Well, good morning. If you're able to, you can open up your Bibles now to 1 Peter 2. We're really flying, aren't we? I hope, though, that as we work through this letter, this epistle, you'll just realize how rich God's Word is and is worthy to focus and meditate upon, slow down, chew, Enjoy, savor. If you're able to, please stand as we read God's Word. I'm gonna actually read chapter one, verse 22, to chapter two, verse three. It's one section, but we can only look at verses 22 through 25 last week, but I do want to sort of connect the context as we work through chapter two, verses one to three this morning. This is God's Word. having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love. Love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living. and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Therefore, putting away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisies and envies and all slanders, like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. This is God's word, thanks be to him for it. Let us pray for a blessing upon his preaching father, We think of the words that you inspired the psalmist to write, open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things in your law. Lord, we think of the same psalm that says, it is the unfolding of your word that gives light. And lastly, Father, I thought of the two on the road to Emmaus, how the word of Christ caused their hearts to burn. And Father, I would pray the same thing for us this morning, that you would open up our eyes and unfold your word and cause our hearts to burn for the Lord Jesus as the gospel is taught and expounded and applied. I pray, Lord, that you would increase our longing for, our yearning for, our desiring for, our craving for this pure spiritual milk Oh, how we long to grow up and experience more of your saving grace, more of what it means to be saved. I think of even Peter's words in his second epistle, that we are to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So I pray, Lord, you would help us to understand from your word and taste more fully of your goodness by your word. So come Holy Spirit, you're the only one who can do this for us. We can study Greek words and Hebrew words and commentaries and even listen to great sermons by great preachers, but only you Holy Spirit can cause growth in regeneration and in sanctification. One can sow, one can water, but only you, God, can bring about transformation. And so we pray for that very thing to happen this morning. On Father's Day, we pray, Father, that you would cause even some this morning to be born again to a living hope. And for your children this morning, Father, that they would feed afresh on the living manna, on Christ's own body. She gave her his bride. Father, we need this. We are languishing apart from your word. We need not only to be strengthened, we need to be sustained by a word, as Isaiah promised. And so, Father, do your work. Wither by the word, but refresh by the word. Cut away and tear down by your word, but also as you promised, Jeremiah, build up and establish by your word. Father, we just pray that your word would be working powerfully and as Paul prayed and taught the Thessalonians to pray that the word of the Lord would speed forth readily and be glorified this morning. Would you cause this to happen in our midst, we pray, Father. For Jesus' sake and in his name, amen. Please be seated. Well, as Peter was reading through 2 Corinthians 5 this morning in Sunday school, my eyes fixated upon a very short phrase in verse 17. If anyone be in Christ, new creation. Of course, in our English translations, they add he is, but literally it just says new creation. And I think that's what Peter's teaching us. That when we become a new creation, we receive all things new. A new hope that is living. A new love for the brothers. A new desire for holiness. But we also receive a new spiritual food. That before we become these new creatures, we are fed with natural food. And that's what Jesus had to teach. the disciples in John chapter six. That if they were to be sustained and if they were to grow up and be fed, it would be a spiritual food. That it would be himself, actually, mediated through the word of God. And so, in 1 Peter 2, we actually pick up where we left off last week. In the ESV, it says, so. Some other translations would have therefore. And that's the Greek word, therefore. What is the therefore therefore? He's comparing and contrasting a perishable seed that produces perishable life with an imperishable seed that produces imperishable life. And so we say, since the word of God is imperishable and it is given to you in the gospel, feed on it. It only makes sense. Pursue not perishable things, Pursue what is imperishable. This imperishable word is granted to you in the word. And it's preached to you as good news, whether it's Isaiah 40, or as we'll see this morning, Psalm 34. Peter is over and over and over showing us that the Old Testament taught us to look to Christ. Actually, look at it, actually, in chapter one again. Look in verse 10. concerning this salvation. The prophets who prophesied about what? This grace that was to be yours. And I want you to keep that in your mind. Because as I studied commentaries and even listened to sermons, they almost presented that we're to seek the word of God apart from seeking Christ in the word of God. The text that came to my mind this morning as the elders were praying was John chapter five. Do you remember Jesus was talking with the Pharisees? And he said something amazing to them. He says, you search the scriptures, but you do not find life in them. And that's the danger of me preaching this sermon saying, seek the word, seek the word, seek the word, eat the word. No, no, no, no, no. You seek the word to find Christ, that God's grace is mediated to his people through the word. That the milk is not the word, the milk is God's grace in Christ, which is presented to us in the word. So yes, you seek the word, but to find Christ. There are many people who have a good intellectual grasp of the scriptures, and yet there's no life. And so, I wanted to just sort of remind us that the prophets prophesied about the grace which was to be yours. And we need this morning grace. We need grace, and we find it in the Word. We never find the grace apart from the Word, but the grace is found in the Christ, who is revealed to us in the Word. Does that make sense? Because So we went to Calgary, I say, and just in the conversations, you know, we're eating, and something was said that reminded me of my past. I'm just a utilitarian kind of guy. I used to just eat to eat. Sometimes we can just read the Bible just to read the Bible. And I want to encourage us that when we do read the Bible, that we come to it like a banquet, a feast laid out before us, and Christ is the host. Feed on me, says Jesus, and here is my word. So, because Christ, and therefore because Christ's word is imperishable, and because it gives us new life and sustains this new life, Peter says, crave it. Crave this word, or the ESV just says, long for. See, everybody's longing for something, and Peter is appealing to our minds. Long for what is best. Long for what will give you true satisfaction. Long for that which is not life-stealing, but that which is life-giving. Remember Peter's audience? They're discouraged. They're these elect exiles that have been scattered