I ask for you to turn in your Bibles with me, if you would, 1 Peter chapter 1. And the last time we were together, if you recall, I preached on one verse, and that being verse 13. And believe it or not, I'm going to preach from verses 14 all the way down through the end of the chapter today. But you may notice, as you open your Bibles there to 1 Peter, that the context actually begins with verse 13, and I'll explain that. I'm going to read from verse 13 all the way down. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love. Love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. But the word of the Lord remains forever. And this is the word. The word is the good news that was preached to you. Now, you may recall, if you were here with me in the last time that I preached in verse 13, where we spent our entire time, I demonstrated for you that Peter's thoughts in addressing these believers were drifting way back, all the way back to the Exodus. We saw, especially in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 11, where it says, Now you shall eat of the Passover in this manner with your loins girded up. and your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand, you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. And I explained to you that what Peter was doing in 1 Peter 1.13, by using this exact language from the Exodus, is that Peter was giving us a parallel. He was giving us a way to think about our own Exodus, our own new creation, our own redemption. That in First Peter, that's exactly what's going on, as you can look back to the very first opening chapters of the book, where Peter says, as an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion scattered throughout the ancient Asian empire. And he's addressing them as exiles, and that's exactly what we are. We are pilgrims, exiles, and in many respects, like the Israelites, being called out of Egypt into the Promised Land. And Peter draws for us these parallels that, like the Egyptians who were to prepare for the exile, to prepare for going into the wilderness to serve God, They were to be prepared. And that's exactly what Peter said in verse 13. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, being sober in spirit, sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Those ancient Israelites looked forward to the promise of God. They look forward to the time when they would enter into the promised land, which God had promised to them. We ourselves also look forward to the promised land, but it is that coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eschaton, when our Lord returns and claims us for his own. And that is our hope. And in a greater way, as I tried to demonstrate, Peter says, they were prepared with their staff in their hand, and their loins girded up. They were prepared with their dresses or their skirts girded up with their belt around their waist, ready to go at a moment's notice. And that's the way that we ought to live our lives, prepared, because we know not when the Lord will return. And so we have a preparedness of mind by the means of grace. We have a soberness of spirit. We recognize that this world is not our own, that we have a destination, as Pilgrim's Progress rightly put it, as Bunyan put it in his title, that it is the pilgrim's progress from this life to that which is to come. And so we live in this life with this preparedness of mind, this soberness of spirit, always ready as the Israelites were, to meet the Lord. And that's where we left it off in verse 13. Now, in verse 14, he picks it up from there and he says, as obedient children. And I want you to see that in verses 14 through 25, it's almost as though Peter I think, has flown over the entire 40 years of the Exodus event in his thoughts. And now in verses 14 through 25, Peter goes from the beginning of the Exodus, the Passover, just as they're about to go out into the wilderness, and he lands down in Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32 is the very last sermon that Moses preached before he died. It was right after that that God told Moses, because you struck the rock, you can't go into the promised land. You've got to go up on the mountain and you're going to die there. And then the mantle of leadership was handed off to Joshua. So in Deuteronomy 32, even though formally Deuteronomy 32 is a song, it's called the Song of Moses. In that poetic verse, we have Moses recounting for us the whole history of redemption, giving us a summary, if you will, of the whole exodus. And I think even beyond that, all of the pictures of creation and new creation in the scripture from the fall to, from creation to new creation by way of redemption. And so I think as we come to this passage in 1 Peter 1 14 through 25, we're going to need to take a look at Deuteronomy 32 because I believe that this is where Peter's mind was landing as he was thinking about these thoughts. It's interesting that Peter, of course, we know was a Jew and the Jews were taught to read the Old Testament. They read the Old Testament, memorized it. They understood it much better than we do. And when you think about the Jews reading the law, particularly the Pharisees, When they read the Old Testament, as we talked about in Sunday school this morning, they interpreted the law, they interpreted the Old Testament apart from Christ. But Peter does the exact opposite. Peter shows us how all of the Old Testament, all of redemptive history, how all of the law can only be understood in Christ and what he accomplished in his life and his death and his resurrection. And so Peter does exactly that. Peter takes this Old Testament redemptive history and shows us how it culminates and comes to its apex in the person and work of Christ, which we will see. Now, I want to link this together for you because I believe it's so important for us to understand Peter's exhortation for us in these verses. Now, there