1st Peter chapter number 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout, he gives a list of all the regions of the Roman Empire, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Elect through sanctification of the Spirit, elect unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Quick reminder here as we begin our considerations, as we journey through life, it's important for all of us to know and understand the terms that God uses to describe us. And there are many terms that are used. Each letter written to God's children in the New Testament is unique in the choices that the writer chooses to describe God's children. Different terms are generally connected to the content of the letter that is written. For example, in Ephesians 1.1, he identifies the Christians, Paul does, as saints and the faithful. And those are very fitting terms for the content of that book. And here Peter identifies us as strangers and elect, which are important terms for those who will go through suffering and trials, which is the theme, primary theme of his letter. A proper, thorough understanding of these terms, not just being able to list them, but to grasp what they mean, will help us as we make our way through this life, as we live out our life on this earth. He identifies us here, and this is in verse 2, where we have been for a few weeks, he identifies us as the elect. And then he places our election to salvation within the scope and sequence of God's eternal plan concerning his elect. Before election, election has something before it, before election, God knew us. We've been in his mind, his plans, his decrees, his ordaining, his predestinating. All of that is there before we reach election. All believers need to know and find great comfort in the knowledge and understanding of God's foreknowing and electing us to be his children. God provided the perfect plan of salvation for his elect. His plan included the application of salvation that was provided for all who were placed in Christ before time began, chosen in Christ. At some point in time, the Holy Spirit took the word of God, preached, the word of God shared as someone gave witness to their salvation, or the word of God read. The spirit of God takes the word, regenerates our soul, and gives us spiritual life. At that appointed time, we were set apart at that moment for sacred use. And from that moment on, the spirit and word are progressively changing us from the inside out. And we understand the value of that from our study of the Sermon on the Mount in our Sunday school. However, the spirit's work, not only is it from the inside out, the work of the spirit will be seen. The fruit of the spirit will become evident in our life that he is there. And that will happen in all of God's elect at some level. Peter attaches our election, as we've noticed, to obedience or unto obedience. All who are chosen by God and set apart by the spirit have the disposition, and that's what obedience is here, it's a noun, feminine, gender. This is not a list of actions, this is our disposition. Unto obedience, we have the disposition to obey. All who are chosen by God and set apart by the spirit have the disposition to hearken, as the word obedience means, and to obey. We don't need a list. It's our disposition. About 10, 11 years before Peter writes this letter, Paul had written his letter to the church at Thessalonica. Peter, we know, was familiar with Paul's writings. He mentions it. But he also mentions some of the things Paul wrote were kind of difficult, and, you know, and he acknowledged that as well. But he was familiar with Paul and Paul's writings. Look at 2 Thessalonians and chapter number 2. We find a very similar use of phrases and words in this letter that Peter uses in his letter. There's an amazing contrast here. We don't have time to get into the details of it, but it's worth noting in verse 12 that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. It's an interesting place for Paul to begin. The beloved of the Lord. There is a special kind of love that God has had for you, and that love predates our election as well. Beloved of the Lord because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. There is the act of election that is taking place here. God is doing the choosing. God is doing the action here. It's this verb. Chosen you to salvation. Notice what the point of the election is about. In Paul, it's to salvation. But he doesn't leave it there in the mysterious realm of God's activity of election and foreknowledge, but he works it out here like Peter does. Peter probably agreeing with Paul because he writes the same thing, right? Chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit. Same phrases, same idea that Peter gives. And belief of the truth. Peter gets to that right where we're at right now, unto obedience. The belief of the truth. You heard it. He mentions it here concerning the gospel was preached to you and you received it. So the obedience. We have the activity of God's election going on. We have creation. We have the Spirit setting us apart in time and the Spirit working in our life, working out our salvation through our life unto belief and obedience. Hearkening and obeying. Peter is not unique in what he's saying here because Paul said the same thing. Unto obedience. God's elect are identified. And how do you know that you are God's elect? Unto obedience, you're back in 1 Peter 1 now, verse 2, how do you know that you are God's elect? Peter gives us a two-part response. The first one is unto obedience. This is how you know that you are a child of God is you have a disposition to hearken and obey. You have ears to hear. My sheep know my voice. They hear it and they come, right? There is a hearing of the word of God in the elect. Like sheep hear their shepherd when he calls to them. But it's not just obedience. The elect are identified and unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Here's a unique thing that we have heard mentioned and it's been in Sunday school all the way through our services this morning. This interesting phrase is actually a description of the evidence that you are the elect. The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. What is Peter telling us here? This is not just any blood as Bill and others have emphasized so well this morning. This is not just any blood. This is not the blood of bulls and goats. Paul said in Acts chapter 20, verse 28, this