Operation Activate Appetite - 1 Peter 1:23-2:3 Series

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another continually, from a pure heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord stands forever." And this is the word that was preached to you.

2:1 Therefore, having rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind, 2 like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you

Introduction: How do you Increase Desire?

We have been studying verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter, and this is our third week on this particular paragraph. This section is so incredibly rich. Two weeks ago we learned that our new birth enabled us to have undying love for people that does not give up when they become hard to love. Then last week Peter commanded us to crave the truth of God’s Word because it gives life, sustains life, and grows us toward becoming what Jesus Christ died to make us. But that left us with the question - how do you generate that craving? I said last week – you cannot cure an anorexic just by telling her to eat. You have to do something to correct her desires and cravings and restore her appetite for food. And it is the same with spiritual anorexics. So many of us have spiritual anorexia – we do not take in nearly enough nourishment from God’s Word because the appetite just is not there. How do you fix that? How can you obey a command to crave something you do not naturally crave? Are you in control of what you crave?

Let me ask you this – when you think of the various cravings you have, is there anything you have ever done that has contributed to the existence of those cravings? I lived about 40 years without ever once having the slightest desire for the Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp entrée at the Cheesecake Factory. When I first tried it, I didn’t like it at all, but I ate it anyway because my wife liked it, and I could not afford to buy two entrees at that place, so we had to share. We go there every year for our anniversary. And over the years, I have learned to like that entrée. In fact, now I really like it. I have noticed the last few years, as soon as August starts approaching (the month of our anniversary), I find myself craving Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp. This year it hit me in early June!

I tell you all that simply to illustrate the fact that even though you cannot just cause yourself to have a craving by simply willing it – you cannot just flip a switch and create a desire in your heart – even though you do not have that kind of direct control over your cravings, there are some things you can do that will result in certain cravings. So to obey this command we need to do those things that will lead toward a craving for the Word of God. The French have a custom, before you eat a meal, of saying, Bon appétit. It means “good appetite,” and that is the perfect thing to say to someone before a meal. And that is what Peter is saying to us here – Bon appétit – and then he goes on to give us two principles to teach us how to have a good appetite.

Abandon Appetite Suppressants

The first one we see in verse 1. This is another one of those times where the translations make it sound like a stand-alone command, but really it is a participle that modifies something else. In the NIV, verse one sounds like a command: “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, etc.” But literally it is:

2:1 Therefore having rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit … crave pure spiritual milk.

So the ridding yourself of these sins is the preparation for craving. You have to lay aside these kinds of sins off before you will be able to crave the milk because these are appetite-killing sins. All sins will destroy your appetite for God’s Word, but especially these. Can you see what these sins all have in common? Look at the list – these are all sins belong to one specific category. They are all sins against love. And sins against love will destroy your appetite for God’s Word.