1 Peter 1:22-2:3 (Longing & Loving)

Introduction

Is being “saved” all there is to the Christian life?

Once a sinner hears the gospel, believes it, and trusts in Jesus, does he or she just go on back to business as usual?

I trust that most of us will know that the answer to both of these questions is “No, of course not!”

But what do you say to your friend, your family member, your co-worker or classmate who asks you, “What now?”

“Ok,” they might say, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that only He can forgive me of my sin. But what difference does that make right now?”

Well, there are many responses we could give to such a question, but some of what we’ve already been reading about in 1 Peter is that the salvation of sinners makes some fundamental changes in their lives right here in this world.

1 Peter 1:1-2 – Salvation changes the way believing sinners relate to God – not as judge, but as loving Father, redeeming Son, and sanctifying Spirit.

1 Peter 1:3-9 – Salvation changes believing sinners’ present status and their future inheritance – they are no longer condemned and awaiting judgment; rather, they are blessed, guarded by God Himself, and filled with hope by the promises of glory at the revelation of Christ.

But Peter goes on to say that believing sinners are also affected by many changes in what they value and what they aim for in this life.

1 Peter 1:13-16 – Salvation sets believing sinners on a course for personal holiness – because the God they love is holy, so too they strive for holiness.

1 Peter 1:17-21 – Salvation leads believing sinners toward fear and reverence (not arrogant presumption) because they realize that God is not obligated to save them – He has graciously done do, and they don’t want to take that for granted.

Today, we are going to continue our study in 1 Peter, and we are going to see that the implications of salvation on Christian living keep on piling up. In addition to what we’ve been studying so far, we will focus our attention today on more of what it means and what it looks like to live as a Christian in this world.

What should saved sinners do, now that they are turning from sin and believing or trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, our passage today teaches us that Christians are those who (1) hunger for God’s word and (2) earnestly love one another because of who they now are.

May God help us to understand this better, and may He help us to live this out in our own lives – individually and collectively.

Let’s stand together as I read our main passage for today – 1 Peter 1:22-2:3.

Scripture Reading

1 Peter 1:22-2:3 (ESV)

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And this word is the good news that was preached to you. 

1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 

Main Idea:

The word of God creates and grows a spiritual family, and members of that family are those who hunger for God’s word and earnestly love one another.

Sermon

1. The Word that Creates (1:23-25)

The word of God creates a spiritual family.

In our passage today, there are two imperatives or commands. These tell us what Christians must do, what they ought to do, what should be their genuine longing and affection.

Specifically, Christians are those who [A] “love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Pet. 1:22), and [B] Christians are those who “long for the pure spiritual milk” (1 Pet. 2:2), which is the word of God.

But these commands don’t come out of nowhere. They aren’t arbitrary. It’s not like there are many ways to do the Christian life, and this is just one of them.

No, these commands are here in our passage as a natural (or more precisely a super-natural) outgrowth of two fundamental realities about who they are now. In other words, these commands spring from the very nature of what it means to be Christian – this is what Christians do, because this is who Christians are.

Conversely, non-Christians do not do these because it is not in their nature to do them. They are not Christians, and so they do not act like Christians (at least not consistently and ongoingly, they don’t).

The first fundamental reality (the who Christians are) is described in the bulk of our text this morning – it is the reality that God’s word creates a spiritual family.

See it there in v23-25 of ch. 1. Peter says, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since [v23] you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (v22-23).

Now, I don’t want to speak inappropriately for young ears here, but our passage draws heavily on an analogy of reproduction and child-rearing. Just as a baby is conceived of “seed,” “born” to live by the nourishment of a mother’s “milk,” and grows up to maturity, so too, Christians are conceived of “imperishable” “seed,” they are “born again” to spiritual life, they are nourished by “spiritual milk,” and they “grow up” into the “salvation” God intends for them.

The emphasis of my first point here is on the first stage of this analogy – conception and birth – because that’s the emphasis of the passage, and because it is the essential starting point of the analogy and the reality to which it corresponds.

