The Word That Doesn’t Wither

this time, go ahead and uh grab your Bibles, open them up to First Peter. We are in chapter 1. We're actually going to be wrapping up chapter 1 today. And so, chapter 1 has been a very rich chapter. Uh one that's good to kind of just take your time through. And I hope that um you've been strengthened in your faith as we're walking through it.

I hope that you are treasuring Jesus more as you just continue to see what he has accomplished for us. um in the gospel and just the good news of the word. And what we we're going to be seeing today is really a contrast between two things. There's a message that is being preached to you every single day. And it's either a message that comes from the world or it's a message that comes from the word. And we need to understand that the message that comes from the world is like grass that withers.

And the message that comes from the word is or remains forever. And so we need to understand those two different things because at the end of the day, we're all being discipled by something. We're all being discipled by something or someone, a message. All right? There there is no independence from that. We're being transformed by what we are ultimately receiving, what we're intaking.

And so it's very important for us to understand the difference and being able to recognize the difference between these two things. And so as we close this out, I titled this the word that doesn't wither because again I want you to be able to know the difference between these two things. And the big idea is that we should be people who trust the reliability of God's revelation and redemption. We need to be people who trust the reliability of God's revelation and redemption. And so as we finish up chapter 1, we're going to be I'm actually going to go back to verse 22. Uh last week, that's what we covered was 22 and 23, at least part of it.

And so I'm going to include it in today as we finish this out because it all is correlated and just connected. All right. So let's look at verse 22 here. 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. Father, we want to just pray right now for your spirit to help guide us in understanding the reality of this message, the reality of this text, the truth that you want us to not just hear, but to know, to believe, and to be transformed by. And so, we need your spirit to do that work in us because we cannot do it for ourselves. And so, Father, I pray that you guide us in this. I pray that you help us in this.

And I pray that when we leave here today, we understand the difference between grass and flowers that wither and that fade away, but ultimately trust in the word of the Lord that remains forever. Help us with that this morning. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. Amen. All right.

Well, that brings chapter one to a close. All right. So, we're done and we'll head on out. Um, just kidding. Thank you. Thank you.

Best best sermon ever, right? Um, what Peter's been doing for us in this chapter is he's been opening our eyes. He's been showing us ultimately that where salvation comes from is sort of the indicative. All right, this is the truth. This is what's already happened. This is what God is doing and has done.

And he's showing us that. And then he's also showing us what it produces in us. And that's the imperatives that we refer to in this passage. It's it's there's truth, the indicatives, and then there's response, which is the imperatives. And that's what he's been walking through with us throughout this whole chapter. And then what he does here is he lands the plane on the durability of these claims, the reliability.

Is it reliable? Because I think in all honesty that's in our anxious culture. People are wanting and starving for something that will last, something that they can rely on, something that they can actually trust. Because what they found over and over and over is someone will say something and do something different. Or they'll enter into a relationship and someone will promise something and then not fulfill it. or they'll, you know, do a diet and then it doesn't actually provide the results that they want.

And so at the end of the day, what what we're finding is people have probably at at least in our generation the highest level of distrust in systems, in politicians, in churches, in what fill in the blank, whatever it is, because whatever we are putting our trust in at the end of the day is not actually coming through or following through on its claims. And so we're hungry for something that's reliable, something that's actually durable, but the reality is is like nothing nothing lasts anymore. I mean, I'm I'm from an ancient era called the 1900s, okay? Um, us dinosaurs in the room from the 1900s, we look around at cars and appliances and we we just say things like they don't make them like they used to, right? Right. Right.

Now they have computers in them. That's the problem. But like when I was a little kid, I remember in the house that I grew up in, which my my brother and his family now live in this house that I grew up in. I'm pretty positive he still has the same refrigerator that I had when I was a kid because they don't make them like they used to. The funny thing is, for example, right now, everyone in this room, you have a device in your pocket that by the time you get home, you will need to replace because they don't make them like they used to, right? Like, here's the real.

No one right now in this room has a Nokia in their pocket. And it's not because they were uh they were they weren't built to last. That was actually their problem. They were like, you know, what makes us have a competitive edge is that we are going to build something that lasts forever. But then it outgrew their business model. Like they were like, "Wait, we can't sell anymore because they don't need anymore.

