A Life That Doesn't Fall Apart How We Grow Up

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A Life That Doesn’t Fall Apart How We Grow Up Spiritually October 9, 2016 // Elisha Lawrence // 1 Peter 1:22-2:10 The Savar Building Collapse in Bangladesh What happened? April 23, 2013, visible cracks could be seen throughout the structure of the Rana Plaza Workers in the building were scared The building was evacuated and an engineer came into to assess the situation The engineer recommended that it remain closed And for a more detailed investigation into the buildings soundness Ignoring the engineer, Sohel Rana (the owner) had his own inspectors and engineers examine the building. He bribed officials and used influence to get around the problems Sohel ignored the warnings from other engineers and the dangers of the building He was concerned with losing corporate deals He had major dealers in Western markets who weren’t sympathetic Delays like this could cause you to lose orders to others The next day, hundreds of workers showed up to work They were angry and confused They assumed they would shut down the building because of its unsoundness Many were hesitant to enter the building Sohel ordered them inside and warned that he would fire those who didn’t get back to work
 


At 8:45 AM, the workers reluctantly entered the building 15 minutes later after a power outage, the generators kicked on Shaking the building violently Panicked, workers began to run for exits, but before they could escape the structure, there was a loud clap the building began to progressively fall from the top down each floor collapsing on top of the other in a pancake fashion. Several thousand were trapped beneath the rubble Months later the death toll reached 1129 people

Making it the deadliest accidental building collapse in history. The land underneath the Rana Plaza was unsuitable for construction.  The ground the Rana Plaza was built on was unfit for a multi-story building Before construction, The Plaza was marshy swampland with a pond However, instead of removing the unstable soil and replacing it with better, stronger soil with the strength needed to support the building, rubbish and trash was used to fill in the swamp. Sohel bribed government officials and engineers to sign off on the building. Sohel Rana "used extremely poor quality iron rods and cement".  They used cheaper materials to build the building The cement had too much sand The floors were too thin With the proper materials, this collapse would not have been so devastating Loads were added to the building that were not in the original design.  The Building had added three stories, which had not been approved. The additional load was far too heavy for the already weak supports. The scary part about the Savar Building collapse is that it didn’t happen immediately. Rana Plaza was built in 2007 Sure it began to show some concerning things They started to notice cracks in the walls They could feel slight movement in the floors when the generators turned on But they just kept working When workers voiced concerns, Sohel Rana, the owner, made a quick check and then threatened a dock in pay if they didn’t return to work in the morning Later that day, the building collapsed and thousands of people died The crazy thing about this tragedy is the reasons behind it Why would Mr. Rana continue building when he’d been warned not to do it? Why would he press on risking these people’s lives? Because Mr. Rana built his life on something too He built his life on financial success He was willing to cut corners and offer bribes if he could keep lining his wallet And to be fair, Western retailers weren’t calling him out either They turned a blind eye because the price was right Profits and price margins were more important than poor working conditions

The foundation of the Rana Plaza was financial success And it came tumbling down both literally and metaphorically So what are you building your life on? What is at the foundation of your life? Do you have? A life that doesn’t fall apart: how we grow up spiritually 1 Peter talks about your spiritual life as a building He talks about the importance of our foundation The materials we build with And how we build We’re turning to Peter’s words today so that we don’t have a Rana Plaza Collapse So turn with me or the words are on the screen to 1 Peter 1:22, we’ll be reading thru verse 10 of chapter 2. 1 Peter 1:22-2:10 Having purified your 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 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. 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, 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. 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.” 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. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Peter starts off saying “your obedience to the truth purifies your soul” But what does it mean to “obey the truth”? It sounds odd. How do you obey truth? It’s a logical question Stating something true doesn’t require obedience I can say, “I’m wearing khaki pants” and there is nothing to obey in what I said It’s true, but it’s not a command You would just say thank you for notifying me We obey commands not news or facts. Fact- your room is dirty (nothing to obey, necessarily) Command- Go clean your room (clearly can be followed) I know a lot of college students who are not motivated to action by their rooms So how do you obey the truth? Well in this case when Peter is talking about “obeying the truth” he is talking about the good news of the Gospel 1:25 “this word is the good news that was preached to you” So Peter is saying “obey the Gospel” What does the Gospel contain that we should obey? If we read a little later in 1 Peter it will give us a clue. 1 Peter 2:6-8 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.” 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.” Look again at verse 7 It says that there are those who don’t believe Their unbelief is described as rejecting the cornerstone (which is Jesus) And verse 8 says their unbelief is disobedience If unbelief is disobedience, then what is it to obey? To obey is to believe So obeying the gospel means believing the gospel Which means 1) The foundation for the Christian life is believing the gospel Peter is telling us to believe the good news about Jesus in 1 Peter 1:22 What does he mean? To understand that we need to understand what Peter means by Jesus being a cornerstone In the 1st Century a cornerstone was key to the foundation of a building It was the first rock to be placed in the foundation and it determined the placement and size of every other rock. It went in first and every other rock was changed by this rock Think about it like packing your car for a vacation For me this changed drastically with our first child Somehow adding one person we added ten more bags Every trip is another jigsaw puzzle Can I fit all these bags into this car? And just like every Dad, I’ve developed a strategy You can’t just throw it all in there There are two things that always go in first: The Pack N Play and the Running Stroller Baby’s got to sleep And Mama’s got to get out of the house We love our family, we really do If it came down to it, other bags could be left But those two always made the cut Whatever is most important to you go’s in first