are really, before we go to Deuteronomy, there are really two main units of thought here, the first one being in verses 14 through 21, and the second being in verses 22 through 25. In the first unit of thought, or paragraph unit, Peter speaks principally of our redemption as children, adopted by the father and redeemed by the son. So have that in your mind as we think about these first verses from verses 14 through 21. Our redemption as children, that our Father has redeemed us by the blood of his Son. He has purchased us with his own blood. Now keep that in your mind and keep your marker, if you would, in 1 Peter chapter 1 and go back with me now to Deuteronomy chapter 32. This in Deuteronomy 32 is a remarkable passage for a couple of reasons. Moses is rehearsing God's provision and God's care for his chosen children. Towards the end that God's name will be made great among the nations because of the redemption of this particular people for his own name. And there's another reason why this passage is so striking because of the way that God presents himself. And now in Exodus, God said that out of Egypt, I've called my son. But in this passage, it's the only passage in scripture where God refers to himself specifically as their father. And he puts it in that terminology speaks of Israel as his children. And he is their father, which we'll see now. He also there's another kind of first in this passage, which is the mention of this individual, which we'll see here in a moment, by the name of Yeshurun. Not an individual, but a name that God gives to Israel. And we'll look at that as we look through this passage. Let's just read some of, we won't read all the way through, but let's start at verse one. Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth, May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God, the Rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, without iniquity, just and upright is He. They have dealt corruptly with Him, They are no longer his children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is he not your father who created you, who made you and established you? Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you your elders and they will tell you when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance. When he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is allotted heritage. He found him in a desert land, in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. The Lord alone guided him. No foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the land and ate the produce of the field. And he suckled him with honey out of the rock and oil from the flinty rock, curds from the herd and milk from the flock with the fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats with the very finest of the wheat. And you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the great. Now notice this transition in verse 15, but Yeshurun. Yeshurun grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, stout and sleek. Then he forsook God. He forsook God who made him and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. Now, I hope you're able to see the flow of this as we've read this portion so far, that first of all, God, through this preamble, calls witnesses of heaven and earth, as is often the case with prophecies against God's people, Moses calls heaven and earth to witness against him this covenant renewal ceremony as we mention every week as Pastor Doug mentions every week when we read the covenant renewal ceremony together and we say I do I do a man that it is a recitation of what God has accomplished, and that's essentially what's going on here. Moses is calling the heavens and the earth to witness against the people if they don't obey the terms of the covenant, and to witness against them as to how they have acted. Then in verses, in verse 8, I believe he's talking there about the Gentile nations. Notice in verse 80 says when the most high gave to the nations their inheritance. When he divided mankind he fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of God. Now that takes us back to what event takes us back to Genesis chapter 10 and the Tower of Babel. It takes us back there. to the time when God divided the nations. I believe that that verse in verse eight is a clue to understanding who Moses is mainly talking about in verse For, he says, a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. Verse 5, they have dealt corruptly with him. They're no longer his children because they are blemished. They're a crooked and twisted generation. I believe that Moses there is talking principally about the Gentile nations. The Gentile nations have rejected God, and God has rejected them. They no longer belong to him. They're no longer true believers in him. They're idol worshippers and they've gone their own way. Because notice in verse 6 what Moses says to the Israelites. He says, Do you thus in the same way? Is this how you also repay the Lord? Do you repay the Lord the same way as the Gentile nations? You foolish and senseless people. Is he not your father who created you? who made you and established you. Don't you remember that he's the one who made you? He's the one who called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees. He's the one who cared for him in the wilderness and brought him into the promised land. He's the one who preserved his children, Jacob and Isaac, and brought them down into Egypt. He's the one who cared for him. Remember, as Pastor Doug has been preaching, when Moses met the Lord at the Burning Bush, he was to recall over and over again, I am the God who of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We have in this this whole story of redemption, how God preserves his people in order to redeem them out of their bondage. And so we can see in this Moses rehearsing their very lives, rehearsing their very experience. Is this the way that you're going to repay the Lord also, the way that the nations have rejected him, the way that the nations have gone their own way? You foolish and senseless people. Don't you know who he is? He's your father. He's the one who gave birth to you. He's the one who created you. He made you a totally insignificant people to be the apple of His eye. He made you His chosen and special people. In fact, it is a remarkable thing if you look at verse 8 of this passage. Because if you think about what He says there, He says, when God divided up the nations at the Tower of Babel, He did it according to the number of the people of Israel. That is an amazing thing when you think about it, that before Israel ever existed, God divided the peoples of the world to be an inheritance for the people of God. The whole history of creation is about redemption and about God giving to us an inheritance that was promised to our father Abraham and previously was promised to our father Adam in Genesis 315, which we'll see a bit of later as we get down further in 1 Peter. And so we see in these verses this idea of the children of Israel being called upon to think about God as their father, as the one who made them, the one who bore them, the one who redeems them. And so We can look back at 1 Peter, and you can keep your place there if you'd like, because we'll probably be coming back there again. But in 1 Peter 1, I want you to notice how Peter opens this address in 1 Peter 1.14. He says, As obedient children, I'll just take my marker out here so I can get back. As obedient children, in verse 14, do not be conformed to the passions. of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. Now this is why I had Isaiah 44 read as the gospel passage this morning. Because in that passage, where he talks about the new Israel, upon whom he would pour his spirit. Those of whom, he said, would call themselves by the name of their God, and would call themselves by the name of Israel, or the true Israel of God. In that passage, for the second time, as a direct address, God calls his people Yeshurun. Now, I mentioned that earlier, and I want to come back to that now. Because in Deuteronomy 32, you may have noticed that Moses calls them on the carpet. Moses calls them to remember their disobedience against God. And he does it in an historic, redemptive way, in a literary way. He's helping them to recall the story of their redemption. And he says there that he rehearses what God has accomplished on their behalf. And he says in verse 15, after talking about God's provision, after talking about God's salvation of his people, he says in verse 15, but Yeshurun grew fat. Yeshurun kicked. You grew fat, stout and sleek. But then he forsook God, made him, and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. Now, why do I bring this up? What is Yeshurun? Well, yessirun simply means upright one. That's the meaning of the word. Many older commentators rightly recognized, I think, that in the poetic sense, there's really a poetic kind of instrument that's being used here. And one of the ways that this was interpreted, both by some rabbis as well as some Christian commentators, was that what God is saying here is, my little upright one, my little Yeshurun. Now, as I was thinking about this, I thought about my own sons. It's not too difficult for me to understand this. I can say to my son, son, don't do that. Be good. Obey your mother and father. And my sons will say, yes, sir. And 30 seconds later, they will turn around and pull the pigtails of their sister or bop them, you know, across the face or whatever. I can say to my son, my good little son, I can stand there with you and pat my son on the head and talk about what a good little boy he is. And in no time at all, he proves me wrong. In no time at all, he shows that he is a little sinner with rebellion in his heart, just waiting for the first opportunity to rebel against the law. Oh, I can't wait to sin against my Father's Word. That's exactly what Moses says here about Israel. He says, Look at what God did for you. He preserved your fathers. He brought through all of history from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Isaac and Jacob all the way down to the provision of Israel in Egypt. God preserved you. He made you as the apple of His eye. But my little son, you grew fat and lazy in your minds. You grew fat and lazy in understanding from where you had come, what God had accomplished in your lives. And you kicked against God. And you rebelled against God. He forsook God who made him and he scoffed at the rock of his salvation. You know, when I read that this week and I was thinking about it, I was thinking, about Pastor Doug and myself as I preach sometimes, and I wondered if Moses, when he wrote those words, he scoffed. He scoffed at the rock of your salvation. You know, I believe that when God anoints a preacher for the preaching of the gospel, that there's no true anointing going on unless that preacher first preaches to himself. unless the preacher first looks into his own heart and sees the blackness of his heart and allows the Spirit of God with the text of Scripture, the Word of God, to address our own hearts. And by the way, we ought to pray diligently that the Lord would do that with our own pastor from week to week, that the Lord would allow him to preach to himself so that he can rightly stand before I believe that perhaps Moses was doing that very thing when he says, they scoffed at the rock of their salvation. Maybe thinking back on that time when God said to Moses, speak to the rock. What did Moses do? He struck the rock. He scoffed at the rock. He did not look at Christ. Paul tells us that the rock was Christ that followed them in the wilderness. He did not look to him for his only provision of the salvation of God's people. But Moses took it upon himself in anger and said, I will accomplish this. Perhaps he was thinking of that himself, and that very event would be addressed just a few moments later. As God addressed Moses in thinking about that experience, but here Yeshurun And that's why I entitled the sermon today, Yesharun, Nosharun. Because yes, play on words to be sure. Yesharun means upright one. But Moses says, you little upright one were not upright. You were corrupt in your hearts. You disobeyed God. You rebelled against God. You scoffed at the rock of your salvation. