We are looking today at 1 Peter 1, the last four verses of this chapter, verses 22 through 25. And as we turn there, we just want to be reminded that the reason we have jumped over to 1 Peter from our time in the Gospel of Matthew is just to receive the encouragement that comes through the Apostle by way of inspiration of the Holy Spirit to God's people in times of suffering, in times of uncertainty, in times of political unrest, and in times of societal upheaval. And that is exactly the kind of time that we are living in now. And so we want to see your souls encouraged and built up The same encouragement that the Apostle Peter sent out in this letter a couple thousand years ago is encouragement that stands for us today. And as we will see, particularly today, is Lord willing, soul stirring. And not only builds us up and encourages us in some type of temporary worldly fashion, but in an eternal measure, applies the gospel to us. Here's what God's Word says in 1 Peter 1, verses 22 through 25. Since your souls have been purified by obedience to the truth through the Spirit unto a genuine brotherly love, love one another deeply with a pure heart. For you have been born again not from perishable seed, but imperishable through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass, the grass withers and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. This is the word that was preached to you. And we add those words that we do, as was reminded earlier, so often the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. As sermons develop and grow, you know that I enjoy and appreciate alliteration. But not all appreciate alliteration. And so I thought I'd share this with you as a summary, and I won't revisit it, but kids, this might be helpful for you as you process this text and seek to understand it and remember it. This summarizes what Peter is saying here, that purified souls out of perishable seed form a passionate society by the perfect Savior given freely in the preached scriptures. Purified souls out of a perishable seed form a passionate society by the perfect Savior given freely in the preached scriptures. And I know that not all appreciate my alliteration all the time. And I thought, you know, life is rough enough right now. I won't drag that alliteration through the whole sermon for you today. I've chosen instead to go with a series of questions, questions of self-examination as we consider this text today to help us apply as we go what Peter is saying to the church. And the first question is this, has your soul been purified by obedience to the truth? Has your soul been purified by obedience to the truth? Now, I've said before in this chapter that it's as if Peter is standing on this peak and he has this grand vista before him of the gospel. And there are all these aspects of the truth of Christ and his redemption swirling around Peter. And he's trying to paint this picture for us. today that this is no less true in this portion of the text. But here is, as Peter mentions, the souls being purified by obedience to the truth. This links together, first of all, God's Old Testament and New Testament people. As in the book of Acts, at that first church council, as Peter stands and makes his speech, I don't know if he prepared his speech beforehand or not, but he stands and makes this speech and he uses this exact same phraseology in application to the Jews. And now he's applying it universally to the Church of Christ, souls that are purified by obedience to the truth. And there's linkage here back to the the purification rituals of the temple and the tabernacle. This is also that same purification that we're commanded to do to purify our hearts. And so we're really dealing with the issue of sanctification, the purity that God's people are called to in obedience and acts in us as we obey. And the larger catechism, which is that more full question and answer document that brings to us the truth of the Westminster Confession, which isn't a self-serving or self-standing truth. It's just a summary of Holy Scripture. And ask simply, what is sanctification? We're reminded sanctification is a work of God's grace. Remember, a work is something that's ongoing. Sometimes it grows, sometimes it seems to shrink, sometimes it's gaining, sometimes it seems like maybe it's losing, but it's ongoing, this work of God's grace, whereby they whom God hath before the foundation of the world chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of His Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God, having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin and rise unto newness of life." And so we see here this again, the swirling of the operation of the spirit in us, applying to us the person and work of Jesus Christ and empowering us and stirring us up and putting in us the seeds of repentance unto life that sprout and take root and grow in us. Sanctification is our operating out of the position in which we have been put and the power that has been put in us by the Holy Spirit. We are obeying and we are obeying the truth through the Spirit. Yes, the Spirit is given to us and the truth is also given to us but it is that truth and the power of the Spirit to which we respond, to which we do, which we obey. Peter is calling these believers to holiness, to this ongoing growth in holiness, which results from being washed with the Word. You see here how the scriptural imagery flow together as it were the washing of the word and we're