throughout modern-day Turkey. But with God's Word, Peter encourages them. Not with Greek grammar, but with God's word and his grace in the gospel. God foreloved you. Even though you're suffering, God foreloved you. Even though you're scattered, the spirit sets you apart for obedience to Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. Those are words. But they're words that point beyond themself to who God is. And to who God is most fully revealed to us in the gospel of his son. So he reminds them of who they are by God's word. This is who you are. He also reminds them what they've been given. An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. We sang it. Reserved, kept, where? In heaven. Not on earth, kept in heaven. How? By God's power. Through faith. For salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. Who are you? Seen in God's Word. What you have in Christ? Seen in God's Word. How are you to leave? To live? Or leave, I guess you could say, too. It's revealed in God's Word. Pursuing holiness. Living in fear. Exhibiting brotherly love. See, all this is in the Word of God. We have a new constitution. An unchanging constitution. New hope, new holiness, new love, new community, new constitution. Tells us who we are, the freedoms we have in Christ, but also tells us how we ought to live. It's all revealed in God's word. And so I hope that we will begin, as I was reading in my devotions last week, in Psalm 1, what is it? Let's say 1. 140, you have exalted above all things your word in accordance with your name. And so if God exalts his word in accordance with his name, so also ought we. How are you to live? In hope, by faith, and in love. We saw that last week. But you know what sustains each of those? What builds your love? The gospel. What builds your faith? The gospel. What motivates your hope? The gospel. And so how we are to live requires the life-giving word of God. And that's how we end it, right? This is the life-giving word of God. So crave it. God's word is the instrument by which the Holy Spirit affects not only the new birth of God's elect, but also their sanctification. Understand that. You're born again through the living and abiding word of God, but you're also sustained through the living and abiding word of God. James 1.18, by God's sovereign plan, he gave us birth through the word of truth, but by his sovereign plan, he grows us by the word of truth. Romans 10.17, justifying faith comes by hearing the word, namely the gospel of Christ. But sanctifying faith also comes by hearing. That's why you don't just preach to unbelievers the gospel and say, now go on your way, try your best. No, we gather as God's people, praying that God would save those who are not justified by his word, but he would also sanctify those who have been justified by his word. That's why we feed on it. The baby's not just born, you give it a fill and it's all good. No, that baby's crying constantly. because it needs that word just as we are. So I want you to take away that God uses the word as his instrument not only to grant new life, but also to sustain and nourish and strengthen that new life. You see that actually in the book of Genesis. God speaks and things come into existence. But then God continues to speak, and he continues to sustain them. 10 times, 10 words. And to a Jew, of course, 10 words was very important. But 10 times, you can read in Genesis 1, and God said, he spoke, and life was given. 10 times God speaks, the first creation comes into existence through his sovereign life-giving word. Well, that happens in the new creation, 2 Corinthians 4. How does he bring about the first creation? By his word. How does he sustain the trees? And how does he sustain now animals in Hebrews 1? He sustains all things, Christ sustains all things by the word of his power. That's in the first creation. The beautiful flowers and everything you see is sustained by God's word. It's equally as true in the new creation. He brings about the new creation. Charles was unregenerative one time in his life. And God spoke, Charles, let there be light. That's 2 Corinthians 4, 6. You can read it if you don't believe me. So God speaks to Charles and the new creation comes about. Charles is in Christ. If anyone's in Christ, new creation that happens through the word. How does Charles now live? Well he lives by faith. And faith comes by, see the circular argument? We live by faith and faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of Christ. In the Old Testament, God brings his people into existence. He calls, he speaks, and God said to Abraham. Once Israel was not, now Israel is. What distinguishes Israel from the nations? God's word. What distinguishes the church from the nations? God's life-giving word. So please don't just see this as a one-off in 1 Peter chapter two. We need God's life-giving word as those who have received life from his word. Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 8, speaking says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Okay, that's very important, and if you were to read the context of Deuteronomy 8, God says, I led you through this wilderness, right? He's speaking, Moses is speaking to the second generation that's about to enter into the promised land. How did God sustain him for 40 years? Oh, with manna. Sort of. The man appointed beyond itself to God's word. I sustained you for 40 years supernaturally by my manna, which Jesus rightly interprets in John 6 as the living word, namely himself. So, when God's people who have been born again, or vivified, as the reformers would say, those who have been vivified by God's word need fresh strength and life, they need revivification, it's by the same word. It's the same well that we go back to. We don't need something new. We don't need new gimmicks or strategies. We go back to the ancient paths. Go back to the ancient words. Psalm 119.25. Don't have to turn there, but it's a great one to memorize. My soul clings to the dust. The ESV says give me life, but I, like the other translations, revive me. according to your word, according to your promise. Is your soul clinging to the dust this morning? Are you weary? Are you languishing? Are you tired? Do you have COVID fatigue? Give me life according to your word. Don't put your hope in some vaccine. Don't put your hope in some governmental opening plan. Those aren't bad things, but nor does God say that will give you life. God's people go back to the source. Christ is our life. And so we go back to the word, which points to the word. In the beginning was the logos, halogos. And that logos, that word is Christ. Psalm 119, 28, in the same octet. My soul melts away from sorrow. Strengthen me according to your word. Some of us have, in the language of Hebrews, drooping hands and weak knees. Where do you find your strength? You find it in the word, or you could translate that, the promise of God. Strengthen me according to your word. That's what Peter's already done in chapter one by quoting the Old Testament. He quoted Isaiah 40. Here are God's people in Isaiah 40, languishing in exile under the rule of a foreign tyrant in Babylon, wondering, has God forsaken us? And Isaiah reminds them of who God is, and His might, and His power, and His promise. And as they feed on that word, they're like eagles. They float and fly above life's circumstances. They run and do not grow weary. They walk and do not faint. They're strengthened by God and his promise. They're strengthened by God and his word. Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God. And then Isaiah goes on for the next 26 chapters to promise and point to Christ. Feet on Christ, and you will receive comfort, comfort, O my people. As Israel of old was to be comforted, encouraged, and strengthened by God's word to a life of faith, hope, and love, so also must the new Israel, the church. And we're going to see that language in the next section. But we're the fulfillment of Israel. That all those promises in the Old Testament, said Peter, pointed to us and our grace we would find in the Christ. Charles actually quoted a verse that I had in my notes. The law of the Lord is perfect. Now listen to this in the King James, converting the soul. It's kind of a good translation if you understand what the word convert means. See, the Puritans following the Reformers said that conversion is once for all, And yet it's an everyday thing. Regeneration is a once-for-all thing, and yet every day we're to be regenerated, as it were, or renewed. That's what regeneration is. Death, life. Kill the old man. Bring life to the new man. And so in a very real sense, the law's great for unbelievers if they may be converted. But Rye needs to be daily converted. I'm not talking about becoming a Christian every day. I'm talking about becoming a better Christian, or more of a Christian, growing up into the salvation. Does that make sense? The law of the Lord is tamim, whole, perfect, flawless, pure, converting the soul. If Rod was here, I would look at him and say the Hebrew word is shuv, and it's in the hyphal, and it literally means causing to return. That's what the word does. Causing to return to what? Or causing to return to who? And talking with Nathan this week, one of his favorite verses he revealed to me is, you once were like lost, straying sheep, but now you have what? Returned to the shepherd of your souls. How do you return to Christ? He uses his word, the crook of his word. Nathan has that, he's got some piggies and he's got, he uses that shepherd's crook on everything, even his kids sometimes. How do we come back? The crook of God's word, come back, return to me. Some of you are straying. Oh, that God would use his word to convert you, to cause you to return to him. And since this is all true, says Peter, long for God's word, crave his word, pant for his word, prioritize his word, feast on his word. However, look at the text. Before you can fully feed on the word properly, you need to get rid of a couple things first. And you'll notice the way I read it was a little different than the ESV, which is a decent translation. But I've tried to show you in the last, I think, three or four sermons that Peter only has one command in the section, and then it's modified by a participle. You're sick of me talking about participles. I can't because they're so important to Peter's logic and his argument. What's the main command? Long for the word. But before you can long for the word, you must first put away. And so the ESV almost translates as like two separate commands. But it's really one command with what you would call an attendant circumstance. So we saw this argument over and over and over. Look in verse 13 of chapter one. The command is, set your hope fully on the grace. But you can't set your hope fully on grace unless you first prepared your mind. See the link? If you're not preparing your mind, if you're not being sober-minded, you can't set your hope fully. Because you've been dulled. Right? Because you've been diverted. So what Peter's saying here in chapter 2 is you can't really crave the Word of God until first you've put away. It's an impossibility. And so there is a chronological and logical priority. Some people say, I wanna crave the word, and yet, they're still, as it were, craving bitterness. And the two are incompatible. Put off, put on. That would be Paul's words here. The first verb, put off, is a participle, and so that's why I translated it, so putting away. Putting away, crave. It doesn't say crave and then put away. It says actually put away so that you can crave. Before you can crave, you must put off these vices. It's the illustration of being filled with junk food. Our kids have a supernatural, maybe just a natural ability to be very hungry half an hour before supper. And you know what they're longing for? chips and all kinds of stuff that shouldn't even be in our pantry. That was a shot. But if they fill themselves with that junk food, poison, let's say, are they gonna have any room for the good stuff that mom has labored over? No. If you're filled with all of these vices, there's no room now for God's word. Does that make sense? Some of you don't have kids. If God does grant you kids, you will see this. They'll be so full of junk food, they'll have no room for the good stuff. But the opposite is just as true. If they're filled with good, nourishing food. See, that's the danger of junk food. I'm not gonna give you a lesson on dietary habits. But junk food never satisfies you, which is why you keep eating more and more and more. But when you eat good food, you're satiated. So that's the way it is in the Christian life too. If you're full of Christ, you won't need to follow the lies of the harlot that Nathan showed us from the book of Revelation. You know who the harlot feasts on? Those who are famished. Because they're not satisfied in Christ, and they've been made for satisfaction, they seek satisfaction in the junk food of the world, so to speak. But when Christians are satisfied, I want you more than any other, only you can satisfy. If you give your kid healthy, nourishing food, though they might not like it, they will no longer crave all of the junk, because they will be satisfied with the good. So the saying says, either sin will keep you from the book, or the book will keep you from sin. I think that's true, and Peter would probably hardly agree to that. The verb means put off. Apa, away from, is actually a better and more vivid picture. Te femi means to set, and Peter uses this often. Fling off would be my translation. Like an irksome, right, like if a snake was near me and it bit me, I'd fling it off like Paul into the fire. Don't just set it down beside you, fling it as far away as possible. Put it off. Put it off. This is used repeatedly throughout the scriptures. Ephesians 4, before you can put on the new man and be renewed by the word, you must first put off the old man and all of his deceitful desires. Romans 13, before you can clothe yourself with the weapon of life, you must first put off the works of darkness. James 121, one of my favorite passages. Before you can receive with meekness the implanted word, you must put away, as the King James says, all superfluity of naughtiness. Or the ESV just says rampant wickedness. And some of you who are Reformed, myself included, we think, what, that sounds almost like Arminian. That's just what the Bible says. Before you can receive the implanted word, get rid of rampant wickedness. You know what, Christians can come and sit under preaching and remain unchanged. Because they come into a church building with bitter hearts. Envious hearts. Slanderous hearts. Hypocritical hearts. Malicious hearts. That's a scary thing. And God gives you grace. You're new in Christ. You have the animating power of the Spirit at work in you. So put him