They're going to last forever." Like nothing lasts forever in the reality of anything and everything that we build from this side of glory. I mean, I'm trying my absolute hardest to keep my 35-year-old square body Chevy on the road, and it's proving nearly impossible at this point because everything dies. Everything dies. In our passage, Peter quotes from Isaiah 40 60-8 when he says, "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.

Peter knew exactly what he was doing when calling on Isaiah 40. He knew what he was doing because when Isaiah was written, the Jewish people were in exile after Jerusalem was ultimately destroyed. It was conquered and destroyed. They needed in their exile, they needed assurance that it wasn't all for nothing. They needed assurance. They saw their beloved city get conquered and destroyed.

But God reminded him reminded them that his word will never be destroyed. His word can never be conquered. And so Peter knew what he was doing when he inserted this text into his letter because remember the context that Peter is writing in right now. He's writing to people. He starts out his letter to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion. These aren't the same people that were in Isaiah.

Lots of generations have gone on since that point, but they are a people who know about exile. There are people who know about being conquered and destroyed. There are people who know about losing their homes. There are people who know about the grass that withers. and need to be reminded that the word of the Lord is what ultimately remains forever. I mean, just imagine you're a first century Christian living in one of the Roman provinces of Asia Minor where he's writing this to.

Life is hard. You've been left behind or or you've left behind the old pagan temples and family gods your neighbors still worship. Because you refuse to burn incense to the emperor as a god. You're labor labeled disloyal. Disloyal. You've lost business deals.

Some of your own family members have turned against you. Every few years there's a new emperor that rises in Rome. Sometimes through murder, sometimes through politics. But with him come new policies, come new pressures, come new persecutions on Christians. I mean today we call that a new fear unlocked. And at the same time during this time on the Talmood Tik Tok, false teachers and flashy religious movements are sweeping through the region like seasonal fads.

One year it's a popular mystery religion offering secret knowledge. The next year it's charismatic leader claiming to be the answer to everyone's problems. The point is they understood what it meant when trends come and trends go. Powerful people rise but powerful people also fall. Empires expand but empires also shrink. They've seen it all happen.

And it's into that unstable, frightening world that the Apostle Peter writes to these scattered believers and says, "All people, all flesh, it's like grass. all their glory, anything they build, it's like flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Like right now, we don't even need a season to understand this. We understood it's just by the last week, right? What was it like on Thursday, we had our flowers blooming and then by Saturday they're frozen and dead again.

I mean, we were just a living illustration of this truth this week. Peter's painting a vivid picture his readers would instantly understand. Just like grass in the hot middle eastern sun, green and promising one day and then brown and lifeless the next, Peter gives them and us an unshakable anchor. The good news about Jesus Christ, the living and abiding word of God, does not wither. It does not fade. It does not go out of style.

And we need to know that. We need to trust that. We need to know that it is reliable because the same word that was delivered to him 2,000 years ago is the same one that we are delivering today. Emperors die, cultural trends disappear, political parties and popular movements come and go, but the gospel that saved you will still be saving people 2,000 years from now if Jesus doesn't return yet. But what's crazy to me is just like the people on the day at the triumphal entry, they will run to what's popular in the moment and completely forget about the word of the Lord that remains forever. And here's what I want to do today.

It might even feel a little bit awkward or a little different than what we normally do. But I I want to help us because it's going to feel way more applicationbased than just unpacking it. I want to help us recognize the difference between grass that withers and God's word. Because if we don't know the difference, when you're doomcrolling or you're watching the news, if you don't know the difference, you might hear something that sounds wise, that sounds right, and you'll jump in on it, not realizing that you're actually believing a lie. And then you'll start transforming your life based around a lie. And we need to be able to recognize the difference because what I am finding is too many, and I'll put this in quotations, Christians are trusting in grass that withers instead of trusting in God's word.

And here's a general reason for that. I'm going to give you three general reasons for why we trust in grass that withers instead of trusting in God's word. The first one is people don't know the word of God. If you don't know the word of God, you can't spot a false. If you don't know the word of God, you cannot recognize counterfeit. Whatever God creates, Satan counterfeits.

That's one of his plays that he's been doing from the very beginning. If you don't know the real thing, you can't identify the fake thing. That's actually how they go about training you or training people to identify counterfeit money is by just studying the real one. So they don't just put in front of you here's all the different thousands of types of counterfeit money. So make sure you study all of the the wrong ones. They're actually saying no just study the right one and if you know the right one then you'll be able to see all of the inconsistencies in the wrong ones.

