IMPERISHABLE SEED - 1 Peter 1:23-2:3

This is the devotional in its entirety that, Lord-willing, I will be giving at the Ladies Fellowship for my church in June. If you are from DBC...skip this post, until after June 20th!

Several weeks ago my daughter Annie landed at my doorstep with an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper and a grin. She was planning a vegetable garden plot, excited that now she had the space, after moving out of their apartment and into their home with a nice, BIG, back yard! We talked about the size of the plot; it would need to be measured and staked out. The grass and weeds would need to be removed. The ground was hard and would need to be broken up. The soil would need to be turned and amended. The ground would not produce fruit until the gardener willfully broke up the ground, pulled the weeds, and prepared the soil. Then the seeds would need to be planted and the care continued. Annie would need to water, add fertilizer, eventually do some pruning and pinching, and pull the new weeds that popped up.

In order for a garden to produce fruit, the gardener has to put in a lot of work. No one looks at a garden and says, “Wow, look at how this garden has planted itself and produced such wonderful veggis!” Instead they say, “Look at the effort of the gardener!”

A garden is an illustration of a much grander truth. Just as a garden reflects the tender care of a gardener, Creation reflects the glory and majesty of the Creator. Intricate designs point to a Master Designer. Just like a garden implies a gardener, Creation implies a Master Gardener.

It is God who brings life into this world, all life. He is the Creator and Sustainer of life and everything that grows by seeds is a creation of God. The fact that God uses seeds makes it no less His creation. It just speaks to His glory and wisdom and power, doesn’t it? How He puts into each seed the genetics for life – incredible!

All seeds however die, even the human ones.

There is one seed that doesn’t die. It is the seed by which God creates the new birth. While physical life is His work, spiritual life is also God’s work. God has a means by which He causes the new birth. He has a seed by which He does it. 1 Peter 1:23 tells us what that seed is…

“For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding (or enduring) word of God.”

The seed that God uses to produce spiritual life is His living and enduring Word. The Word lives as God lives. It is as undying as He is undying. It is the seed that ever lives so it is the seed that gives ever living life.

Perishable seed produces life that eventually dies. Plants will die. Animal flesh will die. Human flesh, our bodies will die, but not God’s Word. Since it is the seed by which God uses to produce spiritual life and it is imperishable speaks to the truth that spiritual life in Christ is imperishable, it is permanent. We cannot lose it or walk away from it.

Let’s go back to the beginning of Peter’s letter for a moment. He says in verse three that according to God’s mercy – His great mercy – He caused us to be born again to a living hope.

Let me ask you something – did you have anything to do with your physical birth? It was someone else’s choices, wasn’t it, which brought about your physical birth. In the same way, we have nothing to do with the causing of our spiritual birth.

I want to look at some scripture which describes our condition prior to our new birth, prior to our salvation…

While we have physical life, Ephesians 2:1 says that before salvation we were dead in our sins. While we are alive physically, every single person is born into this world spiritually dead. Can physically dead people do anything? Can spiritually dead people do anything?

2 Corinthians 4:3 says that the gospel is veiled to those who are perishing. That’s all of us before God does His work of salvation in us. The very next verse says Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel. If we are spiritually dead, do we have any power or ability to remove those blinders?

Romans 3:10 says there is none who seeks God. There is none who understands. Why? Because we are spiritually dead!

God who sees everything and is the Giver of understanding, in His great mercy and compassion, sees us in our spiritual condition because of our sin, and though because of our sin we deserve and have earned death, (Rm. 6:23), eternal separation from Him, He causes us to be born again!

Just what does our salvation process look like?

The Master Gardener began His plan of salvation before He even created the world. It began with the Book of Life in which He’d written the names of each of His chosen ones, in whom He would eventually implant the imperishable seed of His Word.

In John 6, Jesus tells us that the Father then begins a drawing process for His chosen. The Father begins drawing us and places the desire in us to seek Him. Just as a gardener needs to break up the hard ground, preparing the soil for the seed, the Holy Spirit begins breaking up the hardness of our hearts because of our sin, preparing it to receive the imperishable seed. In this drawing process, God sovereignly sees to it that we have an encounter with His word, perhaps many encounters, but eventually the imperishable seed which produces everlasting life, which contains the gospel message, the good news of Jesus Christ, will take root and God will begin His good work in us as the Master Gardener.

Romans 10:17 – “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.”

Ephesians 1:13 says we believed after listening to the message of truth.

James 1:18 says in the exercise of God’s will He brought us forth by the word of truth.

As we hear the word, the message of truth, God removes the blinders and gives us the wisdom to understand. A dead man can receive the gift of spiritual life because God places His arms around ours, lifts our hands, encloses our fingers around the gift, and breathes life into our dead souls. He gives us the ability to see Christ as the Treasure that He truly is, for the sinners that we really are. He enables us to turn from our sin and run into His arms for forgiveness, for washing and cleansing of our sin.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Greatest Treasure and His Word is Precious Treasure.

