Amen. Our text this morning is chapter 2, the verse number 1. It commences with the word wherefore. And what Peter means is simply this, in the light of what I have previously said, you should now go on to do what I'm about to say. That's the idea here. What did Peter already saved. What had he already written? Well, go back with me to verse 22 of the previous chapter. He had said to these believers, who were displaced, discouraged, struggling, he said to them, verse 22, seeing you have purified your souls, you have already given attention to this, you're saved, you're born again, as the next verse says, you are purified, you're growing in grace, seeing you have purified your souls and obey the truth, through the help and the power of the Spirit of God unto an unfaithful love of the brethren. C, that ye concentrate upon loving one another. That's the idea there. C, make a priority of loving one another. But he doesn't stop there. He goes on to say, with a pure heart, fervently. The word fervently, there, it means to stretch. It means to go that little bit further. As I was looking at that this morning, it just crouched my heart, I have to say, for us all. To go that second mile in loving one another. To go a little bit further, or a lot more, acts as the idea of fervently. To stretch yourself. Do that which isn't naturally... Well, it's not natural to you. You're going above and beyond what you're comfortable with. And do it with a pure heart, not with sin, not with corruption, not with bad motives, but with a pure heart, fervently love one another. Having said that then, he now comes in chapter two, in the verse one, to deal with the things that hinder loving one another. For example, malice. Guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speakings. Now remember here, Paul is speaking to, sorry, Peter is speaking to people who are believers. They're already justified. These saints, they were saved in regards to their legal standing before God. All the paperwork was in place. You can think of a new job, a place of employment, all your paperwork has to be in place. And that's the idea of these saints, they were employed by God, they were under his authority, he was their master, they were his workers, his servants, and the paperwork was in place. They were saved, they were justified, but they were not totally sanctified. Though see now, These people were still struggling with sin and with flesh. But read this verse again, because God didn't just say it to the people that Peter was talking to. No, he says it to us today. And what a shocking thing it is, men and women, that you and I, as the children of God, should have to be told that we should lay aside malice and guile and hypocrisy and so on. Why do they even exist? Why are they even there? Reminds us, men and women, of our fallen condition, doesn't it? That even though we're saved, these old sins still dog the people of God. Still there. So we're far from perfect. People of God struggle, and we are tested. by our sins and our fallen nature and the flesh and so on. And it does humble us men and women when we fall into temptation of these very sins. And it can happen in a moment. That malicious intent, that guy, that hypocrisy, that envy, that evil speaking. We do it. And it's not until it's done that we realise what we've just done. Because we're sinners. Obviously, The people in Peter's day were struggling with this as well. It's not just this generation. We can't say, oh, well, it's because of all the stuff online. It's all the TV we watch. No, they didn't have those entertainment devices in Peter's day. They had the same problem that we do, sin in the heart. It's still there. Personal corruptions. And that battle, remember the battle that Paul spoke about in Romans 7? I think we need to go there just for one moment, if you could turn back with me to Romans 7 and the verse 18. The apostle Paul says, for I know For a fact I know, that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. And that is the apostle Paul speaking. He's struggling. Verse 19, for the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would, that I do not. If I do that, I would not. It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in thee. Paul, the Apostle Paul is referring to sin that dwells in him. He was not fully and perfectly sanctified, the Apostle Paul. even a sinner like you and me, even after being saved. Verse 21, I find then a law that is, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Evil is doing good. There's still evil there. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, his flesh, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man! than I am, Paul said. Who, who, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Lord is the one who helps this wretched man. And this morning, men and women, the Lord's helping you. Here you are in the house of God and you're wretched. You're wretched. You're malicious, you've got guile, there's hypocrisy, there's envies, there's evil speaking in you. Know it to be true. The Lord's helping today by showing us the sin that we may, with his help, deal with it. Verse one of 1 Peter 2, please turn back with me there now. 1 Peter 2 verse 1, Wherefore, laying aside all malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings. That's a list of sin. Sin. Let's be very clear on this. I'll put it to you like this. This is not godly behavior. Christ exhibited none of these. God, thankfully, praised the Lord. This is not describing Almighty Holy God. It's not. He doesn't have malice. No guile. No hypocrisy. No envy. There's no evil speaking in Jehovah. There's none of it. Hallelujah. Praise God. These behaviours are devilish and evil. And these are the kind of things that we should be casting off. Not boosting in. Not