New Birth By Obedience to the Truth

Transcript

GR 1928
10/04/2015
New Birth by Obedience to the Truth
I Peter 1:22-25
Gil Rugh

We are going to turn in our Bibles to I Peter chapter 1. One of those great chapters in the Bible that unfolds in some wonderful detail about the doctrine of our salvation, the wonders of the truths of what God has accomplished for us in Christ. He started out in the opening verses talking about the sovereignty of God, implanting to bring His redemption to fallen sinful human beings, to bring to those undeserving to salvation He would provide in Christ.

He develops something of what it meant to enter into that salvation, verse 3: God is the cause of that salvation; strong emphasis in Peter as he starts out on God’s sovereignty in this. He refers to the elect sojourners of the diaspora, these Jewish believers that God has caused in verse 3 “According to His great mercy to be born again to a living hope” and it is accomplished through the finished work of Christ, climaxed with His victorious resurrection from the dead, a guarantee of God’s protection so that we will be sure to arrive in the glory of His presence.
It is a salvation revealed in the Word of God. This connects to where Peter is going to be at the last part of the chapter. Down in verses 10-12 he talks about “This salvation was prophesied by the Old Testament prophets.” They didn’t understand how it all fit together because they prophesied the suffering and death of Christ. They prophesied the reigning in glory of Christ and how this is going to fit together and Peter said they were prophesying of the benefit of those who would come later, those who after Christ came and paid the penalty for sin with His death on the cross was resurrected and ascended to the Father now seated at His right hand and is going to come again to establish His kingdom on the earth. Now we see it seems so clear and it all fits together and this was all revealed by the Holy Spirit who was using them as His instruments; wonderful plan of God.

He gave three commands picking up in verse 13: The first command was in verse 13: “Fix your hope.” There are other instructions here but the key command which they are built around is “Fix your hope.” And then in verse 15 the key command remember, “Be holy.” He supported that with a quote from the book of Leviticus, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” Third command was in verse 17: “Conduct yourselves.” How we are to live our lives during the time of our stay on earth and a reminder that our redemption was purchased at great cost. Not with silver or gold or things that could be passed down from our parents but with the precious blood of Christ, His death on the cross. That was the eternal plan of God. Back in verse 2 of this chapter that they were elect according to the foreknowledge of God.

Now here we are told in verse 20: “Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world” as God planned and arranged the provision of our salvation and the providing of it.

We come down to verses 22 to 25. Peter is going to focus on another command and is going to remind them again of the new birth. Peter is so clear and so strong as the Spirit directs him on the work of God and why and what is to be the result of that. He is going to give us another command “To love” in verse 22. Not only to love but to “fervently love one another from the heart.” This is part of the holy living, the godly living. He has caused us to be born into His family and His family now is assembled in local churches that together comprise what we would call the universal church on earth, believers wherever they are gathered together. And God is very gracious.

In the Old Testament He was working with the nation Israel and He will someday yet in the future. He is not done with Israel. But they were gathered together as a physical nation and physical families within that nation. Now God has gathered together His people as a spiritual family, as the church and important that we recognize His plan in our salvation in our relationships together.

So the basic command we have in verse 22 if you are marking these commands as we move through is “To love.” And I marked “fervently love” since fervent modifies the command and the command is in the verb “to love.” Fervently love but he doesn’t put that early. He starts out, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.” The obedience to the truth is the response of faith to the Gospel.

Back in verse 2 of this chapter: “You were elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.”

Earlier today we talked about different words that are used that refer to our salvation. Here is the word “obedience” to obey Jesus Christ. How do you obey Him, by believing in Him. It is not a matter you are saved by your works but you place your faith in Him and you are sprinkled with His blood. The effects of His death are applied to you is the picture as these Jewish believers would understand in the picture of the sacrifices of the Old Testament that sprinkled blood denoting its application, the benefits. So here, “In obedience to the truth.”

