Morning, brothers and sisters. Let’s read a few Scriptures, shall we? There are three Scriptures from the New Testament.
1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You for coming to us, showing Yourself to us, and becoming, as we were praying this morning, our Rock. We give You thanks and praise because You are our God. You are worthy of all praise and all our thanksgiving.
Lord, we ask this morning that we might see our Rock; that we might see our Lord Jesus Christ portrayed before us by Your Spirit in the Word. And seeing Him, Lord, may we have more confidence in our salvation and in what You have done for us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, let’s see. It’s been a while since I’ve been up here, and I haven’t missed it—I can say that.
The three verses we read all have something in common: they all have to do with life. Born again: new life. New creation: a new life. Conformed to His image: the life of Christ.
When they asked me if I had something on my heart, it is hard to say that without thinking you are being proud or boastful. But I began considering some things that are on my heart, and I thought about the last time—or perhaps the time before last—that I spoke. I think it was in April. I spoke about the testimony of Jesus, the man Jesus: what was His testimony to the world?
I am still caught up with that thought—Christ as man, Christ the new man. I have not been able to shake it, and I do not know whether I should try to shake it or not. But I began thinking about Christ.
The New Testament speaks all about Christ. Outside the Gospels, you have the Epistles, and the apostles who wrote them saw different facets of Christ that particularly stood out to each of them.
In John’s Gospel and Epistles, you see the deity of Christ. Christ is God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
You also see eternal life in John. Then there is Paul, who never met the living man, Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry. But Paul’s Epistles are filled with the One he did meet: the risen Christ.
In his final letter, Paul says, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,” because that is the Christ Paul knew.
Today I want to look at something of Peter. Sometimes we give Peter a bad rap. I am not saying we misjudge him; I am saying that we see him as he is. That is one of the wonderful things about Scripture: Scripture lets us see men as they are.
We can relate to Peter because he is so much like us. He jumps into things without looking. He blurts things out without thinking. He denies. He falls short. Yet he is recovered.
Think of Peter, with all the things that happened to him. Here was a person who was recovered. When you look at him in the Gospels and then look at him in Acts, you see a new creation. He is a different person. He is not the impetuous Peter he was in the Gospels. He is someone else. He is a new man.
Peter saw something in Christ that made a deep impression on him. If you asked Peter, “What was the thing you remember most about being with Jesus?” perhaps he might have said, “After I denied Him, He came to me risen and forgave me.” That would have been a big thing.
Or, being a little more selfish and egotistical, maybe he would say, “I walked on water. It was cool, man. I walked on water. Have you walked on water?”
But the Lord gave Peter a revelation concerning His Son in Matthew 16. Jesus asked, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter answered:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus said that flesh and blood had not revealed this to him, but His Father. Peter saw the Christ.
But I think Peter saw more than what we tend to see in the Lord Jesus Christ. We tend to see Jesus Christ as the vehicle for God’s forgiveness of sin. That is wonderful, and that is a high point. It is wonderful that we have forgiveness through Jesus Christ. But we can almost see Him solely in that way.
When Peter made that confession, I am pretty sure he was not thinking that Christ was going to die. Later in that same chapter, when Jesus took the disciples aside and told them that the Son of Man would go to Jerusalem and be killed, Peter said, in effect, “Whoa, whoa—wait a minute. I don’t think so, Lord.”
So Peter saw something else. He did not see the Lord merely as One who would die. He would later understand that there had to be a Lamb, and that in Jesus Christ was everything required in that Lamb. But when Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” what did he mean?
I think he was saying, “I have seen a man unlike any other man. This man is different to the core. He does not tick like us. There is something in Him that makes Him different.”
What made the greatest impression on Peter? In 2 Peter 1:16-18, in his final letter, the vivid thing in his mind is what he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration.
It was not only the Lord on Calvary. It was what he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration. That is incredible to me. What did he see there? Yes, he saw the glorified Christ. But he also saw Jesus as man—a man with whom God was pleased.
Peter saw a glory in this man that was unlike the men of this earth. The glory did not come by shining down upon Jesus; it came out of Him. It was the life that was in Him.
This is what Peter saw. This is what so enamored Peter: he saw the new man. The vision of this new man captured him, even to the point that, toward his death, the vision was still so vibrant in his mind.