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods and with abomination. They provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods that they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom you fathers had never dreaded. How often does our pastor speak to us of this age in which we live in the modern church, which seems to invent new gods by the hour and make new gods in their image and turn God into their own image. and worship God in accordance with their own passions and their own desires, rather than the way that God has revealed himself to us. God says to his child, Yeshurun, you little upright one, not so upright. This is the amazing thing. When we come to Isaiah chapter 44, and we read there earlier that God says that He will call him Yeshurun, my upright one. And Yeshurun will say, I am the Lord's. And on my hand, the Lord's name is written. I belong to the Lord. That's why I'm upright. Because I am to be found in him. I will pour out my spirit upon mankind. And they will be Yeshurun. They will be upright. They will walk in the ways of the Lord. and will no longer kick against me, but will walk in obedience to my law." Well, in that prophecy, there's no tongue-in-cheek. God says we will be an upright and obedient people because God will make us to be so. And yet in another sense, we also recognize that as a church, as individuals, In the midst of the church, there's always the danger that we will forget God. There's always the danger that we will forsake his word. There's always the danger that we will forsake God and worship other gods, the newest gods, the latest and greatest gods, and will act not like the true Yeshurun, the true upright one. Who is the true Yeshurun? Who is the only upright one in our midst? Well, it's Jesus Christ himself, isn't it? Jesus Christ is the only Yeshurun. He's the only true upright one. It cannot be said of him that he kicked against his father's will. It cannot be said of him that he rebelled against his father's desire. But rather, he stood uprightly in all that he thought and did. In all of his thoughts, word, and deed, he obeyed his father completely by obeying the law. And so we see that with Christ himself, it is possible to obey God, not in and of ourselves, not by our own strength, not by our own cleverness or wisdom. But in Christ, in the true upright one, we are able to live a life of obedience. And this is why Peter says, as obedient children, Not like them. But in Christ, the upright one, the obedient son, as obedient children, don't be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Now, I think that there's even more going on there than meets the eye, because as we read there in Deuteronomy 32, he speaks of the Gentile nations and then he speaks to his children. He says, why are you acting like them? You're not them. You're not without God in the world. You have the covenants. You have the word of God preached to you week in and week out. Don't be like the nations. I think for every one of us in this room, we came from fathers, forefathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers. Our heritage is from the nations. We are Gentiles. And I think it's interesting, I believe that Peter here in contradistinction to some. I believe that he is addressing mainly Gentiles, a Gentile church in exile, not just the Jewish church, because he says later on, you once were not a people of God, but now you are a people of God. And so there is even more importance, I think, in understanding this, that Our former ignorance was that without God, we were without God in the world, but praise be to God that the true heritage of Israel has now expanded into the nations, that we have indeed become the true heritage or the inheritance of Israel. So that wherever we go in the world today, in any tribe, tongue, or people in the world today, there are nearly every place where Christ is preached. And what a tremendous thing it is to recognize that God has brought this to be so. But he says, don't be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Then he says in verse 17, if you call on him as father, conduct yourselves also with fear. The children of Israel were called upon by God as being his children. I'm your father. I'm the one who made you. I'm the one who brought you life. I'm the one who brought you into this world. And now Peter says, look, believers, if you address him as father, Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth. I'm convinced that this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, missteps of so many today who name themselves by the name of Christ, who call themselves Christians. People want to know God as their father, don't they? People say, he's my father, my heavenly father in heaven. He's my father and I'm his child and I love to go and sit on his lap and cuddle up against him. And he relieves me in my time of stress. He relieves my burdens and he gives to me peace. And people want to think of God as maybe even a loving father that they didn't have. As this cuddly, warm, father that they can snuggle up against. Now, I'm not suggesting, and I don't mean to diminish the image of God that God himself gives to us, that he is a tender and loving father. That he does provide for us, that he cares for us. that he's very gentle with us. He nourishes us and treats us not according to his anger, but according to the prominence of his patience and the latitude