Milk & Stones Series

1 Peter 2:1-12 – Milk & Stones

Do you ever get a craving for something? I don’t mean something like, ‘oh, I’d like to have a cool glass of water right now,’ or ‘gee wouldn’t it be nice to eat a good steak tonight,’ or even ‘man I wish I was somewhere else right now.’ No, what I am asking is do you CRAVE anything? The kind of feeling I’m thinking of is something that gets your stomach all turned in knots just thinking about it; your mind races and cannot stop thinking about it (okay, turn that part of your brain off for now). It’s a deep desire, a pressing need, a longing, a yearning, or like I refer to sometimes as a real hankering for something. Some people have cravings for certain foods, like chocolate or other sweets, perhaps a favourite meal; I mean they REALLY want these things. Anyone here have a favourite food? Perhaps these foods give you a bit of a rush or a feeling of comfort that can’t be satisfied by anything else? We can crave other things too to get that ‘rush’. Maybe it’s a physical activity, like an extreme sport or other dangerous activity. I believe that’s one reason people race cars or jump out of airplanes or get on the back of a bucking bull…they have a craving for danger. And there are surely many other cravings we could mention.

But today, I want to ask if you crave the Word of God? Do you have a deep desire to get into it, and when you do, do you have trouble putting it down? Do you get a kind of euphoric feeling when you read something that perhaps you have not read before?

Turn in your Bible to 1 Peter, chapter 2. We’re going to take a look at the first 12 verses today, and see what it’s like to CRAVE the Word of God.

1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

4As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For in Scripture it says:

"See, I lay a stone in Zion,

a chosen and precious cornerstone,

and the one who trusts in him

will never be put to shame."[a] 7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

"The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone,[b]"[c] 8and,

"A stone that causes men to stumble

and a rock that makes them fall."[d] They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Footnotes:

a. 1 Peter 2:6 Isaiah 28:16

b. 1 Peter 2:7 Or cornerstone

c. 1 Peter 2:7 Psalm 118:22

d. 1 Peter 2:8 Isaiah 8:14

• Before we can have a craving for the spiritual things of God, we have to clean house a bit. We need to get our hearts and minds focussed on the things of God, and to do that, we have to get rid of the things of the world. Peter gives us a list, not an exhaustive one by any means, but a pretty clear list of things that really should not be part of our lives at all. Malice (the desire to hurt someone else), deceit (lying), hypocrisy (saying one thing, but doing another), envy (wanting what someone else has), slander (saying things that hurt others’ reputations). These are things that should not exist in any way, shape or form in a Christian’s life, and not anyone’s for that matter. Who wants to be with folks that exhibit these kinds of morals? Wouldn’t we rather be people of character that others can trust? I hope so. We need to take a good look inside at who we really are, and what we are really like in our character, especially if we call ourselves followers of Christ, and see if there are any of these or other not-so-desirable traits in our lives, and if there are, we need to change those habits. Like dirty diapers, we need to get these things as far away from us as possible.