Let us continue our worship of our Lord Jesus Christ by hearing what He has to say through the Apostle Peter. Open your bibles to the 2nd chapter of 1 Peter…
What is the first word we see in 1 Peter 2??
And what do we ask ourselves when we see the word “therefore” in the Bible??
What is “therefore” there for? Therefore is a hinge word. Therefore is there to tell us truths and corresponding actions to be taken. The last few weeks we noted many truths from Chapter 1, but here are the main truths from 1 Peter 1:17-25:
a. Christians, Believers of Christ, have a God available to provide everything for life to eternity! Christians have access to heaven!
b. Unbelievers of Christ will fall and wither no matter how hard they try to do good things!
And since this letter is written to Christians, the actions corresponding to the truths at the end of 1 Peter 1 are for Christians; the actions called for in 1 Peter 2:1-3 are for us Christians today. Let us read 1 Peter 2:1-3 and try and grasp what God desires in our lives….
We can note 2 main instructions for us from this passage. But before we study and note them, let us understand why we are to do them. What does God want to see in a Christian’s life? What does God want to see in your life?
v2: God’s desire for Christians is to grow up in their salvation! We can note a couple things from this statement:
1. Christians are saved! And again as we read in 1 Peter 1, Christians are saved from a meaningless life and eternal judgment.
And let us note from the end of v3, Christians have tasted and know how good God is. A Christian must be able to say they have personally experienced God’s goodness through Jesus Christ and be able to express it! Many of you know that this is the main requirement to become a member of this church. A Bible church must follow the Bible. Let’s keep this church biblical and be careful of other teachings out there. The Bible, the Truth, is the only thing which sets us free.
Again, it is God’s desire for Christians is to grow up in their salvation. What does it mean to grow up in salvation? Let’s think about this; a plant is always a plant, right? But what does it mean for a plant to be growing up??
A plant that is growing up means it’s alive and will produce what it is intended to produce! In the same way,
2. A Christian who is growing up is alive and will produce godly fruit!
As Christians, are you and I alive and producing fruit?
How can a Christian grow up in their salvation?
v1………
What does this mean? We are to get rid of (renounce and put aside) ALL malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. Let us briefly understand these things that should not have a role in our Christian lives. We must renounce and put them aside!
Malice (kakia in Greek) basically means evil or ungodly. Get rid of anything ungodly in our lives!
Deceit (dolon in Greek) basically means trickery. Christians are not to trick or fool anyone.
Hypocrisy means stage-playing. Christians are not to put on an act. Be real! You’ve heard me say this before, “Enjoy life but keep it real!”
Envy, I like the Greek word for it (phthonos), which means a sour grudge! Get rid of sour grudges!
Slander means backbiting or evilspeaking. Do not speak of evil of anyone.
As I thought about these things, they are so easy to do, aren’t they? As I went through the list, I can certainly can not say that I’ve never done any of those on the list.
But remember what we noted last week? God will not ask us anything we are not capable of doing! How do we accomplish doing what God tells us?
God tells us what will help us!
1. Be cognizant of the things we are to avoid (v1: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander). Know and remember that these things have no part in a Christian life! Affirming what we are not to do is half the battle.
And we can help ourselves by doing the positive thing which is stated in v2;
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk! Pure spiritual milk of course refers to the Word of God, the Bible; this is affirmed in context and in other English translations of the Bible. And so, Christians will grow up by feeding themselves the Word of God.
Actually, based on our passage, what should be our attitude towards God’s Word?? - Crave for God’s Word!
What does it mean when a baby craves for milk??
2. We are to hunger for God’s Word and feed ourselves with it!
How often do we cry out and hunger for the Bible?
Let us all commit to this; let us crave for God’s Word first thing in the morning. As soon as we wake up, read a Bible passage; start with reading again 1 Peter 2:1-3. Read it everyday until you have fully grasped what God is telling you, then move on to another passage.
