFERES with living out our faith is US. If you were here last week, we learned that GOD calls us to live Holy Lives – lives so distinctly different than the world around us, that people we will see in us an alternative way of living. And the distinctive characteristic that they will see in our holiness is our love for one another.
But here Peter addresses what gets in the way from us actually loving one another: IT IS US. Even though God has given us a new nature, there’s enough of the old nature in us that still influences how we live. But the influences of our old nature are incompatible with the new nature now alive in us. So Peter gives us a strong command here telling us how to keep our old nature from interfering with our love for one another, by saying rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
Let’s look at a couple of these. “All Malice.” Malice is simply harboring ill will in your heart for someone. It’s that desire within you that wants to make someone pay; to hurt them in some way because they have hurt you. We all have people like this in our lives. If you have a father who ran off, a brother who took advantage of you, a relative who abused you… but now, when you think of them, anger burns in your heart, and now you won’t have anything to do with them, then you are probably harboring malice in your heart. And when you hold malice in your heart, it will hinder you ability to love. You can’t be holy as God is holy, because the malice in you keeps you from loving like Jesus. So the command here is to get rid of it! All of it. God wants you to take off malice like an old dirty garment, and toss it in the trash, never to put it back on. You now have God’s nature dwelling in you – so throw out the trash of the old nature… starting with ALL malice.
Let’s look at another: “Hypocrisy” The hypocritical person tends to be what he is not: He is a man with a double heart and a lying tongue. For instance, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and teachers of the law for their hypocrisy when he said, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matt. 15:7-8; Isaiah 29:13). Here’s where being religious can get in the way of being loving. We can deceive ourselves into thinking we’re alright with God if we’re attending Church regularly, if we are keeping our act together, and doing an occasional good work. But God doesn’t look at our outward appearances, He looks at the heart. Do we really love Him? Do we really want to please Him? Are our hearts surrendered to His will in our lives? If so, then we will drop the religious act, repentant of our sin and let love lead us not our religious appearances.
That’s where the second part of this teaching comes into play. When we stop acting religious and start craving the spiritual nutrition of God’s Word, we stop feeding the old nature and start feeding the new. Listen to how Peter puts it: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:2-3
What I love here is that Peter uses the picture of a new born baby to show us how we are to crave God’s Word. Newborn babies act as though their lives depend on their next feeding. Such vigorous craving is a sign of a healthy life. There is a sense of urgency here. Every newborn baby needs to cultivate a taste for her mother’s milk if she’s going to thrive and grow. And if this newborn doesn’t crave her mother’s milk, she will become weak and feeble. She won’t grow, So for each of us, the implication is pretty clear. If you’ve been born of God, you need this same craving for God’s Word in you. For without it, you will become weak and feeble. You’ll stay stuck. You’ll not love. And you will not have the spiritual strength to thrive in your new life.
So Peter gives us both a negative and positive application to help us grow in love. The first is to: Get rid of whatever it is that is holding you back from growing in love. Get rid of any and all malice, deceit, hypocrisy or envy, or slander… confess it for what it is, place it at the foot of the cross, remember that Jesus died to take that away from you, so don’t hold onto it any longer, and don’t pick it back up. That’s the first thing you’ve got to do. Out with the old, now in with the new. Reprogram your heart, renew your mind, drink deeply at the well of Jesus. Cultivate a new appetite for God’s Word! Let God fill you with His thoughts, His desires, His ways, and you will begin to start loving like Jesus.
You want to get unstuck? Start by asking God to awaken your thirst for His word. You want to start craving pure spiritual milk like you crave that slice of fresh baked bread? Then start dining on God’s Word. Maybe you’re here today, but you’ve never learned how to study God’s Word. Or you’ve struggled with cultivating a taste for His Word. If that’s you, then you’re a perfect candidate for connecting with a Journey Group. For in these groups, you will have friends who will encourage you, teach you, help you. God gave you a new life. God wants you to grow in this new life. God wants you to thrive and bear the fruit of this new life. And the fruit of this new life is love. But like a new born baby, you need nourishment. So it starts with you. Throw out the old and start taking in the new and you will start growing. This is your calling. This is our calling. We are all called to grow in God’s Word so that we can start living in love.
That’s the first aspect of our Shared Calling, now let’s look at the second: We Are Called to Serve As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-6 Did you catch it? What’s the second hindrance to your faith? It’s your lack of connection with other believers. Notice here in these verses, how Peter simply assumes that if you come to Jesus, you will automatically be connected with others who follow Jesus. He says, “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood” Peter uses two pictures to communicate his point. The first has to do with “the Living Stone.” Jesus is the living stone who was rejected by man, but CHOSEN by God. In the same way, God sees us as living stones because of our union with Jesus and so He CHOOSES us as well, and THEN builds us together into a spiritual house –a spiritual dwelling place.
We know from other Scriptures that this spiritual house is meant to be the dwelling place of God. We as God’s people, gathered together are meant to be the very place where God comes and makes himself at home. Pretty cool picture. So hold onto that picture for a moment and lets look at the next one.