Come back to the Gospel of John chapter 3. Another one of those chapters we think of when we think of the doctrine of salvation and new birth. This is given in Christ’s discussion with Nicodemus. We have that famous verse, verse 15 leading into verse 16. “So that whosoever believes in Him will have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son and whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Verse 18: “He who believes is not judged. He who does not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Come down to verse 36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life.” Now note the opposite of that, the negative. “He who does not obey the Son will not see life but the wrath of God abides on him.” You see he uses the word “obey” interchangeably with the word “faith.” “He who believes in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son does not have life.”

Come over all the way past Peter and just past I Peter where we are. You go through there you will come into the epistles of John and come to I John, I and II Peter, I John. I John chapter 3, verse 23: “This is His commandment.” And a commandment is given to be obeyed. “That we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ.” And note, “Love one another just as He commanded us.” That is the connection that Peter is going to make. We obey the Son and we are obeying God by believing and connected with that is the love we are to have with one another.

So come back to I Peter chapter 1: “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls.” You have to hear the truth. He is going to elaborate on this in a moment. You have to believe the truth. Your faith cannot save you. Faith in the truth, the Gospel which is the power of God for salvation saves you. We have this bland expression, “people of faith” today and the faith community as though everybody who has faith we are all joined together in some way. We are not. All faith except faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross is empty and worthless. It is nothing. We have nothing together because we are people of faith. It sounds like you are unkind or unloving to say that but it is just the opposite. You can’t imply that because a person has faith we see them as somehow connected to us. You know we don’t have any bond. We are not just people of faith. We are people who have their faith totally and completely for salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That is the truth that he will elaborate. “In obedience to the truth you purified your souls;” the power of the Gospel to save, to cleanse.

We have heard testimonies here tonight as those stood and shared their testimony and identified with Christ in water baptism, the power of the Gospel. It is supernatural. It is the power of God for salvation. How do you explain the supernatural work that takes place as we have heard in the testimonies? At a point they heard and understood and believed the truth that Christ died for their sins. They trusted Him alone and something happened within. They had their souls purified. There was a cleansing of them from within. It is marvelous. It is amazing. And in that cleansing you are born again which he will talk about in a moment. The work of God in salvation is awesome and amazing. You have to hear the truth, “Faith comes by hearing” Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 10 and hearing by the message of Christ. You have to hear the truth and obey it by believing it and your soul will be purified and it is for a purpose. Oh now, I have been cleansed from my sin. I have a glorious inheritance as he talked about earlier in the chapter. I know I am not going to hell. I am going to heaven. Now just be comfortable and wait or do what I want. No, you are purified for a sincere love of the brethren. So the package tied together here. You heard the Gospel. You believed it. Your soul is purified, you are called now to love the brethren; that purifying, that cleansing.

You don’t need to turn back there but Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18: “Come now and let us reason together says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet they will be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they will be like wool.” Cleansing, the sin that is so prominent, so dominant, that marked and scarred by life it is cleansed. I am made new.

I was reading some stuff and talking. Talk about baggage from a pre-conversion life. You don’t carry your baggage from a pre-conversion life. You are cleansed, you are free. You are made new. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation” as we have heard. It is wonderful. Well what about the baggage of the old life. I left it back there with the old life; everything connected with the old man. I was made a new man in Christ. Isn’t this the beauty of it? I am purified, I am cleansed. You don’t know what I have done. No, but God does and He knows the worst sins that could be, washed, you are purified in your soul. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Back up to the book of Acts 15. You know there is a danger we don’t want to overtake us that we settle in and we just become comfortable with our salvation and we know all this and say, “Yes, I know, that’s all wonderful” and we hear testimonies and we see new believers. Yes, that’s great, yes, that’s nice and we lose something of the wonder and amazement of it. But it ought to be new to us every day.

