Missing Sermon Highlights

If you are listening to the sermons I have been preaching through 1 Peter, you will notice that there is one missing. Here is the very basic outline of that message.

The passage is 1 Peter 1:13 through 2:3 and is divided into two sections. The first section is 1:13-20 and I called it 'Obedience in Our Proximity to God.' In chapter 1, Peter starts out with the vocabulary of adoption concerning how we fit into God's family. This continues that language by calling us to continue to hope in God. If He has adopted us, then He will continue to bring us through as we are his children. It then tells us to learn to live as God's obedient children and not to slip back into our old ways. We are to "be holy as God is holy."

This reference that Peter uses takes us back to the book of Leviticus where God calls his people to be holy as He is holy in 11:44-45. God then continually throughout Leviticus tells them to do or not do certain things "because I am the Lord your God." The Jews Leviticus was written to had just been released from slavery by this God and so what He is essentially telling them is that in Egypt, they belonged to Pharaoh and acted like Egyptians, but now they are walking with God, they are His people, so He expects them to act a certain way. In the same way they were told this in Exodus, Peter writes to tell us that since we have been adopted into this new family, we need to start taking on some family traits.

The second section, 1:21-2:3 changes from using the adoption language to using terms like "born-again." I called this section 'Obedience in Our New Nature.' It is in this section that Peter begins taking the idea that we, as humans, are consumed with sin (called 'total depravity'), but that God has cleansed us from sin and is regenerating us into the image of God. As a result, our nature is changed from being sinful to showing a new, more Christ-like nature, in which our actions are not just played out in trying to do right even when we don't want to, but to the point that we do right because that is what God has placed in our hearts to do.

The first section - walking in obedience due to our proximity to God - calls us out of any idea of having a license to sin, while the second section - walking in obedience due to our new nature - prevents us from falling into legalism and simply trying to adhere to some strict moral code. We are adopted into a family requiring obedience to God's Word because He wants us to, but through the process of sanctification, we are also set free to obey God's Word because we want to.

Leave me your thoughts.