A Vision Of The Church

Sermon Transcript

The first mention of the word “church” in the Bible was in a conversation Jesus had with His disciples—and particularly with Peter. He asked them, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” They answered, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not reveled this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.’ And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church” (Matthew 16:13-18).

As Peter wrote these words, he had about 30 years to think about what that meant. As you go through the book of 1 Peter, it is filled with reflection, progress and things in his understanding that God had been teaching him from that day up to this point. So this is sort of a meditation on what that is. This is Peter having thought about what the church is over the last 30 years and seeing it in a beautiful, particular way.

Beginning in 1 Peter 1:22, it says, “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart….”

Peter starts with the whole idea of love, and he says it twice in two different ways. He is using two different words for “love.” C.S. Lewis wrote the great book, The Four Loves. In the Greek language, they had four, different words for “love.” We know what the word “eros” is. We get our word “erotic” from it. It is sensual, selfish love. That doesn’t even make it in the Bible. There is the word “storge,” which is family love, parent-child love. That is in the New Testament briefly.

But these last two words for love are in the New Testament everywhere. You have the word “phileo,” which is the first word for love in verse 22. It is “love of the brethren.” Literally, it is “Philadelphia.” We call that “the city of brotherly love.” It is phileo love plus Adelphia. The “a” or “alpha” in the Greek language is a particle of union, and “delphus” is the womb, so it is sort of saying, “Brothers; out of the same womb, that you would have a brotherly love.” That is a great love, a love of friendship. Sometimes we call it “a reciprocal love.” It is a relational love; you build it back and forth. So Peter is saying that you have this love, a “sincere love of the brethren.” You love each other and have a fellowship.

And in verse 22, Peter uses the other word for love when he says, “Love one another fervently with a pure heart.” He uses the word “agape” for “love” here. It’s interesting that agape was not considered to be much of a virtue in their culture. It is a selfless, unconditional love. It is a love that gives, even though you’re not getting anything in return. It is God’s love.
In their culture, they didn’t see it or understand it. It was the Christians who could see that this agape love of God was exactly what Jesus did when He died on the Cross for us. He loved us because we needed to be loved. He first loved us before we loved Him. He gave Himself; it’s unconditional, it’s unending, it’s God’s love.

Here Peter is saying that they had this friendship, a love of brothers and sisters and the family of God, but he wanted them to have this love of God, this love that goes beyond, this love that loves the unlovable, that receives people in who don’t know what that’s about. That would be giving them the love of God. So Peter is stirring that up.

This is the love that Jesus talked about when He said, “All will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). He didn’t say “…if you have perfect doctrine,” “…if you have a great worship team” or “…if you have the best technology in your church.” No; He said that “All will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

It’s interesting that Peter denied Jesus the night He was arrested, and Jesus restored Peter. And after Jesus was resurrected, at the sea of Galilee we have the three affirmations where Jesus was putting a broken man back together through these simple questions, in John 21:15-17, in which He asked, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Jesus was actually saying, “Peter, do you agape Me?” Peter answered, “Yes, Lord; You know that I [phileo] You.” So Jesus asked the second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love [agape] Me?” Peter again replied, “Yes, Lord; You know that I [phileo] You.” And the third time, in what one writer called “infinite grace,” Jesus came down to Peter’s level and asked him, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love [phileo] Me?” Then Peter answered, “Lord…You know that I love [phileo] You.”

Somehow all the words Peter is writing are coming out of a lifetime of experience. He’s saying that we’ve experienced phileo love, but what God wants to do in the church—his vision of the church is a place where God’s unconditional love, agape love, would be available and present. It would be at the heart of your witness that whoever God brings into the fellowship—whoever they are, whatever they are coming out of—maybe they’ve never experienced that unconditional love in their lives in this world, but that it would be there in the church. That we would have agape for one another.

What is the source of all that? How does that happen, verse 23? “…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” That kind of love would be impossible, unless you were born again, born of the Spirit.

I believe it was John Miller who taught me that we had two parents in our spiritual birth. You have two parents in your natural, physical birth. You have 23 chromosomes from your mother and 23 chromosomes from your father. That combination is uniquely you. That’s your physical birth.

When you are born of the Spirit, John said in chapter 3, verse 7, that “You must be born again.” But Peter is adding something; that it is not just the Spirit but there is a seed, or a work of the Word of God. Verse 23 says, “…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

Somehow God planted a seed of truth, of His Word, the Gospel, in you. That seed takes root. And somehow between the Spirit of God and the Word of God, when that begins to take root, faith arises. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). In that moment of faith and realization, you were born again of the Spirit. Once you were dead in your sins, but then through faith, you are alive in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:1).