That’s the idea with a cornerstone The cornerstone goes in first It’s the most important thing Everything else is negotiable Peter is saying, believing the gospel means Jesus is the first thing He goes in your life first He is the foundation of your life Everything else is negotiable, but you absolutely must have Jesus Jesus is who we build our lives upon 1 Peter 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; He is the foundation for our salvation I have been “born again…thru the living and abiding word of God” He gives us new life We are totally changed in and through Him Obeying the gospel means I agree with it I agree with God that Jesus is my only hope for new life Any other way leads me to stumble It is a foundation that will crumble 1 Peter 1:24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, Other foundations are like grass or a flower Grass withers away and the flower dies And so does a false foundation for your life If you have a shaky foundation Your life will begin to show cracks And eventually it will fall apart What are the other foundations that we could build our lives on? You could be like Mr. Rana who believed that life is about money For him, everything else was negotiable

Following the law, integrity and caring for people Those might matter to him…but they weren’t the cornerstone Making money was the ultimate thing It ruled his life when push came to shove Or maybe you are more like me and comfort is your foundation Sure I want to love my family and seek the Lord But it better not get in the way of my comfort As long as it doesn’t get in the way of my comfort, we can do it But if you touch my cornerstone, I can get nasty With my family and more tragic with God Sometimes that looks like me having a sour attitude after a busy day Frustrated that there was no time for myself, no time to rest and relax Of maybe your cornerstone is people’s approval So you avoid speaking up about anything that will make waves And you pretend that everything is okay when someone hurts you And you spend hours on end wondering about what people think of you You work incredibly hard to make sure that those who matter most accept you and think highly of you You build your very life on controlling other’s opinions of you I don’t know what your cornerstone is But I know that you have one You can’t have two foundations—just like you can’t have two masters One will rule you and when push comes to shove you’ll hate the other if it gets in your way You always build your life on what you believe matters most Whatever is your chief objective is your foundation Whether success, comfort or pleasure We all have something we stake our lives on We all have a foundation And if your foundation is something other than Christ Cracks will begin to show and your life will fall apart And I’m not talking about plumbers And those cracks are a sign that you have something faulty as your foundation But the foundation that is laid in Christ will never fade

1 Peter 1:23 says it is “imperishable” and 1 Peter 1:25 says “the word of the Lord endures forever” or the good news of the gospel endures forever That’s saying that in the gospel you have a foundation that will endure forever The most important thing cannot be taken away This passage shows us two things the gospel tells us which prove to be a solid foundation God’s love for you will never change This means His love for you isn’t based on your performance When you believe the gospel 1 Peter 1:22 says your soul is purified Believe that Christ took your place on the cross His pure soul is now yours Earlier in 1 Peter it says, you were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ God gave up His son so that you and I could have a pure soul So that we could be His children His children that He loves and lives inside of He doesn’t love you because of what you do But because of what Christ did on your behalf He now sees you as the perfect Jesus Christ And His love for you is constant, steadfast, and unchanging Nothing can separate you from it! And because His love for you never changes Your salvation cannot be taken away The building won’t collapse Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. If you build your life on Christ, you can be sure that one day all sin will be taken away 1 John 3:2-3 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see