My next question for you is this…what is your appetite like for the Precious Treasure of God’s Word?

We just looked at salvation from the Master Gardener’s perspective, seeing His plan and work of salvation. Let’s look at it now from the believer’s perspective.

After telling us that God uses the imperishable seed of God’s word to bring about our new birth Peter tells us we should long for it, like new born babies long for milk, so that by it, by the Word, we can grow in respect to salvation. The believer’s response to God’s work is growth.

Have you ever thought that the level of spiritual intensity or maturity you are at now is all that you will ever have? Have you ever thought others may have strong desires after God and deep experiences of personal pleasure in God, but you never will? It’s just not you? The word “long” here is simply the word “desire”. God commands us to desire.

God commands His children to feel longings for the Word! If He commands it then there must be a way to obey.

Peter makes a connection between longing or craving the milk of the word and tasting the kindness of the Lord.

When did we first taste God’s kindness? In the gospel message, at the point when He removed the blinders and we understood His marvelous gift of being forgiven of our sins.

In the book of 1 John, John says this, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.” Then he says, “I am writing to you fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. Finally he says, “I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.” These are references to levels of spiritual maturity. When we are newborns in the Lord, about all we understand is that our sins are forgiven because of what Christ did on the cross for us. Do you remember the excitement you had over that knowledge? When you taste something that is good, you want more of it. The spiritually mature in the faith, the “fathers” in the faith, “know Him who has been from the beginning.” Jesus, when He was praying to the Father just before the cross said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent.”

How do we get from knowing our sins are forgiven to knowing Him? By consistently and faithfully choosing to be in His Word! How a plant hungers and thirsts for water and sunlight! If it goes for a few days without either, it begins to wilt. It naturally desires these things because without water and sun, it will die. While a believer will never face spiritual death or separation from God because the gift of life is eternal life, a believer who understands their sin and work of Jesus on their behalf will long for a closer relationship with Jesus and the Father and just a day or two without that close walk, they will begin to feel malnourished, and wilty!

The new birth, spiritual birth, is by the imperishable seed of the Word. The one who has been born again through this imperishable seed will remain in Christ forever because it is the ever living word that brings this new, ever living life. This means we are secure forever in the family of God. What we can do however is neglect the command to have longings for the imperishable seed which brought about our new birth. Without those longings we will then probably neglect being in the Word, which produces growth in our salvation and an ever growing knowledge of who God is. We cannot walk away from our salvation or lose our salvation, but we can be stunted in our spiritual growth. We can remain in a state of wiltedness by depriving ourselves of feeding on His Word. We then deprive ourselves of the joy of growing in knowing Him. Knowing Him rejoices the heart. When we choose to be in the Word we will develop an appetite for it. We will then long for it and this command will be fulfilled in our life!

Peter is saying that we have been born again by the powerful kindness of God through His Word. We saw Jesus for the Treasure that He was, our Savior. Go on longing for the Word, keep tasting the kindness of the Lord through the Word. As you partake of the Word, you will go from knowing your sins are forgiven to knowing Him. Your view of God will enlarge. There is no limit to this because God is infinite! As you grow in your knowledge of Him so will your love for Him and your joy in Him. Let me also add that this will affect your obedience to Him in a positive way as well, and choosing to daily nourish yourself with God’s Word, your life will be characterized by the choicest fruit which brings much glory to the Master Gardener!

God’s Word is powerful enough to create new Christians, through the new birth. It is powerful enough to create desire in a languishing believer’s soul. Is your soul languishing and wilted because you haven’t been in the Word? Right before Peter says we are to long for the Word he says we are to put aside malice, guile, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. Is there no longing in your heart for the Word because of sin? We languish when we allow sin to remain. Confess it, put it aside, and get back into the Word!

Because of sin and its affects, life is not without heartache nor is it trouble and trial free. One of the greatest benefits to being in the Word is the sustaining power it gives through trials. Paul tells us in Romans that God causes all things to work together for the benefit of those who love Him. Trials are one thing in God’s plan to conform us into the image of His Son. This means trials are a good thing. Sometimes trials are the Master Gardener’s pruning process in our lives. Maybe our fruit is shriveled. A cut hurts, but it also gets our attention. A trial causes us to raise our perhaps thirsty and dried souls back up to the Master Gardener. You may be in the Word faithfully and consistently producing fruit. The Master Gardener may bring a trial, that cutting, pruning process in our life - so we will bear even more fruit. A Master Gardener’s goal is to produce the highest quality fruit and in great abundance! James says we are to consider it all joy when we encounter trials. Why? Because we know He is doing His work in us. We need to work on the spiritual discipline of being in His Word. When we are consistently taking in God’s Word, enlarging our view of God by being in it, then when the pressure comes our faith has the opportunity to be strengthened as it is being tested.

Beloved, remember what He did on your behalf. Remember the kindness you first tasted at your new birth. What type of a plant does your life look like? Are you dried and wilty? It’s amazing what a sprinkling of water and a little sunshine of the Word will do!