The problem today is that people don't know the right one. We don't know the word of God. The second thing is people love what feels right, not what is right. Right? Like we love what feels right but not what is right. And if we are led by emotions, we will compromise truth to fit our feelings.

That's what we do. That's what the that's what the human condition does. The third thing is people want to be their own god. People want to be their own god. They do not want to bend their knee to the one true god. So this is an authority and submission issue.

People don't like authority. They don't like authority and they would rather be their own authority and then have others submit to them rather than submit to God. That's how we operate as a society. That's why what you see is that people have the heart. People cannot agree to disagree anymore and still hang out as friends. We can't do that anymore because we want to be our own gods.

And if you're not believing the truth that I'm putting out, you're not submitting to me. Then I'm going to judge you for that. We're just being God. We're letting it play out. Why? Because we don't know the word of God.

And we live in a way that feels right, not what is right. And at the end of the day, we want to be our own gods instead of submitting our bending our need to the one true God. And this is why when you look through the first chapter of Peter, he addresses things like the living and abiding word of God to combat false teachers and lies. He's telling them, you need to know the true living and abiding word of God so that when you see the false lies, when you see people come up and say, "Did God really say who started that trend?" And so now there's all these disciples of Satan in the synagogues of Satan who are going around saying to culture, "Did God really say he didn't?" And so now you can believe this thing over here and we call it truth because it feels right even though it's not right.

That's why Peter also tells us that we need to prepare your minds and be sober minded in order to combat emotional manipulation. So it's not just hey uh when you read the scriptures do what feels right. Well that's not a good way to run it. Just do what feels right. Judas walked with Jesus for three years and did what felt right. Right.

So many times we do what feels right. I mean the Pharisees and the Sadducees knew the word more than anybody but didn't bend their knee to the true God. Instead did what felt right instead of what was right. And that's why again he tells them at the very beginning we need to submit to the one true God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that specifically in order to combat submitting to unknown gods or false gods parading around as the God of heaven because remember in their context they've got temples to everything. They've got temples to to the Greek mythology gods.

They've got them to the Roman mythology of gods. They've got them to the pantheon of gods. They've got literally the the as the Roman Empire spread. What they would do is not come in and say this is how you should worship. They would just adopt in everyone's form of worship and say that's okay. Just continue doing whatever you want to do.

Whatever feels right to you, that's okay. Until the Christians came in and said, "Actually, there's one true God and we're going to worship him." And the Roman Empire dubbs that atheism because they didn't believe in all the gods and therefore rejecting all of them. You were actually considered a an atheist. But that's why Peter started off with we worship the one true God. And the Roman the the Roman Empire would say, "Yeah, we do too.

We've got temples to all of them." And he said, "No, no, no. We're not saying the same thing. We worship the one true God who is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You got to get real specific. You Here's the crazy thing.

You cannot walk around culture right now and say, "I believe in God." The question you should follow up with is which one? Which one? Because what we're actually seeing now, and and I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. I actually think it's a good thing. The the new atheism movement that spread over the last 30 years is dead.

It's dead. You're seeing a rise of spiritualism, which means people are now they they're tired of seeing the fact that um people just kept saying the world is just stuff. There there's actually no God. There's no spirituality. there there's nothing behind the scenes. It's just material.

It's just stuff. And what we're seeing is is the fruit of that did not fulfill the promises of what new atheism was actually offering. And so they're actually coming to the end of it and they're saying, "We're not satisfied with the results of just believing the world is stuff. We're questioning our existence. We're questioning our purpose. We're questioning the meaning of life.

We're questioning our anxieties and our our emotional distress and we're we're we're we're we're the most anxious world that that has ever ex existed while at the same time being the most medicated and therapy world that has ever existed. So something ain't working. And so now they're open to believing in something that they can't understand because they can't see it. But what that means is Christians get to work because they'll believe anything. They'll believe anything. And it's a great opportunity for Satan and demons to come in and do the exact same thing they did in the first century, which is temples to everything.

