Latest / Reformed Thinking / Fading Flesh, Enduring Word: The Gospel Foundation of Hope and Love (1 Peter 1:24–25)

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Fading Flesh, Enduring Word: The Gospel Foundation of Hope and Love (1 Peter 1:24–25) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is where we take the
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sources you share with us, the articles, the research, the
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scripture, and really try to plunge into the details to find
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what you know, what truly matters.
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Today we're zeroing in on a a really concise and frankly
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powerful declaration of the apostle Peter, specifically
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first Peter chapter 1, verses 24 and 25.
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It's a passage that just holds up these two massive realities
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against each other. On one side you have the frailty
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of human life, and on the other, the rock solid nature of God's
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revelation. Our sources today are all
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centered on Peter's direct appeal to the prophet Isaiah
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chapter 40. He sets up this absolute, you
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know, this sharp contrast between all flesh and the word
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of the Lord. So our mission for this deep
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dive is to get at the gravity of Peter's comparison.
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Why this specific imagery? What does it tell us about where
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we put our confidence? And how does this truth, this
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abiding truth, reshape our entire existence?
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We're basically searching for the ultimate unshakable anchor
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for life in a world that's just defined by decay.
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And you know, the audience Peter is speaking to here is just so
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critical to understanding this. He calls them elect exiles.
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Exiles. Yeah, believers who are
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scattered across Asia Minor. These are Saints who were deeply
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pressed by hardship, by social marginalization and in many
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cases, outright hostility. So they're feeling the pressure.
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Immensely. And their natural temptation,
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which is just like ours, was to measure reality by what they
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could see right in front of them.
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The intimidating strength of their persecutors, for instance.
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Sure. Or losing their job, their
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safety net. Yes, all of it.
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The world they were living in felt massive and stable, and
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their own faith probably felt, you know, pretty unstable and
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threatened by comparison. So that leads to the big
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question then. It does.
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I mean, if your life feels unstable, if it's threatened by
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suffering and loss and just the inevitability of decay, where do
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you put your confidence? Where does it rest?
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And Peter's answer isn't try harder or be more optimistic.
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Not at all. It's not a better strategy.
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It's not simple optimism. His answer is singular, and it's
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objective. It's God's own word, that word,
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you know, unlike everything else.
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They might try to cling to their culture, their reputation, their
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health. It does not decay.
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It's the only thing that doesn't.
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So this whole discussion is really designed to expose the
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the unreliability of every single human support system, and
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instead comfort the church with a certainty that you can trust
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even when everything else is crumbling to dust around you.
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That makes perfect sense. I mean, if you feel like an
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exile, you're desperate to find a place to build your house that
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isn't going to get washed away in the next storm, right?
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But as you said, Peter doesn't just drop this powerful imagery
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out of the blue. He's building a case, isn't he?
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It's a very careful chain of logic that leads us right to
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this contrast between the grass and the word.
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So maybe we should unpack that structure first.
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Yeah, let's. Do that.
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So the argument really kicks off in verse 22 with a direct
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command and imperative. He says having purified your
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souls by your obedience to the truth, love one another
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earnestly from a pure heart. He starts with this ethical
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requirement, but you have to notice the condition that comes
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before it. They have already purified their
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souls, and it's tied to their obedience to the truth.
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And that phrase, obedience to the truth, that's really where
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the gospel comes crashing in. It's not about A to do list
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then. No, in the context of first
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Peter, this isn't about them ticking off a list of ethical
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actions they've completed so that now, finally, he can talk
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about love. This is about the obedience of
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faith. It's that once and for all act
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of receiving the gospel is true, trusting Christ and bowing to
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his authority. So he's grounding the command to
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love in a spiritual reality that God has already accomplished in
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them. That's it.
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The moral command is grounded in a divine reality.
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And the command itself is. Well, it's fascinating.
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He doesn't just call for, you know, polite civility or being a
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decent neighbor. He calls for fervent or earnest
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brotherly affection. That word is strong.
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This is strenuous, strenuous, persevering affection.
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It's a love that is required to survive the very pressures and
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sufferings that were plaguing these scattered exiles and has
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to be a durable, almost family level devotion.
