The First Letter of Peter- 4

Subtitle: A New Spiritual People- part 1

1 Peter 1:13 to 17.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, December 7, 2025.

We transition from the joyful praise of God’s salvation in 1 Peter 1:3-12 to a section that focuses on how we ought to respond to such salvation.  Peter has put in the background of this letter the image of the patriarchs and their sojourn, being a foreigner, in the land of Canaan.  They lived by faith waiting for the Promise that God have given them.

Peter now further inserts imagery that harkens back to Israel becoming a new nation, or people, at the Exodus from Egypt.  Believers have become part of a new nation who are different from the people around them.

Throughout history, the majority of people who have become Christians have marked themselves as foreigners where they live.  Following Christ was not the norm for their societies.  A small portion of people have become believers within a society that was based upon faith in Jesus Christ.  However, even these places have demonstrated over the years that it is easy to be founded on Christ, but much harder to remain faithful to that foundation.

Let’s take the United States of America for example.  Though we were founded upon faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our society is far afield of that foundation.  To serve Jesus today is to become a foreigner to a land that is supposed to be a Christian land.  In fact, you will even become a foreigner to many different churches in this republic.  Overall, Christians have always needed this imagery.  You are joining an august body of believers who have lived as foreigners within a society bent on ignoring the Creator.  You walk through this world as one walking through the wilderness with Israel until the Lord brings you to the Promised Land.

This imagery of the patriarchs living like foreigners and Israel being led through the wilderness by God to the Promised land is used by Peter to instruct these believers.  They have joined a new spiritual people who belong to God.

Let’s look at our passage.

How to be a new spiritual people (v. 13-16)

Similar to the way Paul talked about Jesus transforming our relationships throughout the household and into society (see especially Colossians 3:12-4:1), so Peter uses family imagery to instruct Christians on the proper response we should have to the Gospel.

Before you believed in Jesus, how did you approach relationships?  Typically, we approached them for reasons that were focused on self, what our flesh wanted.  Don’t get me wrong.  People can do good things within relationships without God, but that good is always slanted towards what makes me feel good.

I will say up front that Peter tends to say a number of things up front that then lead to the statement of a main point.  This is exacerbated when it is translated into English.  It often appears that Peter is making a long list of main points, when in fact, he is simply describing things that are attendant to his main point.

For example, verse 13 may appear to have three things we are commanded to do: prepare your minds for actions, keep sober, and fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  However, it is the third of these that is being commanded.  The others are verbal adjectives that describe how they are to do number three.

I only take the time to explain this because my approach will be to highlight the main point first, which often comes at the end of the verse or verses, and then speak about these attendant ideas.

This first imperative is for us to fix our hope completely on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Now, the revelation of Jesus Christ is equivalent to what we call the Second Coming of Jesus.  This is still in the future but will arrive one of these days.

Peter has used the three cardinal virtues praised by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: faith, hope, and love.  He praises them for putting their faith in Jesus as Messiah and loving him, even though they haven’t seen him.  In verse 3, he had reminded them that they had been born again to a living hope.  Here, he picks up that hope-theme again and turns it into a command. 

When Jesus returns, he is bringing with him the grace of God for believers and the wrath of God for unbelievers.  This grace has many aspects to it.  First, the presence of Jesus here on earth and taking up the kingdoms of the world is a great grace.  There is no king or president on this earth who can do what Jesus can do.  We are also told that we will never be separated from Jesus again.  This too is great grace.  Finally, we will receive glorified bodies that do not grow old, become sick, or perish in any way.  This is the blessed hope of all believers in Jesus.  We are to fix our hope, set it steadfast upon, the future return of Jesus.

Peter adds the adverb “completely” to this.  What does it mean to completely fix your hope on the grace to come?  We might picture this as a kind of hope-meter that we need to keep pegged to 100% at all times.  I don’t think this is what Peter means.  We could also envision it as keeping our hope fully on the coming grace and not on anything else.  That is, we should not hedge our bet and put some of our hope on the things of this world.  Even if we are not hedging our bet, we may be drawn into putting hope on spouses, retirements, children, etc., without realizing that it is undermining, or displacing, some of our hope in Christ.  I think that this is much closer to what Peter is saying, but there is another way to view this that is important.  We should also do so all the way to the end of our life.  Thus, we don’t want to simply have a full hope presently but retain that hope fully on Jesus to the end of our life, or the coming of Jesus, whichever comes first.