off. How? By the power of God that he has granted you in the Holy Spirit. The new nature that we have in Christ enables us to supernaturally put these things away. You need to understand that, Romans 8, 13. Put to death by the spirit, the deeds of the flesh. So what are the things that we must first put off before we can truly crave the word? You'll notice there's three all's here. All deceit. So all malice, one. Second, all deceit and hypocrisy and envy, two. And three, all slander. I just quickly wanna work through these. Not because I wanna show off, but because I thought this is what we maybe needed. And it's like when the doctor goes into grotesque details when you're sitting beforehand. Sometimes there's something to it. Because if we quickly pass over it, like most of the sermons I heard, we don't do an introspection and say, If I don't know I have these, I probably won't put them off. And so, let's look at them. First, all malice. This heads them up. And I think probably is the unwholesome root or foundation of all the others. Kakia. This means evil, badness. But in context of social community, i.e. here the church, slan, or I mean malice is actually a very good translation. And I put this in my notes. You need to remember that though you have been born again and purified by your obedience to the truth, you still carry remnants of the old man. That though sin no longer reigns in your life, it still remains. That's a helpful little rhyme for you. Sin no longer reigns, so you can put it off. Malice doesn't reign over you, but it still has the ability to remain in you until the perfect comes. We're not fully saved. That day is in the future. One day, malice will no longer have even a presence in our life, but until then, it can still remain. You can put it off, and you may need to repeatedly put it off. You, who are Christians, have been born again, and you have been purified by God's Word positionally. However, you need to daily be purified by His Word. Why? Because sin can still stain you. Malice can still creep in to your heart. And so put it off. The text that came to mind was John 13. Remember when Jesus girds himself and he wants to wash the dirty feet of his disciples and Peter, he's like, not me. And Jesus says to him, well, I don't need so much to wash you because you have received that washing, that positional cleansing. You've been converted, if you will. But Peter, just through living in a fallen world, your feet have accumulated dirt, and so you need a cleansing. Okay, so God's people have been washed, 1 Corinthians 6, and yet we need to be daily cleansed, 1 John 1. Okay, and this is where repentance is integral and essential to the Christian life. Every day you will need continual cleansing, and you find that cleansing, Ephesians 5, through the word. Husbands, don't just wash your wives with the word. Of course, wash yourselves with the word. The same Greek word is used in 1 Peter 2.16. Look at it. Peter says, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for kakia, for evil, but living as slaves of God. So Peter's saying that even born-again Christians can have lives influenced by kakia, by evil or malice. And remember that Peter has just talked about the necessity of love and community. All of these vices attack at the root of love. By love for our brothers, the world will know we belong to Christ. We will be a light to the nations, salt for the world as we love one another. So what does Satan do? He animates the flesh with false desires to attack at love by encouraging these vices. That makes sense. Satan doesn't want us to be a community of love. And so he tries to remind us of all of these vices that seem so good like junk food and yet leave us so empty. Put away all malice. Put away all malice. This vice is in almost all of the vice lists in the New Testament, which taught me something. It's probably quite common in every church. The word just means ill will. Somalicis. Bitterness. So here's just being honest. I told Charles I'll try to stick to my notes. But you need to know your pastor is a human being and not just someone who can read automated notes. You know that most people who have left this church have not left because of false doctrine. They have not left because of some scandalous sin. But they have had this bitterness that just grew and defiled and they wouldn't put it off. And then they begin to think the worst of the leadership and of the church. Almost everyone who left, malice was the reason. and they're still bitter, and they don't go to churches anymore. And when Christians hear them griping, and complaining, and miserable, and malicious towards their brothers, it actually attacks the gospel. And so I want to say, guard yourself. Sometimes the pastor can say something foolish, often in this pulpit he does. And people have been offended at me for years. Put it off. Have you ever had that, where someone's offended you, or a pastor's offended you, and you just can't listen to them preach? It could be the greatest message. Everyone else is blessed. And you leave with steam coming out of your ears, murmuring, grumbling. I do that. And probably many of you are tempted and still do that. So, do you want to crave This word which makes you more like Christ, by which you experience more of his grace and salvation? Put it away! Humble yourself! Do what it takes! John or Matthew 5. Admit to your brethren. Admit to someone that you're struggling with malice and ill will. Bitterness. There's someone probably here this morning who's struggling with that. Fling it off. Like the irksome serpent that it is. This is a common problem in churches, 1 Corinthians 5. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened in Christ. Why? For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, how are you to celebrate the festival? How do you celebrate the Lord's table? If you've got bitterness in your heart, you will not be sanctified by the grace God offers you through the Lord's table. That's why it's good in 1 Corinthians to do an assessment. Not only are you doing the big, overt sins that everyone sees, but are you struggling with the respectable sins of malice and bitterness? Celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil. Rather, celebrate it with sincerity and truth. Ephesians. Do not grieve the Spirit of God. How? Yes, by doing things like committing adultery, all the big overt sins. What does Paul say? You were sealed by the Spirit, so don't grieve Him. Therefore put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, along with all malice. Colossians. When Paul's saying, this is the old man, this exhibits the old tendencies that you relished and lived by. Paul says, and these things you also once walked when you were living in them, but now you must fling them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, seeing that you have put off the old man. Finally, as we saw in James 1, put away all rampant wickedness, and in that is malice. So obviously it's in lots of churches. And I would not be so ignorant as to think that we might not have that in our midst. And so may I just encourage you, not in an angry way, but appealing to you, make room for the Word of God, just the way it is. Make room for the Word of God and put away all malice, every kind of malice. All just means different kinds and manifestations may appear in different ways and different people. Not all the same. But Peter says all of them, they need to go. They need to go. Second, put away all deceits and hypocrisies and envies. Again, most translations just have that in the singular, I'm just being literal. But put away all deceits. Why? Because as we put away all deceits and we receive this implanted word which saves us, we become more like Christ. Look in chapter two, verse 22. Speaking of Christ, actually verse 21. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example. Christ died for our sins, but he also died to leave us an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit. Neither was deceit found. in his mouth. That word we will see come up over and over and over, but put away all deceit. That can happen in community. Put it away. If you hold a grudge against somebody, do not deceive them with, how does the proverb say, an earthenware vessel that is defiled and is glossy on the outside and yet within his heart are seven abominations. That kind of living will decrease love and decrease your ability to receive the word. Chapter three, verse 10, same word used again. Quoting Psalm 34. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. So if you're holding on to malice or deceit, you decrease and inhibit the blessing you could obtain. Four, who desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Obviously, this happens in churches, and it happens in Christians in churches. So, put those things away from you. Do not be deceitful. Third, hypocrisies. You can see that there's a lot of overlap, so I'm gonna speed up. I do think the root is malice, and then that malice is hid through deceits and hypocrisies. It's the same idea. It just means to wear a mask. It's to be different on the outside than you are on the inside. This word is the exact opposite of chapter one, verse 22. By your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love. Okay, so I said it literally means aim or unhypocritical. So love is to be unhypocritical. You can't have unhypocritical love if you still have hypocritical malice or bitterness or deceit. So put it off. Last, envy. See, they're all linked. Often when you have malice or ill will, It's because maybe you envy or are jealous. You could say jealousies. Are there jealousies in church? You better believe it. I've been in five churches in my life. I know I'm still a young Christian, but I would hear things. You know, some churches, the first church I went to, they were fundamentalist Baptists, so pray that I would not be a screamer, because I learned those bad habits from those circles. But you'd hear things like this. Do you ever know what the specials are? Not the math special. That's when he makes me fancy Americano and espresso. That's the mad special. That's not the mad special. It's when they would sing, they would have someone up do a special. And then you would listen and people would be like, I can do better than that. Why don't I get an opportunity? How come I'm not playing the piano? How come I just vacuum the church and I don't get to be a teacher? Be careful of that. There's lots of that in church. I'm not saying everyone struggles with it, but I've seen it, and I have actually practiced it. Envies, put them away. Put them away. Ask God to search your heart. Put away all of those envies. First category, put away all malice. Second, put away all deceits, hypocrisies, and envy. Lastly, put away all slanders. Again, plural. Elsewhere, Peter is going to refer to these Christians as those who have received slander. You know what's easy to do? Is to return slander for slander. Peter says, don't do that. Do not be like you once were. Do not be like the world now is. This is great on Facebook, between believers. You wanna be a bad witness to unbelievers? Slander your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ on Facebook or YouTube or all, I don't know, I'm not into social media. There's a bunch of other things that people, whatever it is, all I know is Facebook because I'm old. Don't slander one another. Kata laleo. Laleo means to speak. Kata means against. Don't speak against them. Don't say untrue things about them. or don't say true things about them which ought not to be made public. All slanders. Look at Ephesians 4.29. This verse came to my mind. This is consistent with walking by the Spirit and how we are to live in community. Remember, Peter's focusing church life. Unfortunately, these things can happen in church life. Remember, you've been born again for an unhypocritical brotherly love. These things work against brotherly love. Brotherly love is inconsistent with slander. Okay, so, 429. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edification, or as he says, building up, as fits the occasion. It's so important. I just need to say it. Does it fit the occasion? Does it fit the occasion? Yes, okay, now you may say it. That it may give what? Grace to those who hear, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit. See how it's couched in there. How many of us Christians, myself tragically included, have grieved unnecessarily the Holy Spirit by saying slanderous things, speaking against brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. Well, let's move on, okay? So the command is crave or long for, desire, yearn for the word, but understand the prerequisite, okay? I didn't work through all of that just to sort of waste time. Understand that when the ESV says, so put away, that's sort of the chronological priority. Putting away, Long for it. Does that make sense? I just really want to hammer that in. If you don't put these things away, you will not long for the Word the way you should. And you say, oh, I want to long for the Word. Peter would say, have you done an inventory? It's not legalism to say that. Peter says, grace to you. God gives you grace in Christ and the power of the Spirit to put away all of these things. Just as much as he gives you grace to long for the word, he gives you grace to put away all of these things that take away from it. Long for the pure spiritual milk. The verb is an intense word, and it's translated outwards, crave, earnestly yearn, desire strongly. Psalm 119.20 says this, my soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. Just the way some of us in our unconverted state, we're just consumed with anger and malice against revenge, right? Some people are just consumed. That's how first degree murder happens. Like I said, obedience is premeditated, so also is disobedience. But that same consuming of hatred and animosity towards others is now replaced. God has made us with desires. Those desires will never be taken away. We just have to make sure that we're desiring the right things. And here says the psalmist, my soul, my nefesh, my entire being, all that I am is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. Psalm 42, should have chosen the song in our worship, but I didn't, as the dear pants for the living streams. So my nefesh, my soul pants for you. Oh God, do we pant for God or for his word? Oh yes, and the picture likely in Psalm 42 is of a deer that's running away, that's been chased into the desert and is dying of thirst, Psalm 63, one action. You can dangle all kinds of things in front of that deer, but he needs one thing, he needs living water. And so when Peter says long for, he says have that in mind, a panting deer. who will die without that life-giving water, or something that's maybe a little more familiar