Crave God's Word (1 Peter 2.1–3)

The main idea of this information is that believers should crave and prioritize the Word of God in their lives. The psalmist and Peter both emphasize the preciousness and sweetness of God's Word. The Word of God is described as pure, spiritual, and nourishing, and it is the key to spiritual growth and transformation. To truly crave God's Word, believers must eliminate any vices that hinder love, and they should approach the Word with the intensity of a newborn baby craving milk. Tasting the goodness of the Lord is essential in experiencing His grace and growing in holiness. The focus should be on growing in love and holiness rather than on church growth strategies. 1 Peter 2, verse 1, this is what the Word of God says, Therefore, rid yourself of all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good, let us pray. Dear God, thank you for your Word and thank you for this opportunity we have to praise you and to sing about your mercy. Bless, Lord, this time of study and challenge us. Amen. This morning I was going to read from Psalm 19 as part of our scripture reading. We will do that maybe next week. But Psalm 19 is a beautiful poetry about the Word of God. In fact, in this psalm, the psalmist says in verse 10, that the words of God are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. He continues, they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. Now, in light of these words, it is evident then that the psalmist greatly craved God's Word. For him, the Word of God was precious and sweet. He found tremendous satisfaction in God's Word. They are sweeter than honey. Is that what you think of God's Word? And when you think about the psalmist, he is actually thinking about the Old Testament, your law, your statutes, he is thinking about Leviticus, Deuteronomy. He says they are more precious than gold, sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. How did he found tremendous satisfaction in God's Word? Why? Why did he consider it so precious and so tasty? Well, the answer is found in the following verses of this psalm. For the psalmist, God's Word was more precious than gold and sweeter than honey, because he will tell us, by them your servant is warned. In keeping them, there is great reward. Indeed, it is God's Word what kept the psalmist from falling into sin. God's Word helped him to resemble God's character. That is why again in verse 13, he prays, Keep your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. Now again, this prayer reveals the psalmist's understanding that holiness only happens if one submits to God's Word. The only way he would keep from willful sins, the only way he would be blameless and innocent of great transgressions, is by submitting to God's Word. And that is why, for him, God's Word was more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. This was true for the psalmist, and it was true for Peter, and it ought to be true for us. In the passage we just read, Peter will tell us the same thing, although he'll use a different metaphor. Instead of gold and honey, Peter will compare God's Word to milk, specifically to breastfeeding milk. He's going to compare God's Word to milk. But the idea and the emphasis that Peter places with this metaphor is the same as the one that the psalmist just has told us with his comparison of gold and honey. The point Peter wants to drive home between verses 1 and 3, which we just read, of this chapter 2, is that God's Word is something that is greatly desired, or it ought to be greatly craved. It is something that believers ought to crave with so much intensity. And why is that? Well, the answer is because only God's Word can transform us into the image of Jesus Christ. Indeed, and this is the point of the passage, if we are to resemble the character of the Lord, we must taste the goodness of His Word. If we are to resemble the character of the Lord, we must taste the goodness of His Word. The passage we just read, it's about church growth. But you will notice that nothing is talked about numbers there. There's a lot of discussion of church growth strategies. How can we reach out to more people? And I'm not saying that's bad, but sometimes we forget that we need to grow in holiness. We need to grow in love. And these are the two things that are of paramount importance for Peter. And it should be for you too. We are to grow to the image of Christ, particularly in the context of love and holiness, because, as you would remember, he began this discussion in verse 22. Now that you have purified yourself by obeying the truth, this is the Word of God, so that you have sincere love for each other. Love one another deeply from the heart, for you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable love, through the living and enduring Word of God. Then before, he talked about God's commitment in verse 16. For it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. He's not talking about growth in numbers. He's talking about growth in holiness. And he specifies love. So, if we are to resemble the character of God, His holiness, His