Having Knowledge by the Word

BIBLE STUDY #1131- CHURCH IN THE HOUSES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2020

Theme: "Having Knowledge by the Word" 1 Peter 1:23 – 2:1-3 Peter was clear in his life, and I think he wanted you and I to learn it. Who better than him to teach us! There is a way to get to heaven, and it is based on the Word, it is not how each one speaks to his great advantage or to his boast. I can't trust myself to know, I must look for what heaven has said! So, you must look for the Word to have the knowledge!

I. "... being reborn..." (This means: to be born again.) Vs.23

A. When reborn comes the life of grace through baptism.

1. It's being back because of a new birth.

2. Peter talks about what he experienced, referring to when he met Jesus, to his new birth.

3. It speaks of the seed (of the seed) of that birth, which is the word of God!

4. It was not his word, but the well-known word of God that was spoken by his Lord. Peter had heard it every day when he was with Him.

5. The new birth is not produced by a corruptible seed.

6. That the new birth is not produced by corruptible seed means that it does not come into our lives in the same way as the natural birth.

7. In natural birth human life comes out of a seed that must obey the law of deterioration and death. That born life has the same quality as its seed; it is also temporary in nature!

8. Instead, the new birth is produced through the word of God!

9. As men hear or read the Bible, they are convicted of their sins, convicted that Christ is the only and sufficient Savior, and so they are converted to God. By the Word!

10. The word lives and remains forever! Vs.23 and 25

11. Even if heaven and earth pass, SHE WILL NEVER PASS!

12. It is forever established in heaven.

13. AND THE LIFE IT PRODUCES IS ALSO ETERNAL!

14. THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN THROUGH THE WORD ASSUME "THE ETERNAL CHARACTER" OF THE WORD (beautiful)!

15. (Vs.24) The transitory character of human life is emphasized by the quotation of Isaiah 40:6,7.

16. Human life is as brief as grass!

17. The physical beauty is as ephemeral as the flowers of the field!

18. "The grass dries up and the flower withers..." It dies!

19. Contrast natural human life with the word of the Lord who abides forever (Isaiah 40:8)!

20. Our new life is like the Word of God, equally incorruptible!

21. This incorruptible word is THE WORD OF THE GOOD NEWS that "has been announced" to Peter's readers and that caused them to be born again. Equal to us at this time!

22. She is the source of eternal life!

23. (1 Peter 2:1) Because believers are participants of divine life, our lives should discard, cast out of us, all of the following traits that go against love:

a. Malice – harboring evil thoughts against another person. Malice fuels rivalry or competition, builds grudges, and secretly waits for the other to be overtaken, by revenge, with harm or tragedy.

b. Deception – making believe something that is not true.

c. Hypocrisy – it is duplicity, the one who lives in false pretensions. The hypocrite is an actor who pretends to be someone he is not. It pretends to be spiritual on Sundays, but it's so carnal. He pretends to be interested in others, but his motives are selfish.

d. Envy – it is jealousy, desiring what another possesses. It is the one that feels sadness to the good of others. Displeasure or annoyance produced against someone for the good they have. It was envy that caused the chief priests to deliver Jesus to Pilate to be killed (Matthew 27:18).

e. Detractions – is to subtract a part of something to infame, denigrate, using malicious murmurings. Slander is the attempt to be clean by throwing mud at someone else.

24. These sins violate the fundamental commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

25. Not surprisingly, Peter resolutely says that we should divest ourselves of such things!

26. (Vs. 2:2) A second obligation of the new birth is to have an insatiable longing for unadulterated spiritual milk, an insatiable desire for the Word of God, which is milk for our spirit.

27. Previous sins stop spiritual growth! God's good word feeds him!

28. As much faith as it is, we should thirst for the word, just as newborns cry out for milk.

29. Through the word, "unadulterated spiritual milk," the believer GROWS SPIRITUALLY!

30. The ultimate goal toward which all spiritual growth in this life is directed is to come into conformity with the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.

31. (Vs. 2:3) “... if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord."

32. What a tremendous reason to be thirsty for unadulterated spiritual milk!

33. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

34. His sacrifice for us was an act of unspeakable (great, intense, extraordinary, cannot be expressed) kindness and goodness (Titus 3:4).

35. If we have already tasted of His kindness, we should stoke our appetite to feed more on Him.

36. The sweet taste of communion with Him should make us have the thought of never departing from Him. Amen.