Got Milk? - 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 have tasted that the Lord is good.

Introduction

You are not stuck!

I preached a sermon last week about undying love. Peter told us, “Don’t give up on love.” Your love is powered by an undying, eternal power source, so don’t quit on loving when everything in you is saying, “I can’t continue to love this person.” That is a message we all need to hear because we are so often tempted to give up on love. In fact, we are tempted to give up on any virtue that does not come easily. Some of you may be on the cusp of giving up on spiritual growth altogether. You just feel like, “This is what I am – it’s all I’ll ever be. I’ve tried everything. I’ll never be able to change.” Growth and progress feel impossible to you. Today’s passage gives hope. Look at 1 Peter 2:2. He tells us to do something and then promises that if we do it we will grow. But before we jump in to what Peter says about how to do it, let’s refresh our memories on where we are in this passage.

Review: Love

Peter’s reason for not giving up on love is that the gospel that gave us spiritual life is the same gospel that defines spiritual life as a life of love for the saints. You cannot separate love for the brothers from the gospel. The only way to go to heaven is to believe. It is only by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ that you can be saved. And that means trusting Him when He points in the direction of Christian love and says, “That’s the way to go.” If Jesus points in that direction and someone says, “No – I’m not willing to go that way. I’ll take another route” – that person will discover that there is no other route. The highway to heaven is paved with bricks of love for the Church. And that highway of love is the only one that can take you to heaven. The roadmap to heaven goes through the land of love. So just keep going on that road. The thing that took place in your heart at the moment when you became a believer – that is exactly what is to take place every moment for the rest of your life. When you became a Christian the way it happened was you were exposed to the truth of God’s Word, and you delighted in it, trusted it, and obeyed it resulting in love for the saints. That is how we are to live every day.

All that was last week. But there is so much more to what Peter is saying here. It is going to take today and next week just to put it all together.

What? Milk

The Command: Crave Milk

The first section of 1 Peter gives no commands. It just praises God for salvation. Praise God for the new birth into the glorious inheritance. Peter was just calling us to ride through this life with our noses pressed up against the window of eternity with inexpressible and glorious joy as we experience foretastes of the salvation to come. That is the first half of the chapter (vv.1-12). Then in the second half he says, “Therefore, here’s how you should live,” and that is when the commands begin. Peter gives five commands. We have looked at the first four. Today we come to the last one before moving on to the next section of the book. This command comes in 1 Peter 2:2 – and it comes to many as a shock. Crave. That is the command – we are required to crave something. I say that is a shock to some because many people believe it would be unreasonable for God to command us to have a particular craving. It is one thing for Him to tell us to do something, or to think a certain way – but to command us to have a desire? Even a craving? How can you make yourself crave something you do not already crave? Peter is going to answer that. In fact, he is going to answer three questions for us. What is it we are supposed to crave? Why are we to crave it? How can we generate that craving in our hearts? What? Why? and How?