I want to preach this evening from the first epistle of Peter, and we read quite a short reading, just seven or eight verses from the end of chapter one. I wanted to keep the reading short because some of the language is quite tricky, and perhaps if you're not very used to reading your Bible, or if you're very young, you may have found some of what Peter was trying to say a little bit difficult to follow. There is a part of the scripture where Peter talks about the writings and the epistles of the Apostle Paul. And he does say that Paul's writing has a tendency to be a little bit difficult to understand. Or perhaps here we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black, because This word here, really, at first glance, it is a little bit confusing. And I hope that we can look at some of the ideas and the concepts, some of the truths that Peter writes at the end of this first chapter, and tease out some application, some meaning for ourselves. And I hope even the youngest one here this evening will be able to see something very valuable in these words. I want to start with verse 24. where Peter quotes from Isaiah chapter 40. He says, for all flesh, by which he means all human beings and by extension the rest of the animal kingdom I guess, but he's thinking mainly of human beings, all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. So he uses this metaphor. He says, man is just grass, like a feeble plant which doesn't survive for more than a few days and when the sun beats down and when the hot wind blows, the grass, it withers, it turns brown and it returns back into the soil. And the flower of that grass, have you seen the flower of grass? It's very unimpressive You would almost mistake it for just leaves. There's no bright and colourful flower for grass. No, it's just a very boring, very drab collection of seeds and extra bits of leaf. It's not glorious at all. And of course that also only lasts for a brief time. Now my children saw me last night out putting a hose on the lawn. Although it was only the end of April, we've had not much rain over these last few weeks. And here we are in a very wet country. But the grass already is starting to die. It's starting to be burnt back. And last year, I must tell you, in the middle of summer, my whole lawn was just a brown patch of nothing. Not a green shoot to be seen. So what does Peter mean? And what does Isaiah mean, whom Peter is quoting? That man is just grass. Well, we read actually in Psalm 103, David of the psalmist, they're making exactly the same point. Likening the human condition to grass. What do they mean? Well, grass is vulnerable. Grass is temporary. Grass can have a very brief existence. especially the flower of grass which can last just a few days sometimes. It's not something which is enduring. It's not something which you expect to be there forever. No, each individual grass plant will wither away and be killed and die by the sun. And he says that's what we're like as people. We just live out our lives for a few brief years. Perhaps when we're young, we think the human life is very long. 70, 80 years? Oh, I can't imagine it. When I'm five years old, that seems like an eternity. But as soon as we've got into adulthood, as soon as we've had a couple of birthdays under our belts, we start to realise, yes, life is very fleeting. And then we'll read the newspapers, or we'll see on the television news, or perhaps in our own experience, we will see that life can be snuffed out. So quickly we'll hear of a child that has died, of somebody that's met with an accident, somebody who's been a victim of crime perhaps, or we'll see in the history books how many people lost their lives in the wars, and we'll say yes, indeed, this is true. Not only is the human life short in peacetime, but it can be very short indeed, very easily snuffed out. Peter is trying to help us get our lives in perspective, and so this metaphor, simile if you prefer, is very plain to us. Yes, we are like a delicate plant, which no sooner has the sun got up into the highest part of the heaven, we wither and fade away. Well, perhaps you've contemplated your own mortality once or twice. I think I did it more when I was a child, and I would lie in bed at night and think to myself about my parents, and my grandparents, and my great-grandparents, and I would let my imagination go back through the generations. And I would feel how impossible it would be for me to know my great-great-grandparents. They died long before I was born. They didn't live long enough to see me. And I, in my turn, will not live to see my great-grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, great-grandchildren. No, I cannot, by the strength of my own body, live for 150 years. It's impossible. We are set, a set amount of time, and we cannot exceed that. But there is a contrast here, and this passage is full of stark contrasts. This is very helpful for us because it helps us to get these things clearly in our mind. Peter says, man is like the grass, and then he compares our lives with something else, something which is the opposite of temporary and vulnerable. Look, there it is in verse 25. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. You could perhaps put it this way. Man's life is like the grass on the mountainside that will die away when the summer sun comes. But the word of God is like the very mountain itself that's been there since the beginning of creation. That's a contrast for us to bear in mind. This is the point that Peter is trying to make. He's trying to say, our lives are fleeting, but God's Word endures forever. Now you may say that you know of legal documents which were supposed to last a long time, but they have passed away. You may think of a document that's nearly a thousand years old, in our country called the Magna Carta. You may think of the American Constitution. Now these are ancient documents, these are documents which you may feel will last a very long time, but they've already been amended, they've already been changed to a certain degree. The Word of God will endure forever, that's what this passage says. Remember the beginning of chapter 1 of John, where John says, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. So what Peter is telling us here is something very important. This Word of God is eternal and it is unchanging. Now, you may wonder why that's important. You may think I'm just making an academic point here. But please, bear with me because these things will be applied later on in the sermon. And it's important for us to understand this. We, as human beings, have a sell-by date. When I open my fridge and I look at the yoghurts in there, I have a look at the top and see whether they're still fit for human consumption. When I go to my fruit bowl, I pick up the orange and I check to make sure that it hasn't started to go rotten. We're very familiar with these concepts of corruption and rottenness. Peter and the other scripture authors are saying this. Our bodies have in them death. They do not last forever. We grow old. Our hair starts to turn grey and fall out. Our teeth start to become weak. Our limbs and our joints lose their strength. Our bodily function starts to behave in less than optimal ways. And we know that our bodies are on a journey downwards. We're not getting fitter. We're not getting stronger. We are getting weaker. And Peter wants us to be realistic about this. Because we have this tendency, don't we, to live as though we're going to go on forever. Why is it that there is only one certainty in this life and that is that we will die? And yet so many people live as if we're going to carry on forever, as if there is no day of reckoning to be concerned about. So that's the first contrast. The contrast between man's life, which is like grass that withereth, and The Word of God which endures forever. There's a second contrast here, it's there again in verse 24. The glory of man as the flower of grass. Well, perhaps although the flower of grass is not very impressive, it is, I suppose you could say, a little bit more impressive, a little bit more glorious than the ordinary stem of grass itself. that Peter really is playing down the glory of man. There is such a thing as the glory of man, but it's not ever so glorious. We contrast that with the glory of God. We look at the glory of God in verse 21. The Lord Jesus Christ is being spoken of that was raised up by his father from the dead and his father gave him glory. We'll look at this in more detail in a second. But let's consider for a moment then the glory of man. What is the glory of man like? Well, I don't know about you, but I watched the Royal Wedding on Friday and it was impressive, very impressive. There was Prince William in his bright scarlet tunic and there was his bride looking very beautiful and there was the very impressive guards and horsemen and the carriages and all of these things were splendid and spectacular. They were wonderful and of course there were 25 million out of the 60 million of us in this country actually watching that wedding? And how many hundreds of thousands went down to the Mal to watch the procession? And how many 2 billion, I'm told, watching around the world? All the world's media camped out for this glorious wedding. It was undoubtedly a glorious wedding. You cannot imagine more of a fairytale wedding if you like. Whenever you see in the children's cartoons, if you're a parent you get to watch lots of children's cartoons, they're often fairytale weddings. I tell you what, they're all based on British royal weddings. Of course they are. And it's spectacular and wonderful. And there's the glory. And I was pleased for the couple getting married. And they were the centre of attention. And you can't imagine any of us ever being involved in anything so glorious in the earthly sense, can you? None of us will be the subject of two billion people's attention. None of us will ever be able to go to Westminster Abbey and have the nineteen hundred people of the most important people in the country come and celebrate anything with us. No, far from it. But Wonderful though man's glory can be, it is fading. And my mind was turned back to a royal wedding which I watched when I was much younger. The mother and father of Prince William, every bit as glorious, every bit as wonderful, if not more so. Well, it was a tremendous