Peter gives two descriptions of things that are to accompany or to adorn our hoping in the grace to come.  The first is that our minds are to be readied, prepared, for action.  Peter uses the imagery of tightening up a long outer cloak with a belt in order to do something like running, working, or fighting, etc.  However, in this case, they are told to tighten up their cloaks around their waists mentally.  If you saw a person doing this literally, you would know that they are getting prepared for action. 

How do we prepare ourselves mentally for action, and what is the action or actions that we are to be ready for doing?  He is talking about living for Christ and following the Holy Spirit.  He is talking about the work of becoming victorious over sin in our life, but also about walking the faith journey of this life to the very end.

Much of this imagery comes from the Exodus.  Exodus 12:7 says, “You shall eat it [the Passover meal] in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste—it is the Lord’s Passover.”  Israel was eating a special sacrificial meal before the Lord, but they were to do so with a readiness for action.  In this case, the action was leaving Egypt and going into the wilderness with Moses and God.  We too are being set free from the Egypt of this world and the bondage of our fleshly lust for sin.

Along with this readiness for action, Peter adds that they are to hope for this grace to come “being sober.”  Some translations will add the phrase “in the Spirit.”  Since Peter has just mentioned being mentally ready, it is easy to only think of this as a metaphor for clear thinking.  However, we should not be too quick to make this only a metaphor.  Literal drunkenness has shipwrecked the faith and hope of many believers.  Yet, this is another way to speak about your mind being ready for action, both physically, emotionally, and spiritually, i.e., in every way.

When you are clear minded, you are able to see the reality of what is happening around you.  When you are drunk, you lose inhibition, and you think you are doing better than you actually are.  When you are spiritually drunk, the same thing happens.  What does this look like?  It is when we allow ourselves to be filled with the lust and desires of this world.  Instead of warring against these things within our mind and heart, we surrender to them while thinking we are doing well.

The ideas of girding the loins of our mind and being sober are often tied together with the idea of vigilance because we are in a spiritual battle.  This battle is internal against the lust of our flesh but also external against the pull of this world and the temptations of the devil.

We can be guilty of not being serious about the things of God and His purposes in our life.  Thus, we are not just to lay claim to a great reward and inheritance in the future.  We are to fix our hope upon it with sobriety and readiness for action within the world around us.

Verses 14 and 15 build up to another imperative: Be holy.  In saying this, he adds that they should be holy “as obedient children.”  It is understood that he is talking about being a child of God.  Here again, he connects them to the same position that national Israel had.  During the Exodus and the teaching in the wilderness, they are told that they were not to be like all the other nations or copy their activities, religious or otherwise.  In the same way, Christians are not to live like the culture around them.  We are not children of the world, but rather, children of God.

Notice the reference to obedient children.  This should remind us of Jesus who is the perfect obedient son of God.  The point is not so much about never failing as it is about keeping focused on who we are.  Of course, it is ludicrous to even compare ourselves to the one who never sinned and never needed redemption.  We, of course, did sin and do need redemption.

In short, we are to keep focused upon who we are.  Don’t listen to the devil as he accuses you of failing, or the Gospel not working for you.  You were made to dwell in the presence of God for eternity, but you were also made to be a spiritual warrior in this life, battling against sin in your life.  It wouldn’t be a battle if it wasn’t difficult.  In fact, it is a battle we would continue to lose if it wasn’t for the help of God’s Spirit and the grace of Jesus.  No, you tell the devil that you belong to Jesus because He says so!  Don’t let his lies take root in the wounds of your soul.

Peter also tells them that they should not be conforming to the former lusts that were in their ignorance.  Jesus is leading us out of the Egypt of our old life.  Before we knew Jesus, we were ignorant of God and His desires.  At the least, we only knew a little bit and didn’t have time to bother with that Christianity thing.  In that state of ignorance, we lived to please the strong desires of our flesh, of our eyes, and of the pride of life.  It was a true bondage.  We were living like everyone else around us, trying to get the most pleasure out of this life.