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Which then raises a really critical question.
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How? I mean, how can human beings who
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are so prone to selfishness and conflict, how can we generate
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that kind of durable, fierce love on our own?
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We can't. Right, and Peter anticipates
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this. His answer is what rounds the
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command. It's regeneration.
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In verse 23. The logic is crystal clear.
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Love one another since you have been born again, ah?
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So there's the reason since. Not of perishable seed, but of
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imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.
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The ability to love rests squarely on the fact of the new
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birth. This isn't a self help program.
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It's a new origin. A new principle of life has been
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implanted by God. So if the source of this new
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life were, say, perishable, if our Christian identity was just
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rooted in our own effort or some cultural trend or even a really
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intense emotional experience. Then the love would fail.
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It would be seasonal. It would get scorched by the
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first trial that comes along, but Peter insists the source,
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the seed itself, is imperishable.
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It comes from God and it originates from a source that
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cannot fade or die. I think that's the genius of his
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argument right there. Yeah, Peter knows instinctively
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that when people face real pressure, you know, economic
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ruin, social isolation, they will always cling to what feels
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solid. Whatever seems stable in the
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moment. Right.
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Their reputation, their health, the acceptance of their friends.
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So Peter has to prove to them that the very instrument of this
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new imperishable life, life the word, is itself permanent.
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He has to prove that their new foundation is actually more
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solid than the Roman Empire itself.
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That's it. And that is the very reason
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verses 24 and 25 begin with. The little word for Peter isn't
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just throwing in a nice quote from Isaiah for a fact.
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It's his evidence. It's his biblical proof.
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He's validating his claim about the words permanence.
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He's saying the life you have is imperishable because the Word
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that gave you that life is eternal.
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This contrast is the crucial hinge.
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The instrument of your salvation cannot fail because it is the
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eternal utterance of God. OK, so let's move into that
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contrast then, starting with this this devastating verdict on
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human frailty. In verse 24, Peter begins with
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the first half of the image, and it's surprisingly unsparing.
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He says all flesh is like grass. It's a Universal Declaration,
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and when Peter says all flesh the Greek is pasa sarcs, he's
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talking about creaturely frailty.
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So not just our sinfulness. No, it's not simply a statement
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about moral weakness, which someone like Paul might focus on
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more. Peter here is stressing
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mortality and limitations. This includes human life in its
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strongest, most vital form. He exempts no one.
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The strong, the successful, the powerful political leader,
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everyone. We all share this creaturely
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state of being nothing more than grass.
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I wonder if we today really feel the weight of that.
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I mean, grass is it's easily overlooked, it's easily cut
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down, and it's fundamentally disposable.
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So if Peter's readers were looking at their hostile
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neighbors and feeling intimidated by their power or
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their social standing, Peter's reminding them that opponent's
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apparent strength is still flesh and flesh is simply grass.
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It looks vigorous for a moment, green and thriving, but it
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carries absolutely no principle of permanence within itself.
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And that analogy just demolishes any confidence we might try to
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reap in what is merely human, doesn't it?
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It eradicates pride, which says look at what I've built, and at
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the same time it shrinks fear, which says look how unstoppable
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they are. They're all just temporary
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structures. And then he sharpens the image
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even further. He does the second clause and
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all its glory like the flower of grass.
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That distinction between the grass and the flower seems key.
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The glory, the doxa. Was he getting at there?
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That's the highest expression of human impressiveness.
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We're talking about beauty, achievement, honor, cultural
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weight, public praise. It's the very best version of
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man that society admires and rewards.
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It's what we spent our whole lives trying to cultivate.
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We do, but the imagery Peter uses makes that whole effort
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tragic. The flower, the anthos in the
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Ancient Near East isn't like a carefully cultivated rose that
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blooms for a whole season. It's that incredibly fragile
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blossom that just erupts after a rare rain, only to vanish almost
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instantly under the scorching desert wind.
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The Scirocco. So he's saying our greatness,
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our glory, fades even faster than our physical bodies do.
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Faster the peak of human civilization.
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Our most lauded accomplishments, our viral fame, our high flying
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stock portfolio. That's the flower, and the
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flower is more transient than the grass stalk itself, and the
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inevitability of this process is just absolute, Peter says.