of his long suffering. Doesn't he do that with us? He cares for us each day. He gives us life. He gives us what we need. And we're so thankful that he is our father. But we can't forget what Peter says here. If you address him as father, and we must, Isn't that what Jesus taught us to pray? Our Father who is in heaven? But he didn't stop there, did he? He said, Holy is your name. And Peter does exactly the same thing. He says, if you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to every man's work, We can't think of our father with our own perverted understanding of what a father is, but we must understand our father, God, as he himself has presented himself to us. He is our father, a loving, caring father, but he's also a holy God. He's also a God who is full of wrath against sin. He is also a God who is completely just and impartial in all of his ways. This is exactly why Peter goes on in verses 18 through 21 to remind us that during our short stay upon earth, we must be found in Christ if there's to be any hope for us at all. If you address your father as father and you leave it at that, you don't have any hope. Because if you think that the father is going to protect you with his nourishing and loving care against his wrath, he won't. You have to be protected against his wrath in order to call him father. And that's exactly what Peter tells us, that we are. We are protected from the wrath of God. We're protected from the impartiality of God, of his holiness, because God must judge according to his own standard, which is himself, his perfections, and his utter and pure holiness. And so, in verses 18 through 21, Peter reminds us of our short stay on earth, that we must be found in Christ to have any hope at all. He says, knowing that you were not ransomed from your futile ways, inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like the lamb without blemish or spots, He was foreknown before the foundation of the world was made manifest in these last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. And so Peter here gives us this magnificent synopsis of the gospel. And once again, Peter takes us back to the language of the Passover. which was the theme as we saw behind verse 13. But Christ is the greater Passover, having shed his precious blood once and for all. And then in verse 20, Peter says he was foreknown before the foundation of the world was made manifest in these last times for the sake of you. You know, Deuteronomy 32, 18, Moses said, You are unmindful of the rock that bore you. And you forgot the God who gave birth to you. There, Moses said, Christ came before you. Paul says he was the rock, as I mentioned, who followed you in the wilderness. Christ came before you. And in fact, in the language of John, he is the word by which the worlds were created. Peter emphasizes that theme that Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. But for our sakes, he was made manifest in these last times. And so what is our response to this, or should I say what ought our response to be to the truth that we have received? What should our response be as obedient children, as children now born not from the flesh, but from above? As children, not from the first Yeshurun, but from the second Yeshurun, the upright one. How ought we to live? What should be our response as obedient children? Well, it's interesting. that in verse 22, Peter almost seems to make a shift here in his thinking, but I don't believe that he does. He says, Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly. From a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. Now, it was somewhat interesting that Peter in this last section turns our attention away from simply focusing on our individual redemption, and he wants us to think about how that affects the community of the redeemed or the church, as he says in verse 22. And I asked myself why. Why is this the next thing that Peter turns to when he thinks about redemption? I believe the answer is in verse 23. There, Peter says, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of Now, the way that we can understand this is with the language both Peter and Moses have given us. All of us who have been made regenerate by the Holy Spirit are born of one father. We're born by the same seed of the promise, which is Christ. Now, there are different metaphors that scripture uses to describe this, and even Peter uses several. We're the temple. that we're a holy nation, that we're a kingdom of priests, and so on. The metaphor that he's choosing to use here is a familial metaphor, a family metaphor. We who have been redeemed by Christ have been born into the same family, by the same truth, by the same word which was preached to us. We've been born again, not from the flesh, but from the spirit, by the same means, by the word of truth that has been preached to us. Now, as a result of this knowledge, we ought to have a genuine and sincere love for our brethren from the heart, for one another, from our hearts. We know that there are only two families on the face of the earth in all of history. Did you know that? two families, the children of the seed of the flesh and the children of the seed of the promise. Those who are of the seed of the flesh are the children of the devil, and those who are the children of the seed of the promise, which is Christ, as Paul says, belong to Christ. There are no other families. on the face of the earth, just these two. Now, I know in our culture we have almost a perverted interest in the individual family, which I believe is a misguided, no pun intended, focus on the family. But in terms of our redemption, there are only two families in all of history. This is why when someone came and reported to Jesus in Matthew 12, do you remember that? And in Mark 3 and Luke 8, They said to Jesus, behold, Jesus, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to you. But Jesus answered the