The Spiritual House (Part A)

That sinful nature that we are born with, it is not eradicated from the heart when new life enters into our life. The old man remains there to harass and to challenge and to try to overthrow the spirit and he often succeeds, unfortunately.

Even though we have a Christ-like nature, we are still stuck with a fallen nature at the same time in this life. Once we leave this life, that old man will die and be gone never again to be heard from. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1st Peter.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in 1st Peter chapter 1 as he begins a new message called the Spiritual House. 1st Peter chapter 2, Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. 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. Spiritual house, that's the title that I have given this consideration this morning, because we are to be spiritual houses, each individual, the house of God, saved to function as those who bring sinners to the light of Jesus Christ. There are many metaphor we could attach to our role as a body, as a local assembly.

A lighthouse, for example, comes to mind to let people know that there is a danger and that they are warned in advance to take steps to avoid shipwreck. Jesus said God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. And this again, the house of God is a spiritual house, but so are the individuals who make up the house of God.

The dwelling place, the presence of God is to dwell with his people, a personal Shekinah, the Holy Spirit that is with those who are born again. And so Peter, here in verse 1, he says, Therefore, lying aside, all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. Well, he's joining what he is saying now with what he has already said in chapter 1. Remember when this letter was written, no verse divisions were given, no chapter divisions? It was a letter. Peter dictated the letter.

Silvanus wrote it down. It was carried throughout the churches, copied and carried to different churches to be read in their assemblies. And his joining, what he is now saying, Therefore, lay aside all malice, connects with 1 Peter chapter 1, if you look with me in your Bibles, verse 23. Or let's take verse 22 also. 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, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of God which lives and abides forever.

That is what that therefore is connecting to. We are born again. Peter urges us to put away those things that are contrary to agape love, to Christian love. That is, those things that are unlike Christ, malice, which we'll come to in a moment. But that old nature, that old man, that sinful nature that we are born with, it is not eradicated from the heart when new life enters into our life. The old man remains there to harass and to challenge and to try to overthrow the Spirit, and he often succeeds, unfortunately. Even though we have a Christ-like nature, we are still stuck with a fallen nature at the same time in this life.

Once we leave this life, that old man will die and be gone, never again to be heard from. And so we must continually make deliberate choices as to which nature we will submit to, the flesh or the Spirit. And God, looking at us, struggle, takes our intention to obey him very seriously.

When you are weak and you fail, God does not say, are you miserable, no good, weakling? He sees that we were fighting, and that goes a long way with the Lord, and it should go a long way with you also because the alternative is to give up, to surrender, to no longer struggle, and to resist the flesh, the devil, and the world. So, part of this process of resistance, laying aside all malice. A vice list he has here, five of them in this short list of loveless actions, malice being first. When we come to Christ, we're supposed to let go of these things.

Yeah, we are. You know, our New Testament, it is designed by the Holy Spirit to convict, to rebuke, and to exhort. And that really narrows it down, or boils it down, to everything. It is to convict the lost soul that they are guilty, that the sentence is passed on them and they need a Savior. Well, that covers salvation. It also convicts the guilty. Even if you are saved, you do something wrong.

You don't want to admit it, how hard it is. And you husbands know, and you wives know, sometimes it's just really hard to tell the other person, okay, it was my fault. But, once you are convicted, once the evidence is there, there's no getting away from it. And to convict, to rebuke, so much of the New Testament is about correcting Christians.

Unfortunately. But where we'd be worse off without it. And then, of course, to exhort, to encourage you. Be strong, be joyful, keep going, there's a heaven waiting for us at the end of this. That is the New Testament.

And it doesn't, it does not hide any of this, it's right out. And I'm going to take one section, that beautiful section in Ephesians 4. One of my many thousands of favorite sections in the Bible.

The list is still growing. That you put off, that's the same Greek word he uses here, laying aside. In 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1, it's the same Greek word that Paul used when he says that you put off. That you lay aside concerning your former conduct, the old man. Which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. That old nature gets stronger. And when you become a Christian, he's trying to get stronger and continues. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And that you put on the new man, which was created according to God. In true righteousness and holiness, therefore putting away, lying, let each one of you speak true to his neighbor, for we are members of one another. And then he goes on, no give place to the devil. That is saying what Peter is saying. Paul is independent of Peter, mindful of one another. I don't think when Peter wrote this, I don't think he had Ephesians 4 in mind. The Holy Spirit did.

The author and finisher of our faith did. Self-assertion, that brings malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy. It is the launch pad for these vices and every other vice. Self-assertion is an exaggerated opinion of one's own self-importance. That's what self-assertion is in the context of these sins. It cancels out the ground cover that we gain by being born again.