Because of that, transformation starts to happen. The love of God can begin to flow through your life, because now you are alive in the Spirit.

He said it’s like seed. One way of thinking of seed is that it has in it a blueprint. We call it “DNA.” When the seed of God’s Word gets in you, there is transformative power. In a parable Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how” (Mark 4:26-27). It’s the power of the Word. It’s the power of the seed. If you plant enough seed of the Word of God in your life, it will transform you.

One thing that gives me a happy feeling is the thought of all the seeds of God’s Word that have been planted from the Revival pulpit. As the seed of God’s Word gets sown and planted, it’s like being sown into lives day after day and week after week. What’s happening is those seeds have power; they’re incorruptible, imperishable. Isaiah 55:11 says, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

It’s going to transform you; it saves you and it grows you. And the same way as in our natural birth, our DNA takes over, and we become like our parents.

My father is in heaven now, but if my dad were to walk into the church right now, you would recognize him in a second, because we both look exactly alike. Should you resist that as a young person, you can’t get away from your DNA. You begin to make sounds like your parents. When you look in the mirror, you see your parents. It’s just the power of the DNA.

So Peter is saying that it is the power of God’s Word and the working of the Spirit in you. It is the seed that, once it is planted in there, it doesn’t decay or rot. It is imperishable and has transformative power. Over time you start to look a lot like your Father in heaven. God begins to change you. This call to love with not just phileo love but with agape love starts to come out of your nature, because God is working in you and the power of God’s Word is changing you. You will see the fruit of that. It’s going to look like the Father; you’re going to be conformed to the image of His Son.

He says in verses 24-25, “‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.”

Peter has a habit where he makes a point, lays down a spiritual principle, and then quotes from the Old Testament Scriptures. It’s like he says that it’s not just him saying this, but it’s in the Word. He anchors his truth, and he does it again and again. Here he is talking about the power of God’s Word and the seed not perishing, so he quotes Isaiah 40:6-8. It’s the same idea that God’s Word isn’t going to fade away.

The phrase in verse 24 hits me. “All the glory of man [is like] the flower of the grass.” This phrase is pretty uncommon in the Bible. When you read your Bible, it’s almost always “the glory of God.” It’s in the Bible many times. But this phrase “the glory of man” is like a bad sound in my ear. What is that?!

It’s fascinating to me that in the Bible, it talks about the rise and fall of kingdoms. In Bible history, you hear of kingdoms like Babylon rise and fall, the Medes and the Persians rise and fall and Daniel talked about the empire of Greece rising and falling. In the time of Peter’s writing, the Roman Empire was bigger than all of them. Another kingdom arose, and the church was born during the time of the Roman Empire. It seemed so vast and powerful that it would never fall or fade away. We are studying this 2,000 years after Peter wrote this, and we know that the Roman Empire did fall.

My wife and I are going to Rome in September, and we’re going to do some studies and history. We’ll be studying the ruins of Rome. And I wonder if the early church could have ever wondered or grasped how true this Scripture is; that this little church that met in homes—at this time when Peter wrote this to them, they were like fugitives and were being persecuted. It seemed like the Roman Empire was going to defeat them.

In the first 300 years of the church, the Roman Empire had 10 waves of persecution under 10 emperors to try to snuff out the church. In Fox’s Book of Martyrs, in a chapter it details the 10 waves, by 10 different emperors, who tried to wipe out the church.

I wonder if that little church in the first century that I love so much could have ever conceived that the grand, Roman Empire—that “the glory of man” would be like the flower of the field—would collapse. Now we study it in its ruins.

But what happened to the Word of God? It has endured and will endure forever. And what happened to that little church? One of my constant pleasures on a Sunday morning is the thought that around the globe and across all the time zones the church rises up and worships. The church is global. In all these different languages and all throughout Sunday, there is this worship of God rising up around the globe. I think to myself, Could they ever realize how true this Scripture is?

“The glory of man” is like the flower; it just fades and falls away. But this “word of the Lord endures forever.” The seeds of God’s Word that were planted in the hearts of those people, and the seeds of God’s Word that are planted in us, are so powerful and transformative. You are born again by this Word, the Gospel, that was preached to you. And it keeps on changing you and growing you.

Chapter 2, verses 1-2 say, “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” These verses are kind of in opposition to each other. Verse 1 says that you have to lay aside all the junk, and Peter makes a list of sins. If you feed on this stuff, it’s like spiritual junk food, and you’ll become like that. You are what you eat. So he says you have to lay that aside. Verse 2 says you have to become like a newborn baby and “desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.”