one who was telling him, and he said, who are my mother? Who is my brother? Who are my sisters? And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, behold, my mother and my brother and my sisters. Whoever does the will of my father who is in heaven, he is my brother and my sister and my mother. The Israel of old, or we might say the Israel of the flesh, had a tremendous affinity with one another, a family unity, if you will. With the exception of a few, or the remnant, as we like to say, The nation of Israel, or the family as a whole, were a disobedient, idolatrous lot that were scattered in the wilderness because of their rebellion against God. They grumbled against God. They grumbled against one another. And to put it very bluntly, they did it because they were not children of Abraham, as Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees, but they were children of their father, the devil. They were not the seed of the promise. They were of the seed of the flesh. That's exactly what Paul says in Galatians chapter four. You think that they're the true Jerusalem, but they're not. They're really Ishmael. They are the seed of the flesh, not the seed of the promise. The nation of Israel is not the seed of the promise. That's why it irks me so badly to see churches who call themselves Christian churches bring Jewish rabbis who hate the name of Christ into their pulpits and say, He is my brother. Don't be misguided by that false teaching. They are not our brothers who hate Christ. We have only one brethren, and our brethren are those who are redeemed by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our only brethren are those who are the seed, not of the flesh, but of the promise. They are the seed of faith. We belong to Christ because we, like our father Abraham, believed in him and it was reckoned to us as righteousness. We are joined together because of justification, not because of our flesh. Are our families important? Of course they are. We have to evangelize them and pray for them and ask God to be merciful to them. But the families of our flesh pale in comparison to what God has accomplished. God took us all. Three years ago, I didn't know, besides Doug, not one of you And yet God has joined our hearts together by the same faith, by the same confession that we are rebels against God. We were like Yeshurun who kicked against God. But God took little Yeshurun by the scruff of the neck and lifted him out of his rebellion and made him to be upright. Isn't that true of all of us? Yes, because Christ was the true upright one. We have been born again, not by a corruptible seed, but by the seed of our Lord Jesus Christ. And because of our rebirth, our hearts are knit together in such a way that we ought to love one another from the sincerity of our hearts. Hey, listen, the only way that we can do that is if we admit from where we came, right? If we admit that we were like the rebels, We're more like the first Yeshurun than the second. We have to walk in humility. And as we walk in humility, we're truly able to love one another. That's why Peter does this, because he tries to show us that this family that has been created, this family of Yeshurun, this family of Christ, the upright one, is a family like none other that has ever been created on the face of the earth. Now it's true that there may be a few in our midst even, there may be a few in the church today who are still rebels against God, who still have not been converted. But what a blessed thing to know that in a church at least that confesses Christ, in a church that holds fast to the truth, that it's a believing church. It's a believing unity of believers. We confess together this same faith which has been given to us. We are allowed to be members of the church because we confess Christ. What a blessed thing that is to know that the church of Jesus Christ is a redeemed church. And so because of that, we ought even more to love one another from the heart. Well, Peter concludes, and I will also, this section, he says, all flesh is like grass, all glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. How blessed we are to be a brethren, to be a church that has the good news preached to us every week. How blessed we are. Because it's that word which never fails. That word Christ himself always accomplishes what God sets out to do in his sovereign purpose. God is making us as a community. God is making us as a people of God into the image of his very Son. So he says as obedient children, don't be conformed to your former way of thinking. As Paul puts it, but what? Be transformed by the renewing of your minds. We ought to be transformed as we think about from where we have come and think about who we have made to be in Christ. We've been made to be new people, obedient children who walk in the ways of the Lord, who walk in obedience to his laws. Father, we thank you that we recognize God. We don't have anything up on ancient Israel. We don't have anything in us that we can say, well, we're better than they are. Because we know, God, that we're not for your sovereign grace. Or we would fall in the wilderness. We would be crushed under your wrath. We would be children of disobedience. We give thanks to you, God, that you have made us to be a people of the new Yeshuvah, the new Son, obedient and upright Son. And that we now can come to you through Him. And we can leave together and love one another with sincerity in our hearts. Because we have been loved by you, our true Father. We've been redeemed by the blood of your dear son. Oh, God, let us not forget. Let us never pray. Oh, God, I ask. Let us never become bored with the gospel. Because by it, Lord, this gospel that is preached to us, we are reminded every week of your mercy to us and your grace. Oh, Lord, let us remember your word and walk in it as obedient children, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.