It's a joy to get to study God's Word with you. Go ahead and turn in your Bible to 1 Peter 2, verses one through three. Those three verses will be our focus today in a message titled Hunger for the Word. We're gonna talk about how to hunger for God's Word. And so let's read the text together. Stand wherever this finds you, if you will, and we'll give reverence and honor to God's Word. I'm reading from the ESV. Peter writes, So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 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. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, as we turn our attention to the message now, We are simply asking that you, through the power of the Holy Spirit, would teach us and train us up in the ways of your word. That we, as saved people, would live your will. That we would bring you honor and glory by the way, as we studied last time, by the way that we love each other, and in this particular passage, by the way that we hunger for your word. Putting off sin, putting off the ways of this world, and seeking you and your word. I wanna lift up Pastor Rick Seltzer and Mesa Baptist Church, a dear brother and a wonderful church just up the freeway that is going through a great season of turnaround and renewal with a long over 50 year history. We know that you are revitalizing and renewing so many churches and giving them a fresh start to make another 50 and 60 year run and so we wanna pray for them as they're in this season doing just that. Give Pastor Rick wisdom and grace as he delivers your word and ministers there to the congregation and helps them to get ready for the new future that you have for them. Lead us here now in Jesus' name, amen and amen. It was a great historical hero of mine, George Mueller, who once after having read through the Bible for the 100th time, made this statement with increasing delight. I look upon it as a lost day when I have not had a good time over the word of God. Friends often say, I have so much to do, so many people to see, I cannot find time for scripture study. Perhaps there are not many who have more to do than I, George Mueller said. For more than half a century, I've never known one day when I had not more business than I could get through. For four years, I have had annually about 30,000 letters, and most of these have passed through my own hands. Then as a pastor of a church with 1,200 believers, great has been my burden of care for their souls. Besides, I have had charge of five immense orphanages, also at my publishing depot, the printing and circulating of millions of tracts, books, and Bibles, but I have always made it a rule never to begin work until I have had a good season with God and his word. The blessing I have received has been wonderful. When you think about a hunger for God's word, The example of George Mueller is actually pretty convicting, especially with all he had to do. I think there's at least a few of us, or at least maybe even all of us, who have said before, I just don't have the time. It's really hard to study for or to hunger for God's Word. Maybe this is kind of a description of your schedule. You say, I wake up at 5 a.m., I work out, I help with the kids. Then I go to work. I work all day. Then I come home. Then I help with dinner. I help with the kids some more. Finally, I get to shower. I enjoy a brief interlude of silence during a very innocent Netflix binge, or maybe an Instagram scroll session, or some Facebook, and then it's off to bed to do it again. Now, whatever your life stage, you could probably insert any number of reasonable, meaningful, even essential activities into what I've just described. But the most common theme will be for so many of us, and understandably so, we say, I just don't have the time. I just don't have the time. But I think if all of us got really honest together as a church family, we would say, it's not that we don't have the time, because we all are given the same 24 hours and the same day, each and every day. We might be so honest as to say, I don't make the time. Or could it be that the reason we don't make the time is we don't have a hunger? You know, hunger's a powerful thing. It's a powerful driver. Hunger will make people do a lot of things. There's an instinct to survive. It'll cause people to do desperate things. Hungry people are proactive. They wanna eat. They take initiative. They do whatever it takes, strategize, organize, to get a good meal. What if we had that kind of hunger for God's word? What if we had that kind of desperation and strategy Well, if you've ever wanted that kind of hunger, this message in particular will give you either a strong conviction. that you need to have that hunger, or it'll equip you to actually have that hunger. The text today has one primary command, that is gonna be chapter two, verse two, but there are some insights in verse one and verse three that will guide us along the way, so I wanna take a look at the first thing we can learn from our text, or the first motivation, or the first push for us in the text, and it's this, point number one in your notes, we need to lay aside the growth killers. We need to lay aside the growth killers. Church, if you're gonna have a hunger for God's word, as we're called to in this particular text, we gotta lay aside the growth killers. Peter says, so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. Every one of those are a growth killer. They will hinder your spiritual growth. Now, you