Peter saw that God was pleased with this new man. Think of all the experiences Peter had with Jesus. Consider the scribes and Pharisees. When Jesus said that unless our righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees, we would not enter the kingdom of God, that must have been a shock. They looked like the top dogs—the righteous people.
But where was their glory? There was none, because theirs was the glory of fallen man. The only thing you can do to dress up fallen man is put religion on him. They had a righteousness, but not according to God’s righteousness.
Martin Luther said that he put on a robe and suddenly became a scholar—as though the robe made him a scholar. In the same way, we can think that obeying this and that makes us righteous. But the glory of Jesus Christ came from within, not from an outer show. That is what Peter saw.
This new man was the very One able to offer Himself as the Lamb of God because He had no blemish. Peter saw this during his life with Jesus: He had no blemish.
What is the blemish that man has? We say it is sin. But does that mean one person has a larger blemish than another? “Well, I am an adulterer.” “Gee whiz, I am just a petty thief.” Are there different degrees of this blemish?
What brought about sin? Man fell when he chose the self-life over what God wanted for him. That is the beginning of sin. That is sin.
Is that not the sin of Lucifer: “I will be exalted like the Most High”? “I will be this.” And then: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” It is not simply knowing good and evil; it is choosing what is good and what is evil. “I choose this. I say this is good. I say that is evil.” It is the self-life.
When you look at Jesus Christ, it is not that you do not see that He has a self-life. He does have a self-life. But that self-life is not ruling.
I want to give you six examples, because six is the number of man—the self. Look at Jesus as He does not allow the self to rule in Him.
In Luke 2, Jesus is in Jerusalem at twelve years old. Brothers and sisters, when is the best time to show your self-life? When you are twelve years old and think you are invincible, right?
Jesus was with the teachers in the temple, questioning them. His parents found Him and asked what He was doing there. He answered:
Knew ye not that I must be in My Father’s house?
Yet what happened afterward? He went down to Nazareth and submitted to His parents. He did not say, “You should know I am about My Father’s business, so I am staying here.” No. The self-life was not the ruler. God was His ruler.
Secondly, consider the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3. Who came to John’s baptism? Sinners. So what was Jesus doing there? Even John said, “I have need to be baptized of Thee.”
Jesus could have said, “Father, come on. I am Your Son. You know I have no sin.” But, that all righteousness might be fulfilled, He went down into the water. The self-life was not in control.
Third, consider His temptations. “If Thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” “If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down.” The temptation was to assert Himself.
But it was not “I, I, I.” It was God, God, God.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
Fourth, after the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus about His departure—His death. Then Luke tells us that He set His face toward Jerusalem.
It was not His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. He could have stepped into heaven at that time: “I am perfect. I am Your perfect man, Father.” But He stepped down from the mount to do the will of God.
Fifth, consider the Garden of Gethsemane. It has been said that this is where He fought the battle and won the victory. He prayed:
Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.
Lastly, Calvary—the pinnacle. In the Gospel accounts, when He goes to the cross, He is led to the cross. He is not going there independently. He is led.
He is not saying, “Show me the cross. I am going to it.” No, He is being led, all the way through His life. His self-life is under authority—the authority of the Spirit-life of God.
So there is no blemish in Him, no spot of imperfection. Self was always under the rule of God, and self is the root of all sin. Do you understand that? Self is the root of all sin—not money, not pleasure. It is self: “What is in it for me?”
Peter saw that Christ had no blemish. Later, in 1 Peter 1, he writes:
Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, with silver or gold;
But with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
What is Peter talking about? He is not saying that Christ had no self-life. He is saying that Christ had a self-life submitted to God—like a little lamb going to the slaughter, led there by another.
The Lord Jesus Christ went of His own accord only because He was obeying the Father, but He was led. He was led into the wilderness to be tempted. Self was always under the rule of God.
The last time I spoke about the manhood of Christ, I said that the world saw a man at rest, a man who did not walk in darkness, a man who held communion with God, and a man full of good works.
But what did those closest to Him see? Peter and the disciples were with Jesus intimately. They saw more than the outer man saw. They saw what He was really like.
I work a lot with youth, and sometimes children get enamored with their teacher. I remember kids telling my children, “Oh, your dad, blah, blah, blah.” My children said, “Yeah, you should see him at home. He is not that guy you see.”
But the disciples got to see Jesus at home. What did they see? I think Peter describes it in 2 Peter 1:5-7. This is the character of the new man, who Christ is.
Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
And to knowledge self-control; and to self-control perseverance;
And to perseverance godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness;
And to brotherly kindness love.
