1 Peter 2:1-3
Notes
Transcript
Welcome Message
Welcome Message
Good morning everyone! So grateful to be able to speak with you this morning. As many of you know my family and I are moving back home to Colorado in the coming weeks, so this is a very bittersweet Sunday for me. TCC has been our home since late 2019 and is where I was taught to preach, in fact some of you here were present the very first time I ever preached - so im happy that you all are here with me for what will be the last time I preach at TCC for a while anyway.
I’m also really excited to be able to preach on this passage today, because this passage hits on what I believe is one of the main messages that we try to continually proclaim to you.
So with that, let me pray and we can jump into the text
Prayer
Prayer
O God, you have searched us and known us! You know when we sit down and when we rise up; you discern our thoughts from afar. You search out our path and our lying down and are acquainted with all our ways. Even before a word is on our tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. Psalm 139:1-4(ESV) Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is high; we cannot attain it. Psalm 139:6(ESV)
Even so, Lord I ask for wisdom to proclaim the message you would have me to speak - not my words, but yours. I ask for open ears and soft hearts to receive.
In Jesus name, Amen
Scripture
Scripture
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The first thing we must notice today is that our passage today begins with “therefore” which is an indication that we need to reflect on what was said before.
so over the previous weeks Peter has been telling us:
We were chosen and predestined to be sanctified by the Spirit for lives of obedience
We have assurance that if we are truly saved, he will preserve our salvation to the end
Although we suffer trials in this life, we can still be filled with joy because we know that our suffering serves to refine saving faith
The gift of salvation is so amazing that even the angels in heaven long for it
As a result of this saving faith, we are now called to holy living - casting off the former sinful desires
Our hearts have been purified by the truth and from our new pure hearts, radical love should flow from us
So today, Peter continues his exhortation by shifting from a general call to holy living marked by love, to some very specific admonitions.
Another way to say verse 1 might be to say “Since you have been set aside and preserved for obedient, holy, love filled lives”
1 Peter 2:1 (CSB)
...rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.
Prohibitions against these sins are common throughout scripture. All throughout the New Testament we are being admonished against these and other similar sins.
Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another.
Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice.
But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.
What does this tell us about ourselves?
Why must we be reminded not to do these things? Well, prepare to have your minds blown - we are still sinners. I know it’s hard to believe, but even I still sin - just ask my kids!
But someone will say - but I thought we were born again and now we don’t sin anymore? Well I would argue that there are few people more Christian than Paul himself. and here is what he had to say:
For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
So if Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament still struggled with sin, how can we say that we don’t?
No - the idea that Christians are sinless is made up - and its a real tragedy because the people who propagated this lie opened us up to unending accusations of hypocrisy from those outside the church - because they saw that we were in fact sinful and yet they had been told that Christians are supposed to be perfect - therefore we are all hypocrites.
I hear so many stories from folks in this church who tell me of how they grew up in a church filled with some of the most wicked people and yet those same people were the ones who would condemn you for the slightest sin.
Ironcially, this was not my experience. I grew up in churches on the other end of the spectrum. Sin was simply never discussed. We spent a lot of time talking about the “end times” and about how we were going to play football in the big yard of a big house - sin wasn’t even really a thing.
As we so often say - at TCC we reject extremism - we seek a better way - which not surprisingly is the Biblical way. We can like Paul acknowledge that we are sinners, while at the same time, defining sin and saying that sin is NOT ok. We aren’t holier than thou and we don’t believe in cheap grace.
So this is why Peter admonishes us today against malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. Because he knows we need to be reminded that sin is a big deal.
Our best services towards God will neither please him nor profit us if we be not conscientious in our duties to men.
Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 2425.
Doing good deeds is important, but our CHARACTER is more important.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’
Jesus is very clear that only those whose obedience flows from a transformed heart truly KNOW him.
In general I don’t like to spend a lot of time defining bibical words, most things in scripture are very clear and it is a dangerous tendency to spend more time studying the meaning of various concepts in scripture as opposed to obeying them.
Like if I ask my kids to clean their room, I don’t want them to tell me that my words really spoke to them and they have been meditating on them and even looked them up and did a word study to understand the etymology and history behind my words. Wow that’s great Grace, but I really just want you to clean your room.
