The Spirit of Christ

Sermon Transcript

Bible Reading

1 Peter 1:1-12

Good morning. This morning's reading is from 1 Peter, chapter 1, verses 1 to 12. And if you're following on in your red Bibles, it can be found on page 1886.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood, grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Praise to God for a living hope.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Opening Prayer

And so let us pray. Father, thank you for sending your Son. Thank you for securing our hope behind the curtain, a firm anchor, Lord, of faith for us to hold on to.

Thank you that in the midst of a storm you are our rock. Thank you that in the midst of uncertainty you are our truth.

Thank you that in the midst of this life you have given us your Holy Spirit, that we might know who we are, who you are, and how it is you would have us live in the world.

Send our guidance as we think about the Holy Spirit together. Speak, Lord, that hearing you we might obey, for Christ's sake. Amen.

Three Times in One Reading

Wonderful reading from 1 Peter. The whole letter is worth spending your time in.

We're just kind of skipping like a stone over the water in this series. This is week two. We're in 1 Peter. We're talking about the Spirit of Christ.

And my encouragement to you last week was that you should seek, along with me and my prayer for my children and so on, a lively experience of the Holy Spirit.

Well, what does that mean? And that's why we're doing this series, so you can kind of find out, okay? And that will be something that will change the trajectory of not just your Christian life, but your whole life. And then of course your witness as you live for him. So it's a good thing to ask.

Okay, so we're talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in us. He is active in the world. He is the Lord of the church.

What has the Spirit of Christ been showing you this week? I'm just assuming that he has. And I think, you know, maybe we're not listening, but he is certainly speaking.

So what has the Spirit of Christ been showing you this week?

Even in our reading, the Holy Spirit was mentioned three times. I hope you noticed that in verse two. He sanctifies us. He purifies us. He makes us holy.

1 Peter 1:2

We've been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

That's who we are. We're those who are taken from the world, who are sanctified, purified, made holy, and then sent back into the world to serve our living Lord.

Verse 11, this great picture of the Old Testament prophets. I keep on thinking about Isaiah and his wonderful description of Christ.

Finding in the Old Testament words that speak so clearly of Jesus. The Psalms are like that too. And here in 1 Peter he describes this process.

You've got the Old Testament prophets that the leaders of God's people seeking to understand what it is that God is going to do or what he is doing. The impression I have in my mind is reaching forward, but something is not quite within their grasp.

And the language that they produce, you know, we see echoed in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. So much of what he says and what happens to him is echoed in the Old Testament.

Here's what it says.

1 Peter 1:11

They were trying to find the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Here is the spirit of Christ pointing out Christ to the Old Testament prophets and they're recording it for us.

Lastly, the third reference to the Holy Spirit was in verse 12.

1 Peter 1:12

It was revealed to the Old Testament prophets that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.

So three ways that the spirit is at work in our passage.

One, to kind of lift us up out of the world, to purify us, to make us God's family and send us back into the world for mission. One, in the lives of the Old Testament prophets, giving us words and language so we could identify the Messiah. And then thirdly, as we preach, as we speak, as we live out the gospel, here is the Holy Spirit active just in our passage in all these three ways.

Spotting the Spirit, a Bit Like Where's Wally

Have you been aware of his work in your life or perhaps the lives of others this week? We're trying to sort of spot the Holy Spirit. It's a bit like where's Wally, I suppose.

So we were out for dinner on Friday night and we'd enjoyed the main meal and it was time for a cup of coffee and something sweet and our host turned to us and said, have you ever been under spiritual attack? Kind of not the question I was expecting her to ask next.

And she proceeded to tell a story about one night when she had a dream and it was a recurring dream and it scared her and she went back to sleep and the dream resumed and she went back to sleep and the dream resumed. There was this kind of inescapable thing about this experience that she had.

Now she's a thoroughgoing Christian person. She's about 70 years old. She's got a daughter on the mission field with CMS. She volunteers for the mission organisation I work with, long-term supporter of her church.

She's a very thorough Christian person but she said, it was about six weeks ago, I think she said, since then it's supercharged my Christian life. Like a breakthrough or some kind of wake-up call.

She in a sense had heard God speak to her and she was left with the question, I mean what was that all about, right? But she said in the process of working through that, she was saying how much she'd been encouraged and stretched.

It was a great conversation.

Last week I was talking to someone who'd been miraculously delivered from drug addiction. Two years, cold turkey. And who would go to their narcotics anonymous group and tell them all about Jesus but they just didn't want to listen. Actually I know the solution, it's helped me. That was a great conversation to have.

It's always good to pray for healing. I love particularly to pray for healing and anoint with oil as it says in James 5, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.

And I've been making a habit of doing that in my time here at Deep Creek. If you've got an ailment or an illness and I haven't prayed for you with oil, ring me and I will.