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Simply the grass Withers and the flower falls.
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He uses a grammatical construction, a gnomic Eris,
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that states this not as some future prediction, but as a
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timeless universal law of how things are.
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So it's a done deal. The outcome is so certain, so
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woven into the fabric of creation, that the Greek almost
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speaks of it as if it has already happened.
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It is the nature and the destiny of flesh to fall.
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There's no appeal. I think we need to slow down
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here and just let the weight of that declaration sink in,
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because modern life is just a constant denial of this truth,
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isn't it? It is.
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We're programmed to believe we're the exception to the rule.
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Maybe we need to look at some concrete numbers to really grasp
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the weight of all flesh is as grass.
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I think that's a great idea. Think of this as a statistical
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sermon on mortality. The withering isn't theoretical,
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it is ceaseless and quantifiable.
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So what would I hang about? Well, if you look at global
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demographic data, somewhere around 160,000 to 170,000 human
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beings die every single 24. Hours every day.
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Every day. That means that while we are
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having this conversation, roughly two people are dying
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every second. This is the constant attrition
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of the SARCS, the universal process of decay, working around
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the clock without pause. And when you zoom in from the
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global scale to the individual timeline, it becomes
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terrifyingly real. The psalmist tells us our life
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is about 70 or 80 years, right? If you translate that into the
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most basic unit of time we use to measure life, the weak and 80
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year life is only about 4160 minks.
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That's it. That's all you get.
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When we are chasing achievement or professional status or even
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just fleeting cultural praise, that glory phase, we're talking
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about an unbelievably small window of time compared to
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eternity. We're just vapors a few thousand
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weeks long. And the legacy check proves that
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the flower does not preserve the grass.
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We often harbor this subconscious assumption that,
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you know, while our bodies will die, our achievements, our
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monuments, our businesses, our influence, we'll somehow stick
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around and justify our existence.
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But history shows that to be vanity.
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It does. I mean, think about the figures
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of vast influence from just 100 years ago.
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The tycoons, the emperors, the philosophers, the celebrated
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artists who had a glory that seemed insurmountable at the
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time. How many of them do we even
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know? Exactly how many of their names
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are household knowledge today? Their names on plaques,
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forgotten figures and textbooks, subjects of niche academic
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papers, Their physical flesh dissolved and their personal
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dominion, their legacy, It perished.
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This proves that human achievement, the most glorious
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flower we can possibly cultivate, simply cannot bear
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the weight of ultimate confidence.
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It's a failed investment. That is a harsh, sobering
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realization. The world tells you to invest
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everything in the grass, manicure it, preserve it,
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display it beautifully. And Peter's message, backed by
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history and statistics, just screams that this is a failed
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foundation. Every obituary preaches the
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sermon. Every obituary, every forgotten
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monument, every canceled cultural icon, the flesh fails.
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And this devastating verdict on all human resources is meant to
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clear the ground, to prepare the reader for the only stable
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alternative, the antithesis in verse 25.
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Right. And that brings us to the great
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hinge, the point of transformation.
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Then comes that pivotal contrast.
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But the word the Lord remains forever.
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The word but is doing a lot of work there.
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A huge amount the use of that that adversative but sets up an
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entirely different order of reality against the world of
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withering flesh. What Withers is mortal and
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belongs to the creature. What remains belongs only to the
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Lord. And the word used for remains
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mean I it means it abides, it continues, it stays in force.
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It literally outlasts every speaker, every generation, every
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empire, and every threat. The stability of God's Word is
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set against the entire flux of human history and culture.
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And as you said, Peter isn't just inventing this, he's
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pulling it straight from Isaiah 40.
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Directly from Isaiah 40 verses 6 through 8.
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And you have to remember this is the great passage that starts
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with that command. Comfort.
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Comfort my people. To get what Peter is doing, you
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have to get the exilic context of Isaiah.
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OK, So what was that context? In Isaiah's day, God's people
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felt utterly crushed by the seemingly invincible Babylonian
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Empire. Babylon was the pinnacle of
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human achievement and military power.
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It looked like granite, like a permanent fixture of the
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universe. The ultimate glory of man at the
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time. Absolutely.