In order for a child to grow up into adulthood, he or she must be conceived and born. So too, Christians (or those who ultimately “grow up into salvation” [1 Pet. 2:2]) must be “born again” (in a spiritual sense) “by” or “through” the “living and abiding word of God” (v23).

Some of you may know that Jesus used this same phrase (i.e., “born again”) in John’s Gospel when He was talking about the necessity of spiritual rebirth. Jesus said, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3). And Jesus explained further, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6).

In John’s Gospel, the contrast is between “fleshly birth” and “spiritual birth.” The “fleshly” is the physical or natural birth, experienced by all babies when they are born. And the “spiritual” is the supernatural birth, experienced by believers when they are “born again” or regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit.

In our passage today, the concept is the same, but the contrast here is between “perishable seed” and “imperishable… seed” (1 Pet. 1:23). The “perishable seed” is that contribution that a father makes when he and a mother conceive a child. And the “imperishable… seed” is the “living and abiding word of God” which conceives or brings forth spiritual life in those who believe.

In both passages, Scripture is teaching us that there is a supernatural and divine power that produces spiritual offspring, or “children of God” (Jn. 1:12-13). God’s Spirit and God’s word are both active in this work, and the result is spiritually alive people – those who hear the word of God and believe it, those who receive the word of God as “good news” (1 Pet. 1:25), and those who have “tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:3; cf. Ps. 34:8).

Friends, being a Christian certainly means that a sinner hears the gospel and believes it’s true. We must know that we are sinners, that we have sinned against God, and that we deserve His justice. We must hear and understand the basic information about Christ – that He is the God-man, who lived and died for sinners, suffering God’s justice in the place of those He came to save – and we must believe that this good news is actually true.

But there is more to Christian conversion than this! Lots of non-Christians believe the gospel is true. I speak to rebellious sinners all the time who believe that Jesus died for sinners, and even the demons and the devil himself know that Jesus is the only savior.

For sinners to become saints, for non-Christians to become Christians, they must be “born again” by or through “the living and abiding word of God” (v23)!

A Christian is one who has become spiritually alive, one who has experienced spiritual re-birth, and one who has been re-born (in a sense) by the power of God’s Spirit who works in and through God’s word. In other words, a Christian is one who believes the gospel is true, AND he or she now loves and trusts and lives for the savior who has granted him or her eyes to see beauty and trustworthiness and value in the person and work of Christ.

This is how God creates His spiritual family! This is how God forms a people for His own name and glory! This is how God produces children for His household in order to grant them the divine inheritance – not by sexual reproduction or natural generation, but by spiritual re-birth through His omnipotent word and by His effectual Spirit!

Consider too an implication which Peter is pointing toward in our passage.

Peter contrasts all that is “perishable” (or temporary), all that is “fleshly” (or in the power of men), and all that is worldly in its “glory” (or attractive according to worldly standards of value)… Peter contrasts all that stuff with what is “imperishable” (or eternal), that which “remains forever” because it is (in itself) “living and abiding,” and that which is the “word” of God “that was preached” as “good news” to those whose “faith and hope are in God” (1 Pet. 1:21).

Brothers and sisters, if we want to see our friends and our family members become Christians, we must resist the temptation to use any fleeting or fleshly means. We cannot meet enough of their felt needs to stir affections for Christ in them, we cannot argue them into spiritual life, and we cannot entertain them enough to produce true repentance and faith.

Instead, we must read the Scriptures with them, we must tell them of the person and work of Christ, and we must expose them to the only good news that actually has the power to change their hearts and to produce spiritual life in them.

But be encouraged, brothers and sisters, “the grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Pet. 1:25).

And when “this word” is “preached” to sinners, it is “good news” to those God causes to be “born again” by it (v25, 23), because the “word of God” is “living and abiding” (v23), and it supernaturally brings forth what our efforts alone never could – true spiritual life, a whole family of believers, supernaturally alive ones.

2. The Word that Grows (2:2)

The word of God grows a spiritual family.

This second point follows logically from the first, and it’s also explicitly taught in our passage.

