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Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.
Well, this morning, we are continuing our study through the life of Peter and specifically the book of first Peter. So if you've got your bible, if you got a copy of the scriptures, if you've got your worship guide, we will be in first Peter chapter one, and we'll be reading verses twenty twenty two through chapter two verse eight this morning. And just a little teaser up front, y'all, this is a beautiful passage, and I'm so excited for us to get to study it together. So if you've got your bible, first Peter chapter one starting in verse 22. Redeemer, this is God's word for you this morning.
Cole Ragsdale:It says this, having purified your souls 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. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Cole Ragsdale:Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, chosen and precious. You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
Cole Ragsdale:So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray together.
Cole Ragsdale:Our father, we thank you for sacred moments like this where your people are gathered around your word. And so we pray now, spirit of God, would you speak through the word of God to the people of God for the glory of God? And if you would in your seat, would you pray and ask that God would speak to you this morning through his word? And if you would, would you pray for me, that I would be clear and that I would get out of the way. And so, God, I pray now that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but your word would remain and it would change us.
Cole Ragsdale:We pray in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Well, my wife, Jamison, and I have become somewhat of a documentary junkies. We particularly love the fitness and sports documentaries. I don't know if any of you have been into Full Swing, that's tracking the PGA tour, or maybe you're more of a fitness guy and you are watching the CrossFit documentaries, or maybe some of the untold Netflix stories.
Cole Ragsdale:Jamison and I really like can't get enough of them. And we find ourselves sitting on our living room couch and we are just admiring the ability. We admire the discipline. We admire the diligence. I mean, we admire the skill.
Cole Ragsdale:We admire the the sacrifice that it's taken for these women and men to rise to be the absolute best athletes in the world. I mean, we admire the strength of being able to back squat 500 pounds and throw two twenty five over your head like it's it's amazing and we admire what these people are able to do. Yet even after we have watched these documentaries and we've admired them from a distance or even maybe felt inspired towards athletics or inspired towards fitness. Y'all, I am no better at golf than I was before. That I'm no more able to snatch two twenty five above my head, than I was before, especially since we're sitting on the couch eating ice cream or watching this.
Cole Ragsdale:Like, I'm no more likely to sink a putt, at Augusta National. Why? Because admiration and participation are two very different things. That that admiration of athletics and participation in athletics are going to produce two very different types of results. And I think that if we're honest with each other this morning, that spiritually it's the exact same thing.
Cole Ragsdale:That we can admire Christ from a distance without ever following him following him up close. That we can even sit in pews like this and sing songs like that and hear a word like this and we can nod along and even agree and even leave feeling inspired, but never actually change. That we can admire the cross, yet never be crucified by it. That that we could admire the self giving love of the trinity, yet we organize our lives around comfort, convenience, and control. That that we can admire the bible and even say that it's true, yet never crave it and feast upon it as though it is our daily bread.
Cole Ragsdale:That we can admire hospitality, yet never open a seat at our table. That we can distantly admire Christianity. We can distantly admire the gospel, yet never participate in it in the real world. And thankfully, first Peter allows for no such distant admiration. In fact, first Peter requires of us that we not just distantly admire, but that we participate up close.
Cole Ragsdale:You see the tone of first Peter, hopefully you've caught some of this so far, is a tone of urgency and intensity. That throughout these chapters, there's going to be 30 commands or 30 imperatives. That averages out for about one every three verses Peter is going to say, hey, Christians, you have something to do. In some sense, Peter sees the gospel as like a glitter bomb. That once that glitter goes off, it goes everywhere.
Cole Ragsdale:That no part of the Christian's life is meant to be untouched by this gospel of grace. And so the title of this morning's message is More than Admiration. And as we make our way through these about eight verses, we're gonna look at a few of those driving imperatives or those driving commands that Peter gives Christians and through the Holy Spirit will give to us this morning. And my prayer for us would be that we would move from distant admiration to a gospel participation. And there's three ways I think the text invites us to this.