However, in this case, since these sins are all called out specifically by Peter, I think we need to make sure we understand what they mean so we can be on guard against them.
Malice - “that peculiar form of evil which manifests itself in a malignant interpretation of the actions of others, a constant attribution of them to the worst imaginable motives.”
Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (London: Macmillan and Co., 1880), 40.
This one hits me pretty hard. I know I talk about my kids a lot so for those of you who don’t have kids, im sorry if my analogies dont always make sense, but don’t worry one day they will...
Not sure if you guys know this or not, but raising kids is hard - in fact its the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Well then James - why do you have like 18 kids? Because let me tell you, the difficulty in raising kids is surpassed only by the joy that comes from a child’s love and affection.
But I said studying Malice hits me hard.
And thats because I have really struggled with being malicious toward my kids. Meaning I assume the worst out of them WAY more that I should. When I should be loving and affectionate, I am angry. Why? because I assume the worst out of them.
One of the worst feelings I have ever experienced in my life is when I falsely accused one of my kids of something and the way they looked at me. The pain in their eyes combined with my feelings of shame and guilt was just brutal.
So I beg you - put aside Malice! It is poisonous to your relationships!
Deceit - This term is used throughout the nt to describe deceitful means to trick a person. For example, Mark 14:1 claims that the chief priests and the scribes sought to arrest Jesus “in stealth” (lit. “by deceit”) in order to kill him (compare Matt 26:4).
Francesco Bianchi, “Deception,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
Hypocrisy - Hypocrisy in the narrower sense of playing a role is highlighted in the NT, especially in the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus criticized hypocrites for being pious in public (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). They were more interested in human praise when they gave alms, prayed, and fasted than in God’s reward. Hypocrites were also guilty of being judgmental of others’ faults and ignoring their own (Matt. 7:1–5). Jesus often called the Pharisees hypocrites because of the conflict between their external actions and internal attitudes (Matt. 15:1–9). Their true attitudes would be revealed (Luke 12:1–3). The hypocrites could interpret the weather but not the signs of the times (Luke 12:56). They were more concerned about the rules for the Sabbath than a woman’s physical health (Luke 13:15). Luke noted that the religious leaders pretended to be sincere when they asked Jesus about paying tribute to Caesar (Luke 20:20). Probably the most famous discussion of hypocrisy is Matt. 23. The religious leaders did not practice what they preached (Matt. 23:3). Jesus compared them to dishes that were clean on the outside and dirty on the inside and to whitewashed tombs (Matt. 23:25–28).
Warren McWilliams, “Hypocrisy,” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 799.
Envy - But envy is tormented by another's happiness;
Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (London: Macmillan and Co., 1880), 88.
I suspect that envy is one of the worst things that this generation deals with today. We can look at social media and see all our friends living these absolutley perfect lives - everything is just right - and then we look at our lives and see that it ISNT perfect. Combine this with the fact that most of us are so unbelievably spoiled that just like little children we are just TORMENTED by the good things that others have. Nevermind that what they appear to have isn’t even real - its just the carefully curated online versions of themselves that they want you to see.
Slander - abusive words falsely spoken that damage a person’s reputation.
Rick Brannan, ed., Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, Lexham Research Lexicons (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).
As we think on this list of sins. It’s striking to me to notice how they are all so closely linked. Most people don’t experience one of these sins in a vacuum. No - if we take my social media example above, we can see how this might play out.
We see a friend living the perfect life online (even though its fake) > we get envious, tormented by their apparent happiness > then in our anger toward them we decide that they must be evil, because only someone super evil could make me feel this bad about myself - so we begin feeling malicious toward everything they do > in response we put on our own mask and facade and pretend to be something we aren’t, we create a fake persona for ourselves and make sure that person sees our carefully staged and curated instagram posts > but that doesn’t hurt them enough so whats the next step? To start spreading lies about them to hurt them in the eyes of others and hopefully make ourselves look better.
Before we know it we have destroyed ourselves inside, destroyed relationships all around us (not just the person we hated), but most terribly, we have separated ourselves from relationship with our true Father by spiraling into sin.