If the “living and abiding” word of God is that which brings forth spiritual life or new birth (if God’s word is that which creates a spiritual family of believers), then does something else make them grow or mature or develop?

No! The very same “imperishable” word that was “preached” to produce spiritual life is that word which is the “spiritual milk” that nourishes born-again-believers toward maturity in salvation (1 Pet. 2:2).

See it there in the second verse of ch. 2.

Peter says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (v2). Let’s break this down a bit.

First, that which grows Christians “up into salvation” is “pure… milk” – it is unadulterated, genuine, true, and without dilution or mixture.

Second, it is “spiritual milk” (as opposed to literal milk) – it is the Holy-Spirit-wrought sustenance of the word of God. The Scriptures are “breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16), and it was God’s Spirit in particular who “carried along” the prophets and Apostles who penned God’s word (2 Pet. 1:21).

Third, it is the “milk” by which believers “grow up into salvation” – it is that basic and essential nutrition of Christian growth.

In two other places in the NT, “milk” is contrasted with “solid food” (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12-13). In those passages, the point is that Christians ought to progress from being babies in their knowledge of God’s word and their experience of Christian living. They ought to be capable (at some point) of feasting on “solid food,” not remain suckling infants on the “milk” of elementary principles.

However, in our passage today, that’s not the point at all! Rather, the point Peter is making here is that Christians will never outgrow their need for the “pure spiritual milk” of God’s word.

In other words, childlike faith and longing for God’s pure word is not some basic stage of Christian living; it is the whole of Christian living in this world. We will always need the “pure spiritual milk” of God’s word, and Christians always long for it, just as an infant is utterly dependent upon his mother’s milk.

Friends, it is popular among Christians in our day for there to be a sort of contrast between Bible knowledge and personal experience – as though the Bible is for immature or unlearned believers, but those who really want to know God or experience Christ or achieve some higher plane of Christian maturity must encounter God directly. But these “Christians” sound more like New Age gurus or Buddhist practitioners than anything resembling biblical Christianity.

If we learn nothing else from this passage or this sermon today, let us learn that God always meets us in this life in and through His word. There is no separating God (or Christ or the Holy Spirit) from the words of Scripture. We do not worship the Bible as God, but neither do we worship a god that is somehow disconnected from the Bible.

The whole point of our text today is to make Christians know that their spiritual life begins with the “living and abiding” word of God, and so too their spiritual life grows and matures by that same word.

The words of Scripture, the summary of the gospel, the doctrines and instructions God has made known to us by divine revelation… this is the substance of our spiritual nutrition for life and growth… and this is true both for individual Christians as well as churches of them.

As a matter of fact, our passage teaches us that a distinctive characteristic of genuine believers is that they do not set their affections and desires on some other source for spiritual life and nourishment. And that’s where we’re going next.

3. The Nourishment We Want (2:2-3)

Those born of God’s word want to be ongoingly nourished by it.

I pointed out (at the beginning of my sermon) that there are two commands or imperatives in our text that are based on two fundamental realities.

We’ve considered the two realities – God’s word creates a family (i.e., brings sinners to spiritual life and makes them children of God), and God’s word grows a family (i.e., nourishes God’s children and makes them grow up into the salvation that God intends for them).

Now we will turn our attention to the commands that spring from these realities. And the first (at least as I’m presenting them) is that Christians want to be nourished by God’s word – therefore, Christians ought to seek nourishment there.

This is what Christians do, because this is who Christians are.

Note the clause that follows the command at the end of our passage (in v3). Peter says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk [that’s the command], that by it you may grow up into salvation — if [here’s the clause] indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:2-3).

We learn here that the “longing” or desire or affection for “pure spiritual milk” is something that only exists in those who have “tasted that the Lord is good.” As Jesus said it, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

Logical progression:

It is precisely because Christians have already “tasted” of the Lord Jesus Christ (in and through the word that “was preached”),

and because they are the ones who have been “born again” (so that they now have a palate that receives the Lord as “good”)…

it is because this is true of them that they now are commanded to satisfy their newly acquired taste for the “pure spiritual milk” of God’s word.