In Acts chapter 15, verse 9. Here you have the conference that is going to take place at Jerusalem over the disagreement of do you have to keep the Mosaic Law in addition to believing in Christ. Peter is the spokesman here and verse 7 we are told: “Peter stood up and said to them, ‘Brethren you know in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe.’” You notice Peter had the privilege of bringing the message of the finished Word of Christ to the Jews in Acts chapter 2 when the church began and he was the instrument in Acts chapter 10 that God used to bring the Gentiles to salvation by hearing the message of Christ from Peter’s lips and that is what he is taking about here. In verse 8: “And God who knows the heart testified to them, giving them the Spirit just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them. There is no distinction between us Jews and those Gentiles. He saved them just like He saved us Jews, cleansing their hearts by faith.” That’s why external works can never save a person, can never cleanse a person. They are futile. Baptism got these people wet. It couldn’t wash away the defilement of sin in their hearts. That was done when they believed in Christ. It may picture something of a cleansing but the cleansing takes place within. You know what? Their hearts didn’t get wet, didn’t get washed. Their souls weren’t purified. Peter’s declaration here, Jews and Gentiles experience that cleansing of their souls. The guilt of sin, oh the burden of guilt – it is washed away because I have been cleansed. My guilt is removed. That’s why I don’t have to deal with guilt feelings. I have no real guilt. I have been cleansed. But you know what I did. Yes, but He washed us clean, made us new.

That is what we offer to people. That’s why we are not telling people, “Clean up your life.” You can’t. But God says it is your soul that has to be cleaned up. That’s why we don’t teach reform your life, moral reformation kind of stuff. That’s why we are not trying to tell people, you ought to stop that sin. God will judge you if you don’t stop that sin. He will judge you if you do stop that sin. That is just a manifestation of the condition of your heart because Jesus said “Out of your heart proceed all manners of sinful things,” Mark chapter 7 for example you have to get the heart cleansed. “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things.” God says He is the only one who knows the depth of wickedness of the human heart and yet He says, “I will cleanse it, wash it clean, purify.”

So we are here. He cleansed their hearts by faith. That was hard for the Jews to realize that dirty, filthy, unholy Gentiles could be saved. Peter says, “Yes, just like you and I as Jews were saved;” beautiful, remarkable.

On your way back stop at Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 13 fits with what we have been saying: “In Him you also after listening to the message of truth.” The message of truth he explained is the Gospel of your salvation; what Peter is talking about. “In obedience to the truth you purified your soul;” another way of saying “you heard the message of the Gospel and you believed it;” “having also believed you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” God’s Holy Spirit took up residence within us so that our physical bodies became as Paul wrote to the Corinthians “Temples, dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.” And He is God’s payment and guarantee that this work that He began in us will be finished. There is no question that someday we will arrive in the glory of His presence, the ultimate redemption of that which belongs to God now. “You are now your own. You have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies.” That’s what he said, “God’s own possession to the praise of His glory.”

Come back to I Peter, chapter 1. “In obedience to the truth you purified your souls.” But we have to keep going; “For a sincere love of the brethren.” Love of the brethren, we are familiar with this word. It is Philadelphia. When that is basically the word, Philadelphia, the word love and the word brother put together, brotherly love. The love of the brethren and this word for love phileo, the verb form of it is used of a more family reciprocal kind of love but we are not going to make a great distinction between that agapao love and we will see he is going to mention that in a moment. They go inseparable together. That love is to characterize us in all ways. It is for a sincere love of the brethren, literally, an un-hypocritical love of the brethren and many of you are aware that word hypocrite came originally from those who were playing the role like in a play. They were acting. They put on a mask and pretend they are someone or something else. This is an un-hypocritical, not put on love. This is a genuine love, a sincere love that will come from the cleansed heart as we see in a moment.

This un-hypocritical is crucial because you know when we are all together and often we have to go through the superficial. We are not going to act like we don’t love one another when we are together. People say that wasn’t nice but this going to be and testified with fervently love and that word love is the agapao love, that self-sacrificing love. It is almost used interchangeably here both together, that self-sacrificing, brotherly, family love as you put them together, coming from the heart. What else can we do? This is another command that goes with those like “Be holy, conduct yourselves, fervently love” because we are purified so we could function in a family relationship with love for fellow believers so you must love intensely, fervently one another from the heart. God purified us on the insides in our souls, and as we read in another passage, our hearts, cleansed our hearts by faith, purified our souls so we could love one another. We have been born into God’s family and just like in your physical family, the comparisons. There is a love. Now we have a family love for fellow believers that binds us together. We have to be sure that love is genuine, not hypocritical. The other virtues that God talks about, He will use this word un-hypocritical. I won’t take the time to go there but He talks about an un-hypocritical love in Romans chapter 12, verse 9; 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 6. An un-hypocritical faith in I Timothy 1:5, un-hypocritical wisdom in James 3:17.

