Sermon for 10/17/2010
1 Peter 2:1-3 Soul Food
HoHum:
Have children come up front.
Do you see this cooler? This is what I used to take to work when I preached in NC and when I worked for a time at Wal Mart. My wife, Crystal, would put my lunch in it.
Let's see what I have for lunch today. Here are some chips. Oh, here are some cookies. Let's see what else… here is a candy bar. (Whatever junk food is in the cooler) Hey, do you think Crystal would pack me a lunch like this? No way! This is all junk food! Do you know what would happen to me if I ate a steady diet of junk food like this? I would become weak and sickly and not be able to do much work. This junk food does not have the nutrition needed to grow a strong, healthy body. Our bodies need the nourishment we get from meat, bread, fruits and vegetables. No one can survive for long on a junk food diet.
No one would think of feeding their body a steady diet of junk food. And yet, many people feed their minds with a steady diet of junk food every day. They feed it with TV, movies, magazines, bad music and other junk. They never give their minds the real nourishment that it needs to be strong, healthy and growing. They never feed it with the Word of God. We get our nourishment from the Word (the Bible). Let's pray.
WBTU:
A. G series: Grace, Good News, Group and today it is Growth.
B. 2 Peter 3:18- Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
C. What does that mean and how do we do it?
Thesis: Let's talk about growth this morning.
For instances:
I. How "Not" to grow.
A. Be filled up with junk.
1. When it comes to doing work on a computer, a simple rule applies: garbage in, garbage out. If someone programs garbage in, the computer can give it a neat appearance, but the end product is still garbage. Our minds are the same way. If our minds are fed garbage, filth, pollution, junk, the end product can only be garbage.
2. Philippians 4:8- whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
B. Keep on sinning.
1. Peter gives a list of sins to avoid (Vs. 1):
a. Malice- This is just a general word for evil. People with malice have desires for all kinds of wrong things that fill ‘em up, fill up their minds and their longings so they cannot grow.
b. Deceit- It can be a word used for “fishhook,” because nothing is more deceptive to a fish than a baited hook. Set aside all evil and all that is deceptive or dishonest.
c. Hypocrisy- someone that’s not real, not genuine, phony, fake.
d. Envy- It means to want what others have, they have a better situation than mine and they don’t deserve it, which leads to grudges, bitterness, hatred, conflict.
e. Slander- speaking unkindly, gossiping, and being malicious.
f. If we desire deceptive things, hypocritical things, if our minds are filled with envy, if we think evil of everybody else, and we get pleasure slandering other people – if that’s the pattern of our lives, then our desires are polluted, and we will not grow in Christ Jesus.
2. Is this all the sins that need to be avoided? No, all sin needs to be avoided. Peter here is narrowing in on sins that lead to broken relationships, which lead to unloving attitudes. 1 Peter 1:22- Love one another deeply, from the heart.
3. Anything that leads us away from the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ needs to be gotten rid of. How do I get rid of my sins?
4. First, need to focus on what is good? What is good? Vs. 3- The Lord is good. Where do we learn about the Lord? In his Word, the Bible. Hebrews 6:5 talks about those who have tasted the goodness of the word of God. As we focus on the Bible we see the plan of salvation. Give plan of salvation.
5. 1 Peter 1:22- Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth… 1 Peter 1:23- For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
6. "The Bible will keep us away from sin, or sin will keep us away from the Bible."
II. How to grow (Vs. 2)
A. When a baby is born, it is instinct for that baby to want to latch on and get the milk from the mother or from a bottle.
B. When a person is born again, they need to feed upon the Word as a newborn baby with milk.
C. These verses are encouraging us to remember our baptism. Vs. 1 talks about "putting aside" these sins. We were purified by obeying the truth vs. 22 and 1.
D. Grow up in our salvation (Vs. 2) - people who have experienced salvation.
E. Vs. 3- Tasted that the Lord is good. When does this happen? At conversion.
F. If we have a taste and it is good, shouldn't we want more? We get more through the Word.
G. “Crave pure spiritual milk"- Erasmus, “Milk not for the body but for the soul"
H. Another way to put it is crave "soul food." Food that sticks to your ribs, and satisfies. Not talking about chittlins or friend chicken and waffles but food for the soul.
I. Paul and the writer of Hebrews talk about how we need to move on from milk to solid food, from infancy to maturity, but that is not what Peter is saying. The way to mature in Christ is to feed on God's Word.
I. A newborn baby craves the milk he realizes he needs desperately, and it’s a desperate craving, and there’s nothing else that’ll satisfy. And that’s the way it ought to be with us. Try giving a baby potato chips and see how well they do. They don’t want junk food. They know what they need. And as believers, we need to recognize we have a need. Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
J. God has built into babies loud, crying mechanisms. I mean, they're weak everywhere but in the voice. How do they come out with a fully developed set of vocal chords—and have never to that point used them? But, they come out with a strong set of lungs and vocal chords.
But that crying mechanism is so they can tell us they want milk NOW! When they want milk, they want milk. And so those little hungry bundles come into the world, understanding the desperation of their condition, and knowing they need nourishment.
K. That's what Peter's talking about here. He’s talking about an obsession. Knowing we need to grow…knowing we need nourishment …knowing we need the Word. Are we desperate to drink the milk? As we look at our own lives, we need to ask whether we have that kind of craving, whether we have that kind of compulsion.
L. Christians who don’t crave God’s Word are going to be malnourished, starving and weak. We simply cannot have a healthy Christian life without an intake of God’s Word.
M. Some think that a sermon on Sunday is all that is needed. Do we eat just one day a week? While listening to sermons is great, they are not enough to keep us spiritually nourished. We need to chew the food ourselves, getting our nourishment directly from God's Word.
L. Guys- Milk, milk, milk, drink the milk, milk, eat the Word, Word, Word to get strong.
Girls- Mr. Postman bring to me, A copy of the NIV, Need a Bible to get stronger,
I can't wait any longer!
III. When we stop growing, we die.
A. Only living things can grow.
B. We think that if we don’t grow we will just be stunted in our growth. So what if I am a big baby, I like being a big baby. I have someone who feeds me without any effort (the preacher and teachers) I have someone who changes my diapers, I get my way. What a life! Mark McGinnis coming out as a baby. More serious han just this.
A. My great-grandfather Hose lived to the age of 98. He had a healthy appetite up until the last year of his life. His last year his appetite left him and it wasn't long until he died.
B. The same thing can happen spiritually. If we don't keep feeding on God's word, we might die spiritually.
C. We are a blessed people. We have many copies of the Bible. We can even get CD's with the Bible spoken for us. A man in Kansas City was severely injured in an explosion. Robert L. Sumner tells about him in his book The Wonders of the Word of God. The victim’s face was badly disfigured, and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands. He was just a new Christian, and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer read the Bible. Then he heard about a lady in England who read Braille with her lips. Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in Braille. Much to his dismay, however, he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been destroyed by the explosion. One day, as he brought one of the Braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them. He thought, I can read the Bible using my tongue. At the time Robert Sumner wrote his book, the man had “read” through the entire Bible four times. How many of us can say we’ve read through the Bible four times—with two good eyes? This man had a craving—and even losing his eyesight wouldn’t prevent him from reading God’s Word.
E. There are hardly any of us here that go more than a day without eating. In fact, most of us eat every few hours. We live in a culture where our bodies are well-fed. In fact, our bodies are often overfed. And yet, in the midst of our culture’s all-you-can-eat buffet for the body, our souls are starving to death. We take great care to feed our temporary bodies, but our souls, which are eternal, are often lucky to get table scraps.
F. John 6:48- I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.