And since I've been doing that, people have been getting better. Isn't that fabulous? What a great thing to do.

We're in need of administrative help here and all the staff changeover. We've worked out that admin help is what we need.

And I haven't publicised the job description yet, sorry, that's part of my backlog. But I was at the children's program Monday, Tuesday and talking to someone and they said, oh, I used to do admin in a church and I thought works for me, let me send you a job description.

And in one sense, that's just a sample of my week and you might think, well, what are the chances? But in another sense, you could say, okay, well, is it the Holy Spirit at work?

And I think it's partly about having your antenna up, okay? Because he's a speaking God, he's active, he's out there, he's doing stuff in you and in the world. And I think just sometimes we don't quite connect.

So one of the aims of the series is to get you in sync, get you hearing or seeing or understanding the way the Spirit is at work in your life, in your world and in your church. So what has the Spirit of Christ been showing you this week? That's kind of the question and I'll ask it in different ways as we go through. 1 Peter, okie doke.

As we make our way through this series, we'll see that the Holy Spirit is described in many different ways and I've got a slide just for the series titles. You'll see them there. So first week was the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Holiness, this week the Spirit of Christ and then other names about the Spirit that you'll be familiar with. Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, Spirit of Adoption, Spirit of Grace and then of course the Spiritual Gifts at the end.

So the Holy Spirit is one person, but I just wonder if these titles are a bit of a clue as to some of his roles or something of his character. And so again, as we make our way through this series, the idea is to kind of expose you to these different aspects or roles of the Holy Spirit so that we can appreciate those and work in sympathy with them.

One Blood, One Family

The Spirit of Christ, the title for today, only appears twice in your New Testament, so you can be forgiven for not having come across it before, here in 1 Peter and in Romans 8 and verse 9.

In Romans, he is the spirit who joins us to Christ, makes us one with him, and so we say during the communion service, we'll say it a bit later, we are the body of Christ.

Here is what it says about this in Romans.

Romans 8:9-11

And if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who lives in you.

And the idea I want you to kind of hear there is that it's the spirit of Christ that makes us family. If you think about the communion service and what all that's about, and we lift up the wine and so on, and it's just the blood of Christ, it's like Paul is saying we're one blood.

This is very Nungalinya language. We are one, made one in Christ. And you know what a bloodline is like. You've got your uncle's nose and your auntie's ears. My daughter and I share a hand. I've got a bent little finger, and she's got it too.

So that's what blood is about. It's the characteristics, the DNA, the whole kind of way you're built.

Well, what this phrase, this language, this description of the Holy Spirit is saying, certainly in Romans, is that it is by the spirit of Christ that we are made one blood, one family. This is why we can be so close to one another as Christians. And if you're like me, from a non-Christian family, you'll know how powerful that is. There is something about being here in the body of Christ with one another, being the church, that brings us close as family, and sometimes closer.

The whole Nungalinya story is so fabulous because of exactly that outcome. People come from all sorts of different indigenous nations together in one place as Christians.

And you heard Emily say it. They love coming here. They do.

It's not just a respite. It's not just an oasis. It's family, and they're joined together there, and Jesus is at work.

And if we are, if the spirit of Christ does make us one, makes us one blood, makes us one family, then it is fair to expect that we should then exhibit the family likeness. You know how it is sometimes, maybe in married couples are even a bit like this. They sort of become the same. Have you noticed that? The same kind of habits and traits and the way they do things and the things they say, the way they behave, and even the way they stand, right?

Well, there's something about us as those who have the spirit of Christ that yes, makes us one, but also then conforms us to the image of Christ. Again, language from Romans nine. And we then reflect that, and I want you to remember that because 1 Peter talks a lot about suffering, and one of the things we say is put me under pressure and see who I am. Bill Hybels wrote a great book once, Who You Are When No One Else Is Looking. That's about integrity, and because that spirit of Christ is at work in us, shaping us, conforming us to the image of Christ, when the pressure is on, what shows, what do you see? What is revealed, what comes out?

Peter picks this idea up in his language about the new birth. He says we are born into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So what are you born into? You're born into a family. So the new birth leads to new life, verse four, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you. Because friends, one day we're gonna leave all this behind, and we'll be with him and one another forever.

But that kind of fruit, that fullness, that promise is not ours yet. Jane said it earlier, we live in the now and the not yet.

And so Peter encourages us that God's power is able to shield us from that which threatens to destroy us, even if for a little while, we may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

I don't know about you, but that's just my journey through life, is that kind of the same for you? Things don't always work out. They don't always go right. Sometimes things go wrong.

And there's a whole kind of doctrine about the Christian life, which basically says, and when that happens to you, toughen up. But I'm not here to say that today.

I'm here to say when that happens to you, that's normal. Because we are in the world. And you know what the world is like, right?