It is sad to see the American dream hollowed out and replaced with a cheaper form.  Since I was a kid, I have been told by the culture that the American dream was that our kids would have a better life than us.  This is a lie.  When you study history, you find that the original American dream was to be able to worship God in the way that we believed He wanted to be worshiped, freedom of worship.  The replacement dream is about bondage to materialism and never having enough.

Peter uses the same term and phrase as Paul used in Romans 12:2. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  You will be pressed into the mold of this world by the pressures of your own desires, the pressures of the world around you, and the pressures of your spiritual enemy, the devil.  This will be the case unless you actively let the Spirit of God lead you in the transformation of becoming more like Christ.  Conformation focuses on dressing up the outward, but transformation focuses on changing our inner man from which flows outward change.  It is this progressive sanctification process that Peter has in mind.

Just as Israel had a tendency to want to go back to Egypt, we must fight the inner desire to go back into our old life, or to straddle the fence with an apathy for the things of God.

We are to be holy “like the Holy One who [has called us].”  We are reminded that Jesus is the one we are to be like.  He is the perfect image of God the Father, and we are being made over into his image.

Yet, this takes cooperation in how we live, our behavior.  The Spirit of God works to help you know what is good and what is like Jesus.  We can nurture and grow in this, or we can let it die on the vine.  God also places mature believers in our life in order to help us in this.

Peter then quotes from the Old Testament.  “You shall be holy for I am holy.”  This admonition to be holy because the One we are following is holy comes from the time of the Exodus as well.

In Leviticus 11:44, Israel is told, “I am the LORD your God.  Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.”  He goes on to restate this in verse 45.  Several more times in Leviticus we have this repeated: 19:2; 20:26; and 21:8. You see, we are not just God’s people.  We are His children and should take on His image like true children.  This takes a lifetime and is completed through our death and resurrection.

To be holy in this life is to be peculiar to the people around you.  Of course, we do not seek to be strange only for the sake of being strange.  If you follow Jesus, this will be strange to the world because it is not following Jesus.  Like Sodom with Lot, they will grow tired of hearing your moral sermons on why these things are not good.

God will bring you up out of the slavery of your sins, and He will bring you into that good that He has for you, both the good He has for you at the 2^nd Coming and the good that He has for you now in this wilderness.  Of course, you will have seasons in your life.  You may even have times where you complain that you aren’t accomplishing anything.  Yet, if you have been doing your best to serve Christ and learn to be like him, then you have not wasted your life.  You are living out the good thing that God has desired.  It is good; trust Him.

How to be a new spiritual people (v. 17)

How long are you planning to stay here in this life?  Of course, it is not up to us.  We don’t know how long we have.  Thus, it is ours to remain faithful in spite of what we may face.

Again, Peter puts the main point last.  We are to conduct ourselves in fear during the time of our sojourn, or pilgrimage.  This too harkens back to the Exodus, which is why he reminds them of the sojourner metaphor.

He mentions conducting ourselves with fear.  It is clear that he means the fear of God.  This is a common problem for humans.  We fear everything but God.  We are weak and so we are afraid that something will be too strong for us.  We can’t control the world around us and so we fear lack of control.  It seems that it is our lot to live in fear in our fallen state.

Yet, when you come to Christ, your relationship with God is restored.  You have no reason to fear the world around us.  In truth, you have nothing to fear from God too in the sense that He only desires good for you.

Yet, Exodus 20:20 states, “Do not be afraid [of other things]; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.”

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.  Wisdom teaches us to avoid and to conquer sin.

On one hand we should fear life without the LORD.  The idea of turning against Him and going back into sin should be a fearful thought because now we will go back to facing the world alone.  Of course, if we continue to be rebellious, we must also fear that God is not going to overlook our wanton disregard for Him and our lust for the things of this world.  He will not overlook our sin.

If we are to fear anything in this world, it is only to fear the way that it could pull us away from Jesus.  Like Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife, we ought to flee temptation like a venomous viper.  Joseph did not flee her because she was scary looking.  He fled because of what she represented.  She represented the ability of Joseph to become reprehensible to the man who had treated him well and the God who had blessed him.  She represented betrayal and unfaithfulness.  That ought to bring the fear of God up to the surface in our life.

In the first part of verse 17, Peter uses the conditional “if.”  It can be seen as a challenge or questioning of them.  Are you really addressing the One who impartially judges as Father?  However, it is most likely a stern reminder.  This One you are calling Father is an impartial judge.  Do you think that He will bend the truth in order to save you from your own wickedness?  He is not going to wink at your sin.  You will not pull the wool over His eyes.