This is the new man. This is what they saw in Jesus. They saw it personified.
We tend to think of virtue as moral excellence. But the word itself means excellence. What is the excellence of a knife? It cuts. That is what it was made for. What is the excellence of an axe? It chops wood.
What is the excellence of a man? What is man made to do? He is made to show forth who God is. Jesus had virtue. He had excellence.
The Renaissance ideal of virtù was that a man should live up to all the potentialities God had given him. That is why men like Leonardo da Vinci were artists, inventors, and writers. But the glory of man is not to be everything he can be. The glory of man is to show who God is. We have been made in His image. That is what Jesus did.
This knowledge is not simply what I know. It is knowing what is good because you know God. You see God, you see what He calls good, and you agree: “This is good.”
We live in days when evil is called good and good is called evil. But knowledge is seeing the eternal value that God places on what is good.
Someone came to Jesus and said, “Good Teacher.” What did Jesus say?
None is good, save One, even God.
Self-control means that the self is under control. Patience, or perseverance, means abiding under trial. You do not leave when the going gets rough. You do not quit. You stay, and you learn what God is working into your life.
Godliness is devotion, but the Pharisees also had devotion. Their devotion looked at themselves: “I want to make sure I am doing this devotion so that I am right.” But true godliness is devotion that looks Godward.
How much of our devotion is simply because it is what we are supposed to do, or because it makes us feel better? In our devotion, are we looking for God? Christ had this godliness. He was looking for His Father.
The Pharisees had devotion, but their devotion did not come with brotherly kindness. Look at how the Lord Jesus treated people: those closest to Him and those far from Him. Even when He rebuked them, there was brotherly kindness. Trying to turn a person from a mistake is brotherly kindness.
Finally, love. This is the divine nature. It is divine in motive, and it is worked into the new man—not the divinity, but the action.
Why am I saying all this? Because when we look at Jesus and see this new humanity, it is not so that we merely stand far away and worship Him. These traits are worthy of worship, certainly. But this new humanity is our living hope.
The end of our redemption is that we become like Christ, that we are transformed into the image that is Christ. This is the new man. This is our hope.
Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is expectation. In earlier days, women had hope chests. They prepared for marriage, even if their marriage was a long way off. They put away silverware, sheets, linens, perhaps even a wedding garment.
It was not, “Gee, I sure hope I get married.” It was expectation: “I expect these things to happen, so when they do, I will be prepared.”
That is our hope. We have an expectation that we will be transformed into this image. It is a living hope. It grows stronger year by year. It does not fade away.
Why is this our expectation? Because we have been born again. If we are not born again, there is no expectation. But when we are born again, the seed of the very life that is in Christ is in us—except for His divinity.
We have been born again, not of a corruptible nature like the men after Adam, but of an incorruptible nature. That is Christ. That is why we are a new creation. We are a new race of men.
What secures this hope for us? There are two things. First, His death on the cross purchased forgiveness and the right to this new life. But it is His resurrection that endues us with this eternal, incorruptible life.
Because Christ has risen, we can bank on this. If He had died and never risen, what would that mean for us? We would be of all men most miserable.
But because He has risen, this life is now ours. He is the firstborn from the dead, and He will have many brethren. All who believe in His death and resurrection become new creatures, and that new life is in them.
The Word shows us that these things are ours. In 2 Peter 1:3-4, we are given great and precious promises so that we may know what is ours in Christ and apprehend it—take hold of it.
That is why 1 Peter 2 tells us to long for the pure milk of the Word, that we may grow. This new man in us needs food to grow.
A child in the womb feeds from what its mother feeds on. You know it is alive because it is kicking. Then when it comes out, you give it milk. Later it develops teeth and is ready for stronger food.
It is the same with the promises of God. We start with smaller promises, and as we grow according to those promises, we see larger promises. We see that this life is more than we thought. It grows and grows.
This new life has been purchased for us, and now it needs to be manifested. I hate to use the word produced, because we think that means works—that we must do things to produce this life.
But the life is already in you. It needs to be manifested. God has given this life, and He wants to draw it out of us. Part of its manifestation is so that the world may see this new life. Part of it is so that we realize that this life is in us.
A lot of times we think being a Christian is so hard because we are trying to produce this life. We do not have to produce it. We need to have it manifested and drawn out of us.