He Never Wastes Anything

But as Christians, when we encounter difficulties, when things go wrong, when bad stuff happens, here is the opportunity to look for Christ in that, to look for Jesus, because I can promise you, I can promise you he never wastes anything.

And it might be the worst thing you could imagine happening to you or someone you love or whatever it is, and you're kind of all at sea and totally confused and wish you were somebody else and all the rest of it, right?

I want to ask you to trust Jesus in that place. Not to kind of retreat into your shell and think, you know, I'm just going to ride this one out, possibly in a Christian way, that doesn't help.

I want you to stay open. I want you to stay present. I want you to stay engaged. And I want you to seek Jesus in that place, just as you seek him in your joys and pleasures and when the sun's out and the birds are singing, right?

We're good at praising God when everything's going well. You know, again, we've spent a lot of time with David in the Psalms.

I think that the balance in the Christian life is okay, but can you praise him now? Or how are you going to praise him now?

And you know, the old funeral story, nobody knows what to say. Somebody's had a grief or a loss or a bereavement and well, I didn't ring, I didn't write, I didn't know what to say.

But being present in those places with others is likewise a gift that Christ can help you give. Not to shy away, not to be afraid, but to stand in that place, in and of yourself or with others.

Because Jesus went through that and overcame. And that is our legacy, that is his promise to us, that we, too, will go through that and we will overcome.

So the Spirit of Christ is working in us, working through our circumstances, if you like, to reveal Christ, because you know, the way you deal with those times of disappointment and grief and bereavement and pain, that's a witness to others. They're watching, don't worry, they're watching. And it might not be for you, actually, this particular pain or disappointment, it might be for them, because of the way you display, resonate, reflect the quality of the Lord Jesus in your life.

One day I was stomping up the beach, I've got a slide for that, too. My prayer habit, how's that for you? My prayer habit, how's that for a storm?

My determination so impressed one of my fellow beach goers that he took a photograph and sent it to me, right? So here I am, I'm in the photograph. I'm wearing more clothes than the Michelin man. This is cold, right? And the wind is just like a howling gale and I'm walking into it because I'm doing my prayers, right?

And I'm stomping up the beach and I'm thinking about these things. And I've got an apple in my hand and it's the prayer, beach walk, and apple day. You have one of those, don't you? That's how I do it.

And I'm about halfway up the beach, Brighton Beach, there's the boat boxes. And I hear behind me, rah! Now, I'm walking into a gale. All I can hear is the waves and the wind. And so I turn around and there's a seagull there, right? Because it's so windy, he doesn't have to flap anything. He's just, you know, shh, because I'm eating something and he wants some. And I was clearly taking too long. So I get this, rah! You know, hurry up, will you? I'm waiting for my bit of apple.

Well, I was kind to the dumb animal and it didn't like it, right? So it doesn't like apples, that's okay. But I thought, what a wonderful picture. Here is Peter painting a picture, Peter painting a picture, that's hard to say, of the Old Testament prophets straining forward to see the Christ. And you know, all the language that they come up with is so helpful to us.

And it occurred to me that there's the Holy Spirit. Hovering over their right shoulder, right? Speaking. That's their right. Where else does it come from? And so if he can do that for them, he can do it for you. He can do it for you.

And so whatever you're facing, whatever you're reaching for, whatever you're confronted with, my friend and her scary dream, don't worry, the Holy Spirit is in you. So it's a better picture than a seagull hovering over your shoulder, right? But if that works for you, hang on to that.

And when you, most need answers or you have your biggest questions, he's there. He's there, so close, speaking. The trick is to listen.

1 Peter 1:10-11

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

It's a great picture of the work of the Holy Spirit. Speaking into our lives, speaking into our circumstances, pointing us to Jesus. So you've got the Holy Spirit pointing the Old Testament prophets to the Christ.

Reminds me of the Emmaus Road, two guys disappointed by the crucifixion of their saviour, stomping up the road back to a town or a village called Emmaus and they're joined by a stranger and they're talking together and the stranger tells them all about it, right? From the Old Testament.

This wonderful picture, you've got Christ pointing the disciples to Christ. And then as I said, the Holy Spirit enables not just the writing of, but the preaching of the New Testament, the Gospels, and we are Gospel people, so if you have the hope of Christ in your heart, he helps you speak about that.

And I think really, the most powerful testimony in a world like this that we can give is what Jesus has done for me, preferably this week. And that's why I'm encouraging us to seek out the work of the Spirit in all sorts of circumstances, in all sorts of places, because that's your testimony.

That's what people wanna hear. You'll never guess what happened this week. Right, they're in, you got them. And nobody can gainsay your personal testimony, okay, your experience, nobody's gonna gainsay that.

The Spirit of Christ pointing to Christ.