is God's blood. What a statement to make. This is God's blood that we're talking about. Bill mentioned it's both human and divine. Yes. Yes. It's real blood that poured out of his veins, down his brow, out his side, through his feet and hands. Real human blood, but it was divine blood also. It's God's blood. Particularly, it is the Son of God's blood that was poured out. Look at chapter 1 in Peter, go over to verses 15. A few verses I'll read here because Peter won't leave this theme alone. In verse 15 he says, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be you holy in all manner of your self-management of your life. Show holiness in the way you live out your faith. Because it is written, be ye holy for I am holy. And if you call on the Father who without respect to persons, pay attention here, brethren. He's writing to Christians. And if you call on the Father who without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work past the time of your sojourning, your sojourning here in fear. Why? For as much as you know, you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from the vain conversations and practices received by the traditions from your fathers, but you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot, ordained for ordained before the foundation of the world and manifested in these last times for you, for you. So in our text, when we read in verse two unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, as soon as I got into that a few weeks ago, I felt like Moses. I needed to take my shoes off. I'm walking on sacred ground. There was something here that impacted me when I pondered the blood of God that is being communicated here. This is something attached to the elect. This is something that they enter into and participate in as evidence that they are the elect of God, the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And Peter uses this phrase, the sprinkling of the blood. These words immediately would cause the Jews who had been converted to have an image in their mind because this is Old Testament language. We went through a lot of that in our study of the tabernacle. The sprinkling of blood was a common event. Everything that had been designated for holy use must be consecrated, made holy through the application of the blood. Blood was sprinkled over all the utensils before they could be used in worship. Blood had to be sprinkled on all of the places around the ground, around the furniture and the gate where they entered in. Blood had to be sprinkled to set it apart as a sacred ground. The blood had to be sprinkled on those who had been designated to participate as agents of worship from the Levitical tribe. They had to be sprinkled with blood. And there is also the sprinkling of the blood for purification when people became defiled. The ceremony of the sprinkling of blood was practiced to cleanse those who had become defiled. They had done something, touched something that was forbidden, and from that moment that that happened, they were not allowed to enter into the worship of God. They were unclean. They had been defiled. They had to be cleansed again before their worship was allowed. Those who had been defiled must acknowledge their defilement. If they didn't acknowledge it, there was no healing and recovery for them back into worship. They had to say, I have been defiled. They had to go to the temple and ask the priest to kind of carry out this ceremonial event where they would be cleansed. They had to ask for that to occur. In the blood of an innocent sacrifice, an animal must die, and that blood must be then taken, and it had to be sprinkled on the one who had been defiled, who had been pronounced as unclean. Only after the sprinkling of the blood could the priest pronounce the sinner clean, and could send them away in peace, and their fellowship with God and with His people restored. Only after they had been sprinkled by the blood. I mean, that had to be an emotional event to know that you had been separated in your fellowship with God and His people. And now you were there in that moment, standing before the priest. The sacrifice had been offered, and he took the blood, and he sprinkled that blood. It splattered on their heads. They felt the warmth of that blood. They saw it stain their clothing. They experienced the cleansing. It was real to them. It was now evident that they were clean and restored back into fellowship with God. What a joy it must have been to not only have experienced that, but then to have the priest say, you're forgiven. Go in peace. You're forgiven. Go in peace. What a perfect place for Peter to insert this image. The evidence of our election, the evidence of the Spirit's work in us, is our obedience. However, working this out is not easy, nor are we always successful. It may be our desire to be more holy and more devoted to God, but because we still live in human flesh with carnal minds and desires, you've heard that expressed throughout this morning, the advancement of our spiritual life over our fleshly nature is not always successful. We fail. We end up, like Paul said, we do the things that are wrong. We say the things that are wrong. We think the things that are wrong. We are defiled. We have sinned against God. And you're right, from this morning, Joe, and throughout our morning worship, if there's one thing minimized in modern evangelicalism, it's the ugliness of our sin. Not just that it took the Son of God's death to purchase us and the shedding of His blood. That tells you the nature of our sin, that it required God to become a man and die. But the continuing impact of that sin that remains in our life, the evil of that continues to be considered when we realize the only way to deal with remaining sin is still by the blood of Christ. There's no other way. Our conscience, much said in the scriptures about our conscience, is made sensitive by the Spirit and the Word of God and becomes an instrument that is used. The conscience can be confused at times because it's taught the wrong thing, so we have to be careful about this. But the conscience that is sensitive to the truth of God's Word and the conviction that they sense, the guilt that is born from defiling their life, sinning against God, it cries out against us, especially when our mind is filled with the truth of God's Word. The Spirit is using that word to convince us and to convict us that we have sinned, we have defiled a sacred vessel that belongs to God and it needs to be cleansed. And all of us have been here, we know what this is like. We feel the need to be cleansed. Is there a ceremony for us? How are we washed and forgiven? A couple of passages, we'll go back to 2 Corinthians in chapter 6. In 2 Corinthians in chapter number 6, beginning in verse 14, Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth, which had definitely fallen into confusion about many things and were actually behaving in a manner that was contrary to godliness. And so he's correcting these things in these two massive letters that he wrote. He says here in verse 14, be ye not, and he's telling them very directly here, it's a mandate. This is not something you go home and pray about, this is something that you must do. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Many ways to understand that. We can, if we're not careful, carry it to an extreme. But it definitely invokes this idea of engaging in activity with ungodliness, participating with the ungodly in activities that we know are contrary to God. Don't be entangled with unbelievers in their practices. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement, what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them, and I will walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. He's pulling that out of Leviticus, that if my people will be holy, tell them I will be their God. There will be a special, unique relationship between us. Wherefore, come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. Again, he's pulling this image out of Leviticus when someone had been defiled, and they needed to be sprinkled with blood in order to be cleansed. Be separate, saith the Lord. Touch not, touch not. Don't engage in those activities that will pollute your mind and your affections and turn you from God. Be separate from those things. Know and mark the boundaries. Don't go beyond those boundaries. Be separate. Disentangle yourself. Come out from them. To become defiled doesn't mean that we've lost our salvation, but we've lost our fellowship with God. That's a real thing. And, you know, it's not even always discernible and recognized because our decline is so slow and kind of Satan's not all that interested in us just dropping off the edge. He loves it when we just slowly walk in a declining fashion because in that, the deceitfulness of sin begins to harden us against God, and we can't even recognize where we're at. We've lost fellowship with God. That's what happens. So he appeals to them, come out, don't touch the unclean thing, and I will receive you, meaning that God will treat us with favor. God will treat us with grace. Come out, come out. God will restore what sin had disrupted, and what does sin disrupt? Fellowship with him. I don't know what that means to you. I don't know how valuable it is to you, but I do know this. If you've experienced it, you do not want to lose it. And when you sense it declining, you panic, and you begin to look. What have I done? What's wrong? And so our response, he says, if you, I will not only receive you, listen to these endearing phrases, again, taken out of the Old Testament, and I will be a father unto you, and you will be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. We have a choice to make. Fellowshiping with God, or the enjoyment of things that he disapproves of. And so the Apostle Paul exhorts them here in chapter 7, verse 1, having therefore these promises, this should be all that you need to inspire you, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Kind of what Peter says in a lot more words in the middle there of chapter number 1 in his letter. Cleanse ourselves. Let us cleanse ourselves. So how do we do that? Where do we go to do that? There's definitely here implied in this a change of direction. Repentance is necessary when he says, let us cleanse ourselves from, from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Something dramatically is happening here. There's one direction and now there's a completely different direction. And he's calling upon them to change directions in their thinking and in their behavior. And it's their job to do it. Cleanse yourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. I mean, it's not just your outward, it's your disposition, it's your attitudes, it's your words, it's, it's your inner being. And then perfecting holiness in the fear of God. If there's something missing again in our modern age, Peter identified it in his letter, Paul is identifying it here as a, why the church at Corinth was in the condition it was in, there was no fear of God. Having a great reverence for God magnifies the problem of our sin. We don't like to magnify the problem of our sin, so we don't like to spend a lot of time contemplating about the greatness and reverence of a holy God. But I would encourage us this morning that we take the time to, to truly ponder what God is calling us to do in terms of dealing with our sin. The flaws, the imperfections, the attitudes, the, the things that are corrupt about us that need to be removed. Right, Joe talked about, cut the hand off, pluck the eye out. Jesus was very clear, do what you must to disengage from those things. Use graphic language to illustrate his point, but we are called to cleanse ourselves from all kinds of filthiness of both our flesh and spirit. But it's not enough just to clean the house. Now you must begin to perfect holiness in the fear of God. So if you get rid of something and you don't replace it with something, it's not going to remain very long. You have to be committed to the development of holiness in your life. And if it, so we identify what, who are we? We identify ourselves. We have been set apart for sacred use. That's where it has to start. We believe that to be true. And we are concerned then if this utensil of God is defiled. It has to be cleansed so that it can be used. The perfect end to this is 1st John, chapter one. 1st John and chapter number one. This is all about this subject of the sprinkling of the blood to cleanse us. And the thing that's important here is to remember the context where we find this phrase, obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. What is he talking about in that statement? What is Peter saying to us? That the elect of God not only have a disposition to obey, but the elect of God are a people who are repenting and cleansing all the time. If