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Jun 28, 2020

Strange Diet

Strange Diet

Passage: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Strange Faith

Keywords: salvation, maturity, rebirth, brotherly love, taste and see, what remains, imperishable seed

Overview: What we most need from each other in this season we may find increasingly difficult to offer. Why? It could be that what we’re most feeding on during this season may be the least nourishing to us and to who we are to one another. We are under vastly different circumstances than those Peter is writing to, but we share a common challenge, and common threat--and not mainly from outside us, but from what can happen among us. What’s needed? Why that? And how so?

6.28.20 GMR Online Service from Graceworks Media on Vimeo.

Order of Worship

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 34:1-3, 8
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Isaiah 40:1-8
CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 1:3-12
MESSAGE: Strange Diet
BENEDICTION: 2 Corinthians 13:11,14

Readings & Scripture

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 34:1-3, 8
LEADER: I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad. 3 Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!

ALL: 8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

OLD TESTAMENT READING: Isaiah 40:1-8
LEADER: The Old and New Testaments are one complete Story, all pointing to the reality of Christ’s finished work and the hope of the gospel. Our Old Testament reading for today, that’s connected to the Central Text and Message is found in Isaiah, 40.
LEADER: 1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” 6 A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 1:3-12 ESV
LEADER: 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

2:1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

BENEDICTION: 2 Corinthians 13:11,14
LEADER: 11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Psalm 33:6-9
  • Psalm 34
  • Isaiah 40:6-9
  • Acts 20:27
  • Romans 14
  • 1 Corinthians 3:2
  • 1 Corinthians 13
  • Ephesians 4:11-12
  • Ephesians 5:25-27
  • 2 Timothy 3:15-17
  • Hebrews 5:12
  • Hebrews 10:19-25
  • 1 John 2:28-3:3

ILLUSTRATIONS

06.28.2020 InView Media Album

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Most memorable, elaborate meal you’ve ever had--go. What did it cost? Who paid for it? Why was it so delectable?
  2. Even though you don’t know well the people to whom Peter is writing, what might you infer about them from what he says to them in this passage? What challenge(s) may they be facing? Do you sense any overlap in their challenges and ours in this tumultuous season?
  3. What do all the vices Peter rattles off have in common? What tends to motivate each or all?
  4. What are several possibilities in what Peter means by “long for the pure spiritual milk.” Which seems the best and why?

Quotes

 

  • The scandal of Christian disunity is too serious. - W.H. Auden
  • No one heals himself by wounding another. Saint Ambrose
  • It’s time for us to say to our fellow Christians, not “Here’s what I have to teach you,” but rather, “What can we all — what must we all — learn from one another?” If even going into exile can’t teach us to pursue a common wisdom, forged in collective prayer and shared penitence, I don’t know what ever will.   - Alan Jacobs
  • Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away. - Eustance in C.S. Lewis’s, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  • Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man can’t have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. - Jonathan Edwards 
  • Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all. - G.K. Chesterton

SERMONS / TALKS: