Born to Crave the Word

Sermon Transcript:

(transcribed with AI)

Well, good morning. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Justin. I serve as one of the elders here at Promontory Community Church, and it's my privilege to bring you the word this morning. This morning we're continuing our series in First Peter. So if you have your Bibles with you, if you would please start turning with me to First Peter 1:22. I'll give you a chance to do that as I speak.

We are jumping in near the end of chapter one, and Peter has just begun to encourage the believers in their walk towards holiness. Since they've been saved by the work of Jesus Christ, they, and we in turn, are called to put away their old ways and be holy in all your conduct, as verse 15 says. Now if that sounds like a tall order, you're right, it is. But Peter's going to explain what that looks like in a little more detail as we're about to read. So we're going to dive right into the passage this morning. If you would please stand with me for the reading of God's word, if you're able. This is 1 Peter 1:22 to chapter 2 verse 3.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. You may be seated.

Now reading this passage gets me a little nostalgic because when I was in university I attended a very traditional Presbyterian church, and they would always conclude every scripture reading by reciting that line. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Now if you drift off during the sermon, or you get distracted, or I lose you completely, and you hear nothing else that I say, try to remember and meditate and ruminate on that line. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

It's remarkably simple yet incredibly profound. It's actually a quote from the prophet Isaiah chapter 40 verse 8. It's ancient wisdom that's made even more profound by the arrival of Jesus, the word made flesh. It's right in the middle of our passage this morning, and it's at the heart of the good news that we all need to hear. Because if we lose sight of the word, nothing else matters. If we rely on anything else other than Jesus, we will fall because nothing else lasts.

And this is important to remember as we read passages that call us to be holy, that call us to action, that call us to love one another and put away bad deeds. We can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to look and act a certain way, to appear holy and do the right things in order that God will be pleased with us on Judgment Day. We put on a fake smile at church. We pretend to have it all together. But inside we're struggling with sin and shame and doubt. And it's a good thing to desire to be pure and holy — I'm not knocking that at all by any means. We want to be made right, and those are good things for us to want. But we don't need to fake it till we make it, because without the saving work of Jesus, we're never going to make it on our own.

God isn't looking for perfect people, but he's looking for people to perfect. And this process of being perfected, being purified, being made holy is summed up in a big $10 word that we call sanctification. So yes, God calls us to holiness. But holiness begins with humble obedience to the truth.

As our passage says in verse 22:

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Now I don't want to make it sound like there's some 10 step program to becoming holy, because that's not how it works. But there are steps we take on our journey of faith, and there are two steps shown to us in this short verse. First, the step of obedience to the truth, and another is an earnest and sincere love for one another.

So first, obedience to the truth. What is that? I want to read a handful of verses back to back here out of the book of John, and then we're going to try to connect the dots a little bit and piece together what is meant by obedience to the truth. What truth are we talking about?

First, John 17:17, as Jesus is praying for his disciples, he says:

Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

Next, in John 14:6:

Jesus said to them, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

And finally John 1:14:

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So if we want to know which truth to be obedient to, these passages make it pretty clear. In the first verse we see there, Jesus links sanctification and truth, and then he equates God's word to truth. In the second, we see that Jesus claims to be the way, the truth, and the life. And finally, right at the beginning of John, John claims that Jesus is the word made flesh. In each of these passages, all roads lead to Jesus. The truth is the word, Jesus is the truth and the life, and Jesus is the word made flesh. Therefore, obedience to Jesus is obedience to the truth.

This life of purification, of sanctification that we walk, begins with obedience to the source of all truth, Jesus. Now there are many practical ways we can obey Jesus and follow him. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are full of his teachings and lessons as to how we are to live as God intended. And I would encourage each one of us to keep going back to those books in order to remind us of what he wants for us and how to obey him.

But one of the most fundamental acts of obedience we're called to is alluded to in verse 23 of our passage:

Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

So one of the first things that happens when you become a believer is to be born again. It's a strange phrase Christians use and sometimes there can be a little bit of baggage associated with it, but we want to look at what scripture actually says about being born again. Now one of the most significant conversations in scripture about being born again happens between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. This is recorded in the book of John, so I'd like to read a little bit of that conversation with you. This is John chapter 3 verse 3:

Jesus answered, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I have said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.