I have five children, and they are getting older, but I remember this newborn stage. The “newborn” Peter is talking about is a baby right out of the womb. There is a certain hunger a little baby has in that cycle of eating, sleeping and filling the diaper. The cycle is so rapid.

According to Wikipedia, a newborn’s stomach is very tiny, about the size of a cherry. That is why they need to feed so frequently, 8-12 times a day. You couldn’t sleep a wink before the cycle started all over again. Then the stomach of this newborn grows to the size of a walnut by day three and then to the size of a small egg at one week. It gradually increases as the baby is able to hold more milk.

That is a very interesting way to think about our spiritual growth. You were born again, that miracle of faith, in a moment of time. You were born of the Spirit by the Word of God. But then you needed to grow, and the way you grow is you have to be like that little newborn and start craving, desiring, hungering after the Word of God. You just can’t get enough. So you have to satisfy that hunger daily, again and again. What happens then is that your capacity for the Word of God grows.

It’s not that we stay infants or little babies; it’s that they are the models of how we grow. The more I feed upon the Word of God, that one spiritual food, “the pure milk of the word,” it will make me grow. And if I have a hunger for the Word of God, my capacity for it increases, and it gets even more satisfying.

In addition to the “milk of the word,” there is also the bread, meat and honey. In the Bible, you have all of this, on which you grow. What keeps you growing is that you are feeding on that “pure milk of the word.”

So Peter tells us to copy that baby, who just can’t get enough. It’s an intense craving, and when you feed yourself the Word, you start to grow spiritually.

Verse 3 says, “…if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” Peter did it again; he went back and quoted Psalm 34:8: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” You have to feed your faith on the Word of God, and as you’re growing, you’re experiencing the Word. You go from birth into growth.

In verse 4, he’s saying there is more than that. “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious.” We might call this a mixing of metaphors. We’ve been in a nursery, talking about being born again and growing on “the pure milk of the word,” but now he’s going to talk about the church. As he does, he introduces us to Jesus.

This was perhaps Peter’s favorite study; that he had a lifelong fascination with God our rock. I think it went back to when he first met Jesus. When he first met Jesus, He said to Peter, “You are Simon…” that was his given name “…the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” or “Peter” (John 1:42). That translates to “a stone.”

In that moment, right at the beginning, Jesus captured Peter’s heart. Jesus was saying, “I see what you are by your natural birth” and maybe by his personality and character. But Jesus saw what Peter would ultimately become. He was going to become a rock; someone solid, stable and others would depend upon him. He would become an apostle in Christ’s church. Jesus sees that in Peter.

It set Peter on a lifelong search. In this chapter 2, Peter would go on and quote Scriptures that are prophecies of Jesus as the stone and the rock. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). In this “living stone,” Peter is seeing a prophecy fulfilled.

Jesus is not dead in the grave. It’s not a stone that is dead like a grave marker; He’s a living stone, because of the power of the Cross and then the Resurrection. Jesus is the “living stone”; He fulfilled all of these prophecies, all throughout the Old Testament about God, our Rock. When Moses struck the rock in the wilderness and water came out, that rock was Christ, Paul said.

Peter had a lifelong study in the Old Testament prophecies of God, our Rock. David talked about it and Isaiah talked about it. Peter puts all these together. In chapter 2, Peter is talking about Jesus fulfilling that; He is our “living stone,” this miraculous, resurrected Lord.

Then in verse 5, he shocks us. “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Somehow when you were born again, you began growing in the things of the Lord. And you are a miracle too. He is “the living stone,” but you are one of many “living stones.” Miracles happen in you; you were dead, but now you’ve been made alive in the Spirit.

Somehow as you go from being born in the Spirit and growing in the Word that now He wants to put you all together. It’s a vision of the church. God uses living stones. He puts people together. He builds a spiritual house. Jesus said, “I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18).

So the metaphor changes from a nursery to a construction site. A church is being built, but it’s not four walls and a roof. It’s a spiritual house, the people that God brings together, like on a Sunday morning. And when God brings you together, you’re like “living stones,” like bricks in the house that He puts together and uses to build the church.

Some of you are a little rough around the edges, but you are “living stones.” God put you together, because He wants you together to be offering “spiritual sacrifices.”
One time I bought a Christmas present for my kids that was really for myself. Was there something you always wanted but never got it, so you bought it for yourself in secret, put it under the tree, your kids opened it on Christmas morning and said, “Dad, what is this!”? For me, it was a rock tumbler. I always wanted one. I like those polished gem stones. I was convinced that in our backyard there were all kinds of gem stones and treasures. I just needed a rock tumbler to put them in and smooth them out. I used to collect those stones. So I put this rock tumbler under the tree, the kids opened it and said, “Dad, what is this?!” I told them, “It’s a rock tumbler. Surprise!”