How does that happen? In 2 Peter, it says, “Add to your faith.” There is something of faith in this. By faith, we believe in Christ’s death and resurrection. In believing in His death and resurrection for us, we believe unto salvation.
The end of salvation is not merely that we do not go to hell. The end of salvation is that we find ourselves a new man—a completely new man. That is the end of our salvation.
The end of your faith is the salvation of your souls. What does that mean? The self-life is under the control of the Spirit. That is the only way the life of Christ is manifested in us.
Faith is not a mantra: “I believe, I believe, I believe.” It is not positive confession, speaking things into being. How do you get faith? Do you work it up? “I have got it now. Bring me water and I will turn it…” No.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. You have to be in the Word of God. The Word is quickened to us by the Holy Spirit.
When you are reading and something really speaks to your heart, you wonder, “What is happening?” God is talking to you. That is the Word quickened to your heart.
I remember one of many low times in my life, when I thought, “I cannot get back to God. There is no way.” I saw a license plate that said, “REV 308.” It reminded me of Revelation 3:8.
I know thy works; behold, I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut, that thou hast a little power, and didst keep My word.
Man, I was restored. That little word was quickened to me. I came into the presence of God, found forgiveness, and found His presence.
The Holy Spirit nudges us. When we are facing something in life and moving in one direction, a word may come to us and say, “That is not the way.” It may tell us we should not be involved with certain people or certain things.
Then by faith we act on it. We say, “I believe this is the Lord speaking to me, so I am going to act on it.” And when we act on it, we find power to do what the Lord has told us to do.
When we speak about our part in having this life manifested in us, the word translated “add” is related to the Greek idea of supplying or furnishing something for a production. It is where we get the idea behind a choreographer.
In a Greek city, they would put on lavish plays. There was a poet who wrote the play. The government might provide the amphitheater and props. But they needed someone with deep pockets to help fund the production.
That person helped produce the play. Brothers and sisters, we have a role in this life being manifested in us. We can think that God will do everything while we sit there and do nothing, and suddenly it all falls in our lap. That is not how the new life works.
We have a part to play. But we have others helping us. We are teamed with the Poet.
Ephesians 2:10 says:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
The word for “workmanship” is related to the Greek word for poem. Here is the Poet who knows the poem He is writing. He knows the play. He has the plans, and He has the words.
Poetry can take many forms. Some poems are shaped on the page. Some are misspelled deliberately. Some are odes, haikus, or other forms. They express what the poet wants to express, but they do so in different forms.
We are like that. I may be one kind of poem; you may be another kind. It does not matter. We are all from the same Author. That is what matters.
What do we give? Ourselves. We may say, “That is not much, because in myself dwells no good thing.” Or we may think we give Him our talents. But no—you give Him Christ in you.
How do you do that? By denying yourself. When you deny yourself, you let Christ come forward. That is the big thing. Why deny yourself? So that Christ can come forward. You get out of the way for Christ to come forward.
When people see good works, they should not merely say, “You are such a good person.” Rather, they say, “I cannot believe that person did that. Where did that come from?” It is Christ. They touch Christ. They smell Christ. They feel Christ.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels. The earthen vessel has to be broken. The earthen vessel has to be denied. We have to step out of the way.
We can get to the place where, in trying to deny self, we are still trying to produce something by ourselves. But we need to follow the leading of the Spirit. When we do, self gets out of the way. The Spirit says, “I want you to do this,” and in obedience Christ comes out.
It is not you. The treasure comes out. He wants the wealth that is in you.
Life starts out small. But the more you give the life, the bigger and stronger it gets. This is what Peter is exhorting these brothers and sisters who were going through much suffering in 1 Peter and 2 Peter.
He is saying, “You need to see the Christ. And you need not only to see the Christ, but to know that that Christ is in you.” Not Christ in you in the sense that New Age people use it—not in deity—but the nature of this new man is in you.
I give myself. I deny myself so that Christ may be manifested. Through all these things, Christ becomes stronger.
Do not look at 2 Peter 1 as though you move one rung at a time: “This week I will work on virtue. Next week, knowledge.” Life does not happen like that. Life happens all at once.
The Lord may be giving you knowledge so that you will have self-control. You may be showing brotherly kindness because He wants to manifest virtue. You do not know. These are not things for you to attain by your own effort.
What you do is give yourself to Christ. Give yourself to Him and let Him work those things out. Your obedience is your part, because it is God who is working in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.
