The Method to Holiness- 1 Peter 2:1-3

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If holiness it to extend to every facet of our lives, as we learned from chapter one, the question remains, How do we grow in holiness? We answered that briefly last week, but in this section (and future sections) we will see details.

The Method to Holiness involves avoiding evil and longing for growth in Christ.

Avoiding Evil

The first step toward holiness, as with the entirety of life with God, is deliverance from and casting off of evil. We see this in such passages as Mark 1:15 where Jesus calls repentance, or in Eph. 4:22 where Paul tells us to put off the old self. The picture here is of someone removing a garment. You take a jacket off and place it in the closet or washing machine and leave it.

However, the garment under discussion is not simply a jacket that is soiled from the events of the day. It is a jacket that we have worn while swimming in the filth of a sewage center. We would not casually take that jacket off, we would almost rip it off. It would be detestable in our sight and in our noses. Not only is the stench terrible, but it is also diseased-ridden and soul rotting. We must throw it away! This is how we are to treat evil. Peter uses several words that we need to consider.

A. Malice—evil

This is a word that generalizes evil, where the rest of the words Peter uses focuses on a particular manifestation of evil. Put away evil! Peter tells us, take off that filthy garment and throw it away! Lay it aside.

B. Deceit—fraud, trickery

We are also to lay aside fraud or trickery. To be holy is to be honest, not fraudulent. Our goals should not be to deceive people, or to trick them. When someone asks us a question, we are to be honest. Our motives should aim at grace, not deceit. Have we done this?

You see it is easy to deceive one another. We must lay deceit aside.

C. Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is something that we all know too well. We are all hypocrites of a sort. We claim to follow Jesus and then indulge in sins. We claim to serve the God of love and then are unloving with others.

We must put this away. This putrid garment must be thrown aside. Put it away! If you claim the name of Christ, then act like it.

At this point we must all acknowledge that everyone, at one point of time, has meet someone who refuses to attend church because of the hypocrites. While they will ultimately answer for their sin, we must also be careful not to put stumbling blocks in front of our neighbors (1 John 2:10).

D. Envy

We must lay aside envy, that sin by which we see things we want but do not possess. This can be, and typically we assume, physical goods. People see things they do not have that others do and want it. It pains them that others have things they do not.

Status, family, children, grandchildren, looks, hair, all of these things and more can be objects of envy. We must lay that aside!

E. Slander

When we think of slander we tend to focus on the fact that we are telling something false about someone to disparage their character. While that is true, it can also be passing information that we are not necessarily sure is true or not, or, gossip.

We all know the gossips of the church. We need to lay that aside. If you have gossiped about someone, you need to be reconciled to them now.

These evil things, of which is just a small list, must be lay aside. Put it away! Get rid of it.

Now, before we move on to the next two verses, let’s set the record straight. These things must be avoided like the plague. Some of us are more afraid of the coronavirus than we are sin.

We are more concerned about national security than sin. We are more concerned about physical health and wealth than we are sin. Jesus plainly and definitively teaches what we should do with sin.

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better than you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell.” (Matt. 5:29-30)

Or, Paul’s words in Romans 8:13, “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

We must develop a hatred of sin. We must kill it. If someone broke into our homes in the middle of the night we would do our best to kill the intruder in order to protect ourselves and our families. Yet, there remains in us an enemy far deadlier and craftier than any intruder. Lay it aside, kill it, pluck it out! By all holy means hate sin.

The Method to Holiness involves avoiding evil and longing for growth in Christ.

Longing for growth in Christ

It is unfortunate that so many people have this warped view of Christianity where we are viewed as unable to have fun. “We can’t do this, we can’t do that...” is how we often reply to other’s questions.

While there are prohibitions as a follower of Jesus (8 of the 10 Commandments are prohibitions), it is not just that we cannot do certain things. It is that we say no to 99th rate things to say yes to unimaginable joy. You see, the way that Peter wrote this laying aside and desire takes should take place at the same time. That is, we lay aside sinful thoughts, words, and actions while longing for growth in Christ.

It is to say no to mud-pies in the front yard to say yes to filet minions of Christ. We avoid sin, obviously because of its stench and disease and soul-destroying components, but primarily because God is better (infinitely so).

Allen read Psalm 34 and it is a wonderful display of the sweetness, the goodness, the unimaginable goodness of God. We will return to Psalm 34 and some other passages of Scripture soon. But let’s look at what Peter says as he reveals the method to holiness.

A. Longing as Babies

Peter begins this section on longing for growth in Christ with an analogy to babies. While there are passages where Scripture speaks of being infants in a negative way (e.g., Heb. 5:12-14), Peter is not. He is making an analogy as to how Christians should long for Christ.

We have four children, all who loved their bottles. They loved milk. In fact, whenever Calvin knew his bottle was coming he would lean himself back in Hannah’s arms. He wanted that bottle over anything else. This is the picture Peter is painting.

Notice the contrast between our previous point. We lay aside the evils of this life. We put it off. We pluck it out or cut it off. We put it to death. Contrasted with that is the insatiable appetite for Christ. Listen to the way Scripture speaks of the vital necessity of God’s Word:

“For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess.” Deut. 32:47

“His delight is in the law of the LORD and in His law he meditates day and night.” Psalm 1:2

“More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” Psalm 19:10

“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.” Psalm 42:1

“How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Matt. 4:4

As newborn babes desperately cry out for that nourishing milk, the Christian should cry out for the pure milk of the Word of God. That is our state of being. Long for growth as babies!

B. Long for God’s Word

Following Peter’s analogy of longing for milk, he clearly teaches it as the Word of God. We have already perused several passages of Scripture that all show the desire for and the supremacy of God’s Word. We replace the trash of the world and of the flesh for the treasure of God’s Word. And it is a treasure. It is a saving treasure, as we learned last week in 1:22-25. We have been born again by the Word of God. And it is the Word of God that provides spiritual nourishment.

This is why preaching takes the majority of our services on Sunday morning and Wednesday evenings. We need the nourishment of the Word of God. If we were a plant, the Word of God would be our sun, earth, and water. If we were a baby, the Word of God would be our milk. As we are humans, the Word of God is food, water, clothing, and shelter and everything else beneficial to us.

Believers should long for God’s Word because they should long for God. This changes everything with regards to our approach to God. It is not a routine, not something that we should endure. It is a delight!

Samuel Davies, an early American preacher, remarked on this truth, “Because he loves him, he loves his ordinances; loves to hear, because it is the word of Jesus; loves to pray, because it is maintaining intercourse with Jesus; loves to sit at his table, because it is a memorial of Jesus; and loves his people because they love Jesus.” (Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 24)

Peter makes this absolutely clear with his reference to Psalm 34:8, “If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

The Method to Holiness involves avoiding evil and longing for growth in Christ.

The problem is that, as C.S. Lewis remarked, we are far too easily satisfied. We enjoy our filth ridden garments while dining on our mud pies, and the limitless beauty and infinite, bountiful feast of God lays at our sides. Christian, stop being contented as the prodigal son was by wasting your life on vain living and empty pursuits. Come to your senses, and return to the Father who will graciously welcome you back. Taste and see, my brothers and sisters, that the Lord is good. His love, his grace, and patience, his holiness, his forgiveness, his wrath, all that is and is in God is good.

Could it be that the reason so many of us lack in our communion with God and with His saints is that we have not tasted that the Lord is good? Could it be that because we have grown up here for generations that we have assumed that we have tasted that the Lord is good, when in reality we have only caught a whiff?