Now if that sounds a little bit strange and mystical to you, you're in good company. Because even Nicodemus, who was a leading scholar of his time, didn't understand. His response is, how can these things be? This doesn't make sense. What Jesus is talking about here, and what Peter's echoing in our passage, is that a spiritual rebirth is necessary to enter the kingdom of God, to be made right with God. He's not talking about physically crawling back into your mother's womb. Rather, he's talking about a spiritual rebirth — not a birth of the flesh, but a birth of the spirit, or as our passage would phrase it, not of the perishable, but of the imperishable.

What this looks like practically in our lives is getting to a place where we recognize that we need a new beginning. We need a fresh start. It begins when we recognize that all of our sins and failures are too great of a burden on our own, that we can never attain purity or holiness by our own efforts. The rebirth happens when we surrender our lives, our sins and failures and everything to Jesus. We cast that burden on him, and he takes it to the cross and does away with it. He dies on the cross and is resurrected to new life, and so begins our new life as well. This new life, this rebirth, is possible only through the saving work of Jesus, or as our passage puts it, through the living and abiding word of God. Remember that Jesus is the word made flesh.

The sacrament of baptism represents this rebirth. When someone believes and surrenders their life to Jesus, one of the first steps of obedience to take is to become baptized. When someone is baptized, they are lowered into the water, symbolizing Jesus being lowered into the grave. Then they are lifted out of the water, symbolizing being raised to new life through him. So along with the symbolism of being brought from death to life, there's also a symbolism of being washed in the water.

In Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, he talks about being born of water and born of spirit. Now we've got to be careful when we read this because it would be pretty easy to interpret that saying as saying you must be baptized in order to be saved, as if baptism in and of itself has some kind of power to save, which it does not. Jesus promises the thief on the cross that he will join him in paradise, and that thief certainly didn't have the luxury of getting baptized. What Jesus is saying is more likely referring to what is found in Ezekiel 36:25-27, which says:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Again, we have ancient wisdom made even more meaningful as we look at it through the lens of Christ. The prophet Ezekiel here is drawing from the imagery of a ritual cleansing that was usually performed by a priest. And he's prophesying that it's actually going to be God himself that will do the cleansing, and that this cleansing will be accompanied by the arrival and the presence of his Holy Spirit. We as Christians see this prophecy as being fulfilled in Jesus.

All this to say that being born again means to surrender to Jesus, to accept his cleansing and purifying work, and to be reborn spiritually through him. So the purification spoken about in verse 22 is not earned by being good. Rather, it is earned through the blood and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and accepted by us when we obey him.

And when we are born again, we are born, as our passage tells us, of imperishable seed. When we're physically born into this life, we're guaranteed two things — death and taxes. In short, we're perishable. But when we identify with Christ and are reborn in the Spirit, we are born into a new imperishable life. Our passage seeks this morning to highlight the difference between the perishable life and the imperishable. That's why Peter quotes Isaiah in verses 24 and 25:

All flesh is like grass and all its glory is like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

Our old life is like grass that grows and withers with the seasons. But a life bonded to the word, bonded to Jesus, remains forever.

Some of us here have already made that decision to accept the sacrifice of Jesus and be reborn with him. Others among us haven't made that commitment yet, and that's OK. The timing of that is between you and the Lord. But whether you've been a believer for a long time or you're not quite there yet, we can all see in this passage what is expected of us following this rebirth. Our passage says that it's to have a genuine and sincere love for one another.

You see, being reborn and getting baptized — it's not the finish line, it's not the end goal. Rather, it's the starting line. It's a new beginning. It may be the finish line of your old life, but it's just the beginning of a new life in Christ. And it's out of this purification, out of being saved through Jesus, out of a new pure heart, that we are to love one another earnestly.

Now let's make sure we don't get this the wrong way around. Loving each other doesn't earn us purity before God. Rather, being made right before God ought to motivate us to love one another. Now a lot of people would say they're good people and they love their neighbors and they use that as a reason why they don't need Jesus or religion. You'll hear people say things like, I don't need religion to make me a good person. And you're not wrong. But being a good person doesn't save you.

People, even many Christians, believe that being Christian or being religious is just about being a good person in order to get to heaven. In fact, that's the fundamental ethic of most religions — as long as your good deeds outweigh your bad, you're good. But that's not Christianity, that's karma. And karma is a dangerous game to play if you really get down and do the math. Most religions say something like, do these things and you will have a prosperous life and a good place in the afterlife. But Jesus says:

I have earned eternal life for you. Take up your cross and follow me. In this world you have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world.