Everything about us is to be genuine. Now we are not playing a game. We are not masquerading to look like something we are not. It is to be coming from the heart. So you have been purified for a sincere love of the brethren, family love. The command, “fervently love one another from the heart.” Fervently, this is a compound word. It means to be stretched out like you are reaching out to the limit. You are strained out with every ounce of your being to that point. There is an intensity in this love. You must love fervently. God saved you for that. We talked about the wonder of His salvation and the cleansing of this salvation. Yes, it is wonderful. Do you know why He did it? So we would be brought together in His family to love one another and we must love one another fervently, intensely from the heart. This would correspond to sincere, un-hypocritical. It comes from the heart. It is not put on. We really love one another. We really sacrifice to do what is best for one another. We are family. Now we use the expressions like “you fall in love” and sometimes you do. Marilyn met me, she fell in love. I mean, she couldn’t help it. But really, you know, love gets tested and I have done what I could to test her in her love.

Why does the Spirit of God have to tell people, to command Christians, to fervently love one another and have an un-hypocritical love? You know why? We sometimes begin to get lax and indifferent in doing what God saved us to do. He purified our souls for a sincere love of the brethren. We talk about the wonder of His salvation and what He has done. You know one of the reasons why He did it will be set out here, so we could have a family love for one another. You know what that means? ‘We must,’ aorist imperative. It is a strong command. We must love one another fervently, intensely, from the heart, genuine these two words for love.

Back up to I Thessalonians, I Thessalonians chapter 4. Look at verse 9: “As to love of the brethren;” that’s our Philadelphia love, phileo love, that family love, love of the brethren, love of fellow believers. “You have no need for anyone to write to you for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.” Now he talks about agapao. So he uses these words almost interchangeably; in fact, interchangeably. I tell you to have phileo love for fellow believers that means you must have agapao love for fellow believers. That is a transforming relationship. It is a relationship now that supersedes all other relationships; even family relationships, physical family. This is a relationship that will go on for eternity. That’s why Jesus said “If you love father, mother, brother, sister more than Me, you can’t be My disciple.” There is a new superseding relationship and it brings benefit to our physical relationships for sure because he is talking about how we relate to one another right here but the prime relationship is believers.

Alright back in I Peter. We are talking about love within God’s family. Why? Look at verse 23. He explains this. He is going back around again. It is almost like he said it, he’s led it to the consequences and now he comes back. You “fervently love one another from the heart for you have been born again.” That is saying the same thing in a different way, “In obedience to the truth you purified your souls.” Another way to say this is “You were born again.” What happens when you are born again? You are cleansed from your sin. You are made new within. You have been born again; remarkable.

He started out early in the letter. Look at verse 3 of this letter: “God who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” You know when you come to true salvation everything is made new. That is wonderful. You have been born again. You have purified your souls and in both of these in verse 22 and 23 there we call in the perfect tense, their perfect participle. The perfect tense is something that happened in the past and the results of that are ongoing. So you know, we were born again, we obeyed the truth. We purified our souls. That purification took place. The results of that keep going on. We have been born again. The results of that are ongoing, of course. It doesn’t matter whether that happened to you last week or 50 years ago, praise God it is a sure, ongoing salvation.

“You were born again not of seed which is perishable,” not of seed which is perishable. This is going to be a similar kind of contrast as verse 18 and 19. “We are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold or things you could inherit from your parents but with precious blood.” Here “you were born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable through the living and enduring Word of God.” That which is imperishable brings about an imperishable salvation which includes an imperishable inheritance. Back in chapter 1, verse 4 we will obtain an inheritance imperishable and undefiled and we have been cleansed from the defilement of sin through faith in an imperishable Word so we can be prepared for an imperishable, undefiled inheritance.