love, we must taste the goodness of His Word. And that is the point of the passage we are about to study this morning. Now, the commitment in these three verses is actually in the second sentence of verse 2. Crave pure spiritual milk. That is the commitment. Nothing is said about the Word of God, but he's talking about the Word of God, and you'll see why. He says, that's the commitment for you. Crave spiritual milk. But before he gives us the commitment, he talks about the preparation. You need to be prepared. If you're going to crave God's Word in this way, there are a few things that you need to do to prepare yourself. And that is the very first point. The preparation. Everything that is opposite to love must be purged. If we are going to crave God's Word, if we're going to crave pure spiritual milk, we must purge everything in our lives that is opposite to love. And where do I get that? From that word that is, therefore. Therefore is as a consequence of this. As a consequence of what? Well, he said, in verse 22, Now that you have purified yourself by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for each other, the brotherly love, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God. For, and he continues, we are like grass, and the man is in their glory, like the flowers of the field, that grass withers and the flowers fall. But the Word of God, the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word that was preached to you. Therefore. There we go. Since you are to love. Since you are to love. Since this is the commandment that God has given us, and we studied that last week, therefore you need to do the following. Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies. That's the preparation. And only after that, he gives us the commandment. Crave pure spiritual milk. So, to crave God's Word then, we must eliminate all the love-spoiling vices. Eliminate, purge, get rid of, do your best to eliminate all the love-spoiling vices. And he mentions a few. The first one he mentions is malice. If you are going to crave God's Word, you have to love each other. We've talked about that last week. But if you are going to love each other, if this love relationship among ourselves here at Calvary Baptist Church is going to work out, we have to do a couple of things. Get rid of, first of all, all malice. This is all. Not just a little bit of it. All malice. Now what is malice? Malice is the desire to often harm people. Which often hides behind, apparently, good actions. That's malice. You pretend that you are this nice. You go in the back. Pretending that you're going to hug the person, but you actually, in fact, want to stab them in the back. To give a good picture of it. That's malice. You pretend to be nice. Yeah, we smile. We do that. Yeah, we love you. We care about you. But I wish I could give you a punch right now. Get rid of malice. The second thing he mentions is deceit. These are interesting. This passage is not hard to understand. But what is hard to understand is, why does he single out these specific sins in the relationship of love? Think about it. Actually, they make perfect sense. And you'll see why. The second thing we need to get rid of is deceit. And what is deceit? Deceit is the deliberate attempt to mislead people by telling them lies. That's deceit, right? You deliberately attempt to mislead them by telling them lies. Get rid of all of that. Then he mentions hypocrisy. Well, it looks like malice and deceit and hypocrisy are sort of related. Are they the same thing? Not really. Hypocrisy is the kind of deceit. Get rid of all deceit, but now specifically hypocrisy. That is the kind of deceit in which people pretend to be different from what they really are. And especially that they are acting from good motives. When in reality, they are motivated by selfish desires. That's hypocrisy. Envy. Another love-spoiling vice. What's envy? Well, I don't think I need to explain that, right? Envy is that you want to have what I have. It's the longing for what other people have. There's nothing wrong in thinking of something, Oh, that's nice. I would like to have that too. No, but it is this selfish, Oh, I want to have that. And you almost are driven by that. The next one he talks is, And slander of every kind or of all slander. Slander is literally talking down other people. Which is a characteristic, by the way, in this letter of those who oppose Christians, of those who are enemies of Christians. In chapter 3, verse 16, Peter is going to write the following, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against you, against your good behavior in Christ, may be ashamed of their slander. Malice and slander, they are mentioned as characteristics of those who hate Christians. So, if we're going to crave God's Word, then Peter tells us that we must eliminate all these love-spoiling vices. Now, why does he mention this specific? I mean, he could mention other things, hate, punch, abusive behavior. What happened? Why does he single this out? Well, all of these qualities interfere with the activity of love. And consequently, they interfere