But what happened was pure disaster; I thought we were going to put some of the stones from the backyard into the tumbler, and by dinnertime, out would come those precious gems. It’s not so. It typically takes three to five weeks to get high-gloss gem stones, requiring three to four, distinct grits in stages. Each stage is seven to ten days. Stage one uses course grit, stage two uses medium grit, then fine grit in the third stage. Finally in stage four, you use a very fine grit for the last seven to ten days.

When I plugged in that rock tumbler, it made a horrendous noise, and I realized we had to get it out of the house. I had a 100-foot extension cord in my garage. Even from the farthest reaches of the cord, back in the corner of my garage, I could still hear this thing grinding all the way in my house! And I was supposed to do this for about five weeks! Within two-to-three days, it went in the trash.

God is not like that. God builds His church. Each one of you is a living stone. Some of you—and I know some of you—are a little rough around the edges. So God put you in the tumbler. He’s work on you. Then as He is working on you, He puts you together with other believers. At some point beyond being born again and growing, you have to find yourself a church. You have to be built up together. You have to be fitted together. Jesus is building this thing, so that together we “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
So there is all of this fruit and growth.

I find myself in the body of Christ, in the body of believers, and we start rubbing shoulders, we start grinding together. This is a work of God. He doesn’t throw us in the trash; He just keeps working with us, working us together. He sees a vision of the church. It’s a spiritual house; there are all these people fitted together. It’s all the wonderful things that happen through them.

I want to give you some help in how to offer “spiritual sacrifices,” in how to apply it to your life. There are several, New Testament “spiritual sacrifices.” And there also are some in the Old Testament in Psalms and Proverbs.

So what do these look like, and how do I apply them to my life as I’m growing in grace and being fitted together with other believers? What are the “spiritual sacrifices” that I can offer?

Number one is that you bring yourself. In Romans 12:1, it says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” When you show up at church, you present your bodies. God wants you. You’re the offering. You’re the sacrifice. You’re presenting yourself and say, “I surrender, God. Here is am; I’m Yours.” That’s an acceptable sacrifice.

Number two, you bring others, Romans 15:16. Paul said, “That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering…” or “spiritual sacrifice” “…of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Bring somebody else.

Number three is your ministry, Philippians 2:17. Paul said, “Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” Paul saw his ministry as a “drink offering.” He saw himself being poured out onto other people. So if you find a place of ministry, if you come to church to serve, to give—whatever it is—you’re pouring yourself out onto others. As you pour yourself out, that’s a sacrifice, “acceptable to God.”

Number four is your heart for missions, Philippians 4:18. Paul writes again, “Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.” They were helping Paul on his missionary journeys. They sent Epaphroditus with a gift to help Paul along in his missionary journeys. That would be your heart for missions.

My wife and I were missionaries for 10 years in eastern Europe. As I have come back and pastored again here in America, one of the biggest goals of my life is to support as many missionaries as we can. You minister locally, but you also minister globally. You have a heart for missions. That’s another sacrifice that is “well pleasing to God”: to think about what is going on in the world and supporting those who are far from you. This is what the church in Philippi was doing.

Number five, in Hebrew 13:15, maybe the most famous “spiritual sacrifice,” is praises. “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” We come into the house of the Lord, we, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and bring sacrifices of praise, our songs of praise to God. Again, He is well pleased.

Number six is acts of kindness. Is it just words? Is worship just words? No. Hebrews 13:16 says, “But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Not only is it words; it’s also works. If you do good and share, it’s another form of worship and sacrifice. It’s the word “koinonia” or “fellowship.” It’s talking about our giving. In the book of Acts, the early church excelled in koinonia. They shared all things, so the needs of the body of Christ were met through the sacrificial giving of God’s people. So there were these financial offerings that supported everything; that kept all the ministries going and took care of all the needs. The book of Acts is a beautiful example of a church that gives.

And with all of this, God says that He is well pleased. When we come and want to worship God and offer “spiritual sacrifices,” all these different things please God.

This was the vision of the church that Peter had. It would be a spiritual house, a group of people, “living stones” put together where all these things would be happening. Our mentor, Chuck Smith, would say simply, “When the church is what God wants it to be, He will bless it.” I believe this church is one of those. When God’s people are “living stones” put together and doing the work of these spiritual sacrifices, God is pleased with it, and God pours out His blessing upon it.

Revival Menifee, God is well pleased with you.