You may be asking? But how can Peter admonishes to simply “put aside” these things? It’s not that simple!
well let’s continue
Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation,
Thankfully Peter does not just admonish us with a list of sins we should not do, but also gives us something we can do - desire the pure milk of the word.
One of the things I am most grateful for about TCC is the way we emphasize the study of the Word.
Do you know how long it takes to read the entire Bible in one year?
15 minutes per day. Thats half a TV show. Or 30 TikTok videos if you prefer.
We are commanded by God to be experts in the Word. Would you give a sword to someone who is untrained? They would misuse it and hurt themselves and others uintentioanlly.
Now, I’m not going to say to you that to be an expert in the word you need to read X number of minutes per day. In fact if someone were to try and say that you can’t be an expert unless you read several hours per day, I would question that just as much as I would question someone who says you can become an expert in any reasonable amount of time by reading one verse per day.
So I won’t stand here and be legalistic about this, but I will simply echo what the word of God itself commands - we need to know this Book. We need to know it so well that when confronted with claims of truth, we can discern what is true and not be deceived like so many professing Christians today.
Peter also emphasizes that we should desire the PURE milk - not adulterated by opinion. Although there is certainly value in the teaching and instruction of people, we are here commanded that our top priority should be the study of scripture above all else.
Through this study of the Word, Peter is showing that is how we will grow up into our salvation.
Art Azurdia describes how the Word helps us to grow up in faith:
Do you wish to be a more consistently obedient, steadily persevering Christian?
A stronger Christian?
A more courageous and outspoken Christian?
Then you need to strengthen your faith!
Your faith instinctively strengthens in direct proportion to the expansion of the object of your faith!
You expand your understanding of the object of your faith and faith itself will obediently follow!
The object of your faith--if indeed you are a Christian--is Jesus Christ and all of his promises.
Is your faith weak?
It is owing to the fact that you don't know the object of your faith well enough.
But when Jesus Christ becomes progressively bigger, or better yet, your understanding of who He is progressively conforms to reality, your faith will become increasingly stronger.
But how does that happen?
By immersing yourself in the faith-arousing Word of God.
Read of Jesus Christ!
The same powerful Word that long ago brought the universe to life is the same Word that can bring you to life and furnish you with a faith that is truly and authentically Christian."
But what if I don’t LONG for the word of God?
God Commands Us to Feel Longings
In this text God commands us not to be spiritual fatalists. Peter says in verse 2: "Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation." The word for "long" here is very simply the word "desire"—it's a command to desire.
What this means is that if you feel stuck because you don't have the kind of spiritual desires that you should, this text says, You do not need to be stuck! It says, "Get them!—Get the desires you don't have." If you don't desire the milk of the Word, start desiring it!
Now, isn't that amazing! A command to desire! A command to feel longings we do not feel. A command to feel desires we do not have. Is anything more contrary to spiritual fatalism than that? Fatalism says, I can't just create desires. If they're not there, they're not there. If I don't feel things the way the psalmists seem to feel things when they say, "As a deer pants for the flowing streams so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psalm 42:1)—if I don't feel that way toward God, then that's that. I just don't. I'm not like the psalmists. That's what spiritual fatalism says.
But God says (v. 2), "Desire the pure milk of the word!" Now before you raise all kinds of objections, like, How can you command me to have a desire? What can I do to obey a command like that? How do I just produce a desire? My whole problem is that I don't have the strength of desire I want. And you just tell me to desire. You may as well tell a lame man to walk.
The God Who Bids Us to Fly
Hmmm? Can you imagine such a thing—commanding a lame man to walk? Who could do such a thing? Or how about commanding a lame man to fly? Do you think God might command that?
I was listening to a talk by Corrie Ten Boom yesterday and heard her recite a little poem by John Bunyan. It's one of the best statements I have ever heard about the difference between the law and the gospel. You'll see how it relates.
Run, John, run, the law commands
But gives us neither feet nor hands,
Far better news the gospel brings:
It bids us fly and gives us wings.
In other words in the old covenant God gave commandments, but by and large did not give the divine enablement that overcomes the deadness and depravity and rebellion of the heart. But in the new covenant, which God set up at the cross of Christ, God gives even harder commands, but he also gives the power we need to fulfill them (Romans 8:4–6), through faith (1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:11).