And so when Peter says he gives us new birth into a living hope, here is this family likeness, here is this one blood, here is this conformed into the image of Christ thing that's going on, we're being brought into something. We were talking about this in a Bible study I was a part of, and somebody who's smarter than I said, oh, the Holy Spirit, that's the verb of God, okay. Anytime God is doing anything, it's the Holy Spirit. The verb of God.

So we're in this letter, Peter is writing to the church, he's encouraging them, he's had his experience, we'll come to that in a minute. He's encouraging them to stand up under trial and tribulation, the word suffering is used 18 times in 1 Peter, and when you get to the back end of the New Testament, there's a lot of suffering in there. It's hard to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. In the midst of that, not escaping from that, but in the midst of that, standing in the middle of that, you've got the spirit of Christ showing us Christ so that we can be more like him, close to him, giving off the family likeness, that's our evangelism. As we endure the sufferings of the world in hope, standing on the promise we have in Jesus. What a great picture of the Christian life.

And I'm asking you, what does this look like for you? What does this look like in your life? How do you do that?

I don't think you'd be here unless you had. But have you thought about that as God's gift to you, not something to be regretted or avoided, but his process for your discipleship, his journey, his plan for you.

And yes, it's not always about you, sometimes he might bring you low, so that the way you deal with that can be a witness to others. And that's called service. And that's what we're called to do.

The Kitchen Manager's Test

And if that's kind of a question about what that might look like in your life, what about in the life of others? I had this fascinating conversation with the kitchen manager at Ridley College.

I did 20 years at Ormond and finished. And I'm sorry, there's something about this church that's doing something to my head. Mike Phillips, you've got one of those at eight o'clock, right, okay, this is a different Mike Phillips, became the new vicar of Ormond.

And he was previously running a St. Jude's congregation that ran out of the Ridley dining room. Okay, so he did his study there, four years there, and then he's running a church from there. So he knew the kitchen manager quite well.

And she said, oh, you know, how you going Kev? Because I've known her forever. And I said, oh, yeah, I've sort of retired. And, you know, a bloke from here got the job, Mike Phillips. She said, oh, Mike Phillips. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna learn something about my replacement.

And she said this, he's the one who used to help me clean up the water bottles after the communal lunch on Wednesdays. Okay, he's done four years theological study, which means he's been to a shared lunch every week for four years. He's run a church from her building.

Okay, and no doubt they've worked together for hospitality and other reasons. And I mentioned his name, and this is the thing she says, he's the one who would help me pack up the water bottles after the communal lunch on Wednesdays.

That's a great recommendation for running a church, don't you think? I mean, I'd hire him. Would you hire him?

Here's the thing, what if after four years at Ridley, your final exam is not three hours on a Greek text, but an interview with the kitchen manager or the grounds person or the person who works in the office?

And they were asked about your quality or character or integrity. How about that? That makes a lot of sense to me if you're looking for a new minister.

As a noms committee, you guys should be paying attention, right? What if the way you treat others is the test of your Christian walk? Not how much you know, not how good at preaching or leading things you are.

What about just if the way you treated others was the test? Christian character. The image of Christ being formed in you.

What's the point of that if it doesn't show itself? If it's not exhibited, demonstrated, reflected?

You know who's writing this letter? Peter the Apostle. Do you know about Peter's life? Do you know at one stage he wouldn't eat with a Gentile?

Do you know that story about him on the roof in the house at Joppa when the sheep comes down from heaven and there's all these animals you wouldn't eat in a fit and God says, rise up, Peter, kill and eat and Peter says, I've never eaten any of that stuff. And God says, don't call what I've made unholy and he gets it three times. Do you remember that story?

And then these guys from, I've got Paul who can't see at the moment because he's been knocked off his horse. You know, they've come trotting along, they've been travelling for a day or something and they knock on the door, we're here for Simon Peter. They're Gentiles. He goes with them. He goes with them.

And here he is writing to a church full of Gentiles. What's he saying to them? We're one blood. We're one in Christ. Peter's come a long way. He's not standing on his dignity as a disciple or an apostle. He's not standing on his Jewish heritage. He's standing on Christ. He's firmly grounded in the Lord Jesus. Risen, ascended, glorified.

You see, Jesus has made Peter one of his people. That's all he needs to know. And he's saying, friends, it's the same for you. No matter what you were, no matter what you wanna be, you are his and that makes us one.

So we have a lot to be thankful for today. Yes, there's an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept safe in heaven for us who by faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed.

There's a lot to be thankful for in this reading. But the thing I just wanna kind of settle on is this idea about the spirit of Christ in us, making us one, making us one with him, forming us, shaping us, moulding us, so that even in the hard times, or perhaps especially in the hard times, that quality of Christ can be seen by the world.

And that's our witness. That's why we're here until he calls us home. Friends, the Lord be with you.