him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. This says that when he appears we will be like Him Meaning that there is no more sin No more struggle with lustful thoughts No more fight against racial injustice No more self-doubt No more cancer No more dealing with the pain of losing a family member No more falling into that same habitual sin It will all be gone This is a foundation that will last The love of God that delivers you from sin now and forever What you build your life on really matters If your rock is how you look, your beauty will fade If your rock is financial security, that doesn’t hold your marriage together If your rock is relaxing weekends, the workweek always returns and retirement doesn’t give you the peace you thought it would Your building has cracks and eventually it will crash down Place your hope and your trust in grace of God in Jesus Christ It’s the only thing that will last How you build on your foundation is incredibly important Building too quickly or Building with the wrong materials will cause your building to crumble We could build our lives up with all kinds of ideas Do we turn to the world around us or the Word of God for truth? 2) The Word of God is how you build up your life in Christ Peter says there are things that won’t build up your spiritual life They are opposed to faith in God They aren’t the actions of someone who is infinitely loved But instead are the actions of an insecure person Searching for meaning and value in their life He describes them in

1 Peter 2:1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Malice is evil or wickedness in someone It manifests itself in an opposition to God that wants God’s gifts without God The desire to have God’s blessings but not God Malice says God’s not for my good It doesn’t trust God or see Him as a loving Father It is the desire to have control of your own life Malice says, God I really like this creation of woman, but rather than treating her with respect and dignity, I see her more as an object for my pleasure So I’m going to watch pornography when I feel like it Malice pushes God away and misuses His created things Hypocrisy comes from an acting term meaning having two faces Actors would play multiple people in the same play You knew the character they were playing by which mask they wore in that scene Spiritually hypocrisy means that you perform for whatever audience you’re around When you are at the church, you wear the church mask You know how to put on a façade You can speak the lingo And appear to have it all together But when you are around other people Another mask goes on Your lingo changes You act differently Your Christianity disappears It isn’t real at all You’re just performing for the audience you’re around Hypocrisy says God couldn’t possibly love me for who I am So I have to craft an image of me that He’ll accept I can’t let him see who I really am And it sees people as bigger than they really are And God as smaller than He really is Hypocrisy ignores the fact that God already knows the core of who you are You can’t hide from God Envy is bearing a grudge towards someone

It starts as anger and it sours over time That anger turns to a disdain for others Because you deserve what they have When you’re envious, you rejoice at others misfortune You have to cut down others who are doing well And you can’t rejoice with others success Envy doesn’t see God as for us With envy, we take things into our own hands We’re always the victim, having to fight for ourselves Envy doesn’t trust God’s goodness and love for us It doesn’t see Him as working all things for our good All these traits are the actions of someone who has missed God They miss His massive glory They miss the power of Him living inside us They miss His unchanging love and commitment to us This is why Peter says to get rid of these things He says don’t miss God Don’t project on God things that aren’t true Look instead at the true character of God as revealed in His Word And long for more and more understanding of it So that you’re life can be changed by it “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.” The pure spiritual milk is two things that are equated in Peter’s mind When Peter says the word he means the gospel and the Scriptures He doesn’t see a difference between the two To Peter, the Scriptures are the story of the gospel The word of God is the gospel All of it is the good news about Jesus All of Scripture is about the gospel Every story is about Jesus And what should our attitude towards the gospel/Scriptures be? We are to “long” for the gospel as an infant longs for milk This image is very powerful for us

Any parent who has been around a hungry baby can testify Babies gonna eat Newborn babies eat every 3 hours And they let you know when they’re hungry Babies scream as much as me on a rollercoaster Which is a lot if you’ve ever done that with me Babies are desperate for more milk Newborns know their need They aren’t ashamed of it This is how we are to long for the gospel found in God’s Word We are to be desperate for it We should know that we can’t live without it A baby wouldn’t go a week without eating My daughter is almost two She’s just starting to talk And every few hours you can guarantee she’ll let us know what she wants “Nok, Nok, Nok” She doesn’t forget about it Baby’s hungry and she wants to eat So for us… How is it that our desires are so weak? Most of us are content with a sermon for the week We can go entire days without thinking about the Lord If a baby doesn’t eat for a week, you know something is wrong That baby is sick It needs to go to the doctor Guys, if we’re building our lives on the foundation of God’s love If that is the single most important thing in our lives We can’t go a day without reminding ourselves of that We have to feed on that truth daily This is why we desperately need to read Scripture Meditate on it and memorize it The Rana Plaza fell in part because of the shoddy building materials They didn’t take care to build well upon the foundation