that is not your disposition, the way that you live, you give no evidence that you belong to God. You're too comfortable with sin. True believers don't get comfortable with sin. And if they do, they have no basis for confidence and assurance of their faith. I can't assure you of your salvation if these things are not evident in you. You can't assure your own self that you're saved if these things aren't evident in you. So Peter goes as far as to say, not only is obedience necessary that you have a disposition to hearken, obey, but if you're the elect of God, you're committed to getting yourself cleansed and cleansed, repenting and cleansing, repenting and cleansing. Well, that's what John is about here in 1 John chapter number one. He's talking about the subject of fellowshipping with God. That's sort of what leads into this. And he says, this then is the message which we have heard of him and declaring to you that God is light, pure light, and in him is no darkness at all. Okay, that creates a problem for all the children of God. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and we are not practicing the truth, right? I mean, you heard that. If we say that we have fellowship with God and we continue to walk in darkness that is contrary to God, we're liars. We're liars. We're self-deceived. The devil has lied to you and now you are living a lie. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth or live according to the truth. But here's the blessedness. Listen to this, how sweet this is. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. There's that ongoing sprinkling of the blood being applied. The elect of God find great joy in the knowledge of this reality. They can be washed. As Steve illustrated earlier about just being grungy and dirty and spend your whole life in the same condition. But what a horrible thing to think about. Why would we want to live spiritually that way? Why would we be content just to allow ourselves to become defiled and defiled and defiled without falling before God and asking to be cleansed? Confessing our sin, can't get clean till you confess. And then the blood, the blood cleanseth us from all sin. It makes clean again. It washes away the defilement. The devil would have you believe that God's tired of you confessing and repenting because you keep stumbling over the same stupid things. That is the devil's lie. Here's what you'll learn. If you continue to be faithful to confess and acknowledge your sin, you will grow weary of your sin. And you will not resolve until you make a change. That's the point. He'll keep forgiving, forgiving, forgiving, confess and he'll forgive. Resolve to go out and live well and you fall the next hour, doesn't matter. Confess, be cleansed. Don't let your fellowship with God be disrupted. If you want to walk in the light as he is in the light, this is the only way to do it. There is no other way to walk with God and fellowship with God without the provision that Christ has provided. It's still the blood. It will always be the blood. Look at verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, somehow we're saying, there's nothing wrong with me, I haven't done anything wrong, this is, you know. We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The real grace of God at work in us troubles our soul. And if you can resist that troubling of your soul long enough, your soul will get hardened, your conscience will be seared. It will lose its sensitivity, and that's an invitation for the heavy hand of a scourging God to intervene if you are his child. But, don't we love this, verse 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, he is justified in doing this for you to the end of your days because of what Christ provided for you. Christ already paid for those sins. What you have to worry about is them defiling you along the way and hindering your walk with God. And so if we confess our sins, don't you love this? He is faithful and just to forgive us. And to cleanse us, to wash us, the application of the blood is being made. If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar and his word is not in us. It's not how perfect you think you are, it's how willing you are to acknowledge how flawed you are. That lets you into the enjoyment of the provision of God's blood for your life. What a wonderful provision that has been provided for us this morning. I appreciate, I had written down here Psalm 32, 5, thank you, Wellington. I was going to read that, but it was read earlier. What a, he knew, David knew, he was troubled, he transgressed. But there's forgiveness with God when we acknowledge. That was David, way back then, recognizing the way God works. It's not just bringing a sacrificial animal to the temple that sort of took care of everything, it's you putting all identifying your sins in that animal that was going to shed its blood for you. And the same thing when it comes to our cleansing. And remember, this is about the elect of God. What a wonderful full picture Peter gives us here, right? I mean, all the way back to the foreknowledge of God elected in Christ. Set apart by the spirit, and it's all moving toward this unto. The way it manifests itself in time unto a child of God who hearkens, who listens and obeys, obeys. And a child of God who's engaged in the activity of being cleansed. You can't be a child of God and have no desire to be cleansed. Because you are denying you have sin. This has to be of great value to you. The elect identify this, they love the thought of this. That my sins can be washed and cleansed from my life. What a beautiful thing Peter has done for us. The elect are an obeying people, and the elect are a confessing people. And I trust that as you meditate on these things, if there has been lack in your life in these realms, I trust that the spirit of God has convicted us and moves us toward greater engagement in being obedient children. And enjoying more fully and regularly the confession of our sin, acknowledge it. Boy, pride in all of us is a ruthless thing, is it not? To own up, to acknowledge, confess. But if we are the children of God, we are humbled by the great provision and we do not want to do anything that shows disregard to the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Obedience shows respect to it, and confession of sin and repentance shows respect to what Christ has accomplished for his people. May God use these things to bless you.