Cole Ragsdale:In verses 22 through 25, I think we're gonna see we have we're given an invitation to love deeply. To not just admire love, but to participate in loving deeply. And then in chapter two verses one through three, we're gonna be given an invitation for us to long rightly. Not just to admire good things, but to participate in them, to long in them, to partake in them. And then in verses four through eight of chapter two, we're gonna see a supernatural work that God does in helping us become God's house.
Cole Ragsdale:An invitation to move from a distant admiration to a gospel participation through love, longing, and becoming. So with that in mind, let's study first Peter one together. Let's look together at the text. Look at look at verse 22 with me. It says, having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.
Cole Ragsdale:So if you've got a highlighter, a pen, pencil, maybe a crayon rolling on the floor, you're a notetaker, that love one another earnestly, that is the primary imperative of this section. This is our command of intensity from Peter. That we as Christians, those who have received this living hope of the gospel are to love one another earnestly. Earnestly. Now you've probably heard the idea of one one love one another plenty in church, but specifically let's let's drill in on this word earnestly.
Cole Ragsdale:This word could be translated as eagerly or fervently. It's meant to be done consistently, continually, or maybe my favorite image is this idea of stretching out fully. That this is an all out, everything you've got kind of love. Now sometimes you may not feel like that all out stretching out every kind of love and Peter knows that. It's why he situates this imperative and he situates it grounded in the gospel.
Cole Ragsdale:How does he do that? Look at verse 22. He says, having purified your soul. Now, if I can get technical for just a moment here, this is a perfect participle. Now what that means is that it is a this is a past event that has ongoing results.
Cole Ragsdale:That you have purified your soul by obedience to the truth. He's rooting it in the gospel that this gospel has made you clean. And because you have made become obedient to the truth, you become obedient to the gospel, that God has washed you clean in the blood of Jesus, That this past event has ongoing results that you are clean, therefore, you love. But it's not only that participle but there's actually a second one. Let's look at verse 23.
Cole Ragsdale:He says, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable through the living and abiding word of God, that this gospel has not just made you clean, but having been born again, this gospel makes you new. And this second participle, the having been born again, this is actually a passive perfect participle. Let me be a nerd for two seconds. Okay? And what this means is this is something that has happened to you, something that God has caused.
Cole Ragsdale:And it's because of this newborn this new life through the imperishable living word of God that has caused new life in you, what are you to do? But to love one another earnestly. That if you've lost if you've I've lost you so far, this is a great moment to come back in. We love one another deeply because we have been deeply loved by Christ. That we love one another deeply not because we should, but because we have experienced the unimaginable unconditional love of God.
Cole Ragsdale:That we are clean. We are new. It's second Corinthians five seventeen, that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old the old is gone and the new has come. That we are called to love one another grounded and rooted in the gospel.
Cole Ragsdale:It's when we love one another deeply that we don't just admire the living hope, but we actually live in it. Or maybe think about it this way. Okay. I'll be honest with There has been no, illustration that I have used with college students over the past five years that has landed more than this one. So here we go.
Cole Ragsdale:Every moment, every day, every conversation, you have a choice. You can either be a fountain or you can be a drain. You see, because what is a fountain? A fountain is connected to a source and a fountain gives. It's what it does by its nature.
Cole Ragsdale:And what does a drain do? A drain by its nature, it takes. A fountain sends out and a drain pulls in. A drain a fountain is always asking, what can I grant? And a drain is always asking, what can I gain?
Cole Ragsdale:A fountain pours and a drain sucks. But in all seriousness, in every moment, we do have an opportunity to consider, am I trying to get something from this person across from me or do I have something to give? Sitting at a t ball game, watching your child play, are you thinking about how you can support them or how their performance is going to make you look? And as we sit at our cubicles and pull up the excel spreadsheet and someone comes and knocks on the cubicle or knocks on your like fountain or drain. Sitting at the dinner table, are you asking what can I give or what can I get?
Cole Ragsdale:I do have to apologize to a few college parents because there are two or maybe four college students that have tattoos of a fountain on their body at this point. But the question would be, a fountain loves deeply, not because it decided to try harder, but because it's connected to something outside of itself. And I think this is one of the primary ways in which the story of the gospel is far better than the story of the world. Because when we have to answer the question, why should we love someone? Why should we love?