In the same way, our spiritual lives are going to fall apart if they aren’t built up with the Word of God Our fighter verse this month reminds us of this truth Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Trusting in the Lord and His Word is like planting near a stream of water No need to fear heat or drought Because you’re roots are in the water Guys, the heat and drought of this world are very real Satan is prowling around looking for people to destroy 1 Peter 5 Our world opposes the Lord & delights in dragging people away from Him (Romans 3) And our hearts lie to us on a daily basis Jeremiah 17:9 We’re up against seemingly insurmountable odds And yet God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths (Psalm 119) Scripture is breathed out by God to correct our wrong thinking (2 Timothy 3:16) The Scripture works in you James 1:21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. The gospel is what saves you And Scriptures reminds you of this fact The gospel is the foundation, His Word directs us back to that truth And builds up our lives in Christ You desperately need the Scriptures Don’t continue in former ignorant ways If you don’t know how to read the Bible please tell us

We have people here who would love to help you do that We have Bibles in the back if you don’t have your own Please take one and start reading with someone I will warn you though Do not expect to change instantly Think about how an infant grows You don’t see when an infant grows The change is so small that you don’t notice it day to day But over time that change becomes incredibly clear That’s why Grandma always says O look at how much you’ve grown It is the same way with your spiritual life. You won’t see all this change on a daily basis You might not even recognize it in yourself But one day you’ll hear “O look at how you’ve grown” God is doing a real work in you He delights to do this work And He works through the Word of God implanted in your mind, heart and soul But this change doesn’t happen on your own 3) We can’t build up our spiritual lives without community You’ll notice that all of the growth Peter talks about takes place in community Let’s read “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….But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;” God is not building you up by yourself He is building you up together with other Christians You are not alone If God is working on you, then He’s building you into something bigger His church You are His priest along with other priests You are one of the many who are His people You are a new race that supersedes all other races

God intends for your spiritual growth to take place in community You can’t do Christianity by yourself It is impossible Christ is God’s chosen, precious cornerstone Though men reject Him, He is the only solid foundation And God in His mercy, takes us and makes us alive in Christ So now we are part of God’s family We are part of God’s house We serve Him as priests We offer spiritual sacrifices to him And God lives inside of us Previously our community was false We weren’t really part of a community Before Christ my community was based on common interests My partying buddies left when I stopped partying My HS friends haven’t been the same since HS But in Christ my community is different It brings me together with people who have different interests Yet I have freedom to be open about my sin without fear of rejection I can forgive freely because I’ve been forgiven My community is marked by love and care for others We confess sin, we overcome sin together, we remember the truth together In fact, at the very beginning of this passage Peter tells us The love of Christ was shown to you that you would show it to others The love of Christ came to me in order to go somewhere else I am being comforted so that I can comfort others Which is why Peter says we are put in a community “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” We tell others how great this gospel is If something is awesome, you talk about it When your life has been totally changed It’s natural to explain that to other people

Our foundation is belief in Christ who gave Himself up to ransom us out of our crumbling lives with His enduring love He builds us up with this truth and the rest of Scripture, which reminds us of this truth And He does this in a community of believers that reminds and encourages one another To the end that this building would never stop adding stories This foundation is secure, so it can hold more weight Christ is in us pursuing more people in this world with His love This building is always under construction until Christ’s return He is adding to His family He is revealing His grace and mercy to more and more people And we get to play a part in this beautiful work We get to proclaim that love to the world Church, let’s be a people who eagerly speak of the excellencies of Christ I’ll leave you with a few questions to ponder What are you building your life on? Is it Christ or something else? There aren’t other options Christ is a cornerstone and every other stone has to fit with Him You can’t have a mixed foundation What are you building your life with? Do you see the Bible as a boring book that has no connection to your life Do you long for it? If not, what do you long for? What do you turn to in moments of anxiety or frustration? What do you turn to for truth and life? Do you have a community of Christians around you? Not just in name but people who believe the gospel People who talk with you about it People who are being changed by it If you don’t you desperately need that I long for you to experience this type of community I long for you to see the Bible differently I long for you to believe the gospel and found your life on it Let me pray this for us as a Church