And so if they're not worshiping the one true God, then they're going to worship a false god and believe it's the right one. I don't know if you pay attention to social media, what goes viral um as far as what goes viral, but things don't go viral because people are not paying attention. They go viral because it grabs people's attention. It grabs people's attention. And I just mentioned if you know the truth, you'll recognize lies from a mile away. If you don't know the truth, a false truth could grab your attention and you might think it's the real thing.

We also need to know what is right. If you know what is right, you'll feel righteous conviction to avoid what's wrong. That's how we like when we say how do we combat the emotional manipulation that's going out there. Know what's right so that it produces righteous conviction within you to do what is right and not believe or follow in a way that is wrong. Know the true God. You'll submit to his way rather than your way.

Because remember, if we're not submitting to God, we just want to be our own gods and we'll submit to ourselves and we'll call other people to submit to us as well. But if we know the true God and we're submitting to him, you'll submit to his way rather than your own way or someone else's way. So, as Peter's pointing out, the word of the Lord that remains forever is the only way. It's the only way to safeguard your souls against the everchanging and windb blowing and wave tossing cultural trends, false lies, and celebrity-like messiahs that come and go like grass that withers and flowers that fade. Knowing the word of the Lord is the only thing that combats this. When you don't know God's revelation, all you have is speculation.

That's it. That's all you have. Grass that withers is speculation around the world. That's all it is. It's a bunch of people who don't know the truth, trying to figure out the truth, creating their own truth, and then getting people to follow it and believe it. That's all it is.

God's word is revelation. This is the truth. And this is truth that can transform you. Right now, I'm seeing certain politicians, certain cultural influencers who claim to be Christians say some really off-the-wall takes. And here's the truth. I want to give you a couple of examples in this because again, I just want to help us recognize grass that withers versus the God's word that remains forever.

Um, a couple of these again who say they're Christians but just say some really weird things. Here's the truth. 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to see the difference. Like me personally, based on these claims that I'm about to show you an example, 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to see the difference. Which is why it's important for us to understand this and be able to see this. The first one I give you is is a guy by the name of Adam.

I heard about this in a podcast this last week. Now, Adam Olred is actually he's an entrepreneur who helps men rediscover masculinity. So, you know, we went through the whole toxic masculinity trend. Um, we're on the back side of that now where like now men feel like they they they don't have to be silent. They can actually be men again. Well, because of that, you've started to see a rise in a bunch of men that are coming on social media and saying, "Here's what a man is," which again in theory is not a bad thing because God created male and female and so there's men and women and we need to know the difference between the two.

But reality is there's a lot of men saying this is what a man is and it's not what a man is. Again, grass that withers, God's word that remains forever. Well, Adam Allred, again, he he's producing a lot of content based on what a man is. And here's the thing, he's got the type of deep smooth voice that when he talks, it grabs your attention. Like, he he's got the type of voice like, I don't know what you say, but I like the way you say it and and I'm going to listen to whatever it is. Well, he went viral.

And when I say viral, I'm talking about millions of views where he took he took his view on what heaven and hell is. And here's what he said. Heaven and hell are not fixed eternal realities determined by God, but more like subjective or chosen outcomes. That people essentially go to a place they create based on their actions, beliefs or desires. So essentially he's saying what you do in this life is what produces where you go in this life in the end. Which sometimes if you're not knowing the word of God, you can essentially look at that and be like, well, that kind of makes sense.

Like if I do bad, I go to hell. If I do good, I go to heaven. But the conditions of what those places end up being are all dependent upon what I create, what I ultimately want to go and be in. And for someone who may not know God's word, it sounds like something that could be found in the Bible. He even goes on and misques by saying this and he quotes, "Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven is found within you." That's what he says.

He went on to say, "We create heaven or hell in real time by how we act, what we think, and what we aspire to." And so he's actually encouraging people that if you want to go to a great heaven, then you need to be a great person. And the way that you become a great person is that Jesus showed up on the scene and told you the way you find your greatness is within yourself. That's the message that he's preaching. And at first when I look at that like 20 years removed now where I'm at today, I hear something like that and I immediately think of the scene at the end of Billy Madison where the moderator says, "We are all now dumber for having listened to you. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul."

Like that's what I think about when I hear this. But here's why this is so important. Because again, you and I are called to treasure Jesus and help others follow him. Help others do the same. The first comment that I saw under his video said this, "As a Christian," which that's kind of the tagline these days. Politicians say that, you know, cultural trends influence.