excitement when Lady Diana married Prince Charles back there in 1981, was it? Wonderful. And every bit as exciting as the wedding we've just had. But with 30 years perspective, we can see how the glory of man has faded. And although it was a wonderful day, the wedding, the marriage, didn't work out the way anyone would have hoped. And the memories now have passed. We look at the pictures of that wedding, we see how the fashions have changed. And of course, without wishing to be morbid, poor Lady Diana, her glory is long since gone. Her end very ignominious. Her memory still cherished by many, but we see how it's faded and passed. That, my friends, is the glory of man. It doesn't last forever, even if it burns very brightly in this world's terms. It is soon gone, soon passed, and even the most glorious life must come to an end. But there in verse 21 is the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ who went down to the grave and then he was victorious over death and over sin and over Satan and his father glorified him and lifted him up to heaven and now his glory there in heaven amongst the angels is far more glorious than anything of man's and it of course is an everlasting Glory, a real glory, a glorious victory, glorious riches, glorious everlasting throne which never shall fade. So man's glory, like man himself, fades and withers and is gone. But man, God's glory, is everlasting. It's holy. It's perfect. Nobody can criticise it. It is the most wonderful form of glory. and it is everlasting. So, two great contrasts there, and it's helpful for us to bear these things in mind, to think about the most wonderful thing that can happen to us, the most exciting thing that can happen in a human experience, and realise that it is nothing in comparison with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do we have a relationship with him? Do we have a part of him? Is he part of our lives? Then we come to a third contrast, and I'll try to bring these three contrasts, draw the strings together in application towards the end, but there's a third contrast here which Peter talks about, and we have to go back a verse to verse 23. He talks about being born again, and this is a concept perhaps which you're familiar with. It's used in other places in the scripture. Being born again is what the Lord said, wasn't it, to Nicodemus when he came by night to inquire about the way of salvation. You must be born again and you realise it means to be converted, to be saved. Peter says in verse 23, he's talking to Christians, you being born again, how? Not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. Now this word corruptible, don't be frightened of it, it's a very simple word. Corruption means rottenness. So you could go to your fruit bowl, which you've accidentally left there and gone away on holiday for two weeks, you will find that the apples and the grapes and the oranges have become corrupted whilst you have been away. We would normally say rotten, but it's exactly the same thing. So Peter says Born again, not of corruptible seed, not of seed that can become rotten, but of incorruptible. Born of a seed which cannot become rotten. Very strange language. What does Peter mean? Bear with me, I'll try to explain it. Now, just the other day I went to B&Q to try and buy some grass seed. They had a number of different types there. They had the special grass seed, which was hard-wearing for family lawns where lots of children would be playing. Then they had the special grass seed which was drought-resistant. which you're not supposed to need to water so often. It stays green even when the sun comes out for many days in a row. Then they had the special grass seed which was very cheap. That's the one I bought, the value grass seed. But they didn't have incorruptible grass seed. They only had seed which had a sell-by date. You had to use it this season or it won't be of any use. That's natural, isn't it? Entirely natural. But what Peter is speaking of here is something unnatural. A seed which will be unrotten. A seed which will last forever. A seed which, if you sowed it, would grow up into a plant which would never wither or fade or die. Now that's something supernatural, isn't it? That's not natural. That's something strange. We're starting to think that this seed might have to have something in common with the everlasting Word, which doesn't fade, and something in common with the glory of God, which is much better than the glory of man. You see the three contrasts? That's what Peter is saying. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God. Well, What we're talking about here is everlasting life. That's what the Lord has means by incorruptible. He's saying you've got a body which is dying, which is going to go to the grave, but I can give you a body which doesn't have death in it, which doesn't die, which lasts forever. When we start talking like this, it starts to become a little bit fanciful in some people's minds. People start to say, are you really talking about the secret of everlasting life? Are you going to tell us in a moment that you've found that holy grail? We've read about this myth. We've read about the Knights Templar who took the cup. that was catching the blood of Christ when he died, and they've hidden it somewhere, and we've seen some exciting films, and we've read some silly books about this cup, this Holy Grail, and if we find it and drink water from it, we last forever. Is that what you're talking about, Mr. Preacher? Is it an elixir of life? Is this the thing which human beings have been looking for forever? Well, not exactly. We're not talking about some fairy tale here. They're talking about something very remarkable, even more wonderful than what those silly myths and legends are trying to suggest exists. What is, then, this incorruptible seed? Peter, what are you talking about? Well, perhaps If you remember the parable of the sower who went out to sow seed in his field, you will remember that the seed is the Word of God. Bear with me here. You might have difficulty linking all of these things up. But Peter is talking about the Word of God and he describes it as a seed which would be everlasting, which would grow up into life and never fail. Now, he's already described us as grass that withers away. That's our natural body. He's saying you have this natural body, it will wither away. But if you're born again, you will have a body after death which will last forever. And how do you get that body? How do you acquire this everlasting life? What is the answer? How can we find this wonderful thing which you're speaking of? Well, it's there in verse 23. It is the Word of God. It's a simple thing, almost easy to overlook, but the Word of God tells us that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. So let's briefly recap, shall we, and bring all of these things together. Peter is saying that by nature, man is just a flower, a piece of grass, that withers on the hillside, that grows up for a day and is gone by the time the heat of the afternoon is there. That is what man's life is like. But in contrast, God's Word never withers away. It stays forever. It was there before eternity and it will be there till the end of eternity and it is unchanging. Furthermore, Peter is saying that man's glory, again, even as it burns as bright as it did on Friday at the royal wedding, still is something which passes away very quickly. But God's glory, in contrast, is something which lasts forever and will never fade or become tarnished in any way. And then he's saying that by nature we are in a corruptible body. But by the word of God, by that incorruptible, unrotting seed which lasts forever, we can be born again. We can come from the first part of these three contrasts into the second part of these three contrasts. We can have everlasting life. So, Mr Preacher, are you telling me that some of these ordinary-looking men and women and children here, in this church this evening, found the very secrets of everlasting life and are going to live forever? That's exactly what I'm saying. Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Look at verse 17. Peter speaks to Christians and he says, if you call on the Father, if you've asked the Lord to forgive you, past the time, the end of the verse, past the time of your sojourning here in fifth. That word sojourning means passing through. He speaks of this life as a temporary arrangement. He says this earth that you're living on now is just somewhere you're going to be for a while. Past the time of your sojourning here, of this brief interval in this life, pass it in fifth. You see how he's speaking of this life? temporary and passing. No, the real home to which we are travelling is in the next life. That is exactly what he is saying. So yes, many of us here, my friends, have found the secret of everlasting life. There it is in verse 21. Who by him do believe in God. It's as simple as that. You could easily skim over it. Imagine this. Imagine going to the Day of Judgement. and finding that you have never trusted in the Lord God for your salvation, and saying, well, it was too hard for me to find this way of salvation, Lord. If only you had told me clearly. And he would have said, well, there it was. You skipped right over it. You didn't read carefully enough. These people who are born again are the people who believe in God. They believe that God raised up Jesus from the dead and gave him glory. These are people whose faith and hope are in God. Those are the people that are saved. Now, I should explain here that what we have here is something immensely precious, more precious than anything in this world, because it is an incorruptible thing, something which will last for eternity. We have something here so valuable, it is far beyond price. All the money in the world is not enough to buy the valuable thing that we find here, and yet most people do not recognise it. You know, we were trying, and we have tried many times, to tell people in the streets of Woolwich about this precious way of salvation. But you know, for the most part, people don't recognise it. They walk by and they hear a man speaking and they hear the words that come out of his mouth and to them it is strange. They do not recognise that here is a very way of salvation. Then there are others and you stop to speak to them and you have