Message In 1peter – Number 3 – Deviation From Sanctification – 1peter 3:15-16 Series

MESSAGE IN 1PETER – NUMBER 3 – DEVIATION FROM SANCTIFICATION – 1Peter 3:15-16

[A]. INTRODUCTION TO DEVIATION

Deviation in one’s life is more highlighted, the more one is considered to be in an important position. So many love to pull others down. In Australia we have what is known as “the tall poppy syndrome”. It means that if someone has a higher profile, the desire and tendency is to pull those people down to the average level. It is almost the opposite of the American attitude of hero worship.

By deviation we mean the tendency to turn or swerve from a specified course. It may be only a small angle from the median line, but it is a deviation nevertheless. If you looked at a tiny deviation from about three metres away (10 feet), you would probably not even notice it – maybe not a big deviation to some, BUT – it might be only 0.5 of a degree difference, but in a precise building of 100 metres length (just over 109 yards), it is going to mean a difference of 87 cm, (34.2 inches) and the building can not be squared up. Carried on to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri about 4.3 light years away, it would mean you’d be out by 7,172,644,846 miles, and all that in only one half of a degree. Your spaceship would be lost in space! Tiny deviations are as severe as big deviations when accuracy counts.

There is a term in usage – deviant, and it refers to a person who has swerved from the norm of acceptable behaviour and into the unacceptable and the forbidden. In fact every person born into this world is a deviant in the sense that he and she has swerved away from the righteousness and holiness of God. We have all deviated from the straight measuring line of God. That is what makes us sinners as God says through Paul – {{Romans 3:10-12 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one.”}}

It might be easy to understand deviation in the worldly sense of the word, but it is more difficult to understand that in the spiritual sense as it might relate to Christians. The problem here is that we all still have the old sin nature, the natural man, and the heart is as Jeremiah described it – {{Jeremiah 17:9-10 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? “I, the LORD, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”}} It is only God who can really detect the deviation, as we often try to fool ourselves, or we just do not notice. We will speak more on this later.

[B]. THE PATH TO DEVIATION MAY BE SLIGHT AT FIRST

{{1Peter 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; 1Peter 1:16 because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”}}

These are our verses for today and a quick glance may not see how deviation applies here but it does. Peter opens this statement with a command to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. When a Christian does not do that, even a tiny bit, then he/she had deviated from the standard of God. That is what Christian deviation is. It means to wander off course, maybe only a small bit, but does have consequences. What are those?

The consequences of deviation are lost blessing and a path of sinfulness. Just let us consider both those in examples.

(a). EPHESUS was a thriving church of steadfast people who walked strongly for God, and Paul could write such beautiful things to them in his letter. They loved the Lord and did not deviate from that love all the time Paul knew them.

However a few decades further on, John had to write to them with this sad conclusion – {{Revelation 2:3-4 “You have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary, but I have this against you, that YOU HAVE LEFT YOUR FIRST LOVE.”}}

They still had wonderful perseverance and endurance, BUT they had left their first love. They were not even conscience of it. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the first love crept away only by the smallest fraction, but it was a deviation. Once you slip even the tiniest amount it seems to be easier to add a little more to that slip, then a little more, and a little more.