As a Christian, I so believe this. When I was getting sober, I was told to look for a higher power. The higher power was in me, not outside of me. It came from me." End quote. That's the first comment under it.

In a few weeks, um, actually it might be a month or two. I don't know. It'll be it'll be in the future. We're going to be covering chapter 3:1 15 where you are to be prepared to give an answer for the reason for the hope that is within you. When people say things like this, we need to know how to respond. We need to know how to speak truth.

There's another pastor, Josh Howardon. He did a reaction video to this video and he responded to Adam Ol that this kind of thinking is culturally attractive but it's biblically unfaithful because it places authority in man's creation grasp that withers rather than God's revelation which is God's word and what it ultimately does is it redefineses eternity based on what feels right to us instead of what God has clearly said in his word. That's why this matters. I want to give you another example. This guy actually makes me mad um the more I hear about him because he's he's trending and he's also running for a political office. But I need to direct the anger into holy passion and be actively praying for him.

Yes, thank you so much. Pray for my pray for my anger. But here's the reality. I do have a harsher attitude towards men who teach people false truths while doing it under the banner of Christianity. There's a difference. There's And so this guy is a Christian politician who's a state representative in the Texas midterms right now.

His name is James Tyler Rico. He's been on Joe Rogan's podcast and he's gone viral for his claims and I'll quote. He says, "Jesus never said anything about abortion or homosexuality." That that's a quote directly from him. Now, as a caveat, always be careful when making statements like Jesus never said, and then fill in the blank. Because here's a good thing to remember.

The Bible tells us what we need to know, not everything we want to know. The Bible tells us what we need to know, not everything we want to know. The Bible also doesn't record every conversation that Jesus had during his 30ish years on earth. The Apostle John echoes this at the end of John 21:25 where he says, "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written about him." So there was So we have what we need.

Doesn't mean that it's always going to provide everything that we want to know. We have what we need to know. But here's the thing. Jesus did talk about abortion when he talked about murder. Period. He talked about abortion when he talked about murder.

And as a general rule of thumb in Matthew 5:17 when Jesus says,"I have not come to abolish the law but fulfill it." That's his way of saying,"I approve everything the law teaches and I live by it and I abide by it in order to fulfill it in righteousness." Meaning Jesus never disobeyed it. He never missed the mark. He never taught contrary to it. So by addressing murder, Jesus was addressing abortion.

And for 1950 years, the church around the world agreed that abortion is murder because God's word declares it as such. So Terico is wrong in saying that Jesus never talked about abortion. He then also brought up homosexuality. And we'll talk more about this when we get to chapter 3 when we're talking about the roles of husband and wife, which again, I planned out the passages way in advance as far as like where they land on the certain weeks. So, I'm just going to go ahead and apologize to the women. I'm actually not apologizing to the women, but the reality is is on Mother's Day lands chapter 3 verse one where his wife submits to your husband.

So, good. Um, you're welcome for that one. Um, I just thought God was playing a prank on me on that one, so I'll take it. But here's the thing. Included in the law that Jesus never taught contrary to, but essentially approved of and gave a blanket statement that this is the standard of righteousness and God's design has this little gem in Leviticus 18, which says, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman." It's an abomination.

And you're like, well, don't just cherry pick a verse. That whole chapter is on sexual ethics among the people of God. So, he's not just jumping on those who are engaging in unnatural relations, male and male, and female and female. The whole chapter is giving a sexual ethic on how the people of God are to live out. So, it's saying don't don't sleep with animals. Don't sleep with your cousins.

Don't sleep with your brother, sister. Don't sleep. I mean, it's giving all kinds of examples that ultimately boil it down to the only design of God is for a husband and a wife in a monogous relationship that are married are allowed to engage in sexual behavior. So again, he's not just picking on homosexuality. The whole chapter 18 is about this. What about New Testament?

Well, Romans 1 covers this too. Again, like Romans 1 talks about the fact that when they suppress the truth about God and they exchange it for a lie, they begin worshiping creation rather than creator. And he literally says the judgment of God on that is he gives them over to what they feel is right and they start exchanging in unnatural relations, males with males and females with females. So that's Romans 1 literally saying that the way you can actually identify whether or not a culture has rejected God and started worshiping each other as gods is whether or not homosexuality is present. So contrasting grass that withers versus God's word. Honestly, spring is a great season to illustrate this.