Cole Ragsdale:The world may say, well, love you should love someone because it's a transactional relationship. I'm gonna give you this and I'm gonna get that. Or maybe the world would say like, you know, we love one another because this is a way for me to kind of justify myself as a good person. That I cared for this group of people. I cared for someone like this and it says something about me because I love them.
Cole Ragsdale:Or maybe we would choose to love someone because they're useful to us. They can actually perform some sort of task that will make our lives better. Or maybe we love someone because they're like me. They're like us. You know, we almost kind of associate like they're they're just like me.
Cole Ragsdale:It's easy to love them. It's a love that looks internal. But the story of the gospel is a much better one because we don't look to the self, but we look to a gospel source that we don't love because of transaction. We love because of the transformation we have experienced. That the love of God embraced always becomes the love of God extended.
Cole Ragsdale:That the grace of God embraced always becomes the grace of God extended. That we love one another deeply because we have been deeply loved by our God. So a real practical thing, like slide across the table to you this morning, is in light of first Peter one twenty two through 25, what would it look like for you to do one act of concrete first Peter one twenty two love before you go to bed tonight? Because even when I was thinking about teaching this text, it was like, hey, love one another. It is so easy to leave love vague.
Cole Ragsdale:It is so easy to leave love abstract, but this passage is talking about like like the glitter bomb of the gospel. It gets everywhere. What would it look like before your head hits the pillow tonight for you to send the text, for you to meet the need, for you to send the invitation, for you to bake cook the meal, to bake the cookies, to before you go to bed tonight, for you to love deeply? Because we're not just interested in admiring loving deeply, but the bible commands us to participate in loving deeply. So Peter's first command for us is to love one another earnestly.
Cole Ragsdale:His second is for us to long for spiritual milk. Let's look at chapter two. I'll read verses one and two. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation.
Cole Ragsdale:So following this command, this imperative to love one another earnestly, Peter then gives the command for them to put away or to throw off all of the things that would hinder and hurt that love. I mean, we've got malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. It's interesting that those five things, you could almost say those would be relational poison to any community. This list here, if you wanna blow up your marriage, inject some malice and some deceit and some hypocrisy and envy and slander. You wanna blow up Redeemer?
Cole Ragsdale:Like like inject some malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. That in order for us to love one another, we gotta we gotta throw this stuff off. We've gotta get it away. But then as we throw off these things, in verse two, we're told to take in something. And Peter changes the metaphor on us.
Cole Ragsdale:He says, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk. Long, crave, desire. This verb here, it really, it implies need. I need this pure spiritual milk. Y'all, the Bible's amazing.
Cole Ragsdale:It's so cool. Can I show you why? Like, specifically spiritual milk. Like, can almost infer what are we talking about by spiritual milk. Peter makes sure we know exactly.
Cole Ragsdale:It's the Greek word, And what is? Well, if you look back at verse 23, we see that our new birth is rooted not in your effort or your performance or your good works, what you have or what you haven't done, but our new birth is rooted in this imperish able seed, this living and abiding word of God. Now that word, word of God, the Greek word is logos. You've got logos and logicon, which is the exact same root word. It looks almost the exact same in the Greek.
Cole Ragsdale:And what is Peter pointing at? That in order for you to grow up into your salvation, you are to long for this gospel. You are to long for this word that it is the primary nutrition needed for you to grow. And it is what we are to crave. It is what we are to long for.
Cole Ragsdale:Or maybe think about it this Some of you know this, my wife is a pediatrician and about a couple of months ago she was, taking care of a an eight month old who had come in who was malnutrition malnourished. Electrolytes were off, wasn't quite hitting the proper growth metrics. And so Jamieson began this process of, finding out about nutrition, what's kind of like the dietary plan. And the grandmother who was there, she mentioned, well, she's You know, we feed her every day. She takes her Mountain Dew every morning, just like you would expect.