Being a Christian is not about having health and wealth and collaborating with other Christians on how to get more health and wealth. It's about dying with Christ, identifying with his suffering, loving people as he did so that they can become acquainted with him and also accept his sacrifice. You know, all but one of Jesus' disciples died horrible deaths for their commitment to him. The only one who didn't was John, who miraculously survived his execution and then was banished to an island to live out his final days under house arrest.

Jesus doesn't promise ease and comfort in exchange for good deeds. He promises an eternal rest free of charge at the end of this perishable life. And he encourages us here to put away that perishable life because we are to be born into a new imperishable life. Chapter 2 verse 1 of our passage, Peter says:

So put away all malice, all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

You see, that stuff is all part of the perishable life, the life of the flesh, the death and taxes life. But you have been born into a new imperishable life, so let's start acting like it. And I know that's easier said than done — trust me, I'm a sinner too — and the ways of the old life sometimes just come a lot easier to us, don't they? Old habits die hard. But here we're asked in this passage to start weeding out some of those behaviors. We'll just walk through them a minute here.

Malice — meaning ill will to others, trying to tear others down. We do this thinking that if we push others down below us, that somehow elevates us above them. Well, congratulations, you've made it to the highest point on a sinking ship by shoving everyone else down into the water first.

Deceit — lying and dishonesty. From white lies to downright whoppers, we all like to bend the truth now and then, don't we? Whether it's a big fish story or fudging your taxes, lying is pervasive in this perishable life.

Hypocrisy — this is one Christians get blamed for a lot, probably more than anything. But the truth is, if your blood is red, you're probably guilty of hypocrisy. Holding others to a standard that we don't even hold ourselves to. Pointing out the sins and problems of others while not dealing with our own stuff. Sounds like the internet. If someone else you know is coming to mind as I talk about this, then you probably better check yourself.

Envy — in our consumer culture, envy, jealousy and discontentment rule our behavior. We constantly want the bigger and better things that others have, whether that's money or possessions or experiences or Strava times. We all want something that someone else has rather than being content and thankful for what God has already given us.

Slander — talking ill about someone, whether behind their back in gossip or publicly tearing them down. Often our venting crosses the line into gossip. So think twice before you make that post, send that email or text, or go gabbing to your buddy about someone else. If you have a problem with someone, first read Matthew 18 and then go talk to them before you go dragging their name through the mud.

And these are just a few earmarks of the perishable life that we are told to do away with. And it's not to ruin our fun, but it's for our own good and for the glory of God.

Now the good news is the Bible doesn't just leave us with a bunch of do-nots to avoid. Rather, our passage tells us in verse 2:

Like newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk, that you may grow up into salvation.

Peter isn't just giving us a list of things to quit. He's also giving us something to pursue, something to replace those old habits. Because if we don't replace our old habits with something good, we're just going to fill that void with other bad habits.

Peter here is encouraging believers to long for pure spiritual milk in the same way a newborn baby craves milk. Now I want to clarify a couple of things before we dig into this. First of all, this passage is not a plug for being naive like a baby or having so-called childlike faith. Elsewhere in scripture there's a comparison of milk and meat, with milk being for the immature and meat being for the mature. But this passage is not using the imagery this way. Rather, the emphasis in our passage is on the longing or the craving for pure spiritual milk.

As most new parents can probably attest to — I know John and Corinna are in the thick of it right now — a newborn baby has a very strong craving for milk. Around the clock, every couple of hours, a newborn baby cries out for its mother's milk. When you have a newborn around, that baby's consumption and subsequent evacuations — everything else seems to go on hold. This is the image Peter's trying to give us. Just as we are newborn into the imperishable life, we must consume the imperishable milk. We must crave it like a baby craves its mother's milk.

Now this might get a little sciencey — this is as sciencey as I get. When a baby is particularly new, its mother produces a special type of milk called colostrum, a very rich type of milk. It's rich in nutrients as well as antibodies, providing the infant with hearty food as well as protection against diseases. We learned this when our kids were born — midwives love this stuff. Its ability to heal is borderline magic. Not only does it protect the baby from disease, but it can actually be used topically to heal rashes and chafing. The super rich milk — it's like the Frank's Red Hot of the pediatric world. You put that stuff on everything. And that's what we're supposed to long for in a spiritual sense.