Listen, God was not trying to destroy Israel in the wilderness, but their continual refusal to trust Him led to them perishing in the wilderness.  Men like Joshua and Caleb, however, walked in faith and entered into the promise that God had given to Israel.

We may think that God is too hard.  However, couldn’t those men who died in the wilderness repent?  Couldn’t they warn their sons and daughters against the sin of unbelief?  Couldn’t they instruct them to be full of courage when God brought them back around to enter the Promise Land?  You may have failed in great ways, but you can still repent and live out the rest of your days warning others against the errors you made.  Even now, all who repented and died in the wilderness will be resurrected one day to participate in the Kingdom of Messiah.  Even when we are faithless, God is faithful!

Finally, it may bother some to read that God judges “according to each one’s work.”  Of course, Peter is not talking about how we are saved.  Rather, he is speaking to saved people and warning them that God expects them to trust Him.  Christians do not rely upon the dead works of external control.  Our works are cleansed because they are done by faith in Jesus Christ.  They are done by the leading of the Spirit of God.  Only the works of Jesus Christ pays the price for my salvation, but God does judge my response to that payment.  Do I have external, self-righteous works, or do I have internal, led-by-the-Holy-Spirit works?

May God help us to follow Jesus through this wilderness because only He knows the way!

A New People audio

The Acts of the Apostles 12

Subtitle: Peter Preaches Again part 2

Acts 3:17-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 7, 2022.

We pick up Peter’s second recorded sermon this morning, which we started last week.  Let’s get into the passage.

God had sent Messiah and they killed him

Peter has outlined how they have been fighting against God in their actions.  God had sent Messiah, but they had crucified him.  They were more than simply resisting God’s directions.  They were hostile to them.

Yet, in verse 17, Peter points out that they and their rulers had done it in ignorance.  Jesus on the cross had prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”  They didn’t realize that they were actually killing Messiah, but that doesn’t make what they did good.  It is simply a mitigating factor.  At many points, the rulers and people had mistreated Jesus, refused to accept the truth, and then put to death an innocent man.

Ignorance speaks to the knowledge and understanding that one has.  There are many things we simply do not know.  In fact, we are born 100% ignorant of life.  We begin to accumulate knowledge and understanding little by little.  Can we not see that the things of which we are ignorant are practically infinite?  What we do know only scratches the surface of all that can be known.  Thus, the most knowledgeable among us may not be ignorant compared to the average person, but compared to God they haven’t even reached 1% of what can be known, much less the stuff that we cannot know because God has not designed us with the capacity to discover them.  A wise person recognizes that the more they learn, the more they become aware of just how great their ignorance really is.

This brings up the subject of willful ignorance.  The truth can be staring us in the face, but we refuse to recognize it because of certain ramifications we are unwilling to accept.  Where is the line between inherently not knowing, like a child, and being stubborn and willful in refusing to accept the truth?  Only God can perfectly judge those kinds of issues of the heart.

Peter brings up the fact that God had foretold all of these things through the prophets.  They were told in advance that the Messiah would suffer in many different ways through many different prophets.  This doesn’t mean they should have had perfect understanding of what Jesus was doing and who he was, but they could have had enough understanding to be more careful.  Even John the Baptist, who demonstrated great understanding of the identity and work of Jesus, wrestled with the way things were going.

The people and their rulers could have had a better understanding than what they had.  They had become curiously incurious about certain passages and teachings of the prophets that would have at least helped them be more careful.  Yes, we can’t help a certain part of our ignorance, but some of it we can.

In fact, the most important part of this whole issue is not even our knowledge level.  It really comes down to being sensitive to the Holy Spirit.  Peter, John, James, and all the others, didn’t reject Jesus and call for his crucifixion.  They were able to get to that place by responding in repentance and faith at critical points in that 3 ½ years that Jesus ministered in Israel.

We are not so very different today.  The Church can be very proud about the great amount of knowledge that we have received through Jesus and the apostles.  However, that cannot take the place of sensitivity to what the Spirit of God is doing now.  Many very learned people have so systematized the biblical information that they are willfully ignorant to things that contradict their theological traditions.  Sound familiar?  We can become so enamored with the things of this world that we don’t seek God for the truth.  We can be happy with a surface knowledge of many things, or a rationale that we have adopted, but those things need to bow before the authority and power of the Lord Jesus.