We just look outside like grass is becoming green right now, right? But we know in six months it's going to become tan and brown again. That's why he gives us this type of illustration. Peter draws on this when he talks about the perishable seed versus the imperishable seed. Because there's a kind of faith that fades when life gets hard. There's a kind of faith that looks good in a moment but doesn't last a lifetime.

And I don't even like giving it the terminology faith as a false faith. It's really just a cultural Christianity. There's a cultural Christianity that looks alive but is not real. It's not eternal. It does not come from God. And right now, I think that there's a battle in Christianity right now of people who are who are teaching the church based on what they feel is right rather than what is right.

And if we don't know the difference, then when someone comes in and says, "Did God really say?" We'll believe it to be true. We'll believe it to be true. But that's exactly what Satan did in the garden. That's how he tempted them. Did God really say?

And then he gave them a different word and they believed his word over God's word. And Satan's word is grass that withers. It's a lie that will not sustain. It's a lie that will not last. And so what Peter's after here is he's after something deeper. He's not after a temporary faith of the people.

He's after enduring faith. He's not after an emotional response from them. He's after spiritual transformation for them. And his answer is clear. You can't find it. You can't even produce it in this world.

It can only be found in the eternal word of God that produces enduring faith. And so, here's what I want to do with it all in mind. I want to read the whole chapter to you so that you can see exactly what Peter is doing as he is speaking into a context in which the world around them is believing anything and everything that they can get their hands on. And what Peter is doing is he's injecting into them the word of the Lord that remains forever so that they can have enduring faith in a context that everything around them is fading faster than you could possibly believe. And so go to the first verse and just listen and receive the word of the Lord that remains forever. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontius, Galatia, Capidosia, Asia, and Bithnneia, according to the for knowledge 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. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For 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 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuiness 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. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy.

that is inexpressable and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. And concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, they searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things in which angels long to look. 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. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.

Since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 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, knowing that you were once ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was fornown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 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, in 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. Man, you can see him contrasting this reality, this truth all throughout it. You're trusting in things that are perishable. You're trusting in people that are perishable.

You're trusting in things that are not going to last. And what is going to last is the fact that the one true God has caused you to be born again. And it's not come through your work. It's come through the work of Jesus and everything that he's accomplished. And it's then being applied to you not because you've earned it, but because he's earned it on your behalf. And therefore, it causes you to also start living in a hope that is coming from the word of God, not from everything or circumstances around you.

I mean, he's just driving this truth home that at the end of the day, the world's going to fade away, but the word of God is going to last forever. And if you want to find life, then you need to be connected through the word of God to know the God of the word. Because over here, it's just all speculation. It's just all speculation. We're trying to find life from things that are perishing, which is kind of crazy to think about, but and and the question I had, which this chapter provided the answer for us, is if all flesh is literally withering away like grass, why do they not see it? And it's because of what he says, former ignorance.

ignorance. They don't know. They don't know. What did Jesus say from the cross? Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing. They don't know what they're doing.

And the reason why I think he ends it with the word of the the word of the Lord that was preached to you is because the people that he's talking to at one point did not know. They did not know. They did not know God's word. They did not know what is right. And they did not know the one true God. And through the preaching of the good news that came to them, they were able to then know the one true God, to know what is right, and to know what to bend their knee to and submit to.

They were able to know Jesus Christ as he's revealed in his word. And to be honest with you, this is one of the biggest reasons why the Reformation happened 500 years ago was because people no longer knew who God was because they didn't know God's word. And they wanted to get the word of God into the people's minds and hearts so that they could know Jesus and what he actually accomplished for them rather than traditions and all these other rules that came along with uh things that wither and things that go away. I want to give you a couple of illustrations here real quick that that bring us to a close today. There's this man by the name of Voltater in the um the 1700s. He was a French enlightenment writer and philosopher, one of the most influential thinkers of his time.

So he's going viral before people even knew what going viral meant, right? He was openly critical of Christianity. And he believed that as human reason advanced, the Bible would eventually fade away. That that's what he believed. That's what he bet all of his cards on. In other words, he was confident that the word of God would not last.

And is often attributed with the quote, "The Bible will be forgotten and eliminated within a hundred years." That's what he said. the Bible will be forgotten and eliminated within a hundred years. Here's the irony. After he died, something interesting happened. The Geneva Bible Society bought his property that had several printing presses on site and began printing and distributing thousands of Bibles from his home.