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And God's message to them through the prophet was a divine
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recalibration of reality. He says Babylon, despite its
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walls and its might, is just a blade of grass.
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It will wither, but God's Word, His promise of return, His
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covenant faithfulness stands forever.
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So the promise can't expire. It can't because it's stability
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rests not on the strength of Israel, but on the constancy of
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God Himself. So Peter, writing to his own
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elect, exiles people who are pressured and marginalized, is
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using that ancient comfort for them.
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He's telling them those people opposing you, the culture that
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rejects you, the powers that threaten you, they are flesh and
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glory, and they will wither. That's the verdict of the
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Sovereign Lord, who determines the timeline of all things
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human. That historical context is
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incredibly powerful, but let's look at the precision Peter uses
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when he talks about the word. Verse 23, he said we're born
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again through the living and abiding Word of God.
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Then verse 25, quoting Isaiah, he talks about the permanence of
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the word. Is he just saying the same thing
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twice? No, and he shows remarkable
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lexical precision here in verse 23.
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When he speaks of the source of regeneration, he uses the Greek
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word logos. This often refers to the divine
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message in its totality, the divine reason, the whole counsel
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of God. OK, the big picture.
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Right. However, when he quotes Isaiah
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in verse 25, he switches to a different word, Rama, but the
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word Roma of the Lord remains forever.
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The word Roma emphasizes the spoken utterance, the specific
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articulated statement. So he's getting more specific.
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He is. He's telling them to rest their
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hope, not in some vague, abstract concept of divine
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truth, but in the specific verbal revelation of God.
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The Roma is the precise instrument that God uses to save
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them. So if I can translate that
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practically, he's not telling them to look for deep hidden
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mystical truths inside themselves.
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He's telling them to trust the actual sentences God has spoken,
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the objective external text they can hear and read.
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Precisely the permanence of the Roma is crucial.
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This establishes the foundation for our belief in the
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reliability of Scripture. The truth that the word remains
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unto the age means it is a constant standard.
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So we don't believe the word of God merely contains truth.
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No. Or that it just records human
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religious feelings. We believe the Word is the
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abiding, objective speech of the Lord, outlasting all human
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interpretations and all cultural moods.
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And then Peter brings it all home with that pastoral punch.
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He identifies this eternal declaration with something
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concrete, something they had personally experienced.
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And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
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That sentence is the bridge from eternity to their daily lives.
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The eternal word that comforted exiles under Babylonian
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oppression has now come to them in the climactic form of the
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Gospel proclamation, the you agiliscent of Christ, crucified
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and risen. So the word that stands forever
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isn't some distant decree. No, it is the specific saving
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message that they heard announced through the ministry
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of preaching. And the profound implication is
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this. Because the preached gospel is
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the word that stands forever, the new life it creates in them
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is necessarily durable. It's not some temporary
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religious enthusiasm that's going to evaporate the moment
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suffering arrives. OK, so let's take a step back
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and try to synthesize the major pillars of truth Peter is
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building here. If we accept this premise,
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everything human is grasped. The Word is eternal.
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What are the central theological outcomes of that?
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Well, the first pillar has to be a robust understanding of
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Scripture. Peter doesn't treat Scripture as
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a historical relic or some artifact that preserves
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inspiring ideas. It's alive.
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It is alive. He treats it as the living,
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abiding, authoritative speech of the Lord that actively
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accomplishes God's saving purpose.
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In this framework, what defines reality is what God has spoken,
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and that definition does not expire.
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It gives us a fixed point of reference in an entirely
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relativistic world. And the second pillar has to be
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a sober view of ourselves, what you call the Sark's verdict.
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All flesh is like grass and I find this so helpful because it
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just levels both human pride and human fear at the same time.
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It really does. It rebukes pride by declaring
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that human glory, the brightest reputations, the strongest
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bodies, the vastest institutions, they all share the
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destiny of the flower. No matter how impressive the
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achievement, it will wither and fall.
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Which should really affect how we value our time.
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It should. If you spend 80 hours a week
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chasing a glory that's going to fade in 20 years, you've
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miscalculated the value of your time.