being purified in obedience to the word. We're washed with the word but we're also continually flushed clean with the purity of Christ's commands and seeing small obediences grow into larger obediences advancing as Psalm 84 tells us from strength to strength. Brothers and sisters, kids, has your soul been purified by obedience to the truth? Peter gives us a way to tell if this has happened. And it can be summarized in this question, do you have a deep, persistent love for your brothers and sisters out of a pure heart? Do you have a deep, persistent love for your brothers and sisters out of a pure heart? Now, kids, you might have looked around the room and looked at your siblings and said, well, sometimes. But we're not talking about just physical brothers and sisters. We're talking about spiritual brothers and sisters. Those of us who have been brought into the family of God As Brother David reminded us earlier, that true relationship when Christ said, those who obey my commands, who keep my word, they are my mother, they are my brothers and sisters. Do you have a deep, persistent love for your brothers and sisters out of a pure heart? Now there is a question. How often are we tempted to despise and reject those who have not become as purified as us? Maybe countering the argument that we have actually been purified. Peter would call us to the fruit of purity in obedience to the word that is love for one another. encouraging in one another and exacting from ourselves all the truth and nuance of that second half of the moral law, love for others. This is neither superficial nor temporary. It should be a deepening, abiding love. Peter uses our conversion as a reason for this. For you have been born again. But ironically, he goes on to use the shortness of our lives as a pressure point. For you have been born again, not from perishable seed, but imperishable. through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass." It's ironic that we're reminded of how short our lives are in light of the eternality of God's word and why we should love one another. It's almost as if he is saying, time is short, so be quick. to show this love. He intensifies it. We're born again. We together address, as we saw a few verses ago, we address the impartial judge of the universe as father. We are siblings, loved ones, familial companions. Let us show one another a deep and abiding love. And we are in such a season where that can be difficult to show that love. We don't have the regular, what we're learning were convenient venues to show our love to each other. We have to do so from a socially distant posture. Some of you have shown our family a great measure of love, checking in, making sure we're well stocked. You ladies of the church have stayed well connected to one another through email and text. Men, you've increased the frequency of times of study and prayer. We have the opportunity, as even we did this morning, to pray for our own little sister who is suffering. symptoms of COVID-19. But brothers and sisters, when this is over, and it will be over, when we move forward into more regular routines, what will be the status of our love for one another? I hear often these days at the end of Zoom calls, I miss you all. I miss being with you all. I miss seeing you. I miss being there at church with you. Will this still be true when we can more readily stand face to face and bump elbows again? I'm not under the delusion that I'll have everyone so quickly trained to hug again. I just got us there and coronavirus struck. This is a good question for us. One to prayerfully consider our love for one another, how we show it, and is it deepening? Is it abiding? Is it here to stay? If this isn't true of you, then Peter would have another question Have you been born again through the imperishable, eternal Word of God? Have you been born again through the imperishable, eternal Word of God? These fleshly, sinful bodies born from our parents have been given new life by the Holy Spirit's application of the word, that imperishable seed to us. We are born again. We are regenerated. We walk in the newness of life. That is now who we are, who we should be within the church. Have you been born again? Have you been born again through the imperishable eternal word of God? And this brings us quickly then to our fourth question. If you are lazy in seeking after this, if you are lazy in determining and understanding, are you born again? Do you understand how short your life is. Kids, how long can you hold your breath? Do you hold it for very long? I have a few favorite places to drive with my kids or when I worked with youth in California. One is the tunnel through the Allegheny Mountains on the way to Pittsburgh. One is the Fort Pitt Tunnel. coming the other way into Pittsburgh. And there's even a great little tunnel in Monterey that goes underneath the pier out in California. And I love those tunnels and drive through them with young people because I love to, as we're approaching, say, hey, do you think you can hold your breath through this old tunnel? Think you can do it? OK, get ready. They start building up their breath. And we head into that tunnel. And as soon as we hit the edge of the tunnel, I take my foot off the accelerator. and I slow down. And sometimes I even hit the brake and I can be creeping quite slowly. And many times I reach the other end of that tunnel to, dad, why did you slow down? I can't hold my breath that long. How long can you hold your breath? Summertime's coming, the pools will eventually open again. Can you swim side to side holding your breath all the way? How long can you hold your breath? But here's a different question for you. How long will you hold breath? In Psalm 90, the Psalm that I've referred to before, because a dear brother in Christ of mine, who's now with the Lord, loved this Psalm. And he loved those bookends of 70 to 80 years. Is that long? Not to 70 and 80 year olds, Definitely not to 90 year olds. My grandpa is gonna be 101 this year, just turned 101. 