to us, a baby that screams for milk. You've maybe never seen a deer panting for water, but you, at least in this church if you're regular, have seen many a child screaming for milk. As newborn infants, or like, as is a better translation, because irrespective of how long you have been saved, That is what you are to attain to. You never are to graduate from being childlike in your desire for the pure spiritual milk. Okay? Elsewhere, yes, it says move from milk to meat. Peter's not thinking that way. Some of you have been saved for decades. This verse is for you. This isn't for you, oh, when I was a new Christian, then I craved the word, but now I've grown up. I've memorized a couple verses. No, that thirst, that need of milk, you still have just as much today as when you were first converted. As an aside, if you see babies screaming, we've had five that we've raised, we learned right away that there are three things often you should check. And so when you see Christians screaming and whining and complaining and bitterness, there's one of three things likely. One, they need to be changed. They're defiled and they're wearing dirty clothes. If you're a miserable Christian, it's probably because you have a dirty diaper, spiritually speaking. I'm not trying to be funny, I'm just saying. So we'd go through the three. God made it very simple. They're either dirty or hungry or tired. It's simple. Even Ryan can get that. So we'd go through, we'd pull the diaper back and do the disgusting parent sniff. Nope, it's all good. Maybe they're hungry. No, sometimes you just need some rest. There are Christians who are just physically tired. They're not Gnostic. We need sleep, and so understand that if you are like that, perhaps you need to repent of a sin or feed on the Word, or maybe you just need some rest. Elsewhere regarding God's Word, it is pictured as a lamp that lightens our path, a map that directs our feet, a mirror that reveals our sin, a hammer that breaks our hard hearts, a fire that cleans away sinful dross. But here, one of my favorite pictures is of milk that feeds and nourishes our souls. Okay, there's all kinds of pictures, but this is the one we're gonna look at today. And so when you see little Nathaniel, Or you see Ayla or Selah, all these little ones. Oh, we're so thankful in our grace group we see these little ones. And they're just, they're so dissatisfied until they get the milk. I thought, I need to pray whenever I see a child that is longing for milk. Lord, make me like that. Don't let me be satisfied with all the counterfeits like we heard in the book of Revelation. Oh, like I would be like that little one who needs that milk afresh. More than a good mother delights to satisfy the hunger of a hungry child, God desires and delights to satisfy the deepest longings of His hungry children through His Son. I've never been a mother, but I think I'm correct in my ascertaining of the fact that there is something satisfying that God has put into mothers when they are able to sustain their little ones through their milk. The father is actually presented as that, and it's not because there's a gender confusion, it's just a picture. The father feeds us, and he presents a feast to us, say in Psalm 23 and other, but here, see God is that way. God actually wants you to feed on him, he's like, ah, get away from me, you're teething. Mothers know what I'm talking about there. But he delights to sustain and nourish his children. with this life-giving and life-growing spiritual milk. Two adjectives, two adjectives. It's interesting. It says here, the logical, undeceitful milk. Okay, so let's look at those two adjectives. First is pure, literally without deceit. And he actually just said, put away deceit so that you can yearn for the deceitless word. It's a verse away, you've got deceit and non-deceit. Put off what is deceitful, put on what is not deceitful. Namely the word, it's pure. Like Solomon says in the Proverbs, or maybe it's Agard, in Psalm 30 I think, the word of the Lord is pure, it's tested seven times. There's no impurities in it, there's no errors in it. Don't run to the philosophies of philosophers. Don't run after gurus and worldviews. Run to the word. It will never lead you astray. There's no admixture in it. It's not tainted. It's not watered down. It's without deceit, pure. It's interesting, as I was just reading the text this morning before you, the word came out. Love one another from a pure heart. The pure heart needs the pure word, needs the pure milk. You want your heart to be purified? To be deceitless? Well, ingest and crave the pure spiritual milk. I think that's enough. You know what pure means. I don't need to get into it. The second though, I do want to spend a little more time. It's spiritual. The Greek word is logikos. Sounds very close to logos. And as I was talking with Charles this morning, if you're reading the NASB, they unfortunately translate long for the milk of the word. That's not what it says. Spiritual milk. It's used only one other time in the Bible, in Romans 12. That you are to worship the Lord with spiritual or logical, reasonable, worship. However, Logikos does sound a lot like Logos, and so this word Logikos means reasonable, or in accordance with reality. And so what I want to say is that we've been given a new reality or we've been given a new birth. We're in this new realm. And it only makes sense that as there is a food in the old realm that sustains the old nature, there's also a food in the new realm that sustains the new nature. It's logical. We are now spiritual. And we're going to see that over and over. We've been put to death in the flesh and now we are now in the spirit. But the spirit needs spiritual food. So Peter's saying it's logical that you have a new kind of food, and of course it is the word of God, but I would actually argue with Calvin that this spiritual food is actually the grace of God in Christ, which is mediated by the word of God. I think he's dead on, and I'm following a couple other commentaries, but most people just say the logical nourishment is the word. I'm not convinced of that. I think that our pure spiritual milk is Christ. And we see and feast on Christ through the Scriptures. Does that help? Because remember, you can read the Scriptures Christlessly and leave unchanged and unfed. Okay? So I hope that even changes how you read the Word of God. Oh, help me to see, help me to feast, and savor, and treasure, and love Jesus in the text. May I see him as precious. If he's like zip, zip, zip, zip, and then if you've got the Bible out like me, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, repeat every day, I don't know if that's what Peter's saying here. He's not saying just read a ton of scripture. He's not saying even read it to gain knowledge. Now, of course, you need knowledge, but you read the scriptures to feed on Christ. You may disagree, and we can chat after, but I believe that Kelvin is right when he says that Christ, as it were, is the milk. And we attain that milk through the word. To not be crass, you can link the word to the breast, which gives the milk. The breast doesn't sustain the child, the milk does, but the child lodges on to the breast. I'm not trying to be graphic. John 5 says you can read the word and yet not read the word. Having eyes, you can see not. Having ears, you can hear not. You know, I was thinking of the story when Jesus' disciples