New Life For The New Year

New Life For The New Year

Sowing The Seeds For Growth

One of ?? in a Series

January 24, 1999

I Peter 1:13 -- 2:3

1 Peter 1:13 through 1 Peter 2:3
¹³Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; ¹⁴As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: ¹⁵But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; ¹⁶Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. ¹⁷And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: ¹⁸Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; ¹⁹But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: ²⁰Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, ²¹Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. ²²Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: ²³Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

²⁴For 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: ²⁵But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

1 Peter 2

¹Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, ²As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: ³If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Once again we stand at the beginning of a new year, waiting expectantly to see what unfolds. We make plans, we look over the achievements and failures of last year, and we do our best to make the new year truly new. Over the course of the next few weeks we will be looking at a series of messages that I am calling New Life for the New Year. As we start a new year, the last of the years in this century, let us encourage each other to begin a new life with our Lord.

We all get excited when we receive something new. If we get a new dress, or a new suit, or a new car, the first thing we want to do is show it off. It's the same way with a new life in Christ. The new birth promised by Christ is an exciting prospect, something we will desire to share with others immediately. Let's talk about growing a life with Christ.

If a farmer doesn't plant seeds, he will never harvest a crop. It doesn't matter how weed-free his ground is; he must also plant and cultivate good seed.

In the same way, we can only reap a harvest of purity and integrity by planting the good seed of God's Word into our lives. I'm not talking about merely reading the Bible. I'm talking about allowing the Holy Spirit to plant the truths of Scripture deep into our hearts and minds through consistent Bible reading and memorization, meditation and prayer. To be effective, and to remain pure, truth must be planted in our hearts daily.

Gary Oliver, clinical director of Southwest Counseling Associates in Denver. Men of Integrity, Vol. 1, no. 1.

Suppose your task was to grow a grove of orange trees. You have a plan, you know what you want to do with the fruit, all you have to do is plant the trees. So, off you go to the nursery and you find out that apple seeds are on sale. Well, looking to save some money in the beginning you purchase the apple seeds in bulk and plant them in your field. Are you surprised to find out later that your orange trees turned up as apple trees? Of course not, everyone knows that if you plant apple seeds you get apple trees. It is quite the same way in growing a Christ-like life. You get the result of the seeds you plant. Human life begins with the seed necessary for physical birth and growth, and divine life starts with a seed as well which brings about spiritual birth and growth. Peter speaks to us in today's text of being "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1:23) That incorruptible seed is the Word of God. If we are to see our spiritual walk meet God's expectations, we must understand and recognize the proper seed to begin the growth. Today we are going to examine the seed, the Word of God.

The Word of God is Distinctive

For many many years the Holy Bible has topped the best seller charts. It can be found in almost any bookstore, and in most public libraries. It can even be found on the bookshelves of most public schools. People have Bibles in their homes, and at their offices. The courts use a Bible to administer oaths. Many folks will treat the Bible just like any other book. Many non-believers will assert that the Bible is a good piece of literature. They will tell you that it is full of many fables, and great fairy tales. On the other hand, I would tell you this morning that God's word is much more than just a book. It is more than just a collection of nice stories. God's Word is distinctive from any other book in several different ways. I would like to share four ways with you in which God's Word is distinctive.

First, the Word of God is inerrant. The Bible reflects the nature and character of God. We must accept the fact that the Bible is the divine truth without any mixture of error. This is a crucial point, because it is by the study of God's written word that we are able to discern His will for our lives. If we are unable to steadfastly say that His Word is true, we will begin to question our faith. It is an either/or proposition. Either we believe God's word is His word, or we believe it isn't. We cannot have it both ways.

Second, the Word of God holds authority. When the scripture speaks to us, it is speaking with the same authority as if God Himself were appearing before us giving us our orders. In today's society we often question what is right and what is wrong. We seem to gauge everything upon what seems right at the moment. The overriding thought in discerning right and wrong today seems to be "if it feels good, do it." The only way in which we can have some absolutes in our life is to be listening to the divine authority of God, and the Bible is the place where we will find that authority. If we believe that the Bible is inerrant, then we must recognize its authority in our life.

It is also the Word of eternity. Our text this morning says that the word of God will abide for ever and ever.

²⁴For 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: ²⁵But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Jesus said to us in Mark 13:31 that "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Man's word is fleeting, and more often than not in today's society we find it difficult to take a man at his word. Let me tell you this morning, that today, tomorrow, and forever we can depend upon God's Word. It will stand for eternity.

Finally, the Word of God has a vitality to it that no other literature does. It is as if the Word is a living document. Applicable to us today in 1999 just as it was in 1899 and 1799 and 0099. The word of God can and will transform the hearts and minds of mankind.

The seed of the new life is the distinctive Word of God. There is something unique about this book we call the Holy Bible.

The Bible is Dynamic

Dynamic often times means changing, and this causes confusion when referring to the Bible. God's Word is timeless and will never change, but it is dynamic. By dynamic I mean that it has the capability to affect our lives in such a way as to bring about change.