Have I become a student of the Lord Jesus?  Think of it.  In the Bible we have a written document of the things that the Creator of all the universe wants us to understand, wants you to understand.  Many people who are ignorant in the eyes of the people around them will be found holding on to the Lord in the days ahead, having wisdom in the one thing that truly matters.  And, many who have the most biblical knowledge will be found fighting against what God is doing, lacking wisdom in the one thing that truly matters.  Jesus is working to give us a love of the Truth (2 Thess 2:10-12), so that it is love for him that will bring us through in the end, just like Peter all those years ago on the shores of Galilee in John 21.

Here is the good news.  God is still gracious.  Peter tells the crowd that they can still repent and turn to God.  In English, the word “repent” focuses on turning back to sorrow for one’s actions (for sin), as opposed to continuing forward in them.  This covers several important aspects of what the Bible says must happen in our hearts.  However, the word it is used to translate also has a meaning of a change of mind.  Of course, one must have a change of mind in order to turn back and have sorrow for sin, so I am not quibbling with the translation.  Rather, I am homing in an unseen aspect in this text.

We must have a change of mind about our life, and not just an alternate rationale created by us.  We really must adopt the mind of Christ.  We really must allow him to be the lord of our life.  This change of mind will turn us back from resisting and fighting what God is doing.  It will lead us to put our faith in Jesus, his commands, and the teachings of his apostles.  It will keep us from sacrificing Jesus for the sake of our willful way.

In this life, we will have a continual need for learning.  Thus, repentance will always be a part of the believer’s life.  It must never become a thing of the past.  Instead, it must become the daily path on which we walk.  Many are the exits that will take us off the road of repentance.  May the Spirit of God keep us on that Highway of Holiness, that good path, that we can only know through relationship with Jesus and the Word of God.

This brings us to verse 19.

Repentance will bring blessings

If we repent, then there are some good things from God that we will enjoy.  But, if we do not repent, then we stiff-arm the blessings that God wants to give to us.

Peter tells them that they need to change their mind and turn back into their sins being blotted out.  The direct result of changing their mind about Jesus and putting their faith in him will be the blotting out, or wiping out, of their sins.  It is the cancelling of the official record of our sins.  Sure, the fact that there are blots speaks of sins, but the fact of them being blotted out means they cannot be held against us before God.  Oh, this world will continually try to pin you to your past sins.  However, God offers freedom from those sins, and will not use them against you in the future.  Hallelujah!

In Isaiah 44:22, God promises Israel that, “I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.” (ESV)  Praise God that our sins can be blotted out when we repent, take on the mind of Christ, and exercise faith in the Son of God and the Word of God.

A second blessing is mentioned in verse 19, “that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”  The word “may” here does not question that they will come, but rather repentance removes a hindrance that keeps the Lord from sending them.  When it is removed, then he will send them as he determines.

In this life, we cannot get very far without being refreshed.  However, don’t settle for mere refreshing of your body and mind, your flesh.  I guess we could call those “refleshments.”  We not only need our bodies and minds refreshed, but more importantly, we need our spirits refreshed by the Spirit of God.  This is what Peter is talking about.  We need God’s periodic spiritual refreshment in order to successfully navigate this life, and He knows when we need it.  Yet, the problem is that our flesh and the enemy seek to consume us with refreshing the flesh to the exclusion of our spirit.  Another problem is that His refreshment doesn’t always look like such to us.  They had destroyed the refreshment of Messiah in their midst, but here was God offering them a second chance to drink from the wells of salvation and receive the Messiah back into their lives.

This is intended for them as individuals, but also as a nation.  Salvation gives us a relationship with the Lord of Life who cares for our soul and is the good shepherd.  Yet, it is clear that Peter ties in their repentance as a nation to the next blessing- a Second Coming of the Messiah.  It is interesting that the book of Zechariah pictures a great work of repentance in Israel where they will “look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.” (Zech. 12:10 NKJV).  Then, in chapter 14 of that same book, God promises to save Israel from complete destruction at the hands of the nations of the world by coming down out of the heavens Himself.  This is the Second Coming of Christ that pictures his feet touching down on the Mount of Olives and splitting it in half.  What a refreshing time that will be for the nation of Israel!