with our preparedness to excitedly welcome the Word of God. For example, love does not act from spite, malice. It acts for the good of the other person. It's not so much that I pretend something, and hoping to stab you from the back. No, love does not act from spite. It acts for the good of the other person. Love does not practice cunning, deceitfulness, or act as a mask for selfish motives. Love is honest and open-handed in its dealings. Love does not desire to be better than other people, or to destroy other people's reputation. Not hypocrisy. It rejoices in the success of other people, and it is glad to give them praise and commendation. You see, a church is never going to grow. You might grow in numbers, but you might be like the pagans. We're never going to be what God wants us to be if we don't love one another. And we are not going to love one another if we are malicious, deceitful, hypocrites, slanderers. Oh, yeah. You know that guy, that Mr. Frederick guy? Yeah? Oh, he's a grouch. You know that Mr. Bill? He can't hear. Don't even tell him anything. Or... Oh, I hate that guy. I can't stand him. No. You have to get rid of that. And we talk. We have to talk. We have to love one another, because if we don't, it tramples in our way to approach God's Word with a clear conscience. There's a second thing that he gives us. To crave God's Word, we must become like newborn babies. Megan, you just had a baby. How do you love the sleeping with a little baby the first month? Wasn't it awesome waking up every three hours, two hours? It's beautiful, right? Yeah. You love it. Yeah. I think almost all of you here have had babies, right? Yeah? Can you raise your hand if you had a child? Okay. I think almost all of you. Have you ever been woken up by your baby, by your newborn? Yeah? You see, Peter in this passage is reminding his readers that more than simply receiving spiritual nourishment, they should ardently long for this nourishment, for God's Word. They should not be like children who eat broccoli because mom and dad told them that they should eat broccoli because it is good for them. No, that's not how we believers got to be. We should be like children who eat ice cream with gusto. Right? Because we love it. We should be like the newborn baby who has no consideration for mom's schedule at all when it comes to his or her desire to drink milk. Do you think he's thinking, oh, I hope mommy, I don't want to bother mommy, you know? Wah! Wah! And you just wake up, where's the bubble? Where's whatever Peter, you know? He craves. And I don't know if you've seen, I don't know if you mom have breastfed child, but Kelly tried. She tried for the first two, it didn't work, so we had to go to the bubble. But I remember the babies, they acted like little dogs in mommy's chest when they wanted to eat. They were like, you know? Have you seen that? It's amazing. Now, Peter is comparing believers to that. Now, I have to put a disclaimer really quick here because some people think that Peter is writing to young believers here because he's using the metaphor of milk. And in another book, in Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews tells them, you know, you ought to be eating solid food now, steak, and you're still, you need to be given milk. By the way, we should not put those two passages together because they are two different contexts and the metaphors are different. The fact that he compares the Bible with milk is not so much the emphasis to the basic rudimentary doctrines of the faith. That's the case of Hebrews. The point of milk is that you should be crazy about God's Word. That's the point. Just like a baby desperately needs mom's milk, he's crazy about it. And if you don't give him that milk, you're not going to sleep. You are not going to sleep. That's the point. You should keep God awake. And that's how you should crave God's Word. Why? Because if we are to resemble the character of the Lord, we must taste the goodness of His Word. Then he describes God's Word. He tells that the Word of God is like pure, sustaining milk. He says, like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk. Crave pure spiritual milk. He doesn't say crave the Word of God. So that's why maybe you might think it's not clear. But I am telling you it's the Word of God. Why? What did he say in verse 23? For you have been born again not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring Word of God. Verse 25, he quotes, The Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word that was preached to you. Like newborn babies crave pure and spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. Some people think that the spiritual milk here is maybe Christ, because in verse 3 it changes, now that you have tasted that the Lord. But that is a quotation of the psalm, where it's talking about the Lord, but also the Word of God. He's talking about the Word of God, and we know this because of that adjective translated spiritual. I'll mention that in a minute. But the first thing is that the Word of God is pure and adulterated. He says, The spiritual milk imbued here is