could add some things to this list, but probably every heart issue in life could be lumped under somewhere in that list. What do these look like? What do these words mean? You see, all malice, well, that means viciousness, means spiritedness, a nasty attitude. We see deceit, that refers to underhanded tactics. This is cunning and treachery. Working behind the scenes to pull the rug out from somebody else. Hypocrisy means to be fake or inconsistent. Basically what you see out front, it's not what's going on in the back. This is hypocrisy, it's a difference between what you say you believe and what you practice. Envy certainly is synonymous with jealousy. James 3.16 uses a different word, but really carries with it the same idea that where jealousy is, you'll find every evil work. That's gonna be a growth killer for you and I. Slander, you see that? Needs to be put away. That's defamation, evil speech. And so what does Peter really want you to do with these? Literally the word that he uses is get rid of. Lay it aside, take it off. What he's saying there is basically the same thing that you and I might say if somebody came to our door and we had freshly shampooed carpets and that individual had muddy boots on. We would say, take those filthy boots off. The same phrase that Peter uses, a phrase that is used in extra biblical literature for actually taking one's clothes off or items off. In other words, Strip those sins away. Take off that filth. Take off that nasty behavior. Why does he tell them to do this? The beginning there, depending on your Bible translation, will say so put away, or therefore put away all malice, all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and slander. Well, what the therefore is there for is to point you back to verses 22 to 25, which we studied last week about love, and to point you forward to verse two. Basically, this little statement to put away those sins is a bridge. It's a bridge between loving others and standing on the imperishable Word of God and longing for the Word of God. If you don't put off those sins, not only will it hinder your ability to love others, it'll also hinder your ability to love God's Word, to long for it. You cannot actively and faithfully love others and long for God's word if you aren't actively facing these sins. And since God's word is the imperishable seed that you are to build your life on, it'll literally be impossible to grow if you aren't killing these growth killers. This strategy for spiritual growth is to be the pattern for every New Testament Christian. The call to put away sin and put on something renewed or to focus on God is all over the New Testament. Ephesians 4 verse 30 to chapter 5 verse 2, very similar instructions here from the Apostle Paul to the Christians at Ephesus, he says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Same phrase. Verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God and Christ forgave you. Therefore, so put off all those sins, therefore be imitators of God. As beloved children, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us. A fragrant offering, a sacrifice to God. A church, spiritual growth is always preceded by facing your growth killers. What are they? In the New Testament, they get named. What are some of yours? How can you apply a text like this? Name them, shame them, bring them out into the light. That's not meant to shame you or make you feel like you have no hope or you're less of a Christian or less of a human, but sometimes it helps to bring those things out so we can see them for what they are. Talk to a spouse, talk to a pastor, talk to a dear friend you trust or a growth group leader and name the growth killers that are in your life. Maybe it's greed, maybe it's pride, maybe it's what's listed here with hypocrisy and envy, maybe you're jealous of other people, maybe there's malice in your heart or deception. Bring those sins out. They're hindering you from the potential that you have in the Lord. Some have called this spiritual roundup, killing the weeds in your life that wanna choke out the good and healthy growth. Church, I would challenge you to see this as a text that calls you to grow up. It is time. Are you not tired of a marriage that goes through the motions? Are you not tired of running into the same issues over and over in your heart? Do you want more for your kids, more for your family, more for your church, more for your community, more for yourself? The things of God are where that more is found. That's where the true purpose of your existence is. Why does the New Testament repeatedly call for the church to put off these growth killers? Because the word of God wants to jolt you, kind of shock your system, wake you up and show you you're falling asleep at the wheel. You're slowly slipping into a spiritual coma and the devil loves it. He absolutely cheers. when Christians don't notice what cold spirituality has come over them. As a Canadian, I'm aware of certain events or lessons that are learned in the Canadian world. One in particular, John Elliot was up in the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta, the province right over from British Columbia where I grew up. He found himself one day huddled on his cabin floor during a blizzard, slowly freezing to death. He had logged some really good miles that day. He was a ranger out in the wilderness and he was checking for avalanches and eventually started to lose himself a bit out there. He started to