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But crucially, it also rebukes fear.
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It takes the threats of man and shrinks them down to their
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proper temporary size. They're just grass.
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The persecutors confidence. The cultures scorn the world's
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intimidation. They are all still flesh, still
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grass. Their threats will wither.
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This is the biblical antidote to man centered calculations
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echoing the Psalmist's warning. Put not your trust in Princess.
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And the third essential pillar seems to relate to how we
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receive that new life regeneration.
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Peter's whole argument supports the idea that the new birth is
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entirely God's work. Isn't.
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It it has to be. If all flesh is grass, then
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flesh cannot by its own inherent power, produce eternal life or
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even cooperate in the new birth. Grass can't just choose to
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become an oak tree. The life has to come entirely
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from outside the system of decay.
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And this is a powerful theological protection.
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It is because it means God grants new life through the
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Roma, the gospel proclamation applied by the Spirit.
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This supports the concept that the Spirit works with the Word,
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the objective, external preached message.
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Why is that so crucial to safeguard?
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Because it guards against two very common errors.
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On one hand, it challenges a kind of revivalistic pragmatism
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that treats conversion like it's a psychological technique you
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achieve through human effort or emotional manipulation.
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If flesh is grass, no technique can produce imperishable life.
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Right. And on the other hand, it
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challenges mysticism, which is always seeking private, direct
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revelation or centering on fluctuating inner feelings.
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Peter anchors our hope not in our inner spiritual state, which
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is still subject to the weakness of the flesh, but in the
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objective, eternal, external statement of the Lord.
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And moving on, the fourth pillar seems to have huge implications
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for our perseverance and our assurance.
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If the seed God implants is imperishable, and the word that
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delivered it remains forever, than the life produced.
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Must also be durable. That's the logical extension.
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The permanence of God's Word underwrites the durability of
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God's saving work. So our assurance of salvation
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rests not on the wavering will of man, not on our ability to
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hold on tight enough, but on the absolute constancy of the Lord
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who speaks and who keeps His Word.
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And finally, the fifth pillar brings us full circle back to
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where Peter started the word created family.
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His initial command for fervent brotherly love is shown to be
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not just a nice idea, but a covenantal consistency.
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They're called to love because they were born into the same
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household by the same imperishable seed.
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And this dictates how the church functions.
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The church is not fundamentally a consumer gathering built by
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marketing or the fleeting charisma of a leader.
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Which is just another form of glory that will wither.
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It is so preaching must be central because the church is a
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word created family. Any modern trend that tries to
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sideline the plain preaching of Scripture for entertainment or
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techniques might draw a crowd of consumers.
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But Peter's theology insists that only the enduring word can
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create an enduring people. OK.
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So we've established the theological infrastructure now.
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Now we have to ask the learner listening to this floor, what
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does this stark reality force you to do today?
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Peter's logic is meant to force a decisive, practical choice.
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Are you building your life on the withering grass or on the
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abiding word? And that forces a repentance
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from the subtle, maybe even unconscious idolatry of leaning
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our souls on fading supports. We have to look at our health,
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our professional identity, our relational approval, our youth,
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our financial security, not as bad things, but as perishable
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things. They.
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Can't hold the weight. They can't.
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The minute we treat them as ultimate, they become cruel
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masters because they are constantly threatening to leave
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us. If you look at the anxiety that
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dominates so much of modern life, the fear of job loss, the
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panic over ageing, the obsessive need for validation on social
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media, that anxiety is the consequence of building your
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confidence on grass. That's a light bulb moment right
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there, when a Christian who has been given an eternal foundation
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chooses instead to build their confidence on the grass.
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Suffering doesn't just bring inconvenience, it brings sheer
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panic. And that panic happens because
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the foundation itself is threatened.
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If your foundation is the word that is eternal, then the life
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built on it can be steady and resilient even when
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circumstances are in chaos. The Word rescues us from that
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fundamental instability. It also demands A radical
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reordering of our values. The world measures significance
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by glory, by visibility, applause, legacy.