What a marvelous plan of God. Isn’t it amazing? I talk about this. I watch the news and see everything going on in the world and you think every action is under the control. It seems like sometimes things are out of control. They bombed the wrong place, they did this. And He is sovereignly, everything is under His control and yet He is taking care of me. I mean trying to keep this messy world in some kind of order would take all of His time. But it doesn’t. He is a great God. We sang this morning, How Great Thou Art. The greatness of our God and here he is taking care of us. We have been born again. “Not of seed which is perishable but imperishable.” The seed we are talking about is the living and enduring Word of God.

The Word of God is alive. It is working as the writer to the Hebrews wrote. It is effective in the innermost resources down into our souls. It is like a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. That Word gets down into me and does its work. We talked about this in our other studies as well. You know something always happens when the Gospel is preached as we saw earlier in 2 Corinthians; it is a savor of life to life or death to death. Something happens every time the Gospel is presented. It is working. It is impacting; sometimes to bring salvation and confirm in that salvation and sometime to confirm in that lost-ness. It is working in those who are being saved and in those who are perishing. We ought to remember that. We go away and we say well nothing happened. Something happened. It impacted that life in one way or another. It is the living and enduring Word of God. That is what brings about the new birth. That is how it happens. There is no other way. All the religious activity and all the paraphernalia and rigmarole and liturgy that goes on, none of it brings salvation. What brings salvation is the living and enduring Word of God. It is alive. It is not like any other book. It is words on a page but they are not like any other words on pages. I have thousands of books in my library. None of them are like this book. They don’t have life in them. The Word of God is alive. It is living. It is working. Well, I don’t know. It just looks like they printed it. I can see when it was printed and where it was printed and what kind of paper it is printed on but it’s that message that is living. It is working. It is supernatural. It is how the eternal God accomplishes His work in lives through the ministry of His Word.

So everything the devil does centers on attacking, undermining, and replacing this Word causing churches just to subtlety (even Bible believing churches) drift away from the Word. We fill our time with other things. You know we don’t always study the Word, you know we could do other things but the center and focus of our lives is what, the Word of God. We are not here to entertain. We are here to tell people “Here is what God says.” That’s how you were saved, right? You heard the Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the message of Christ.

So it is a living and enduring Word of God. It is enduring. “Heaven and earth will pass away” Jesus said, “My Word will not pass away.” This is a Word from God. Back in verse 12 talking about the prophets of the Old Testament. It was real to them. They were not serving themselves but you in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the Gospel to you through the Holy Spirit. Things in which angels long to look.”

Over in 2 Peter chapter 2 Peter talks about the Word of God and its provision and we, verse 16: “Didn’t follow cleverly devised tales when we told you the truth concerning Christ.” It is marvelous. This is God’s Word. It is unique. It is different from everything. It may not have the impact of some rituals. They shake the incense as we do this form and it has such an impression but it is powerless. This is the Word of God that will never pass away.

We as a church ought to hold it as our most precious treasure. What a privilege to have this. We know what a privilege we have today? Everybody carries their own copy. When Peter wrote this you know everybody didn’t have a copy. Think about it. You take it home. They had to come and they hear somebody. They sit in the church. We have a letter from Peter. I am going to read it to you but you don’t get to take it home. We take it home. We will put it on the shelf and forget about it until next week. The Word of God is living and enduring. It is powerful for the saving of souls. We just take it for granted. People have died terrible deaths because they printed the Words. Reading about the printer and the death he had to die because he printed Bibles to be distributed. I don’t know, I have a number of different Bibles, different things. I keep a little stack in case something happens to this one I will have one just like it so I have the same things in the same place on the same page. We just have it around us. It is a treasure. Alright, it is living and abiding.

Let me read you what one man wrote. “The implications for evangelism are obvious. Ultimately it is neither our arguments nor our example that will bring new life to an unbeliever but the powerful Words of God Himself, words which we still have preserved today in Scripture. It is in reading or hearing these Words that people are given new life. How shall they hear without a preacher, without a proclaimer, without someone to come tell them? That is why we go out and tell people. They don’t have any opportunity to be saved if they don’t hear the Word that God has given.

