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1 Peter 2

Led to be a Marvelous Light by a Merciful God
(New Jerusalem under construction in a fallen world)

 

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1 -3  

4 -5 

6 -8

9 -10

11 -20

21 -23

24 -25

Born by the Word and Grown by the Word

Our Oneness with Christ

Stumbling Over the Cornerstone

The Marvelous Light of a Merciful God

 Rightly Judging Our Relationships

Christ our Example of Being Led

Healed from Sin to Follow Him


Born by the Word and Grown by the Word

VERSE 1-3  (1) Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, all evil speakings, (2) As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: (3) If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Here, Peter lists a spiritual progression in reverse order: Tasting the Lord as gracious refers to receiving God's words 'unto salvation'. After that, the way of salvation is one of growing in Christ while the old man, with his sin and lusts, shrivel up.

Your heart is a garden...weed it!

God's word is like a mother's milk

The bitter-sweetness of God's word


Our Oneness with Christ

VERSE 4-5.  (4) coming to Him, [as to] a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, [and] precious, (5) 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.


Stumbling Over the Cornerstone

VERSE 6-8  (6)For this is contained in Scripture: "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHIEF CORNERSTONE, ELECT, PRECIOUS, AND HE WHO BELIEVES ON HIM WILL BY NO MEANS BE PUT TO SHAME" (7)This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, "THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE, (8)and, "A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE"; for they stumble being disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

 

 

 


 The Marvelous Light of a Merciful God

VERSE 9-10 (9)But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; (10)You once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY

Refers to Deut 7:6
For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth... The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; Deut. 7:6,9

(click to read something marvelous)

Be a marvelous light of a merciful God


 End of Doctrine and Beginning of Practical Application

 1Peter 2:12-20 - Rightly Judging our Relationships


Rightly Judging Our Flesh

VERSE 11   Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.
Believers are to be ever mindful that our citizenship is in heaven, and while on earth we have an enemy who seeks to sift us like wheat, which he will do if we are walking around without our spiritual armor.


Rightly Judging Our Walk Among Unbelievers

VERSE 12 - Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.


Rightly Judging Governmental Earthly Authority over us

VERSES 13-15 - (13)Therefore submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, (14)or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. (15)For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

God has established and given authority to earthly rulers so that he might direct their hearts and so order certain events. For believers to rail against earthly authorities is to wrongly judge how God's will is accomplished through them.


Rightly Judging our Earthly Authority Over Others

VERSE 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.
Many free men had servants they treated as second class citizens.  But Christian free men were to treat their servants mindful that they were servants of Christ.


Rightly Judging Everybody

VERSE 17 - Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.


Rightly Judging those with Authority Over Us in the Workplace

VERSES 18-20  -  (18)Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to the harsh. (19)For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. (20)For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.


 Christ Our Example of Being Led

VERSES 21-23  - (21)For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, (22)WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; (23)and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;


Healed from Sin to Follow Him

VERSES 24-25 - (24)and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. (25)For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
The penalty of sin is death, and the power of sin in our flesh was blindness, deafness, lameness and restlessness in relation to God's ways of righteousness. God's remedy for both the power and penalty of sin is Christ's work at Calvary. Many words are used to describe the benefit to sinners of Christ's work (e.g. cleaned, saved, justified, forgiven, reconciled etc.). In this passage, the description is that we have been healed.

                            © 2012  by Steve Popovich