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The market dictates who matters. Peter just dismisses all of this
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as a flower that falls. So what's the shift then,
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practically? It calls for a massive shift in
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priorities. We have to learn to prize what
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the world dismisses. We have to prioritize invisible
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faithfulness over public renown, secret prayer over viral
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marketing, steady repentance over self promotion, and
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ordinary committed love within the household of God over
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external status. The most successful life,
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according to Peter, is simply the one most conformed to Christ
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through steady submission to His Word, Whether or not that life
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ever makes the news. So we have to use the law in
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this context as a hammer. Repent of the arrogance that
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assumes we are somehow the exception to mortality.
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We are the grass. We are.
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And when we look at the secular idolatries that consume our
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energy, our obsessive care of our physical appearance, our
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endless striving for a bigger bank account, our attempts to
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preserve our flower through cosmetic surgery or digital
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immortality, Peter exposes them as a failed investment plan.
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We are stripped of our false confidence in the flower, so
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that we may be clothed entirely in Christ, who is the abiding
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Word made flesh. And this applies so sharply to
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ministry and church life as well.
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It's a strong rebuke against pragmatism, isn't it?
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If the glory of man is a fading flower, it means any church
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strategy that relies on techniques, branding, stage
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production or entertainment is fundamentally relying on the
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flesh to attract the flesh. If the flesh cannot produce
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eternal life. If it is just grass, then
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decorating the graveyard with clutter methods or attractive
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packaging is futile. It might draw a crowd, but it
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cannot produce an enduring regenerate people.
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So Peter's remedy is not to be more clever.
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His remedy is fidelity to the Word.
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We have to trust the living Word to do the work, and that means
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ordering our lives and our congregation so that the clear,
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central, and unapologetic proclamation of Scripture is the
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central means of grace. It means making the Bible clear,
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singing it, praying it, and preaching it, trusting that it
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alone possesses the seed of imperishable life.
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And we have to order our daily habits around submission to that
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scripture, hungering for it, because that's the only thing
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that stands when all other human sports fall away.
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Which brings us back to the initial command for love and
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endurance. Since we've been born again by
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an imperishable seed, fervent, brotherly love isn't just an
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optional sentiment. It's a covenantal consistency, a
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family duty that comes with the new birth.
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And a church that truly believes human glory fades will naturally
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resist fragmentation. Right, it should.
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If we stop competing for status within the congregation, if the
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cultural weight or reputation of 1 member is just as perishable
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as the next, then we stop engaging in gossip, in coldness,
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in consumerism. We invest not in the status of
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the flower, but in the shared imperishable seed of new life
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that we all have in common. And this gives profound courage
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when suffering or persecution comes when that Scirocco desert
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wind starts to blow. We do not lose heart.
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These attacks originate from the realm of the grass.
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They can touch the flower, they can destroy the physical body.
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They can diminish our social standing.
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But they cannot, by definition, touch the imperishable seed of
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the Word that resides within us. Our ultimate medication is as
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eternal as the word that saved us.
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We can suffer loss without despair and continue to obey
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without cynicism. So we've spent this deep dive
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considering the stark intersection of the temporal and
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the eternal. The verdict on all our human
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strengths, our sarks and our doxa is clear.
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They're destined to wither. Yet the eternal reality has
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invaded the present through the specific preached gospel.
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Offering a foundation that cannot be cancelled, eroded or
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stripped away by time or by opposition.
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The purpose of Peter's teaching here isn't to promote some kind
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of grim religious stoicism, is it?
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No, not at all. It's meant to ignite a defiant,
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grounded hope. Our hope does not rest in our
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own shaky ability to preserve our fading flower, but in the
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objective reality that the Word of the Lord remains forever.
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And the ultimate illustration of this is Christ himself.
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He's the perfect illustration, the eternal word.
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Jesus Christ voluntarily took on the frailty of grass.
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He withered under judgment on the cross so that we might be
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grafted into his imperishable life.
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He was cut down so that we might be resurrected and anchored in
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his permanence. That is the bedrock of our
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unshakable assurance. So if the Word of God stands,
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when every human empire, every professional achievement, and
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every personal security collapses, what daily decision
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about your time, your energy, and your affection today proves
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that you truly believe this word is the only thing that cannot be
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cancelled or stripped away? Think on that as you go forth
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seeking to build your life exclusively on that rock.