pumping out our chest and talking with great pride about our malice and our guile and our evil speech. It's something to be absolutely ashamed of. You see, the next word here, well, the next two words, wherefore laying aside. Peter has just said, in the light of what I've said, I have called you to be lovers of one another. Wherefore, lay aside all these things that are the opposite to love. There's nothing loving in being malicious and filled with guile and so on. Nothing loving about it whatsoever. Get rid of these things. And Peter puts it this way, lay aside this behavior that is the absolute antithesis, the opposite to loving one another. That word lay aside, let me trace it through a few verses of scripture with you just for a moment. Turn with me, so remember what we're doing here? Peter has just said, lay aside. Lay aside this list of sins. Look how the word is used elsewhere. Turn with me to the book of Acts, please. The book of Acts. And then you follow me through here. Acts 7. So when he says lay aside, he doesn't mean like drinking a cup of tea and set it beside you gently so you can lift it back up again. When Peter, by inspiration, said, lay aside, he means put it away with violence and with such intent to never lift it again. Acts 7 records the event where Stephen, good and godly Stephen, was preaching and serving the Lord And his hearers took hold of him, and despising him. Verse 54. When they, his hearers, heard these things, they were caught to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. So Stephen's been preaching the truth, the gospel. And in verse 54, his hearers, they hear it, and they know it's true. Why do humans behave like that when there's an error? Fix the problem! We love to fix other people's problems, but not so often our own. Well, they hated the fact that Stephen had so precisely and accurately exposed their sin, and they were gnashing on it with their teeth. Verse 55, but he, that's Stephen, having this calm and heavenly frame, but he being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing in the right hand of God and said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God while these men are chomping at the bit to slay Stephen. Stephen's looking into heaven and he can see the Lord standing. And never miss the importance of that. He's not sitting, he's standing. And that's what you do to receive a guest whom you want to honour. Stand to welcome them in. Now, as for this, Tempestuous evil crowd. Verse 56 now. What are they doing? While Stephen has this revelation of Christ before him. Verse 56. Sorry, verse 57. Then they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears. They put their fingers in their ears and shouted to try and drown him out. And they ran upon him with one accord and laid aside. That's the same word that Peter's used, but here it is translated as, and cast him out of the city with violence, with intent. They grab Stephen and they drag him out of the city and they stone him. So these people, Obviously doing wrong, but it's the same word, the same intent. They took home Stephen, and with violence they ripped him out of the city, and they threw him out because they wanted to dispose of him. They want him gone. And that's the exact same word that Peter uses. Cast away. Lay aside. Malice. Hypocrisies. Envy. Go with me also to the book of Romans, please. Romans 12. Sorry, Romans 13. Here's the same word again. Romans 13. Now we know that the word means to cast something away and get rid of it. Romans 13, verse 12. The night is far spent, isn't it? The day is at hand, it's time to work. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. Same word again. Like they cast Stephen out. The Lord says, cast off the works of darkness. Go with me to Hebrews, the book of Hebrews chapter 12. Here's a verse you all do well. And again, same word being used here. Hebrews 12 verse one, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside. Let us cast out every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. You see when Peter says, when Peter wrote rather in chapter 2, wherefore lay aside, he means get to the work with deliberate intent, take these sins and cast them out of the city and crucify them, kill them, hate them and despise them. So there's a very strong language here. You might read that and miss it. That's why I'm emphasizing it this morning. Can I take you to just one more verse? And that's Isaiah 30. With this, we'll then move on. Isaiah 30. I want you to see the emphasis here that the Holy Ghost puts upon this work of dealing with these sins. Here's the same idea. Isaiah 30, verse 22. Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver and the ornament of thy molten image of gold. Thou shalt cast them away as a minstrel's cloth. Thou shalt say unto it, get thee hence. Now he's talking there about their sins and their idolatry. And he says, treat them like a minstrel's cloth. And on this occasion, the word minstrel's cloth here carries more the idea of a contaminant cloth, like a tissue. And when you sneeze into a tissue, it's filled with germs. Just put it in the toilet, flush it away. That's the idea here, in this case. I remember a fella I knew I haven't seen in many, many years. He's not from here. But I had a handkerchief and a cloth, one you wash. And he frightfully watched me one day when I had a bit of a dose of the cold. And I blew my nose and I put it in my pocket. He said, what are you doing? I said, I'm blowing my nose. And he said, why do you use that cloth? He said, why don't we just throw it away? He says, I would rather blow my nose and put it in the bin and get rid of it, not put it in my pocket and carry it for a couple of days. I've never used a cloth like it again in my life, never thought of it that way before. That's the idea of the text. It's a spoiled cloth filled with germs. Just dump it. Let's go back to 1 Peter. When Peter said, lay aside, he means treat these things like a cancerous tumor. Treat these sins as some of it will ruin you and destroy you. You remove them, you dump them, and that's it. You don't entertain them. Here's the problem. The people of Peter's day, they were entertaining these sins. They were shoving them in their pocket and carrying them around. That's the problem here. And it's an incredible thing. But Peter would have to, the Spirit of God would have to say to them, get rid of him. Dump it. The Lord, men and women, says, cut it off. And when the Lord says to take these things and cut them off and dump them, don't be in any way resistant in hacking them off, chopping them off, and getting rid of them with absolute haste. And so if you can see the flavor of malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speaking, you do whatever you have to do to crucify them. They get a priority. You choke them. You dump them. Despise anything that is devilish in your character and in your demeanor. We want to present ourselves men and women as pure before God. And to do that, there must be a hacking work. There must be a removal of sins that persist. Don't ignore your sinful traits, but rather be like the bloodhound that when it gets a whiff of something, it hunts it down. You get a whiff of these sins, you hunt them down. You'll notice here that these are all against the second table, all the 10 commandments. They're all sins against our fellow men. A believer, you and I are called to a higher, greater life than that of a devilish life that is described in these verses. We're called to something better than being malicious and filthy, guile, hypocrisy, enemies, and evil speakings. We're better than that. God has called us to something greater, to be image bearers of Christ. Not image bearers of the devil. children of light, godly, lovers of good, lover of God's people and our fellow men. Let me run through these really quickly, conscious that I've spent an awful lot of time on those first three words there, I know that, but I just want you to really see how weighty this is. The first one mentioned here, this guy through this is malice, okay? Malice means to desire to inflict harm on someone. Just that, that desire to hurt someone, to be hostile in name. I would love to take you to it, but time doesn't permit right now. But in the book of Jeremiah, remember how in Jeremiah's day, the men were malicious against him. Because again, like Stephen, Jeremiah was preaching the truth and the men hated it. They despised it and they did whatever they could. They planned, they schemed to harm Jeremiah just because they hated him. That was it. He did no wrong. He actually was doing them good. but they were intent on being malicious. And do you know what that, as I said, I can't take you to it, but in Jeremiah 11, it says there that, well, Jeremiah goes to the Lord and he says what these men are doing. Well, the Lord turned around and said that I will do to them what they would do to you, Jeremiah. They wanted to kill him. The Lord says, I'll kill them. Think on Haman, who set up the gallows out of malicious intent. He hated the Jews. He was going to hang them. God turned it right around. So think about that. When you feel that malicious thought in your heart and mind, you be very cautious. In case God would turn those gallows that you are building against somebody else, he would use them against you. Let that be a check that we're not being malicious. You see, not only being malicious, behaving in a malicious way, but even the very thought of malice, even just the thought of it, is still sin. But has there ever been occasions, men and women, you might never do it. Secretly, they're just people. You would love them falling into trouble. You would just delight in seeing some mischief overtake them. You would never say it, but you thought it. Let me tell you something, Christ has never had such a thought once. But Christ actually prayed for his enemies, and we would do well to follow the example of Christ. Guile is the next one here. And guile means being deceitful, crafty, all right? It's doing someone a wrong without them actually realising it. It's planning, premeditating, thinking some plan through so that somebody gets hurt and they don't even know that it's you. They think that you're being kind to them, but actually, secretly, you're doing them harm. Let me read you a couple of examples here. I'll just read it, Matthew 26 verse 4, speaking here about the religious leaders. And they consulted how they might take Jesus by sutility and kill him. And that word sutility is the same as the word guile. Those religious leaders elsewhere, the same idea, it says, after two days of the Feast of Passover and the unleavened bread, the chief priests and scribes saw how they may take him by craft or by guile and put him to death. You see, these men, they wanted to appear good. They wanted to appear like upholders of truth, teachers of good, while all the while they're doing evil. That's the Pharisaical scribe-like mentality. Just like the serpent in Genesis. Talk about truth. The devil was counselling Eve about truth. He went up to Eve and, you, hast God actually said? Did God say these things? And he's challenging the perfection of Jehovah? That's guile. That's craftiness. All the while the devil, although he was making himself appear to be someone who would help Eve, in fact, he had only her hurt in mind. These things should not exist in the child of God, but they do. You and I ought to hunt them down, chop them off, hack them away, flush them, never to see them again. Third one here. And I'm sorry I'm running through you so quickly, but hypocrisy. Again, the idea of hypocrisy in context, it's the complete opposite to love. You see, what is hypocrisy? It is pretending to love. A hypocrite in the church is someone who would put on a show to pretend to love the Lord, and pretend to love God's people, and pretend to love God's word, and pretend to sing, and so on. It's acting. That's not real love. The Lord sees that. The Lord knows that. And Peter said to the people, no hypocrisy. The love of the hypocrite is empty and helpless. The time of need to hypocrite won't be there. Would you turn with me for a moment, please, to Psalm 55? Psalm 55. Child of God, do these things rumble in your heart and in your head? Psalm 55, verse 21. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter. But war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords. And here you have David here talk about those who planned to harm him, and with hypocrisy they would talk so sweetly to him. Butter-like mouth, oil-like words, but nothing but hatred and war and swords in their heart. Child of God, is that ever you? Go back to 1 Peter 2 1, it speaks here about envies. And all I say about envy is that it means being annoyed at other people's success. It's being bitter and resentful. When you see someone else doing well, God's blessing them, and providence just seemed to shine on them, but you get really bitter. You hate them, because they're doing better than you are. God says that is sin. There's many verses dealing with that, but let me just say this. We ought to rejoice with them that rejoice. When others are enjoying blessing, you thank God for it. The last one here is evil speaking. 1 Peter 2 verse 1, the last words there, evil speaking. And really, evil speaking is the outward evidence that all of these are in the heart. When you speak evil of someone, When you speak unpleasantly of someone else, it's because, maybe you don't even recognize it, but it's because there's malice and guile and hypocrisy and envy in your heart. Your tongue will only express what's in your heart. That's how you and I can see our own sin and other people's sin, when there is that evil speaking, evidence of malice, guile, hypocrisies, and envies. But can I just highlight one wee word that you may have noticed or not noticed in our text? Read with me the verse again. It's the wee word all. Wherefore, leg aside all malice, and all Go to the end, it says, and all evil speakings. So it's not just one sin. It's huge. It's more like Ivy. Ivy's a real nuisance, isn't it? And listen, if you know anything about trying to get Ivy under control, you know full well that it's absolutely useless to go out with a wee pair of scissors and snip a few leaves. you might as well do a dance in front of it. Because the ivy's still there, and the branches keep on growing. Even when you take a branch, or a vine rather, and you break it, it just grows somewhere else. Ivy's a real pain to get rid of. And you put a weed killer on it, and it kills everyone else, but the ivy just seems to flourish. That's the idea of vortex. This malice and guile and hypocrisy and envy and evil speaking, it just flourishes in us. There's just this fertile ground in our sinfulness. And so that's why Peter speaks with great intensity, lay asides, cast it off with violence and with speeds. And make sure you deal with it so you're not going to touch it again. Don't cut the leaves, don't just pull the vine, but dig down into the roots. And to get the roots arriving, I tell you, it is a miserable task. You're on your knees and you're digging constantly, you're following the vines and you're trying to pull them out by the roots. It's the only way to do it. And soon there is work involved in getting rid of these. So I don't want you going home today and thinking, well, I've heard a message of these things and I'll keep an eye out. No, no! We intently pray. Lord, help me with malice and guile, hypoxia and envies and evil speakings. Lord, rid me of this poison. I don't even see it. I don't know how to deal with it. but it's ruining you and your relationships and the work of God, and it has to stop. It has to stop. In closing, can I turn you to someone who is the absolute opposite of this? Will you turn over just a couple of books? No, that's right, turn back a couple of books to Philemon. You have the book of Hebrews there, Just before Hebrews, you have Philemon. Just read this, was it last night, yesterday morning, whenever? Beautiful verse. And this, men and women, is where I want you and I to be. Paul here is writing to Philemon, and it's mostly about Onesimus, this servant. But anyway, look what he says about Philemon himself. Look at verse seven. For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels, the hearts of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. Isn't that a beautiful phrase? The people of God, they are refreshed by thee. Your behavior, your participation, your friendship, your love, it's like a refreshment to the people of God. And those around us, can they say the same thing? I must say, that greatly convicts me as well. Our neighbours, our family members, our church family. Are we refreshing? Why was Philemon so refreshing? Because the love of Christ dwelt in him abundantly. Because Christ was in Philemon. And you will notice when you read the Gospels that when Christ was going from place to place, people were attracted to him. Why? Because Christ was refreshing. He's refreshing. Are you refreshing? Or are you malicious, filthy guy, hypocrisy, and so on? Men and women, we want to be pure before Christ. We want to be like Christ, to refresh those around about us. And may God give us grace to be further sanctified and to be more like Jesus of Nazareth, who refreshed all that came to him. Let's please take our hymn books.