So what is the spiritual milk? Well, the word spiritual here actually has a different root word than spiritual is often translated from in the Bible. The word spiritual is often translated from a word meaning of the spirit. But in this case, it's translated from a word that means something more like of the word. Some Bible translations even translate this passage as long for the pure milk of the word. Now remember we talked about earlier that Jesus is the word. And it's actually the same root word in the Greek that's being used here. So we as believers are to long for Jesus in the same way an infant craves and needs its mother's colostrum. We need his word, his teaching, his love, his sacrifice in order to grow in faith. We need it in order to be healed of our sin and spiritual ailments. We need it to protect us from the spiritual diseases listed in verse one that seek to destroy us.

Like a baby that can't go a few hours without its mother's milk, so we need regular feedings from God's word. We need the healing, protection and growth that it supplies. And just like a mother's milk helps a baby grow up, so our passage says we need it in order to grow up into salvation. Now again, the consumption of milk is not what saves you in and of itself. There are lots of people that read their Bible very regularly that don't know Jesus. There are biblical scholars who are professing atheists — true story. We're not talking about earning salvation here. We're talking about growing up into salvation.

Back to baby talk. When you first become a parent, everyone gives you their old baby clothes. Most of those clothes don't fit very well — some are too small and some are too large. But what do we say when the clothes are too large? That's OK, they'll grow into it. As a baby consumes more and more of its mother's milk, it grows bigger and fills out those clothes that once were much too big for it. In the same way, God has prepared a salvation for us to grow into. Jesus has accomplished the act of new life, and now we are to grow into our salvation through the lifelong journey we call sanctification, by consuming the milk of the word that he generously and lovingly provides for us.

Our passage ends in verse 3 with:

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

So I've got to go back to the baby image one more time — it's just so good. Have you ever — if you're a parent, you've seen that moment when a newborn latches onto its mother's milk. Sometimes at first you've got to give them a little taste, right? You've got to dab a little bit on their lips or brush a little bit on their nose so they can smell it and find the source. But once they get that taste, they're like little savages. They're chomping for it, they're rooting for it, they're looking for it. In the same way, Peter says if you have indeed really tasted it, you will long for it. If indeed you have tasted it, you'll lunge for it. Once you have a taste of the goodness of Jesus, you will want more of that milk.

Now I understand that as believers, we do go through phases and seasons where we seem to desire the word more or less regularly. Sometimes we're in the word regularly and it's a breath of fresh air every time, and we can feel our souls being nourished daily by it. And sometimes it feels like a chore to be in the word, and we don't commune with our Lord as often as we should. We want to want it, but the craving doesn't feel so strong. I can relate to both of those scenarios.

For those of you that are drinking the milk of the word regularly and enjoying it, I would encourage you to share what you're receiving and learning with those among us who struggle to keep a regular routine. For those of you who struggle to regularly consume the milk — first of all, cry out to the Lord. Like a baby needs to cry out in order for its mother to draw near, so must we express to the Lord our hunger, or lack thereof. And maybe you just need a taste to remind you of the goodness. If you do struggle to regularly be in the word, I would encourage you to lean into those around you here who are — their cup overflows and they can share and be a conduit of Christ to you. In doing so, we love one another as our passage encourages us to do.

That's why we gather here on Sundays. That's why we have things like small groups, men's ministry and women's ministry, and all these different ministries. Because those are all ways and opportunities for us to love each other and help each other stay connected to Jesus and his word, even if we struggle to do so on our own. Our role as the church, as the assembled gathering of believers, is to help each other grow into the salvation the Lord has prepared for us. To lovingly urge each other toward the source of the imperishable life — Jesus Christ.

To those of you who are already believers here this morning, I hope that this passage would encourage you to a greater love for one another, and that you would seek the true word of God, and that you would work to put away the works of the old perishable life. To those of you who are not yet sure about this whole Jesus thing, it's my prayer that by being here with us, you would experience a little taste of the goodness that is Jesus. And if you're weary of life and burdened, I would challenge you to consider laying your burdens on Christ and surrendering to him, to be born into a new life that promises more than just death and taxes. And I pray that we would all seek the living and abiding word of God. Because though the grass withers and the flower falls, the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

Let's pray. God, you're so good to us. And we need you. We need you like a baby needs its mother's milk. You have saved us. You've paid the price for us. And you continue to sustain our life through your word. Lord, you give us the church, you give us each other to lean on. We thank you for that. Lord, we confess that we are guilty of malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, and we pray that you would help us to put those things behind us and live a new life. We pray that you would give us the craving to seek the spiritual milk, to seek your word, to crave it and long for it. We pray that by consuming it, by being in regular communion with you, Lord, that you would give us growth, you would give us healing, that you would protect us from the attacks of the enemy. We ask you all these things in your name. Amen.