Verses 24 and 25 he supports this. Contrast that the Word of God is living and enduring in contrast to everything else “the glories of man come and go, all flesh is like grass, all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off but the Word of the Lord endures forever.” Quotes from Isaiah chapter 40. That’s it. “All flesh is like grass, all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off but the Word of the Lord endures forever.”

Man in all his pomp and circumstance, great as it may be, the greatest, richest, most powerful men in the ninth century. I don’t have to think about that one. What was the splendor of their palace or? I don’t know. They are gone mostly I mean there may be some remnants. They pass off. They are gone. What will endure when it is all over?

Remember Peter will write in his second letter, “All these things will be destroyed by fire.” What will continue? The Word of God will endure forever. The Word of the Lord endures forever. You know it is a good way to talk to people. Bring them the Gospel. Tell them, “You know, there are a lot of things that are precious to us but you know at one time or another they will all be gone but I have something that I could give to you that I can assure you will last forever. And it is the most valuable thing you could ever have.” That is what we have. Wouldn’t you like to have the most valuable treasure that I can guarantee you will never fade away, never be gone? When you are in eternity it still will be a treasure that is yours. What is it? Let me share that with you. That is what is says, the Word of the Lord endures forever. This is the Word which was preached to you.

You realize that if you share the Gospel with someone you know what? This is what you have heard. I have shared with you that which will endure forever. Someday they will stand before Christ, the Bema seat or the Great White Throne. And you know what? The Word you preached to them will come up. They can’t escape it. They can put their fingers in their ears. They can determine they will not come to a church where they will hear it. They can close the door in your face. They can tell you I don’t want to hear it anymore but you know what? They can’t get away from it. It will follow them; this Word which was proclaimed to you. That is how they are saved. Peter is reminding them. This is how you were saved. This is how anyone else will be saved.

Let me read you James 1: “Let the rich man glory in his humiliation because like flowering grass he will pass away. The sun rises with scorching wind, withers the grass, the flower falls off; the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.” We talk the billions that some people are worth but you don’t want to see these people. They are getting older. They aren’t getting older they are getting old. You know what? They are going to pass off the scene. Well, I have made plans. Yes, because you are not taking anything with you. You will go naked as you came and you don’t know whether your plans for your money will be successful or not and it really won’t make any difference. What will make a difference – where will you be? That’s the power of the eternal Word of God.

“This is the Word which was preached.” That word “preached.” That’s the word we get evangelization from, evangelizo, to evangelize. This was the Word that was evangelized to you. This is the Gospel. Repeats what was said back in verse 2 as well. It is the message of Christ.

God saved us for what? So we could love one another. He put us in a family and we are to fervently love one another. It is hard to tell God, “You know God you could have put a little more loveable people in this family.” That’s why He made us new so we could love the unlovable but they are lovable; they are works of God’s grace.

No matter where we are in our growth we can appreciate the fact. Isn’t it amazing, the fact that God saved you? Amazing that He cleansed you. We can look at someone and say they ought to be further along than this. Yes, but they are a child of God. That’s the work of God’s grace. We are here to love one another, to grow together and to share this message of salvation with others.

Peter is going to talk about our growth as we move into chapter 2 as he gives the final command in this list, “to long for.” And we will pick that up in our next study.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the wonder of Your salvation, its beauty and Lord You have unfolded it in verbal form so we could read it, hear it, understand it and believe it by Your grace. Lord we cannot explain how such a marvelous transformation can take place when we tell someone the glory of the Gospel message and they believe it, their eyes are opened. They see and understand what they did not see and understand before. They are cleansed from all defilement. Not most of it, all of it. They are born again, become new creatures in Christ. Lord what an awesome salvation and Lord we don’t want to forget what You have said. You saved us, caused us to born again. You have purified our souls so that we could have a family love for one another and we are commanded to have an intense, fervent love for one another and Lord as we exercise and manifest that love we grow together and Your Spirit continues that work of bringing our salvation to its ultimate climax as we are matured in Christ preparing us for the transformation of glorification. Use us this week as we come in contact with people in various places and in various ways. Lord may we be prepared to speak for You, to tell them of the greatest treasure of all, the eternal Word of God that is living, alive and working to bring salvation to their hearts. May we live holy lives we pray in Christ’s name amen.