The Poet is already at work. He is looking for the wealth that you have. He is looking for you to step aside.
In closing, first of all, as believers, we are accountable for our part. Let us not run from this. We are not accountable in the sense that we lose our salvation, but God has given us this great gift, and He is looking for a return.
It is like the men who received talents. “I have given you these things. What have you done with what I have given you?” Does He see Christ in us? Does He see Christ growing in us? Or have we hidden it away, saying, “I want Christ for forgiveness, and I will wait out the thousand years”?
What effect should this have? It has two effects.
First, it has an effect toward God. Linda Pittman read from 1 Peter 2 this morning. We become living stones. We do not become living stones for ourselves. We become living stones for God, because God wants to do something with living stones.
One effect of the new man in us is that we become living stones for God to use as He wills.
The other effect is toward the world, and it is also a testimony to other believers. We become pilgrims and sojourners.
The world begins to lose its hold on us because we are a different humanity. The things that enamor the men of this world no longer hold us as they once did, because we are a new creation.
As Christ grows in us, more and more falls away. We become like that gray-speckled bird that does not fit in with the rest of the birds. It looks different, acts different, and does not eat the same stuff. The world looks at us and wonders, “Who are these people?”
We are no longer looking for an earthly dwelling. We begin looking for a heavenly city instead of a place here. We become like Abraham, looking for a city whose Builder and Maker is God.
Nothing that man can build can satisfy us now. Instead of saying, “I just cannot wait until I retire and enjoy my grandkids and this and that,” we begin looking for something else—something that does not pass away.
But we wrestle with these things. Do we choose life? Do we choose these things? How many of us go home and say, “Hey, who’s playing today?” I am guilty of this.
Instead of taking time to think and meditate, saying, “Lord, what did You speak to me today?” we can wash it down with a little football, baseball, or whatever your drug of choice is.
Peter saw a new man. When we look at Jesus, do we see this new man? Do we see Him merely on a pedestal far away, or do we realize that this humanity is for us?
He did not die merely to say, “This is what things should be like. I made everything right.” No, He died so that we would be saved—completely saved. Not merely saved from hell, but saved from ourselves, to become this new humanity.
Can you believe this? This humanity is pleasing to God. It is so far from my mind to think that I can please God. I know myself. I know the depths of depravity in myself.
But I have a hope—an expectation—that if I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in His death for my sins and in His resurrection, then the life with which He rose from the dead, the life He lived on earth, is for me.
It is not merely for me to look at as an example. It is for me to be born in me and carried out in me, so that I become like Him.
Everyone who has this hope, John says, purifies himself. This is eternal life. This is what it means to be born again: we are no longer men like Adam. We are now men like Christ, because His seed is in us.
Consider these things. Ask the Lord to open our eyes so that we see that we do not have to be paltry little people trying to please God out of what we think we are able to do. We have the very life in us that pleases Him, and that is a testimony to Him.
This is ours. Grab it.
Heavenly Father, how I ask forgiveness that I have not looked at Your gift as something for me. I have taken Your forgiveness, but I have not taken the fullness of that gift—the life of Jesus Christ for me.
Not merely Christ on the cross for me, but Christ in me: the hope of glory, the hope of that satisfaction for You. Lord, forgive me for that.
Lord, I know that I am one who can say, “Hey, this is a good thing to teach.” Lord, how false that is. I want to know the reality. I do not merely want to know the reality; I want to be one who opens his hands to You and lets You have what You want.
You want Christ. It is not that You want me; You want Christ in me. You want Christ in all of us. You want us to be that holy nation and that building that is Yours, where You can dwell.
Lord, forgive me for falling short in my thoughts and even in my caring about these things. I pray for us all that our eyes would be opened to see Christ.
As we read the Word, even if it is something in the Old Testament that we think we cannot get anything out of, surprise us and show us Your Son in it.
When we see Your Son, Lord, I pray that by Your Spirit You would help us to linger there, to look and to breathe in Him, so that we have a sense of Him and the reality of Him.
We do not want merely to look in a book to find things. Lord, we want to find You. Help us, we pray.
To Your glory, Lord, we want to find these things so that You are glorified. Yes, we want to find them so that we are satisfied, but in our heart of hearts, we really want to please You. Forgive us that we do not.
Thank You that You have given us provision, that we can have Christ, and in Christ we can please You. His life can live in us and reign in us. Lord, we pray for that reigning in us, in Jesus’ name.