get really cold. His brain started to get a little foggy. He decided to call it a day as exhaustion overcame him and eventually, wearily wandered into his cabin, dazed with fatigue. He did not light a fire. He did not remove his cold, wet clothing. And as the blizzard roared on outside that night, it began to send snow crystals through the cracks The sleeping forest ranger sank into oblivion. He was paralyzed by the cold. He was slipping in to what biologists now know are the extensive signs of hypothermia, and maybe you might, like many, succumb to the popular belief that freezing to death is a painful experience, but those who have been close to dying of cold will tell you it's actually quite blissful. The body begins to shut down. The brain turns off rational thinking. Organs begin to tell the brain, we're fine. As the body temperature drops below 90 degrees, all shivering stops. Hallucinations begin. And those suffering from hypothermia in that extent begin to shut down. Suddenly, for John Elliot, his Saint Bernard roars in, nudges, whines, barks at him, shakes him out of his brief coma, and he says later, I'd be dead today without that jolt, without my faithful companion waking me up. He quote says, when you're freezing to death, you actually feel warm all over. You don't wake up because it feels too good. A church, so it is with the spiritual condition of so many people today. They're cold spiritually. Sadly, they're oblivious to their true condition. And texts like 1 Peter 2, one through three, are not an angry hammer that demands stop being so lazy. Stop being such a failure. Stop being such a weak little Christian. No, the text is a loving companion who comes like a loving God saying, wake up. out of your slumber. There's more for you. You're slipping into a spiritual coma. Sin has you. It's gripping you. Put it away. I have more for you. That's what God is saying to us through a text like this. John Bunyan had a great handwritten note on the inside cover of his Bible. It said, this book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book. Church, laying aside the growth killers will set the stage for you to live out the primary command of this particular passage and that is number two, to long for the word of God. long for the word of God. Peter writes, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. Okay, when we're looking at this particular verse, very important to understand Peter's writing style in comparison to other writers in the New Testament. Peter wrote with vivid pictures, vivid metaphors. Newborn infants here is not a reference to baby Christians, as some might think. Oh, he's just new Christians, you gotta get some milk. You know, that's the Bible. Go read your Bible, the rest of us mature people will do more important things. No, this is to all believers, to operate like newborn infants. The word picture is powerful. It should bring to mind an actual baby crying, clawing, reaching, desiring its mother. We have a newborn in our house right now, little Ruth Joy, and I'll tell you what, when she wants milk, the whole house knows about it. It is what sustains and grows my baby girl. It is what grows and sustains every little baby. A pure spiritual milk here is not the basics of Christianity. Peter has in mind the pure word of God being craved by every single one of us. And that desire will grow you up into or out of from your salvation into as a result of your salvation. It's basically saying this. Like newborn babies crave the milk of their mother in order to live, grow, and be sustained, so also everyone who's been born again must have a spiritual hunger for the word of God to live, grow, and be sustained. Notice what Peter's not saying. It doesn't say read, study Greek, Memorize the whole Bible. Do your daily reading plan and check it box by box. No, he says, long for it. Long for it. Here's why. Because desire is the internal root. Reading and studying is the external fruit. I'll say that again, desire is the internal root. Reading and studying is the external root. And oh, you can go ahead and take a nice piece of fruit, then you can duct tape it or gorilla tape it onto a branch and say, look, external fruit. But if you trace it back, you will find it is not connected to the tree, it didn't grow on that tree. But true fruit, true reading and studying is really the result of a true root of desire. Peter already knows reading and studying isn't gonna solve your problem. Desire is the issue, therefore, desire is the solution. You don't long for the word. So all the reading and studying and check marking through daily reading plans won't help you unless the true desire is there. It's like being in a marriage and just going through the motions. Saying, well, I'm married. Yeah, but do you want to be? Do you have a love and a burning desire for it? You can't fake desire. It's either there or it's not. And so church, I ask you, do you long for the Word of God? Do you build your life around the Word of God? Do you schedule around the Word of God? Does it bother you when something interferes with your time in the Word and your time with the Lord? See, I would bet Your bottom dollar and mine, that if the boss calls during date night and ruins our time with our spouse, that job, I don't care how much it pays, it's on the hot seat with your spouse. Nobody likes when something outside interferes with the main thing. Are you that way when something gets in the way of your time with the