Thus, the next blessing Peter mentions is that God may send Jesus back and begin the Restoration of All Things (verses 20-21).  Jesus must stay in the heavens until the time of The Restoration of All Things.  The earlier refreshments by God’s Spirit would keep them sustained until they came to that Great Refreshing that God has promised in His Word.  All the prophets pointed to a time when all that has gone wrong in this world and in the heavens will be restored to their proper state.  The Bible can be seen as a story of how everything went wrong (think Genesis), and yet how God is bringing everything back to a restored state that is even better than the original (think Revelation with its New Heavens and the New Earth).  That day is set by God.  We have a destiny in the future that cannot be avoided.  Yet, there is a sense where repentance could perhaps speed it up.

Peter specifically reminds them of the prophecy of Moses found in Deuteronomy 18 (esp. vs 18).  Moses leads up to this prophecy by warning Israel against listening to spiritists and those who practice divination.  God had not given Israel over to these lesser Elohim.  They had a greater destiny than the nations who were following the wrong Elohim.  Their destiny was to first receive the word of the One True God through Moses in building up the nation of Israel, and then later, God would send them another Prophet like Moses. 

Hebrews 3:1-6 emphasizes this connection by pointing out that Moses was faithful as a servant of God to build the house of Israel.  However, Jesus Messiah was faithful “as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” (Heb. 3:6 NKJV).  This speaks of the “house” of the Church.  We don’t have time for it today.  However, this language of a house being built by the son for himself so that the Church can live with him is the wedding analogy that Jesus used so often.

In Jesus, Messiah had come to make an offer of betrothal to Israel.  As a nation, they rejected it, but Christ takes a remnant and sends them to the nations in order to raise up a bride that will be married to him at the end of this age.  All the prophets warned of this critical period, and Moses stated that those who rejected this Prophet, Messiah, would be destroyed from among God’s people.  They were in danger of losing their place, their lot, their inheritance.

In verse 25, Peter reminds them of their heritage.  They are the sons of the prophets, and the offspring of Abraham.  This means that they had inherited the writings of the prophets, and the promise of Abraham that the families of the whole earth would be blessed through them, i.e., Israel.  All that we know of God is passed to the Gentile nations through the people of Israel.  Israel is far more important than any other nation in the sense of God’s work in the world.  However, His work is for the sake of all the nations of the world.  In fact, God did not just choose Israel from among the nations back in the days of Abraham.  Rather, God rejected all of the nations, and instead, created a new nation by His own hand as Adam was created directly by God.

This is why God sent His Servant Jesus to Israel first.  They had been and still were the instrument through which God had spoken to the nations.  They were God’s witness to the world.  However, the word first, implies others.  The Gospel of Jesus would go to the nations through his faithful believers, and thus, all the earth would receive a second witness through the Church of Jesus.  Here we are today hearing these same words that Israel heard 1,990 some odd years ago.

O, how America needs a time of refreshing in which we are turned away from our sin into full faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus the Messiah.  It will only happen as Spirit-filled believers, who are keeping in step with Jesus, interact with a people who are steeped in all manner of ignorance.  May God refresh his people today so that we can renew our battle against the works of Satan upon those around us!

Peter Preaches Again 2 audio

When The Lord Questions You

Luke 20:41-47.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 20, 2015.

In the previous chapter we saw how Jesus wept over Jerusalem because of the hard hearts the people there had, especially the leaders.  This chapter has given us snapshots of the last week before the crucifixion, in which Jesus speaks to the people in the temple area.  This last attempt to turn their hearts runs into stiff opposition from the religious leaders.  Today we see that Jesus somewhat turns the table on them and asks them his own questions.  However, we should be careful of thinking that Jesus is only giving them a taste of their own medicine.  Rather, he specifically asks about a passage that is key to explaining who the Messiah really is and why they stumbled at the way Jesus spoke of his connection with The Father.  They claim to know so much.  But, if they would simply admit that there are some unexplained things in the Scriptures, they would be in a better position to accept what God was trying to reveal to them.  Jesus was the Son of God come down to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Jesus Exposes Their Willful Ignorance

There is nothing wrong with being ignorant.  All of us have areas of ignorance, no matter how smart we are.  No one can know all that mankind “knows,” much less all that is possible to be known.  Being ignorant is not a problem.  But, willful ignorance in the face of God’s revelation is a sin that we should be quick to repent of. 