The next picture describes our new calling as “a holy priesthood.” That’s US. We are now considered priests of God. Priests in the OT served God in God’s house – the temple. They brought sacrifices on behalf of others. They prayed on behalf of others. Priests were chosen by God for service to God by serving God’s people.
Now put these two pictures together, and you see we have been chosen by God to serve. We serve, not by bringing physical sacrifices to God, but by offering spiritual sacrifices – by offering ourselves to God on behalf of others.
Here’s the point: Sometimes we get stuck, or take a couple steps back, because we’ve forgotten or have never been taught the Priesthood of the Believer. In other words, God designed your faith to thrive through the ministry of others who serve you, and the ministry given you to serve others. We are all priests. We’ve got to get it out of our heads that its just the Pastor or Parish Priest who prays, helps, teaches, cares or loves. God has given US ALL this privilege! It’s a PRIVILEGE. It’s OUR CALLING! You were chosen by God to serve your brother, your sister. Now as a priest, your calling is to help her, encourage him, serve her. As a priest you now have access to the very throne of God. So at the very least, everyone of us can be praying for one another.
If we really grabbed ahold of this truth and ran with it, we would not need a prayer team. Why? Because every one of you would be connected with others in a Neighborhood Group where we’d already be doing this. That’s our POTENTIAL here. Every single person who is united with Christ by faith has access to the very presence of God. That means, we have the potential to see God do some pretty amazing things. Jesus said it best when He said, “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” Matthew 18:20. And when Jesus said that, he was talking about God’s people gathered to pray. God wants to answer OUR prayers. That’s why He gave us Jesus. Through Jesus we now have direct access to God! That’s why God chose to fit us together as living stones.
You want a breakthrough? You want to see God change your heart, help you overcome your past, make a difference with your life? You want to see God change your husband’s heart, your neighbor’s heart? You want to produce much fruit? This is where breakthroughs begin – when we grab hold of the reality that God has made us priests to serve one another – and it begins with prayer.
So here’s the reality: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, because God says in in His Word. We need each other. I need you and you need me. That’ why we are forming Neighborhood Groups. Jesus is building us together to be His dwelling place. You want to get unstuck? Then get together with others to follow Jesus. This is God’s plan for you. God wants you to be fruitful. He doesn’t want you stuck in neutral. You were meant to thrive, but you need your brothers and sisters to help you. We are called to serve, and when we do that together, we will open the floodgates of love!
That’s the second aspect of our Shared Calling, now the third: We Are Called to Praise But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10
The first factor that hinders our calling to love one another is us and our need to get rid of the evil influences of our old nature and to feed our new nature with God’s Word.
The second factor that hinders our calling to love one another is our lack of connection with one another, and our need to embrace our calling as servants together in God’s house!
But the third factor that hinders our calling to love one another is lack of understanding how God sees us and what God has done for us. We see both of these truths at the conclusion of this passage.
First, we need to grasp how God sees us. When He says “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,” He uses the plural YOU. In others words, ALL OF US TOGETHER who have called on Jesus by faith, now belong to God as His special possession, because He wanted it that way. He initiated the relationship with us. He chose us to be His people. He brought us into His family through Jesus, the Messiah, the king. That’s what makes us royal. And its Jesus who gives us access to the very presence of God – hence we are a royal priesthood. And now we are a Holy nation. We are a people who are different from the world because we belong to God and bear Christ’s nature. This world is not our home. The kingdom of God is our home. And finally, we are God’s special property – God’s special possession. The truth behind this designation is powerful: We are precious to God and therefore the object of His tender-loving care now and forever.
Do you understand how precious you are to God? How precious we are to God? You are, we are the fulfillment of God’s call to Abraham in Genesis 12. What God started with Abraham has found its fulfillment in us – everyone of us connected together by Jesus in His new family. You are part of something so much bigger than your individual faith in Jesus. You are now part of God’s movement of grace this planet – a movement of mercy that will not be complete until Jesus returns. That’s the first truth that needs to consume us. How God sees US!
And then put that together with what God has done for us… Boom! He called us out of darkness into His wonderful light! Once we were ignorant of God, alone in this world, imprisoned as slaves to sin… BUT NO MORE. God sent Jesus to rescue us, redeem us, and set us free to live in the wonderful light of Jesus. We are no longer children of darkness, lost and alone. We are children of the light. All because of God’s mercy to us in Jesus!
God made us His people, His treasured possession by rescuing us by His Mercy. And now as His people we get to live in the light and declare His great love. That’s our shared calling! And when these truths sink in to our hearts and fill our minds: There is only one response: We will Praise Him!
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
If you want to get unstuck; if you want to move forward, if you’re ready to truly live out God’s call on your life… its right here. All you have to do is believe. Believe you are not just God’s child, but believe you are uniquely chosen for a purpose – to belong to Him with every other believer for something so far greater than this world has ever seen. Believe you have been called to declare the praises of Him who loves you, who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Believe in how God sees you and what He has done for you… and the rest of your days will be days of praise.
This is our shared calling.
Let us give Him praise.
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