1 Peter 2_1_3 Sermon

1 Peter 2:1-3Spiritual Growth

A mother speaking to her son asks this question, “Son what do you want to be when you grow up?” He answered “I want to be a mirror cleaner.” The mother asks “why is that?” He said “it’s just something I can see myself doing.

We all have/had dreams and ambitions as to what we wanted to be as we live out our physical life…. but what about or spiritual life? It should be the desire of every believer to grow into maturity and be made in conformity to the image of Christ Jesus!

Orientate Scripture: Living Hope

CPS: Believers must shed the things in his/her life that are deterrents of spiritual growth and cling unto the foundation for spiritual growth, adherence to the Word of God.

The Christian must Shed Deterrents of Spiritual Growth Vs. 1

All born again believers have become a new creation but not all born again believers strive for holy living. Though we have passed from sinner to saint there will be times that sin appears in our lives, but we must never practice sin or live continually in sin. The sin in our lives must be disposed of or we will never grow into a mature Christian.

“Therefore” (Conjunction) draws us back to the subject of the Word of God (1:22-25) and an exhortation to believers “seeing that we are born again of incorruptible seed we must not be entangled in evil.”

“Putting Aside” or Laying aside (KJV) (Verb)= putting away, get rid of once for all. It is the Idea of cleansing from defilement or casting off a garment….

Ill: I was at a worship service last week and I saw a mother take her baby daughter in one hand and in the other hand a diaper and headed to the restroom. It is safe to say that the mother took off the soiled diaper and tossed in the trash. As a baby soils its diaper, the diaper is taken off the baby and disposed of, never to be used again.

This exhortation from Peter is to Christians alone, only born again believers can shed the garments of the flesh or the old self (unrighteousness) put on the garments of the new self (righteousness).

List (sins of attitude and speech which are deterrents to Spiritual Growth which stand in contrast to the purified soul and under minds the exhortation for brotherly love in 1:22) Malice, Deceit, Hypocrisy, Envy, and Slander.

Malice – Evil or wickedness. This is the desire to harm someone. It is harboring evil thoughts against another person. It nourishes antagonism, builds up grudges, secretly hopes that revenge, harm, or tragedy, will overtake another.

Ill: George Washington Carver (The famed agricultural scientist) was refused admission at a university because he was black. Years later, when someone asked him the name of the university, he replied, “Never mind. That doesn’t matter now.” He harbored no malice.

Guile/Deceit –This is any form of dishonesty, treachery, slyness, or trickery, this is the practice of deceiving. Its lying about your age in order to get your senior discounted coffee at Macdonald’s, falsifying tax returns, exaggerating the frailness of your health to gain sympathy, taking credit for someone else’s work.

Hypocrisy – pretense, duplicity (quality of being double), insincerity….. Theatrical term meaning to play a part or to pretend. You are one way Sunday morning at church then another way Sunday evening after church. You publicly speak ill of immorality and vices yet behind closed doors you act immoral. You act like you have the perfect marriage but home is actually a battlefield.

Envy – to be jealous, to not be content with what you have but to be resentful towards another for what they have. Tim resents Johnny for his new promotion because it should have been his, Sally gives Susie the evil eye over her new Gucci handbag. Envy is a killer, Cain killed Able because of jealousy, that the Lord received his brothers offering yet rejected his. It was envy that led the chief priest to hand Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified.

Slander – defamation, evil speech towards another person, to make a false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation. Slander is the action of trying to make yourself look good by slinging mud on someone else.

Each of these sins are sins of attitude against another and is the antithesis of brotherly love and obedience to the word of God that Peter is teaching. There is no place for these sins in the life of a born again believer, so what do we do about it. We must guard our hearts and be conscience of our actions. We must pray “Lord show me my sin and strengthen me to cast it away.” Then refresh and renew ourselves in the holy word of God so that we may live a life of holiness that demonstrates the imperishable hope that we have in Christ Jesus.

The Christian must Receive nourishment for Spiritual Growth Vs. 2-3

In Verse one Peter tells us to shed these sinful attitudes and now he tells us we must develop a new attitude, one that is conducive to Spiritual growth. It is the attitude of craving the word of God and its application into our lives.

The Longing for the Word

Long/Desire – epipotheō (Verb)= deep desire. crave

Word – logikos (adjective) = spiritual, reasonable. This word alludes to Peter’s use of logos in 1:23 and rhēma in 1:25, he is speaking of the nourishing milk contained in the Word of God.

The Word of God is Christ found in the pages of Scripture, we must have a relationship with our Creator/ Savior this begins with faith but must not stop there. Too often there is a salvific experience but not a sanctified life. The relationship that we need is s close consistent walk with our savior. This comes about through corporate worship and personal devotion. Here in this text Peter speaks of personal devotion found in the daily adherence to God’s word.

Peter tells us that when it comes to God’s word we are to have the attitude of a hungry baby. Everyone here who has children knows a newborn cries for milk every couple of hours. Just as a baby grabs for the bottle we grab for the book! A baby needs the nourishment of milk to sustain its physical life the Christian needs nourishment from the Word of God to sustain spiritual life. When a baby gets her bottle she stops crying and calms down, Peter uses this figurative language to illustrate what the Christian attitude towards the word of God ought to be.

I have found true in my life the necessity of the Word of God and my soul longs for the nourishment found in it. I can tell the difference between those days that I have feasted on God’s Word early in the morning and meditated on it the rest of the days and the days that the busyness of life snubs me of my time in God’s word. Those sweet moments of fellowship with Jesus draw me ever closer to Him and that is my desire to be close to Him.

The Purpose of the Word

Grow - auxanomai (verb)= increase

Ill: Its like depositing money into your checking account, the amount of money increases as you deposit more money into the account.

Peter is saying the Purpose is for growth (increase) in salvation. If you are here today and by grace alone through faith alone in Christ Jesus alone you have been saved then you will never be more saved than you are now or at the moment of your salvation. Peter is talking about what A.T. Roberts calls Final Salvation, conformity to the image of Christ Jesus. It is by the pure milk of the Word of God that a believer grows up spiritually.

Note that Peters writes “so by it you may grow” not “so by it you may know.” There are people who knows a lot but have never moved off the front step of a sanctifying life. Growth comes from study and application. The purpose of the Bible is not for you to become a smarter sinner but for you to become more like the Savior! Its purpose is to transform your life that you may be conformed to the image of the Savior.

Application: By grace through faith you have been saved and you have seen and tasted the goodness of God. Psalm 34:8 exhorts us: O taste and see that the Lord is good: Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

His sacrifice for us was an act of unspeakable graciousness. What we have experienced in Him should increase our appetites to feed more and more on Him. We do this through the Word of God in our life, through the obedience of the divinely inspired Word of God.

What does your Spiritual life look like? Are you a baby or are you increasing towards the image of Christ Jesus. Today I exhort you, since you have been born again from a seed which is imperishable and have been given a living hope through Jesus make it your resolution in 2022 to put off the old self and to put on the new self, growing to full maturity in Christ Jesus through obedience to The Word of God.