Lord? For some, the morning workout is sacred space. Nobody interrupts the morning workout on the calendar. For some men and women, there's the mommy block or the me time. When those are stolen from, you are not prioritized, how do you feel? You get frustrated, something's not right, something needs to be corrected. Then church, we gotta feel the same way when things are getting in the way of our time and our longing for God's word. Where does your longing for God's word rank on your list of non-negotiables? Your spiritual life doesn't hinge on your job promotion, on your hours worked, on sports and recreation, on business opportunities, or any meaningful earthly pursuit. Those aren't all bad things, those are great things. But are they the main thing? Everything that matters most for your spiritual growth is linked to your longing for the word of God. The word of God is the catalyst for you to live out God's purpose for your life. You say, why does all this matter? Because you matter, your life matters. God didn't just stick you on a whole big ball of dirt and save you so you could do, what, nothing. No, he has a purpose for you. He doesn't want mediocrity in your spiritual life. He doesn't want mediocrity in your marriage. He doesn't want mediocrity in your parenting. He doesn't want mediocrity in your prayer life. He wants more for you. He's laid out the roadmap for it. Do you long for it, church? Do you long for what God has for you? For a Christian, Jesus matters. What he has said matters. I remember very well the moment when a hunger ignited in my heart that has never stopped ever since. It was in the early months of our marriage. I was stuck in a rut of confusion. I was walking the fence, kind of leaning over to God's way, leaning back over to my way. I was wavering all the time, going through the motions of work, marriage, recreation, repeat. Work, marriage, recreation, repeat. One day my wife and I got really honest with each other and I just broke. She was the spiritual leader in the family. That's a role reversal that shouldn't be. She was the one devoted to the Lord in prayer. She was disciplined. She loved reading God's word. She had the quiet spirit and the passion for the things of God. She was eager to grow. I had lost that hunger. Probably never even had it for real. I was lost and confused. I was frustrated. And one day at a red light we stopped and it was the corner of Valencia and Red Hill in a city called Tustin in Orange County, California. I'll never forget it. We were driving a little Kia Soul. I was in the driver's seat and I had just had enough so we stopped. It was a long red light and she prayed for me. And then she had me pray for me. And the prayers were really the same. God, please give me a hunger. I beg you, ignite a hunger in my life. Help me to lead my home. Help me to lead and love her. Give me a hunger for your word. Give me a desire for the truth. And I'll tell you what, it happened and it has never stopped. Within weeks I was looking back and we kept having so much fun pointing back to that moment. I said, it really happened. I don't know where this is coming from. I just started devouring the word. I started to grow and pretty soon the roles reversed back and I was leading my home. That's not to say, oh, look at me, look at us. No, that's to say, look at God. Could it be that very much like it was for my life or in our home, there just needs to be a moment where you ask? See, it's God's will for you to grow a hunger for his word. It's God's will for you men to lead your home spiritually. It is God's will, sister, for your husband not to be a deadbeat who doesn't care about the things of God while you cry hoping God will do something. No, that's not God's will. It's his will for that man to rise up and to take his role and to lead spiritually. It can happen. Church, are we praying for that? Just ask. Ask him, beg him, plead with him, Lord, put the longing in my heart. And that may mean some hard conversations about sin, about your growth killers. And so I wanna challenge you not to just run and go pick up your Bible and just start reading and thinking, yeah, you know, I just need to read it. No, no, you need to pray. Falling on your knees in desperation and pray. In fact, pray until you long for it. Pray until God changes the situation. Pray until all your sin has been confessed and everything is out, and then watch as God lights the fire that no man can ever put out. You gotta long for God's word. And Peter adds one more layer to this that can serve as a motivation when you're praying for that great hunger. Church, it is point number three, and it comes right out of the text. It is look to the goodness of God. You wanna have a hunger for God's word? Lay aside the growth killers, long for it in the first place, pray that God would do that, and then look to the goodness of God. Peter says, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good, Some translations say since you've tasted. Assuming that these are believers, they've seen God do some pretty amazing things, they've experienced the kindness and goodness of God, and I can't help as I study and attach myself to this letter, walking through it verse by verse with you, that maybe, thinking maybe Peter wrote these things to these Christians because they were tempted to look at their circumstances and start acting like the world. Maybe because of all the persecution and the challenges they were facing, they started to have