a conversation and they do not recognise the value of what you are telling them. There are others you'll hand them a piece of scripture and that very leaflet which they have in their hand could be their guidebook to heaven and every now and again one of them will just throw it on the ground. Would you disregard your invitation to the royal wedding? Would you throw away your passport or your birth certificates? Would you throw away a million pounds? This is far more valuable my friends. The other day I was putting leaflets through through doors in the local streets, and I put a leaflet through each door inviting people to come and hear the gospel here at this church. And I came to a letterbox and it said, no free newspapers, no junk mail and no leaflets. And I thought, well this is definitely a leaflet. And they've said they don't want it. I want to give it to them, but they've said they don't want it. So I didn't put a leaflet through that letterbox. And a few doors further on I came to one and it said, no junk mail. It didn't say anything about leaflets. I thought, this isn't junk mail. This isn't a pizza leaflet or a taxi leaflet. This is the most precious thing in the world. So I put it through that letterbox. And I hadn't gone five yards before the man came storming out of his front door. Can't you read? Don't you see what I've said here? No junk matter, and that includes religious things. He opened his wheelie bin, he threw the leaflet in, and he slammed the door on top of the wheelie bin. I apologised. But he'd thrown away the most precious thing. The most valuable thing. So easy to overlook, I grant you. But a seed is a small thing. It's a tiny thing. A word is a tiny, almost insignificant thing. And yet here we have the incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God, which is the Gospel of God unto salvation, which is the key to eternal life, which is your ticket to salvation. So, will you here this evening be like that man who threw my leaflet in the bin? Or like the men and women who disregard the preaching in the marketplace? Or throw the scripture on the floor Will you fail to recognise the value of this word? In verse 25, we'll read it again, Peter says, And the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Some even go as far as coming into this church and still refuse to listen to this simple word. which is the mystery of everlasting life. My friends, the Lord Jesus Christ was born 2,000 years ago. He lived a perfect life. He never sinned. He never had to pay any punishment for any sin he committed. But as he hung there on that cross, his Father poured out upon him punishment for sins that he had not committed. He poured out on him the punishment for my sins. I should by rights have already been judged. I should have been snuffed out long ago. I should have been taken down to the pit of hell for breaking the holy law of God, but God at his mercy He's preserved me and He's called me and He's shown me the love of His Son. He's shown me the nail prints in the hands of His Son. He's shown me what took place on that cross when the veil was torn in two and the sky was darkened. He's shown me that Christ there bore the punishment for my sin that I should have borne. And what's more, God has shown me that He's brought Christ back from the grave and lifted it up, and great glory! He now sits at the right hand of God on high. And all that I can do, all that I have to do is to believe as a call on the name of God. And then, that incorruptible seed is sown in my heart. I will live out my life in my old body, If the Lord doesn't come before I die, I will go down to the grave, and this body that you see before you will rot, be eaten by the worms, but my soul will live on, and it will go to be in heaven as soon as I've died. I will go to be with the saints who have gone before me, and with the angels, and with my Saviour in heaven, and when the end shall come, then the Lord will give me this new body, this incorruptible body, the type that He already possesses. And I will live for all eternity in heaven and on the new earth with all the others who ever believed in him, and all of the angels who never fell, and with God in heaven, my friends, won't you come and join me? Will you miss out? Because you overlooked the Word, the incorruptible seed. Will you ignore it? Will you despise it? Will you think it nothing? Will you say, no Lord, if you could find me in some cave in the Middle East and show me that there are thousand-year-old knights guarding some cup, then if I could drink from that I would be living forever. Then I could perhaps believe it. But this church, this preacher, these people, they seem so ordinary to me. It seems such a little thing to believe. Well, in some ways it is a little thing. But in others, it's the biggest thing you could ever do. Because nothing will ever change or affect your life in a bigger way than this. And if you tonight come and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, take Him at His Word, His incorruptible, unchanging, everlasting, enduring Word. Believe it. He will forgive you your sins. He will give you that everlasting life. He will make you a new creation. Amen.