The religious leaders questioned Jesus in order to undermine the authority that Jesus had with the common people, and to find fault with him.  Now God can handle our questions.  We can question Him, but we must recognize that when we are done He may have some questions for us.  This is part of the error of those who scoff and mock the Bible with questions that are clearly intended to manipulate how it looks rather than to find truth.  Go ahead and mock God’s Word, but also recognize that God will in turn have His time of questioning you.  Would you survive the same tactics against yourself that you employ against Him?  Honest questioning for the sake of Truth is not a threat to God.  But dishonest questions as a covering for sin and rejecting God will be shown for what they are.

They were calling Jesus a heretic because he called himself the Son of God.  I will share a couple of examples.  In Luke 19 Jesus told a parable about the owner of a vineyard.  At the end the owner sends his son to the caretakers and they kill him.  It was clear to the religious leaders that the owner was God, the vineyard was Israel, and they were the caretakers.  Notice that Jesus casts himself in the parable as the son of the owner.  This was not lost on them.  They resented and rejected his characterizations.  In John 10:30 Jesus said, “ ‘I and my Father are one.’  Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.  Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works I have shown you from my Father.  For which of those works do you stone me?’  The Jews answered Him saying, ‘For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God.’”  It is being disingenuous to say that they misinterpreted Jesus.  He knew what he was saying.  His “oneness” with the Father was a bold claim of sharing in the divine nature of God.  We also have Luke 22:70 when Jesus is on trial.  They ask him point blank if he is the son of God.  What is the response of Jesus?  “You rightly say that I am.”  This was not their main point for rejecting Jesus.  They had already done this from the beginning.  Yet, it became the leverage they needed to cover their evil desire to execute him.  So is it really blasphemy to claim that the Messiah would be the Son of God?  This is the heart of what Jesus is asking them when he points them to Psalm 110 in this passage.

First of all let’s establish the fact that the Messiah would be the son of David.  This was accepted by all parties involved.  It is in 2 Samuel 7:12-17 that God promises David that his kingdom and throne will be established forever.  God would not reject the claim of David’s family to the throne like He did with Saul.  Thus David’s line becomes essential moving forward.    The prophets picked up on this and added further revelation.  In Isaiah 9:6-7 we are told that One would sit on the throne of David who will be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.  Several of these titles pose some problems if you are contending that the Messiah will not have a divine nature.  Thus this coming Messiah would fulfill all that was missing in those earthly kings of David’s line.  Each successive king quickly proved that they were not the messiah and so Israel waited.  In Micah 5:2 it says, “You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”  Again this coming messianic ruler is spoken of in terms that go beyond a mere human.  Yes, we can interpret it to mean that the prophecies about his coming are of old, though he is not.  But, it is phrased in such a way that doesn’t negate that his existence would be from ancient times.  Lastly, at the announcement to Mary of her coming pregnancy by the angel Gabriel, it says in Luke 1:32, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.”  So the messiah is the ultimate Son of David.  But it was being revealed to the people of the first century that he was more than a man.  He was the Son of God.  This was not in contradiction to Scripture and only made some Scriptures more understandable.  This leads us to Psalm 110 which Jesus quotes from in today’s Scripture portion.

The question that Jesus asks is this.  How can you say that the messiah is the son of David when David calls the messiah his Lord?  How can an earthly descendant of David also be his lord?  Now when we look at the verse we need to recognize that in the Psalms there are two different words being translated as Lord, in fact you will notice the first “LORD” is in all caps (or small caps) and the second is only capitalized.  This is because the translators are letting you know they are two different words.  Here is a rough translation that helps us see this.  “YHWH said to my adonai….  The first is a reference to the name of God given to Moses at Mt. Sinai.  Historically it has been translated as Jehovah or Yahweh.  The second is a term that refers to a king, master or teacher.  The word always places the person in authority another class (i.e. king to citizens, master to slave, teacher to disciples etc…).  Thus David is literally revealing that he saw the messiah (who would be a descendant of him) as his king and master.  When Jesus asks them how they can call the messiah the son of David, he is not doing it to say they are wrong. But, instead, he is taking them back to a messianic passage and saying, if statement one is true then how do you understand statement two.  Now the answer that is being revealed in the days of Jesus is that the body of Jesus was biologically from the line of David.  As a side not on this biological aspect of Jesus, we should note that the creative act of the Spirit in causing Mary’s pregnancy is not explained further.  Thus even the biology of the body of Jesus is at least partially from David and possibly also from God.  Yet, the spirit of Christ is from before David and has existed from the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Jesus was the prophesied “Right hand” of God accomplishing salvation for himself. 