were eating and they didn't wash their hands and he says, yeah, food, it bypasses the heart, so it doesn't make you unclean. Okay, and so he says you're not defiled when food bypasses your heart. But spiritually speaking, that food needs to go through the heart. Physically, you don't need the food to go through your heart, otherwise you'd be in the hospital. It needs to go into your stomach. But with spiritual food, it has to go through the heart if it is to sanctify you. If it just goes into your brain, it's not gonna change you. And so you would say, Lord, would you help that truth of who Christ is make the most arduous journey of 18 inches down from my mind to my heart? Would you pray? Like I prayed this morning, Psalm 119, 18. Open my eyes, not as I can glean truths, but I might behold what? Wondrous, marvelous things from your word that I might be awed afresh. So, he says, yearn for this pure spiritual or logical milk found in the word of God. What is the effect of it? so that by it, by this milk, and I would argue by the grace given us in Christ, mediated through the word, you may grow up into salvation. And you might say, I already have saved. To which I would say, probably for the fifth time in 1 Peter, is that there's various pictures of salvation that have been saved in justification, you are being saved in your sanctification, and you will be saved in your glorification. It's as simple as that. And the word is needed for all of those. You're saved in your justification by faith, you're saved by your sanctification by faith, and yes, you'll be saved by your glorification by faith. So you feast that you may grow up. You never grow past, please hear that, but you grow up. into salvation, literally you are grown up. God does the growing. You do the feeding, he does the growing, right? That's your duty. You're not to cause the growth, you're to long for the word and to eat it. And when you eat on Christ as you abide and feast on him, God will cause you to grow up into salvation. It's like watching a child grow up into the image of their parents. Christ is the fullness and essence of salvation, as it were. And so when I see, say, Nathaniel looking more and more like Travis, I marvel. As he grows up, he's gonna look more like his dad, or should. Not just physically, but also, hopefully, some of those other characteristics, which makes some of us sinful dads cringe. But from birth to infancy to toddler to teens, I love watching, I just love watching how the children become more like the parents as they grow up, and that's God's purpose. Salvation is not less than forgiveness of sins, of course, but it is much more. Turn to Ephesians 4 quickly. I just wanna show you, I think, what Peter's trying to teach here. Ephesians 4. And while you're turning there, let me just read verses 11 and following. Christ, the risen Christ, fulfilling Psalm 68, giving his church gifts, gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers, all word gifts, if you will, okay? These are some of the greatest gifts, because they teach the word. To do what? To equate the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up or for growing up. the entire body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, here it is, unto mature manhood. Same Greek preposition, ace. You might grow up, ace, soterion, into salvation. And here, as these teachers feed the word, the saints grow up into maturity. And what is the end of maturity? Well, you look at the very next section. unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Okay, we're not there yet. We're being conformed fuller and fuller into the image of Christ. So here's Ryan in 2021, here's Christ, the perfect mature man. Right, going all the way back to Genesis 1. Right, Christ as it were is the target, the telos, the end. And we're to grow up into his image, and we do so through the word. So to grow up into the image of Christ for Paul is the same for Peter, say you grow up into salvation. You experience more of God's grace to you in Christ. And how do you do that again? By feeding on Christ through the Word. I've said that a hundred times, but I just really want to hammer that into our minds. God's purpose is that we would be the mature man, the true man, the true image of God. in righteousness and holiness that comes by the truth. Okay? Therefore, crave, desire, pant, thirst, desire more than anything else the living and abiding word of God. We'll close here in verse three. Just as Peter says, you can tell if someone has been born again by their love for Christians. Remember, we spent a long time unpacking that last week, right? If you say you're born again, but you don't love your brother and sister in Christ, you call into question if you've been born again. Peter says the same thing in verse three. If you have been born again, one of the greatest indicators that you are of the new creation is that you desire the new sustenance or the new milk You know, I've struggled with people who do Christian things, and they hang out in Christian circles. This is just a pastoral thing. And there's just no desire for the word. And so I can't call that person brother. Because I'm not sure they've been saved. How? If indeed. Or you could translate that, since. Since you have tasted that the Lord is good. To say that I don't want more of Christ means you've never tasted of Him. Does that make sense? If you have no desire for Christ, that means you've never tasted of Him. So when you're talking with people who say, I was saved way back then, but I don't go to church, I don't care for His people, I don't care about the Word, you should say, I think you've tasted a false Christ. You maybe had an emotional experience in a church service one day and walked to the front or raised your hand or did whatever. You might have even been baptized. But I think you're believing in a false Christ. Because the true Christ, what he has latched upon, he gives you a holy dissatisfaction. You can never, ever be satisfied. You want more. See, that's what heaven's gonna be like. More of Christ. And since he's infinite, he will infinitely satisfy us and we'll never grow tired. of yearning and longing and feasting and praising and adoring and thanking? Judah's loving that. He was nodding his head to each one of those, Joe. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Some translations, again, unfortunately, translate it, tasted of the Lord's goodness. I don't like that translation, because the Greek doesn't say that. You taste that the Lord is good, In Christ! How do you know God is good? Because I've tasted Christ. Interesting word in the Greek. It says this, if indeed you have tasted that, krestos hakureos. Krestos, kindness, goodness, the Hebrew word told. But krestos, does that sound like an important word for the Christian in Greek? See, to be a Christian in the first century, you had to declare Christos Hoc Curios. Christ is the Lord. And Peter's taking that confession and quoting Psalm 34. Christos. Not Christos, Christos. Not only is Christ the Lord, Christ is the expression that the Lord is good. I find that glorious. One, it says that Jesus is God, and it reminds us that Jesus is the means by which we can taste and testify that God is good. Or I would translate, God is kind. Titus 3. Here we are in the mire, in the muck of our sin, hating, being hated, slandering, read that in Titus 3. But when the Christos, the