70 and 80 isn't that long for him. Kids, I know it seems like you'll never be 70 years old. And 80, no way, but trust me, Peter here is reminding us that we are like grass. So we think of the beauty of our world. We might think of the redwoods of California that have been around for thousands of years. We might even think of the date palm over in Judea that was sprouted out of a 2,000 year old seed. They thought this species was extinct and they were able to revive it out of a 2,000 year old seed. That's old. Grass? That's the stuff that, well, it grows like grass and we cut it all the time. And we cut it and we throw it away and we put it in bags for the lawn scraps guys to come by and get. In the old days, we used to be able to burn it. And see, there's a comparison going on here. that Peter is giving us, the shortness of man's breath and the length of the breath of God. 2 Timothy 3, 16 answers that question along with Peter that is addressed in the title of today's message, The Length of a Breath. All scripture is inspired by God, breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for approval, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. That's exactly what Peter's talking about here, this purification, this growth and sanctification. It comes by way of obedience to the truth, which is the word of God, which is the eternal breath of God. Peter goes right into then, talks about the word of God, which lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now, probably in your Bible, that's either in quotation marks or set off a little bit because Peter is quoting and he's quoting from the prophet Isaiah chapter And what did people hear when Peter references that verse from Isaiah 40? Well, what they hear is a drastic shorthand for the beautiful gospel that saves us. Listen to this passage, these eight verses from Isaiah 40. It begins this way. Comfort, O comfort, my people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been pardoned, that she has received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. This is a passage that begins with a declared peace with God. Peter is writing a letter that is going out to saints who are in trouble, who are troubled by the activities of the world around them. And he is reminding them that what's echoing in their minds is this passage of comfort and of peace with God. Then it goes on. The voice of him who cries out, prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low and let the rough ground become a plain and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. That's the script of John the Baptist. That last Old Testament prophet who declared Christ was coming, he was the forerunner to the Savior, Jesus. And it goes on, verses six through eight, the voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall I cry out? The answer comes, all flesh is grass. And all its loveliness is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades because the spirit of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. The shortness of life, that shortness that we see even more succinctly in Job 14 verses one and two. Man who is born of a woman and is of, let me start again. Man who is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and withers. He flees like a shadow and does not continue. The grass withers and the flower fades because the spirit of the Lord blows upon it. In contrast, the heart is made alive to God when his eternal breath that lasts forever The word of God blows over a dead, shriveled soul and revives it. That is regeneration. That is being born again. Your life on this earth is short, loved ones. but our life in eternity is long. Will you live with God in eternity? The apostle Peter reminds them, this is the word that was preached to you. So one last question. Will you respond to the eternal word that has been preached to you? Will you believe? Has the spirit of God blown across your soul and not withered it like grass, but made it alive through the eternal word of God? Will you believe on him? Will you receive and rest in Christ, your only hope of salvation? Let's pray. Father, the glorious beauty and simplicity of the gospel, the comfort that comes with you, the peace that we have with you, the glory that we have seen of you in Jesus Christ because you have spoken it. You had promised it and you fulfilled your word. And we cry out today that our flesh is as grass. We grow up and quickly we are cut down because the spirit of the Lord blows upon us. However, your word stands forever. Father, I pray that you would grant faith, you would grant repentance, so that all who hear this might respond in faith, that they might receive and rest in Jesus Christ, their only hope of salvation. Indeed, their only hope in this life and the life to come. Bless your people, may your beauty shine down upon them. We pray. Brothers and sisters, let us pray together. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.