free from all impurities. This adjective implies that Scripture is free from impurity or imperfection, that it will not deceive or lead astray its readers. It affirms no falsehood. It is pure. But the Word of God is also spiritual and nourishing. That word translated there, crave pure spiritual milk, could be translated that crave pure reasonable milk. It is the same word for word. But he's talking about the spiritual element of God's Word to transform our lives. He describes God's Word as this entity that produces spiritual growth, nourishment. It is pure, but it is nourishing too, like a milk that the baby eats. And we need that. If we are to resemble the character of the Lord, we need His Word. We must taste the goodness of His Word. And He tells us why. He tells us, So that by it you may grow up in your salvation. And that is the purpose. We have a great need to grow in our salvation. We need the Word of God. We need to crave the Word of God. Because only if we do, we will grow up in our salvation. We were saved from sin to be holy like God. The goal of our salvation is to conform to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. The goal is spiritual growth. You want to be like Christ. We're going to love each other the way He's commanding us. We're going to be holy like God's holy. We're going to be like God is. We need His Word. We need His Word. And that's part of our salvation, by the way. But, there's a condition. And this is my last point. The condition is that we must first experience the grace of the Lord. Verse 3, He says, Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. If you're reading a different translation, it might say, If you have tasted that the Lord is good. I don't know why the NIV chose to use now there. It is a conditional in the original language. The idea is that, and the assumption is, that you will crave God's Word like this little baby does crave mom's milk. You're going to crave this Word if you have tasted. Now He doesn't say that the Word is good, but that the Lord is good. Why? Why that? Well, first of all, the good Word cannot be separated from the good Lord. Do you remember a gospel writer who doesn't like to separate the two? I've been preaching through that book for over a year. In the beginning was the Lord. Is that what he says? In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. And the Word became flesh. It's interesting. Sometimes we don't make the connection. The writer of Hebrews does the same thing. When he begins his epistle, he actually says, In the past God spoke. What do you speak? When a person speaks, what do they speak? They speak words, right? In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in this last day he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. You see, the good Word cannot be separated from the good Lord. If we are going to crave God's Word to be transformed, we must know the Lord. We must know the author of the Word. But it's actually more than that. He says, if you have tasted that the Lord is good, to experience the grace of Jesus, we must experience the taste of his Word. I love it when Peter chooses these words, because it's not so much that you know Jesus. It's more that you tasted it. A better translation may be, if you have savored that the Lord is good. Are you savoring the goodness of Jesus? Can you taste it? Does your mouth get watery when you think of the greatness of Jesus? That's the point. Do you savor Jesus? Do you enjoy it? Have you tasted of his goodness? Now, how do we taste the goodness of the Lord? How do we savor Jesus? Well, when we savor, when we taste his Word. No wonder the psalmist says, all your commandments are better than gold, sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. I know some of you don't like honey. Well, put there whatever you like, ice cream, syrup. Is that how you relate to Jesus? Is that your experience of Jesus? I think these readers have tasted that, because everything around them is bitter. It's bitter. So they need to taste the sweetness of the goodness of the Lord, and they taste and savor that sweetness, that goodness through God's Word. It is not a cliché to tell you when somebody comes and it's suffering. It is not a cliché to open the Word of God and read it, because they are words of eternal life. So, that's my challenge to you. If we're going to love each other, if we're going to grow, truly grow, not just gain more people to fill these seats. Yes, we want to do that, but if we're going to grow, if we truly are going to be a church that everybody is jealous of, if we're going to impact our community, because they know us to be a group of people that truly care for each other, we must crave the Word of God and do what it says. If we are to resemble the character of the Lord, we must taste the goodness of His Word. Let us pray. Father, we thank You for this special time together. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your mercy. Produce in us a desire to crave Your Word. May Your Spirit awaken the fire and the excitement and the passion to taste the goodness of our Lord. Amen.