Though these were new truths that God was revealing regarding His plan, we must note that none of it is contradictory to the Old Testament.  This is the problem.  The religious leaders claim to know the truth and will not accept what Jesus is saying.  Yet, Jesus shows them that the very Scriptures they claim to know point to the very things that he is revealing.  Thus they are choosing to reject this new light.  This is what I meant earlier by a willful ignorance.  You might ask yourself this.  Is God trying to open my eyes to something that I am resisting and rejecting?  We know that God is working everyday to open the eyes of people to the Truth and yet many reject it.  One day you will be questioned by God himself.  He will expose the flimsy arguments that we use and give back to us according to how we questioned Him.  I encourage those who don’t accept Jesus as both man and divine to be careful how they deal with God’s Word and Christians, His people.  Do you want to be dealt with in the same way by Him?

He Exposes Their Sin

In verse 45 Jesus turns back to the people and warns them about the sin of the religious leaders.  Those who are going to follow Christ must first learn to avoid the pitfalls that keep people from accepting Jesus.  First, Jesus points out the misplaced desire and love that these religious leaders have.  Their desire was for public attention and the adoration of people rather than to please God.  They were filled with pride regarding their godliness, and yet, they did not really love God.  Instead, they loved to be honored and have the best.  There is nothing wrong with wanting people to approve of our actions.  But when that desire goes outside the proper boundaries it becomes an inordinate desire.  They desired man’s applause more than God’s.  They desired the authority that they had for their own purposes and ends rather than for the purposes of God.  This same sin is rampant today within the churches of the USA.  Our churches are overwhelmed with people who have inordinate desires and misplaced loves.  At the end of the day they are serving their own ego at the expense of the work of God.

The religious leaders also were taking advantage of the desperate within society.  Devouring widows houses is a reference to the way they would worm their way into receiving the money of widows while they live and in their deaths.  The term devour depicts the beastly nature of their actions.  They preyed upon the desperate situation of the widows in order to enrich themselves.  They loved money rather than those widows for whom they were to be a protection.  The love of money has infiltrated the churches of this country to the point that it has become a mark of godliness to be rich.   Although there is nothing wrong with being rich, we must recognize how inordinate desires and love pulls us away from God and in the “name of God” we pursue whatever our heart wants.  As long as we slap a Jesus sticker on it in the end, we are living godly.  If God rejected such mockeries then how much more will He reject those who bring ridicule to the Son of God whom we are supposed to be serving?

Jesus also points out their false piety.  They pray long prayers, not because they love talking with God, but because they love putting on a show for the people.  They are not as pious as they depict.  Such pretensions are false and are revolting to God.  We tend to follow spiritual leaders who look pious and godly.  Many are being misled because they foolishly do not look to the Scriptures.  God has warned us and exposed the methods of the unrighteous.  Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of trying to please men.  Focus on pleasing God and let the chips fall where they may.

Lastly, Jesus states that these leaders will receive a greater condemnation.  Why is this so?  They will receive greater condemnation because they spend their days studying and writing about the Scriptures and yet reject the very things the Scriptures are trying to teach, and they reject the very one who authored the Scriptures.  They receive a greater condemnation because they declare that they have the truth and force others to come under error and miss the truth.

Friend, the day will come when God will judge each and every one of us.  How will it go for me in that day?  It will not be the fact that we have sinned that will be the issue.  No, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Rather, it will be the fact of how we dealt with that sin.  Did I submit and plead guilty before the court of heaven?  Did I then cling to Jesus, the Son of God, to be my teacher and savior?  These men refused to hear what God was trying to teach them from the Scriptures and thus they missed the blessing He had for them.  Make sure you don’ t miss God’s blessing for you!

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