Cole Ragsdale:And and she said, just put it in the bottle and that's what she drinks. And so this baby was exclusively being fed Mountain Dew breakfast, lunch, dinner. And as you can imagine, malnourished. Electrolytes are off, not hitting growth, growth metrics. Because you would imagine it's sweet.
Cole Ragsdale:And in the moment, it would cease it would cause that baby to stop crying. It was sweet for the moment, but it was bad for growth. And so maybe just like a question for us to consider this morning as a Christian, what are you sipping on? What is your soul feeding on? Because first Peter is an incredibly clear that we are to long not just for anything, not just what tastes good, we are to long for the logos.
Cole Ragsdale:We are to long for the word of God. We're to long for the gospel that it would help us to grow up into salvation because we are those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And maybe even just another way to think about this. I know in the tradition I grew up in, the moment of salvation or conversion was all often put together with an altar call. You would come down front.
Cole Ragsdale:You would repent of your sins. You would trust in Christ. That's That's how I came to know faith, not dogging on it at all. But a passage like this always points me to that the gospel doesn't just have us come to an altar call, but it calls us to an altered life. That it's not just a moment in time that the gospel changes us, but it's through all moments of time that the gospel changes us.
Cole Ragsdale:That we're not meant to remain spiritual infants, but we are to grow up into this salvation. And and may I be like quite plain, the word of God is the primary instrument of the spirit of God for our spiritual growth. I have never met a strong Christian who neglects the word of God. And I have never met a weak one who loves it. So what is your relationship with this book?
Cole Ragsdale:Could it be said of that you long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you would grow up into salvation? Not that it's sweet, not that it tastes like it does taste good, but like not temporarily, but does it actually satisfy? I think I have time for this. I haven't shared this yet. I came to Redeemer for the first time and sat in that, back corner over there.
Cole Ragsdale:I didn't like Redeemer. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. Because at first glance, it wasn't that sweet. It didn't quite seem like Mountain Dew, and I'd kinda gotten used to that. But then week after week, I realized that as this word was preached, and this word was sung and this word was prayed with some good spiritual milk.
Cole Ragsdale:And this church has been a gift to my soul and to my family because of that. And so I would just encourage you to like, there's a reason why showing up to your home group and studying this word matters. There's a reason why sitting in this pew, even though it's a nightmare to park and hard to get in, matters. Not because it's like what we should do, but because it is how we grow up into salvation because we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. So all that being said, what do I do with that?
Cole Ragsdale:Kind of an invitation challenge to you. The next time you open this book or you sit in a room like this opening this book, would you come resolved to come hungry and leave full? To come to the word hungry and say I'm gonna leave confession from mine from me to you. It's really easy for me to sit in rooms like this as a food critic versus someone with a fork and a knife. And it's very easy for me to sit in that third spot at the 8AM service and be like, I wonder where he's gonna take this illustration or that's an interesting choice there.
Cole Ragsdale:Verses, God, I am in need of nourishment. I'm in need of your word. Would you speak to me? May I chew on your scriptures and may it change me. And so may we move from this distant admiration of scripture to this gospel participation.
Cole Ragsdale:We love deeply. We long rightly. Now let's look at verses four through eight where God does a supernatural work of helping us become something. Verse four says this, as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Let's let's take that first clause of verse four.
Cole Ragsdale:As you come to him. Now this is not referring to a past event as when you came to him in salvation or at your conversion, but instead this is referring to this ongoing continual pursuit of Jesus as you come to Christ. And then how does Peter describe Christ? He describes him as a living stone. Now it's here in verse four through eight that Peter's gonna pick up on this stone analogy of Jesus.
Cole Ragsdale:That in verse four, he's gonna be referred to as the living stone. In verse six and seven, he's gonna be referred to as the cornerstone. And then in verse eight, Jesus is gonna be referred to as the stumbling stone. Now why would Jesus be referred to as living stone? Because you guys, this is our news.
Cole Ragsdale:This is our story. That Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead. And that he's the living stone because he's the one who defeated sin, death, and grave. He is the living stone. But then he's very clearly Old Testament and New referred to as the corner stone.