goodness and loving kindness of God appeared in Christ, he saved us. You were saved when you had the appearance of God's goodness appear to you. How does God appear to you in his goodness? In the gospel of Christ. And as you feasted on that in your salvation, guess what you should do in your sanctification? Feast on the Lord's goodness, the Lord Jesus Christ. To taste often is used to literally taste some kind of literal food, but it's also used metaphorically to know something by experience. And that's what Peter's saying here, right? You can't, like when you're taking the Lord's table. That's not what he means by taste. Taste the Lord as good. Come to know him, as the Peteritans would say, experientially. It's not a bad word. A lot of people are always about experiences, and they unfortunately mar that concept. But you need to increasingly know God experientially in Christ. Jonathan Edwards. What time is it? Is that clock not working? Oh man, I got like 20 minutes. Oh no, it's 12.30, it's not 11.30. Okay, I'm almost done. Jonathan Edwards would say, how do you know? So Dora, she works in labs. And you could say, Dora, please explain to me honey. And she could say, okay, we put it under a microscope and here's all of the components and here's how it reacts, da, da, da. Edward said, okay, some people can know about honey, cognitively, intellectually, but you know who I need to go to to ask honey? My little girl who's got honey all over her face, who's actually tasted of it. So Dora knows about it, but she doesn't know about it experientially. And that's what I think Peter's saying, is it's good to know the gospel here, but do you know it here? Have you tasted that the Lord is good? And if you have, you'll want more. More and more about Jesus. I should have picked that song too. This is how children crave the Word. Let me close with two passages. I'm just going to read them. 2 Peter 1, to show you that you increase or grow up into salvation through the Word, and that we abide in Christ by the Word. So 2 Peter 1, verse 2, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. What does it say? What does it say? You want more? Experience of God's grace in Christ. What does Peter say? Grace and peace be multiplied to you. What? What does it say? Someone help me out. Please tell me you're turning the Bible with me. In the knowledge. Where does the knowledge come from? The Word. In the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, his divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. That's exactly what he talks about here. Grow up in godliness, grow up in salvation. You've received life by the word. He's given you all things now to grow up in that. By which, verse four, he is granted to us what? Precious and very great promises so that Through them, underline those prepositions. By knowledge, through these promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature. That's another way of saying growing up into Christ, growing up into salvation, becoming more like Him, becoming an increasing partaker, partaker, eater of the divine nature. Because you've escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of your sinful desires. And then he goes on to say, for this reason, supplement all these things. And then he says, where is it, I was... Verse 12, therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them, and are established in the truth that you have. So Peter says, here's the word. Grow in grace, buy it. Grow up into salvation through it. Last one, most important one. John 15, verse seven. Here's Jesus talking about abiding in him. And you're like, how do I abide in him? How do I remain in him? Look in verse seven. Here's Christ speaking to the disciples before he's about to leave the world via crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. He says, if you abide in me, and what? My words abide in you. Which I think strengthens Calvin's understanding that we feed not so much on the words but on Christ through the word. So how do we abide in Christ and bear fruit in godliness or brotherly love or heavenly hope? We abide in Christ through the Word. If this is true, we ought to foster within ourselves a greater craving of the Word in community. I have four quick applications, four quick. If you're struggling with any of the vices in verse one, would you, by God's enabling grace right now, ask God to help you put them away? No double talk, no asking to be hungering for the word and still holding on to those vices. You can't, they're incompatible. Ask God to help you. He wants you to crave the word and if you need to put some of those things off, he will help you. Second, would you pray right now for the spirit to give you a deep longing, not only to read the word, but to experience that the Lord is kind, as revealed in Christ in the word. I don't just want you Christians knowing your catechisms well and reciting scriptures, that's great, but you know what transforms you? Abiding in Christ. So as you read the Bible, say with the old Anglican prayer, make the book live to me. Third, Would you, as one of the deepest expressions of a sincere love for your brothers and sisters at Grace Community, regularly pray for others to have this kind of hunger for the word? Pray it for yourself. Would you pray for your pastor? Imagine how different my preaching would be if I was more like First Peter Tutu. Pray it for those in your Grace group. Pray it for those that you don't know. Pray that we be a community of craving Christ in the word. Lastly, we are creatures of habit. whether for good or for ill. I learned how I could skip breakfast by just skipping breakfast, and now I'm no longer hungry in the morning. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but some of us have become like that with scripture. We've skipped our morning reading and refined with it. That's a dangerous place to be in. And I would encourage you, get into the habit where, right before, I would just need breakfast, need it. But when you put off those pangs, sooner or later those pangs go away. Sadly, a lot of Christians have no pangs when they're not in the Word. And that's a scary place to be. And so I pray that you would pray that you would get into the good habit of feeding regularly, feasting on the Word. Use the habits God has given us as humans for life and not for starving. Maybe you are having a hard time reading the word. That's why our grace groups are helpful. We're a brother or sister, an accountability partner. Ask them to pray for you. Say, I'm having a real hard time getting back into the word. There's no shame in that because I think all of us can admit we have had those experiences. That's why we need a community. So as we feed the need for this pure spiritual milk, God promises something. We will grow up into salvation. We will experience more and more of God's grace in Christ. And if you're a Christian, you want that more than anything else. And you will put off whatever is necessary to get into the Lord. Well, let's pray. And we will close with a song. Father, that's just simply our prayer. Give us this craving to do whatever it takes to put to death whatever needs to be mortified. to establish whatever habits are helpful and necessary. Oh Father, I pray, give us the grace to abide in Christ as his words abide in us. Help us now by the Holy Spirit to do so, Father. We pray that we might be a city on a hill. In Jesus' name, amen.