Now what does it mean to “grow” into salvation? I thought that I was saved when I asked Jesus into my heart?
Well this is party true, once you truly honestly realize your sinful nature and need for a savior, and cry out to Jesus to save you from your sin then at that point you are born again and God will keep you secure until the day you die and enter his eternal presence.
But, then how do I “grow” into salvation?
Salvation — that word salvation and the reality behind it — is the really big, all-encompassing word in Scripture. It includes election, predestination, redemption, propitiation, divine calling, regeneration, reconciliation, forgiveness, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. I mean, it is a big, glorious word. All of those events and processes — some are events and some are processes — are involved in how God saves us forever, and all of them are essential.
So, Paul says in Ephesians 2:8, “You have been saved.” And he says in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “to us who are being saved.” And he says in Romans 13:11, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” So, we have been, we are being, and we will be saved — event and process forever.
if you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Here we see Peter not questioning whether or not we have tasted that the Lord is good, but rather saying that SINCE we have tasted that the Lord is good, we should be transformed not doing the evil things listed in verse 1 but instead desiring the truth of the Word and growing more and more radically transformed until we are finally glorified forever with God.
In over three years of being a part of TCC, if someone were to ask me: “what message was preached more than anything else”
I would easily say: “That because of the GOODNESS of God, we are radically transformed into new creations that live lives that DEMAND a gospel explanation.”
Have you tasted that God is good?
Taste is not something you can do from a distance. If I were to tell you that Corrie makes the most incredible Char Siu (Chinese bbq pork) and how she takes the pork and marinades it in this amazing sauce and then cooks it for hours and then finishes it under the broiler to give it this amazing crust, you might think: “wow! that sounds amazing” but you don’t REALLY know, because you haven’t tasted it.
So have you tasted that God is good?
Again I can’t stand here and tell you what it feels like to TASTE that God is good.
What I can do is tell you that he IS GOOD.
Let me tell you some ways he has been good.
In 2019 our family was displaced from the church that had been our home for 5 years. This was not by choice - we felt orphaned.
V Family
God has been good and shown love.to the V family in incredible ways. From language learning speed and effectiveness to bouts is sickness with Abel, Halle and Abel, and most recently all 3. He was good and moved on their behalf to work out issues and get passports and visas squared away. God showed Himself good by giving them favor in general and continuing to grow them in their marriage.
Sharp
God has shown Himself good to us through providing financial help our most recent training, giving us favor with the school and a discount there, favor with both organizational so that all paperwork can be completed. Continuing to grow us in marriage health. Saving Irelyn!!!!
Youth
Seeing TCC youth being poured into has been like a beacon of God’s goodness. Those kids seems to be eating up all these gatherings and times and even initiating steps in their own faith like sharing Jesus with others! He saved Emory (not sure on spelling)!!!
Carlsons
Saved Lara!!!! Provided financially. Restoring and forgiving. Uniting.
Meadors
Growing in faithfulness to God, His church, each other. Beginning sending pipeline process. Healing Ruth just the goodness of God all over them.
Elders
I have seen personal growth in all the elders and the glory given to God. God has been good to the families of the elders. Sunday mornings, worship, all these things are being transformed (maybe more obvious to me since I am not there to see it change little by little each week) to reflect more of the goodness of.God.
Also College folks and the goodness of God to use them to reveal himself to students and especially international students who can't hear about Him at home.
Application
Application
So in closing, If you have not tasted that the Lord is good, but you WANT to - this is the gospel - you CAN. the bad news says you are enslaved to sin, condemned to die and spend eternity separated from God in torment. But the Good News or Gospel is that God is Good and he has made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins, but even more than simply forgiven, to be empowered to live holy lives free of Malice, Deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. We are now like little children, and God is our true father. He will never forsake us, he will never fail us, he will never abandon us, he will never make a promise he doesn’t keep, he won’t run away the minute things get hard, he has already done the ultimate hard, by sending his own son to die for us, and he loves us so much he will give us power to overcome sin and desire to live lives that demand a gospel explanation. We are victors - we CAN desire the word, we CAN desire holiness, we CAN desire to love each other, we CAN desire to spend time in prayer, we CAN do all the hard things that God calls us to do.
Prayer
Prayer