Someone who is a backslider, goes backwards because the old nature has got the upper hand. We strike back, making efforts to not sin. Again, you may strike back a hundred times and fail. But the fact that you're striking back, God does not dismiss as trivial. He told David, David you cannot build me a house, but because it was in your heart to build me a house. And then God proceeded to tell him how he was going to bless David. So God again, very much watching, but not watching as though you're waiting for us to mess up so he can pounce.

Watching so that he can participate with us in the struggle. Romans chapter 13 verse 12, let us cast off, it's the same idea. The works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Armor of light. It's armor. It's body armor. It means you're going to take hits. It's not only suggestive, it is prophetic. You have Christian armor on because you're going to take hits.

It's not a parade uniform. It's for contact with the flesh, with the world, with the enemy. And they have the advantage, all three of those have the advantage. Malice. Up to harming others.

You know how a person is up to no good? That's what malice is, in a serious way. It's intention to hurt, to cause harm. Now, a doctor intends to hurt when he is helping many times, but not to harm. Malice is looking to harm us. A doctor's intention is not really to hurt, I hope, unless he doesn't like you.

But, kidding, hurt comes with it. But malice, again, it is a vicious disposition that is in the heart of the one who is exercising it. It's not funny that Christians have to be told, malice does not belong in your heart.

It's a real hoot in hell. Satan loves that there are Christians that have to be told, don't be up to no good. The force of personal sin.

And for what? Why would any Christian want to hurt someone? I mean, there are exceptions.

As a pastor, I have a lot of them. But, of course, why? Why would we want to hurt anyone?

We should not. I mean, we have to defend ourselves from time to time, but we're not out to harm. He says all deceit, that's guile, one's true intentions. When you're deceiving someone, you're hiding what you're really up to.

You're up to no truth. Malice was up to harming others. Deceit is up to no truth. The Greek word that is used here for deceit speaks of a decoy or bait or to trick someone in a harmful way. The psalmist writes, the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. War, he wanted to do harm.

His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. You know, you ladies, you young ladies, you unmarried ones especially, be careful when you go out there and some young man is trying to win your affection. He may be genuine.

Let him be tested. He may just have smooth words so that he can take advantage of you. Now, that's possible with all, but I think our younger sisters are more susceptible to deceit at their age.

They've not yet handled life enough to be able to identify those slick talkers when faced with them. But, of course, it applies to all of us. John's Gospel, chapter 1, verse 47, what a beautiful section of scripture. It's when Jesus meets Nathanael. Come and see, said Philip to Nathanael. The Messiah, we found him. Yeah, he's from Jesus of Nazareth.

Yeah, can anything come out of that place? Nazareth. And he says, come and see. He doesn't debate him. He doesn't say, let me give you five reasons why you should come see.

He just says, come see. Well, Nathanael, he finally does see. And Jesus says this about him. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit, no guile, no baiting people. What a wonderful thing to say about someone.

Here is someone that's honest you can trust. And then he mentions Peter does hypocrisy. We all know about that. From the time you're very small, you can identify hypocrisy. Unfortunately, sometimes we find it in our parents, don't know what to do with it. Except we remember.

And be careful there, Anna, your mother and father. Hypocrisy, pretending to be what you have no intention of actually being. Wearing a mask and wanting others to believe that there's no mask at all, that this is you. Webster's dictionary says this about hypocrisy. A person who puts on a false appearance of true virtue or religion.

It's a false appearance. There's no intention there. It's not someone who's weak and failing who's saying, I love the Lord. I'm going to serve him and obey him and then they fail you. Oh, you're a hypocrite.

No, weak might be the problem. Someone may just have given it their best shot and not met your standard. Well, that doesn't give us grounds to say they're a hypocrite. It's when they are fake, through and through, one becomes a hypocrite. And Peter says they're in our churches. Well, there are more of them outside of our churches than there are inside. And so the next time someone says, I don't want to go to church, you're a bunch of hypocrites. Well, you're kidding me. You can't be that dumb.

How old are you now? There are more hypocrites outside the church than inside the church. Envy is the next one. That is another inward sin that leads to outward sin. In the Greek, it covers a pile of things, spite, jealousy, improper desires, covetousness, resenting the blessings another has because you wanted it.

This is a mean one. Last session in Peter, I mentioned to you that it's very easy or it's easier to applaud someone outside of your field. I'll use myself as an example. Well, because I'm perfect.

Yeah, right. Don't talk to my wife about that. If you were to tell me that you met someone that was one of the greatest pianists or artists or writers, I would be very impressed.

Wow, that's nice. Tell me about it. If you were to say, I went to a church and I found one of the greatest pastors preaching. Wait a minute.

I didn't see you this morning. What are you talking about? See, that's where I should shine brighter than the other guy.