a little malice come up in their heart. Maybe they were envious. Maybe there was some hypocrisy and some slander. Maybe their longing for the Lord had grown cold because of all they were going through and they couldn't see past their circumstances or their pain. They needed a renewed perspective. And so he calls them to remember what they've tasted and what they have seen. Tasted carries the idea of experiencing something. like really experiencing it, like the quality of it. It's the difference between walking in and going, whoo, that smells like a great meal. And then sitting down at the table and tasting it and saying, whoo, that is a great meal. For the Christian, you don't just smell the goodness of God, you have tasted the goodness. That's what Peter is reminding them of. You've experienced God's power and his presence in your life. You've seen his mighty hand and you've received his mercy. Church, sometimes the key to increasing your longing for God's word is to look at your life and remember what God has done. Can you remember some things? Can you list out some things? We see this all over the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. They used to take large stones and they would make some sort of rock formation. I'm not sure if in every instance they were stacking them up like those rocks that some people would do, even long, long, long time ago, they would stack rocks. Or like in Joshua 4, 12 men are told to grab 12 stones and throw them over their shoulder and kind of line them up where God did the miracle. I don't know if all the memorial stones were just lines of rocks. Maybe there were stacks of rocks or piles. Maybe they did certain things with them. But overall, you will see in the Old Testament, this thing called memorial stones. And what they were meant to do is everywhere God did a miracle, The people would walk by, the children and the grandchildren would walk by that one day and they would say, what's that for, dad? And he would say, oh, that's where God parted the River Jordan, son. Oh, that's where God gave us victory, son. Oh, that's where God led us into battle and he didn't let us down. That's where we put our trust and our faith and our hope in God and he came through. You and I ought to do the same thing. We're not stacking rocks all over Gilbert, but you know what? It's a spiritual thing. It's in our heart. Maybe it's on the wall in your house or in a prayer journal somewhere listing out all that God is doing and has done. Gratitude can trigger. your growth, your longing for God's word, because it renews your perspective, it renews your sense of purpose, you'll begin to look back and say, wow, I know what God did, therefore I know what he can do, which ignites an appreciation. When we start to taste and see and think on all that the Lord has done. People who are aware of how much they have been forgiven respond to God's goodness. They respond with loyalty and with passion. They respond with commitment and a longing and a desire. Imagine for a moment the worst days at work, right? You wake up, you loathe your job, and then a friend gets fired or a neighbor or someone in our church gets let go. What do you begin to think no matter how bad your job is? You know right now, it already came to mind, at least I have a job. and suddenly you're thankful not to be furloughed. You're thankful not to have been fired. And so what do you do the next day? You wake up and no matter how hard it is, you've got a renewed sense of joy, appreciation, even in the tough times, you keep plowing through because you've looked at how good you have it. Church, look at the goodness of God. Be renewed in your perspective, your love for him, and watch as his kindness ignites a hunger in your heart for his word. He's been good to you, hasn't he? He's been faithful to you and to I, has he not? Perhaps we all do well this week to make a list of the incredible kindnesses of God that are present in our lives and just let that list motivate you to greater degrees of worship and watch. as it drives you deeper and closer to the Lord in prayer and in your hunger for his unchanging, powerful word. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for texts like these that remind us of the dangers and perils of sin, how much sin hates us, that it wants to snuff out our hope, our joy, our spiritual life. Ultimately, to separate us from what our full purpose and potential is in you, the joy of living for your glory, the joy and strength of marriages and homes and families and children and churches and singles going out, living for your glory while they wait on their spouse or those who are older and widowed or those who are older and seasoned, continuing to live for your glory, whatever our life stage is, a hunger for your word carries us each and every day. to study, to know you, to live out your will, and to see your power at work through us. We're just grateful to be here. grateful for our little tiny moment in history, prayerful and hopeful that you would help us to live that moment faithfully for you. I pray for each one listening that they would have assurance and joy. They would even look forward to the moment where they meet you face to face, ready to thank you for putting a hunger in their heart and ready to thank you for all you did in them and through them. We pray this in the name of you, Jesus, the son of the living God. Amen and amen. Praying for your hunger this week, church. We'll see you again.