The very place connected to someone who produced and printed words that oppose scripture became a place where scripture was multiplied and the word of God spread. And here's the thing, no one quotes anymore these days. I mean, I just did, but but no one knows his philosophy anymore because it withered away. It withered away. But the word of the god is still being preached, still transforming lives, still remaining. And every generation produces voices that think they've outgrown the Bible.

And every generation is proven wrong because the word of God doesn't fade with culture. It outlasts it. And so we live in a world where people are discipled by Tik Tok al algorithms. They're discipled by news cycles. They're discipled by podcasts and personalities. Endless scrolling.

We're we're always listening to something. And the problem is not that we're empty. It's actually that we're full of just the wrong voices and the wrong word. And therefore, we need God's word. We need God's word. We need teachers of God's word.

It's not just my job to get the word of God into everybody's mind. So, the spirit of God then transforms it into your heart and you then become submitting and bending your knee to him. That's not It is my job, but it's not I'm not the only one with that job. You are all ministers of reconciliation. You are all ambassadors of Christ. You are all put where you live with people around you.

Whether that's in your workspace, whether that's in your neighborhood, whether that's in your family that you're in, wherever you are, there are people who do not know the word of God, who do not know the truth about God, who do not know the one true God. And God sent you to preach the good news to them. I mean, are we not all thankful for the person who we heard it from? Hopefully, for many of you, that person comes to mind immediately, right out of the gate. For me, the first time I ever heard the gospel was a fifth grader next door named Clint Lambert who shared the gospel with me by describing a bush that in front of me was starting to wither. Fifth grade, 10 years old.

He said, "Do you know who uh" he said, "Can you think you can create this bush?" And I was like, "What?" I was like, "No, I can't create the bush." He's like, "I know who did create it." He's like, "But it's also withering. That's not a part of his design.

That's because of a fallen and broken world. And then he said, "There's a good gospel. There's a Jesus who came and lived the life we could not live. He's perfect. We're not. He died so that he could take care of our sins.

And he rose so that he can give us a resurrection of life." Like, this is a 10-year-old sharing this with me. He now pastors a church in Middle Tennessee. And then there was my youth pastor who I walked in as a 14-year-old saved but not knowing a ton. And he said, "How much do you know about Jesus?" I said, "I got some bullet points."

And he said, "Why don't you meet with me on Monday morning or on Monday at 3:00 in the afternoon when you get out of school?" And we met every Monday at 3:00 for the next four years. He taught me Jesus. I always joke I'm not a reader but the first Christian book I read outside of the Bible outside of the Bible was Grudam Systematic theology because I didn't know any difference. I didn't know any better, but it's what he took me through. And it helped me know more about God and the Bible.

Is so important that we get the word of God into the people. At all costs. At all costs. I want to close with this story about a man his name is William Tindell who believed the word of God should be in the hands of ordinary people. So he's late 1400s early 1500s it was illegal for the word of God to be in the language of the people. At this time the word of God was only in Latin.

It was primarily the Latin Vulgate that was being used by the church to be able to be preached. But the only people who could read it were the priests. And so there was no Bible for ordinary people to have and study and know. And William Tindell believed that everyone should have access to the word of God. And so he risked everything to translate the Bible into English and smuggle it into his own country. And what ultimately happened was the leaders of the day hunted him down.

They arrested him and eventually executed him. And his last prayer before they killed him was, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes." That was his last prayer. And just a few years later, the Bible was then legalized by the king in English and largely based on Tindel's work. Again, you can try and stop the word, but it's going to remain forever and it's going to last. Here's the full picture for us.

You're born again by the imperishable seed of the word of God, which gives you a living hope that will never perish. And so when we hear John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever lives or whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. It's because of this seed, the seed of the word, the seed of the Holy Spirit, the seed of Jesus that we get to receive and hear and place faith in and then no longer perish. no longer perish. We get to join the category of the word of God that remains forever. When we receive it, we get to remain forever and we will never wither out.

Don't build your life on fads. Don't anchor your soul to what withers. You've been given something imperishable. Abide in it. Treasure it. Build your life on it.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning for your good news and your word that remains forever. We thank you that we do not have to believe in ourselves.