The Bible reveals Christ to us. If we did not have the Bible, we would have no gospel. Without a gospel to share there would be no message for a sin sick world. Through the bible is revealed the only hope for mankind, and that is Jesus Christ. Abraham Lincoln said:

This great book is the best gift God has given to man. But for it, we could not know right from wrong.

-- Abraham Lincoln, Christian Reader, Vol. 33, no. 5.

The Bible has a redeeming power for us. "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; ¹⁹But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:" Our sinful nature leads us into sin. The scriptures tell us that ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Bible shares with us how Christ made possible our salvation from Sin. Through the Word of God, we are given the opportunity to see Christ redeem our lives from a life of sin.

In the 1993 hit film In the Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood played Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan. Horrigan had protected the life of the President for more than three decades, but he was haunted by the memory of what had happened thirty years before.

Horrigan was a young agent assigned to President Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963. When the assassin fired, Horrigan froze in shock. For thirty years afterward, he wrestled with the ultimate question for a Secret Service agent: Can I take a bullet for the President?

In the climax of the movie, Horrigan does what he had been unable to do earlier: he throws himself into the path of an assassin's bullet to save the chief executive. Secret Service agents are willing to do such a thing because they believe the President is so valuable to our country and the world that he is worth dying for. Obviously they would not take a bullet for just anyone. At Calvary the situation was reversed. The President of the Universe actually took a bullet for each of us. At the Cross we see how valuable we are to God.

Douglas G. Pratt, Allison Park, Pennsylvania. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 2.

The word of God shows us about that cross and shows us how to obtain the gift that God has given to us. There is redeeming power in God's Word

The Bible renews us. Everytime God's word is preached or taught God can use that word to change a life. It brings about in us a renewing of our spirit and a new birth. The seed of the Word falls into the human heart and spiritual growth begins.

Nature has surprising powers of recovery from disaster. One of the most striking examples of this is offered by the Island of Krakatao in the Straits of Sunda. In 1883, an apparently inactive volcano erupted, splitting mountains from top to bottom, and scattering ground and greenery over a wide area. Nothing was left of the island but lifeless mass, a pile, one hundred feet deep, of burned out ashes. Scientists of that day declared positively that no animal or vegetable life could possibly have survived this most gigantic eruption of history. Nevertheless, in the next three years flowers and ferns began to peep out of the soil. Their seeds had been carried there by birds, and by the wind and sea. By 1897, many portions of the ground were covered with vegetation. Ten years more and the island was completely covered with trees and palms. After forty years the island was not only covered with plant growth, but also had its natural share of birds, animals, and insects.

This is exactly how god rejuvenates, or renews, that vast wasteland that sin has turned our lives into. The seeds of His Word begin to grow and eventually take over, changing the entire landscape of our life.

The Word of God is Directive

The word of God gives us direction. It charts the course for our life and tells us what God's will is for us. The Bible demands obedience from us. Not grudging obedience, not partial obedience, but full compliance.

The Bible demands the obedience of faith. We are not to put our faith in men, or works, or in institutions, but faith belongs to God and to God alone. We must not depend upon ourselves, but instead depend upon the graces of God.

The Bible demands the Obedience of hope. Outside of God, we are truly hopeless If we do not have God, our life is bleak, and the light at the end of the tunnel is so dim it is barely there. When we turn to the Gospel of Christ however, we find hope renewed. The Son of God died to give us hope, rose again to seal that hope, and lives within us so that we might experience this hope.

The Bible demands the obedience of love. We are commanded over and over again in scripture to love one another. Our world doesn't know a whole lot about love. Oh, we know a lot about lust, and gratification, but love seems to allude many of us. The secret of true love comes from God and is revealed in His holy word. We must be obedient to the dictates of true Biblical love. A whole chapter of the Bible is dedicated to love. (I Cor. 13) Indeed it could be argued that the whole Bible is about love…about God's love for His creation.

When I led a Young Life group, I did my best to round up kids who really needed to hear the gospel when we went to summer camp. Mark was one of those kids.

Bob Mitchell, the main speaker that week, called most of the shots--including when meals would be served. So "Mitch" was always talking with the cook.

The cook loved her work, but it was exhausting. She always looked tired. Whenever she talked to Mitch, he got up and gave her his chair--and a moment's rest--while they discussed meal plans.

Nobody noticed Mitch doing this ... except Mark.

Mark hadn't come to hear about Jesus. But when he saw Jesus' love lived out in that simple act of kindness by the camp speaker, he began to listen to his talks. Later that week, Mark asked Jesus to be his Savior.

It wasn't because of the messages, Mark said, but because of the love he saw in Mitch.

"If that's what it means to be a Christian," Mark said, "I want to be one."

John Trent, co-author of The Hidden Value of a Man. Men of Integrity, Vol. 1,

God's love will transform us into creations that even we would not recognize.

We have seen that the new life for the New Year begins with a seed, and that seed is the Word of God. It is distinctive, dynamic, and directing. The Word of God has a message for us, and it is up to us to make a decision on how to treat that message. Will we "take care" of the seed and nurture it, or will we allow it to be sown in infertile ground? Are we prepared to accept the gospel or to reject the gospel?

csmims@n-jcenter.com