Cole Ragsdale:Why? That we believe that Jesus is the absolutely most fundamental piece of this entire house. That it is from him and for him all things are built. So much so that Peter doesn't just refer to Jesus as the living stone, but he refers to you and me as living stones. Now what what's beautiful here is of course, like off the bat, that means that because we are like Christ, we too, because we're united with him, will defeat sin, death and grave.
Cole Ragsdale:What a hope. What a mercy that we are living stones, but we're not just scattered living stones. We're not just bricks hanging out all over the place, but instead for what first what Peter tells us is that in the hands of the master, he has taken these living stones and he is making them a spiritual house. That he is saying that you and me, that us together are the very dwelling place of God. Which is one of like the main threads of the entire scripture.
Cole Ragsdale:I mean, if I was to sum up the whole bible in three words, it would be God with us. The garden, Adam and Eve and God is in their midst, God with us. And then we make our way to this temporary structure called the tabernacle in which God's presence dwells God with us. And then he builds us a temple and this temple is a place that God will dwell, God with us. Then Jesus makes his way on the scene.
Cole Ragsdale:He'll be called Emmanuel which is God with us. And he's like, hey, by the way, I'm gonna send someone who's better. It's the spirit of God to dwell in you. God with us. I mean this is first Corinthians chapter three where he would say, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells within you?
Cole Ragsdale:That, you know, this is the ultimate rejection of distant admiration and is the ultimate invitation to gospel participation, that you are not just something that looks at God, but we are the people that withhold God, that he is among us in this moment, that this is an invitation to ultimate participation in God's good story in the world, that we are his house. But not only this house, but specifically, let's look at those next four words after spiritual house. To be a holy priesthood. Now, I understand. Twenty twenty six Birmingham ears, holy priesthood, sweet pastor man, don't mean much.
Cole Ragsdale:First audience here in this, the priests who are those responsible for the work of the tabernacle and the work of the temple. It wasn't just any any Joe Schmo who could who could do this. In fact, it was the Jewish people, who would be priests. But not just Jewish people, but it was specifically the tribe of Levi who become who would be these priests. And then within the tribe of Levi, there would be those that would be selected and chosen to get their hands dirty between God and man.
Cole Ragsdale:They would be the ones responsible for handling the bulls and the lambs and the birds. Check out Leviticus if you want more. And and it was there that this very specific group of people would enter the very presence of God and be with him. And what Peter is saying is that is available to all of us. This is the priesthood of all believers that you may not believe me, but like I don't have a direct line to the Lord any more than you do.
Cole Ragsdale:And then like we are all responsible for this ministry in our city, that we are invited into ultimate participation and ultimate access. We are not scattered stones, but we are a spiritual house and we have a role to play. And I love thinking, until the Lord come when the Lord comes and the new heavens and the new earth is established, you know, there's gonna be no distant admiration. It's just gonna be up close and personal participation with the father, son, and holy spirit, That we will feast in the house of Zion. We will feast with our God and sin will be no more, not from a distance but up close.
Cole Ragsdale:And until that day, may we move from distant admiration of our God to gospel participation in our world. How do we do it? By loving each other deeply. Not in the abstract but in the real. Not be not from yourself but from the source of the gospel.
Cole Ragsdale:We love one another deeply and we also must long rightly, not sipping on spiritual mountain dew, but consuming and craving the word of God. And as we do those things, God is creating a spiritual house in which you and I are called to ask act as priests, giving the gospel to a lost and a dying world. And so until that day, may we love deeply, long rightly, and become God's house. Let's pray together. Our father, we say that we need you.
Cole Ragsdale:And God, I do pray that we would be a people who love one another deeply. So if you would, would you just ask the Lord what it would look like for you to love one another deeply today? And if you would, would you pray and ask the Lord to reveal to you what it would look like for you to long rightly after his word today. And if you would, would you pray and ask God to show you what it would look like to become his spiritual house today. And God, I pray for all the things that you just revealed us that we would have the courage to say yes.
Cole Ragsdale:May we not just be hearers of the word and may we be doers of it. We pray this in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. Amen.