Envy, be careful. It will grow like poison ivy. It will take over like wire grass.

And if you have wire grass, I hate that stuff. Anyway, I probably got it from you. Anyhow, it's always fun to blame others. No, it's not. Do I have to say, no, it's not. Anyway, Matthew 12, verse 34, Jesus speaking. He calls the Pharisees the religious leaders, the pastors of the time, brood of vipers.

It's just a family of snakes that have poison in them. How can you, being evil, speak good? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. They envied Christ and that was what was in their heart and that's what came out until finally it brought about his crucifixion.

But what helps us lay aside the things on this vice list? Well, Peter's going to tell us in this next verse, verse 2, as newborn babes desire pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Reading this, it doesn't read comfortably to me. I mean, you look at verse 1 and he says, envy and all evil, lay these aside, evil speaking. And then he says, as newborn babes desire pure milk, it just doesn't flow to me. However, I remember that Peter dictated this letter. I think a lot of the commentators and theologians often lose sight of the human element when these documents were put together. So there's Peter and he's not writing this. He is dictating it to Silvanus. We find that at the end of 1 Peter. And so he's talking and he says, like newborn babes. And Silvanus just captures it like that. He uses a high level Greek, a classical Greek, Silvanus is writing in. And so he's putting Peter's words on the parchment and so Peter's flowing and he says, put away the lying, the envy, as newborn babes desire milk of the word.

He just sort of goes there. Paul, the apostle, notorious for taking rabbit trails in his writings. The ellipsis man, you know, those dot, dot, dot suspension points when you write.

Well, Paul is, some commentators from long ago called him that. He's the ellipsis apostle because he goes down these rabbit trails because as he's writing and things burst into his mind by the Spirit, that's where he goes. And even though at times it's an incomplete thought, that incomplete thought in and of itself is complete. And that is what allows pastors to take a single verse and do a whole sermon on them.

Because the Holy Spirit says, I'm not interested in anything short of communicating my will. I'm not restricted by the rules of grammar or anything else but truth. And when we understand that, then it begins to move. And then we understand that the man writing this letter or dictating it is a man that has suffered like me. It's someone who has faced temptation and faces temptation. It's one that knows what fear is and knows what joy is and knows what disappointment is. It's a heavy weight sometimes. You love someone and then for whatever reason, maybe they move away or get some whatever and they're just no longer in your life. And it's just a disappointment.

I'm not talking about to death or anything like that. And as we grow, we go through these things, they shape our character, we make adjustments and we keep moving forward. Well, these writers are men just like that. I point this out because before I was a Christian, I didn't think that. My concept of the Bible was men that just sat down and were full of themselves, writing about what they thought God was. Now, there are other religions like that.

I think Islam is like that, for example, and not the only one. But Christianity is not like that. These are men that said, I saw Jesus dead and I saw him alive. You want to kill me for that?

Go right at it. But I am not telling you that I did not see him alive when I did. There's power in the Word of God because there was power in the lives of the women and the men in Scripture whom God records events from their lives. And so he says it's newborn babes.

Now, this is important. You older Christians, be careful when you come in contact with new Christians. Don't expect a newborn Christian to behave as though they've been a Christian for 20 years.

Oh, no, they're going to have to suffer a lot before they get to that spot. However, sometimes you meet one that says, I've been a Christian 20, 30 years, whatever. And you just shake your head and you say, well, you haven't learned a thing. Where have you been? Self-absorbed more than likely.

So there is no joy in meeting professed Christians who for years have behaved as unbelievers. And Peter, wanting to intercept these things, he says, as newborn babes desire pure milk of the Word. Can't grow or develop without it. You need nourishment.

All of us do. Now, in these days, cow's milk is not the idea here. There just weren't the bottles and the convenience that is around today. In those days, of course, it was the mother's milk or a wet nurse that provided the child with the milk. And that's what is the idea behind the pure milk, direct from the source. And Peter says, the Word of God, it nurses us, it nourishes us. It's pure. It comes from the source.

That's where we need to be. Notice that the Bible always comes back to the Scripture. It always comes back to the Word. Never lets the reader get away from the Word. We have sections where there is song and there's poetry, but the Word of God is always the larger shadow in the picture. So in order to lay these things aside, these vices that he had mentioned, they're going to need not only the Word, but appetite for the Word that you may grow thereby. A church does not grow by addition.

It grows by nutrition, said one old saint. I should have taken credit for that. I had my opportunity there.

I could have said, boy, he's pretty deep. Anyway, that is something that seems to be missed by a lot of folks. People come in to see a small church and they think that the Spirit's not there because of the numbers.

They're looking for addition. It's nutrition that makes the church. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. And we're blessed to bring you God's Word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the Scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.