Brothers and sisters, we most certainly ought to “long for” or want or desire to feast upon God’s word. This is most assuredly a command here.

Christians must (by divine command) cultivate their taste for God’s word. We must eat it up by reading it, by thinking on it, by aiming to apply and obey it in every area of our lives.

This does not come naturally to sinners, but it is a taste and a desire that is present and growing in sinners who have been born again.

Our desire for sin is still real and present, but since we’ve been made alive by God’s Spirit, we now have conflicting desires – we actually want righteousness, we want God’s truth, and we want His instructions. And we must cultivate our new tastes and desires, even as we starve our old ones.

We must talk about the Scriptures with others – we must look for ways to challenge and encourage and instruct one another in the truths of God’s word.

What is the regular content of our conversations? Do we often point others to some Bible truth? Do we often encourage a brother or sister in the Lord with some biblical promise? Do we often instruct fellow believers with what we are learning from the principles and practices taught in the Bible?

And we must delight in hearing others talk about Scripture with us.

We must welcome others to question us about our understanding of Scripture. We must invite others to probe around in our lives to discover how we are applying Scripture, how we are obeying it, and how we are digesting God’s promises and commands as our daily bread.

Brothers and sisters, do others know that we are ready and eager to have conversations like this? Or are we putting out the vibe that our personal beliefs and activities are off-limits to others?

But this command (to long for the pure milk of God’s word) may also expose in us some reason for concern.

Friends, do we long for the spiritual milk of God’s word? Does Scripture seem more of a duty to us, or do we drink from it like an infant drinks nourishment from his mother?

If we are not longing for the milk of God’s word, then why is that? Are our affections for God and His word running cold because of some sin we are protecting? Do we neglect God’s word because we are fostering affections for something else (some other source of wisdom, some distraction, or some other pleasure)?

Does our disinterest in God’s word reveal a more troubling problem for us? Could it be that we have not actually “tasted that the Lord is good”?

Brothers and sisters, God’s word is the nourishment we want. When we gather on Sundays, we want to hear the word explained and applied, we want to hear the word read aloud, and we want to sing the word in our songs together.

When we talk with fellow church members, we want to hear about the word at work in their lives, we want to tell them about how God is working through His word in our lives, and we want to encourage and edify one another with Scripture.

When we talk with our friends and family who are not following Christ, we want to look for ways to bring up the Bible, we want to tell them about God’s promises and His warnings, and we want to expose them to the only word which has the power to bring forth life in the hearts of sinners.

This is what Christians do, because this is who Christians are.

The word of God creates and grows a spiritual family, and Christians (who are members of that family) are those who hunger for God’s word.

And because of our shared spiritual life and our shared spiritual longing for God’s word, Christians share a familial love and affection for one another.

4. The Love We Share (1:22, 2:1)

Those born of God’s word share sincere, earnest, and pure love.

It is strange to me when I hear someone talk about their interest in God and their respect for the Bible while they simultaneously neglect or deny any practical love for other Christians.

One obvious way this shows up in our East Texas culture is in the form of un-churched or independent “Christians.” These are the people who say they believe in God, they say they trust in Christ, and they even seem assured that they are on their way to glory, but they live utterly separated from any local church.

They may even claim to love other Christians (in some general sense), but they don’t know the names or needs of any of them (so their love is empty words). They believe they are members of the universal church, but they refuse to join or commit themselves to any visible church in the real world.

Such an individualized “Christianity” is foreign to the bible and universally condemned by our Christian forebears across time and geography.

Another way that this shows up is among those who do attend a local church, but they keep everyone at a distance (one way or another). These people receive the benefits of the formal church gathering (they hear the preaching, they sing the songs, they listen to the prayers), but they give nothing of themselves to others. They show up late, they leave early, they don’t initiate any contact with other members during the week, and they don’t invite anyone into their lives.

They may have their names on a church membership roster, but they seem to expect others to show love to them without giving any practical love in return.

This too is foreign to biblical Christianity, and this way of thinking and acting is explicitly rejected in passages like the one we’re studying today.

