Peter Barnes | 1 Peter 1:22-25
SERMON NOTES
THE ABIDING WORD OF GOD
1 Peter 1:22-25
– love comes from holding to the truth – Eph.4:15.
1. What we believe directs what we do.
– 1:22. Robert Leighton says that this verse contains the ‘whole duties and frame of a Christian life’.
– Ideas have consequences. Hence the structure in Heb.10:19-25.
2. Truth leads to love.
– 1:22-23. Word and Spirit go together – John 3:3-8; James 1:18.
Love is:
(a) sincere, like Jonathan’s for David – 1 Sam.18:1-4; 19:2; 20:17.
(b) earnest; ‘deeply’ (NIV); ‘fervently’ (NKJV); note Luke 22:44.
(c) from a pure heart.
3. We are grass, God’s Word is forever.
– 1:23-25. Peter quotes from Isaiah 40:6-8; Psalm 119:89, 111, 144, 160; we are like Jonah’s plant – Jonah 4:10; Ps.103:15-17.
John Wesley: ‘I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing – the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri.’