I Peter 1:14
(A Bible Study Led by Dr.
Larry Reynolds)
June 20,
2013
1.
If you happen to be up in the middle of the
night and turn on the television, you will discover that during those ours many
channels are running infomercials. Many
of the infomercials deal with self-improvement products. And most of these self-improvement
infomercials follow the same pattern.
After describing the product, there are a series of testimonials from
various people who have supposedly used the product and had their lives changed
by it. They will talk about what they
were like before using the product and then talk about how much better their
life is or how much improvement they have made with the help of the product. Often
before and after pictures to give credibility to their testimonial. One of the more popular infomercials is for a
procedure called “Lifestyle Lift” which is apparently just a softer name for “face
lift.” Debbie Boone, the daughter of Pat
Boone, is the spokesperson for this product. As part of the pitch, incredibly
unflattering photos of people are shown before they’ve had the procedure and
unbelievably flattering photos of the same people are shown after they’ve had
the procedure. It is such a difference, it’s got me to thinking about doing it!
2.
It may surprise you to discover that drawing
before and after comparisons is not a new marketing method. It has been around at least as long as the
New Testament. In our study of I Peter we
are going begin looking in this session at I Peter 1:14-25 which uses this “before
and after” method. In v.14 Peter
describes the lives of his readers before they came to faith in Christ. In
vv.15-25 he describes what their lives should be like after coming to faith in
Christ. Read I Peter 1:14-25.
·
Verse 14 describes our lives before we came to
faith Christ. We are going to focus on
that single verse in this session.
·
Verses 15-25 describe our lives after we came to
faith in Christ.
Only
one verse to describe to describe what we were before Christ and 11 verses to
describe what we are now that Christ is in our lives. There’s a significant truth to learn from
that. The Christian life not essentially
a life of regret and guilt over past mistakes.
It’s a life that focuses on what God desires for us today.
3. In
our next session we will see that verses 15-25 tell us that life in Christ is a
life characterized by holiness, by reverence for God, and by love for
others. But in this session, we are
going to focus on what life apart from Christ is like. Essentially verse 14 tells us two things
about our lives before coming to faith in Christ.
I.
Life
apart from Christ is characterized by lusts
1.
Word NASB translates “lusts” is
translated in a number of different ways by biblical interpreters...some
translations use the word “passions” others “evil desires”
and still others “cravings”...the word is “epithumia”...compound
word...first part is preposition which can mean ‘”over” and second part
is from word which carries the idea of “desire”...thus the word
literally means “over desire” or “too much desire”...”epithumia”
is an unhealthy, unchecked, out of control desire...
2.
In the five chapters of I Peter this word is
used four times...each time the NASB translates the word “lusts”...and
each time the word is used there is a warning attached to it...
--in 2:11 warned “...to abstain from fleshly lusts,
which wage war against the soul.”
--in 4:2 told “...to live ... no longer for the lusts of
men, but for the will of God...”
--in 4:3 places the word in its appropriate company including
things such as “...sensuality ... drunkeness, carousals, drinking
parties, and abominable idolatries...”
3.
Point of all that is before they were
transformed by Christ, these Christians who were scattered throughout Asia
Minor were consumed by the wrong priorities...instead of living for God, they
lived for themselves...and what was true for them is true for every person
apart from Christ...
1.
Unregenerate human nature is always
characterized by self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness...that is the
very essence of sin--choosing my way, my desires, my will over God... it is
easy to look at our culture and conclude this bent to perversion which
characterizes much of our world is a new thing... want you to know it is not
new at all...actually nothing is going on in our world today which has not
always been present in the lives of people who have no regard for God...
2.
In his commentary on I Peter William Barclay
points out that—
--in both ancient Greece and Rome homosexuality was so prevalent
that the people in those cultures came to view that which was unnatural as
being natural...
--marriage was held in such low esteem that Jerome wrote of
one woman in Rome who was married to her 23rd husband and she was
his 21st wife...
--while poor people were starving the insensitive rich dined
on such delicacies as peacock brains and nightingale tongues...
Barclay writes, “It was a world mastered by desire. Its aim was to find newer and wilder ways of
gratifying its own lusts. It was a
desired dominated culture.”
3.
Sound familiar?...unregenerate human nature is
the same whether it’s in the 1st
century or the 21st century...and people will never by substantially
changed morally by social reformation or by legislation or by any other
external means...the only way to change a person is to change that person from
the inside out, to change the heart...that’s why the NT doesn’t talk about
social reformation; it focuses on spiritual transformation...and that’s where
our emphasis should be as well...
4.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says it well: “If any man is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”
II. Life
apart from Christ is characterized by ignorance
1.
There are many very intelligent people in our
world...we are living in the middle of a knowledge explosion…so many new
discoveries are being made and technology is advancing so rapidly, it is
impossible for anyone to keep up…I read this week that eye experts in Australia
implanted a bionic eye in a woman named Dianne Ashworth. The once totally blind woman is now able to
distinguish shapes. /www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/in-science-robot-eyes-comets-and-big-discoveries/story-fn5fsgyc-1226551236578]
2.
And when the Bible says that those who live
apart from Christ are characterized by “ignorance” could it
possibly mean people so intelligent they could do something like that?...and
the answer is yes!...the clear teaching of Scripture is that all people,
regardless of their IQ or educational achievement, are characterized by “ignorance”
apart from Christ...
3.
Now having said that, it is important for us to
understand what the Bible means by “ignorance”...this word does
not mean a lack of all knowledge...it is referring to a lack of a specific kind
of knowledge...the word is “agnoia” from which we get our word “agnostic”...and
in the context of this verse the word means lack of knowledge of God...
4.
It is possible for a person to be extremely
knowledgeable in science or math or history or business administration or any
other disciplines and still be ignorant in the knowledge of God...and
tragically, our world is filled with people like that...
1.
I never cease to be amazed at how ignorant and
easily misled people can be when it comes to things of God...driving between
Austin and Waco a couple of weeks ago I saw a large billboard predicting
specific time and date when the world was going to come to an end…
2.
Plato said, “It is hard ... to find the
framer and the father of the universe; and if one did find him, it would be
impossible to explain him in terms we could understand.”...Aristotle
spoke of God as “...the supreme cause, by all men dreamed of, and by no
man known.” [From Barclay’s commentary]
3.
But Jesus changed all that...in Christ, God
became flesh...He came to our world in a way we can understand...as Paul put it
in Colossians, Christ is “the exact representation of the invisible
God...”...if you want to see God and to know what God is like, all you
have to do is look at Jesus!...and apart from Jesus who is the full and
complete revelation of God, every person lives in ignorance of God...
CONCLUSION
1.
I Peter 1:14 is essentially negative in
nature...however, from the negatives we can draw some positive conclusions...if
life apart from Christ is characterized by lust and ignorance of God, it
follows then that life in Christ is characterized by self-control and knowledge
of God...without Him, without Jesus in our lives we will always come up short
and we will never experience the best life has to offer...
2.
There’s an old chorus which says it well:
“Without Him I could do nothing; without Him I’d surely
fail;
Without Him I would be drifting, like a ship without a
sail.”
3.
The teaching of this part of God’s Word is that
apart from Jesus we invariably drift into a life of self-indulgence (“lusts”)
and a life separated from God (“ignorance”)...