Our passage here speaks of Christian community as a family. See Peter’s language there in verse 22 of ch. 1. He says, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (v22).

Again, we see the fundamental reality of who Christians are as the basis of the command that comes along with it. It is precisely because Christians have had their “souls” “purified” by their “obedience to the truth” of the gospel that they are now “brothers” one with another (v22).

Indeed, Peter says (in no uncertain terms) that this “brotherly love” is what Christian “obedience to the truth” was “for” (v22). Brotherly or familial affection among a group of Christians is not the only thing Christians are brought into when they believe the gospel, but it is a major feature of it!

It’s also important to note here that Christians do not become Christians by learning to obey the truths and commands of Scripture better than others.

Rather, Christians are those who have heard the gospel of Christ (that Jesus lived and died on behalf of sinners), and they have come to believe that gospel for themselves. They have “obeyed… the truth” of the gospel; or they have turned from their sin and put their trust in the savior God has provided for sinners.

And if you want to know more about what it means to obey the truth or to turn from sin and believe in Christ, then let’s get together and talk about it after the service.

Back to our text… this right response to the gospel (“obeying… the truth”) is certainly a personal matter – no one can believe for you. But this is not a private matter – no one can live as an isolated child of God.

The whole point of our passage today is to frame the commands of Christian life and growth in the context of family life together – a church family.

Those who have “obeyed… the truth” are now “brothers” one with another (v22), and that brotherhood is lived out in the expression of “a sincere brotherly love,” an “earnest” love, and a love that arises from “a pure heart” (v22).

Note the emphasis Peter places on the kind of love that is shared among God’s family. It is “sincere,” “earnest,” and “pure.” And it is contrasted with the attitudes and actions listed in the verse 1 of ch. 2. These “brothers” are to “put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Pet. 2:1).

Christian love (as experienced among God’s family) is not malicious (it is the opposite of hatred or ill-will).

It is not deceitful (it is true and transparent).

It is not hypocritical (you can take it at face value).

It is not envious (it does not compete with others, but is content with what God provides each one).

And it is not slanderous (it never speaks falsely of another but delights only in what is true).

This is the sort of love that distinguishes the people of Christ in the world from everyone else. Non-Christians can certainly love – they can love their spouse, they can love their kids, and they can love others in their lives. But only Christians (in fellowship with one another) can give and receive the kind of love that is persistent and true and sacrificially self-giving.

The NT is clear and emphatic on this point. The Scripture says:

“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).

“Let brotherly love continue” in the form of “hospitality” and “remembrance” and “contentment” (Heb. 13:1-5).

“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor… Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Rom. 12:10-13).

“you… have been taught by God to love one another… [and] we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more” (1 Thess. 4:9-10).

Friends, Christian love is defined by the Lord and Savior who brought sinners into the family of God by showing the love of God to them.

Consider what the Apostle John says in his first letter near the end of the NT. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are… [and] By this we know love, that [Christ] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers… let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth” (1 Jn. 3:1, 16, 18).

Brothers and sisters, this is the kind of love we share with one another because we share in being loved like this by God Himself. When we have experienced this kind of love from God, when we continue to experience this kind of love in our daily lives (as God continues to love us this way), then we take on God’s own loving posture toward others around us.

Conclusion

I started my sermon today by asking, “What now?” What do Christians do now that they believe the gospel and trust the Lord Jesus Christ?

One way we might answer this question is to point toward the commands of our passage today.

We can say, “Consider what it means to believe the word of God as the life-giving and soul-nourishing source it is.” God’s word creates a spiritual family, and it grows a spiritual family; so, we should trust God’s word, we should depend upon it, and we should long for it… as a nursing infant longs for his mother’s milk.

And we can say, “Consider what God’s word creates and grows – a spiritual family.” Christian, you are not alone! You were never meant to be alone! You are a child of God, brought into His spiritual family – a family with quirks and flaws, strengths and weaknesses – but a family to be loved and one that loves you back.

May God help us to long for His word, and may God help us to love one another… as those born again by God’s word and joined together in His family.