Soul Food- Working Up a Spiritual Appetite

Once again, and turn to Peter’s
first epistle. And we have done recap after
recap, so I’m not going to go back over all of that again. But I do want to just contextualize
the passage that we’ve got at hand. We’ll do so here momentarily.
If you’re in first Peter chapter one, I want to pick up at the
end of first Peter chapter one and we’ll glide into chapter
two, just picking up those first three verses and I’ll explain
momentarily. Peter writes verse 22 of chapter
one, since you have in obedience to the truth, purified your souls
for a sincere love of the brethren. fervently love one another from
the heart. For you have been born again,
not of a seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, 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 off, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.
And this is the Word which was preached to you.” Therefore,
putting aside all malice and guile, and hypocrisy and envy
and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk
of the Word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.” As we have seen
in weeks past, all of chapter 1 is about salvation, isn’t it? From the opening words that Peter
speaks, we have seen theme after theme, not only be touched upon,
but dealt with in some of the deepest fashion in all of Scripture. The great themes of the faith,
God’s mercy and salvation and the joyous faith that brings
about that salvation. Well, we’ve seen that the early
part of chapter one is about salvation. And what we’ve been
looking at in the last four weeks is our response to that great
salvation. If salvation is as great as what
Peter describes, what must our response be? And we have seen
that there were a multiplicity of responses that God desires
to see from his saints, from his children. First of all, was
a grace-filled confidence. In chapter 1, verse 13, Peter
says that we are to be those who, infused by God’s grace,
ought to have the utmost confidence in this life. Not only that,
we were called to a God-like holiness. God is our standard.
Not other men. Not even the most noble and godly
of men are our standards. It’s God. God alone is our standard
of holiness. And as obedient children, we
are to be like the Holy One who called us holy ourselves in all
our behavior. Not only a grace-filled confidence
and a God-like holiness, but thirdly, a Christ-bought reverence. We are supposed to have, as Christians,
ever in our minds, the high price that was paid for our salvation. None other than our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, paying our penalty for sin by His death
on the cross. That is supposed to be part of
our response to God for the salvation that we own. Healthy reverence. An all-encompassing reverence.
It touches every aspect of our life, doesn’t it? Or shouldn’t
it? But I said there were four responses
to salvation, not only a grace filled confidence and a God like
holiness and a Christ bought reverence, but born again affection. And this is exactly the context
for the passage that we find today. A born again affection. Look again at verse 22, where
Peter says since he’s not doubting their salvation, he is presuming
their salvation. If they have professed faith,
he’s not doubting it a bit. Since you have, in obedience
to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren.
He’s not saying that they saved themselves, but in placing their
faith in Christ, they purified their souls. They didn’t do the
work. God did the work. But the very
purpose of their salvation was a sincere love of the brethren.
The very purpose for which we’re saved is to create a fellowship
that so proclaims and testifies of the love of God that others
come to know Christ because of it. It’s a radical kind of salvation. It’s a radical kind of change
in the person’s life. And he says, since you have In
obedience to the truth, you heeded the call of the Gospel. And since
you have purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren,
do it.” That’s what he says, basically. Fervently, eagerly. That word meaning a stretching
forth, a yearning to do what God has commanded us to do. Fervently
love one another from the heart. Friends, we are called to love
one another so fervently, so eagerly that it becomes a testimony
to everyone around us in this dark land. And that brings up the context
of chapter 2. Chapter 2, Peter enters into
it What seems like a different section. And this is where these
chapter breaks so often, as we’ve said in the past, it seems like
they were done while somebody rode on the back of a horse horseback. They seem arbitrary. But there
is a deep context here, one that flows from chapter one right
into chapter two. And it is the context of the
word of God, the word of God mentioned there at the end of
chapter one in verse twenty three. Peter touches upon it, that you
have been saved and you’ve been saved of a different kind. I
think I’ve told this illustration before, but I’m a gardener and
in gardening over the last, I don’t know, 15, 20 years, I have learned
my lesson not to buy cheap seed. When you’re planting a garden,
you get what you pay for. And there are particular brands.
In fact, if you want to talk to me afterwards so that I don’t
get sued, I’ll tell you what not to buy. But I will say, buy
good seed. Buy the very best seed that you
can. And what Peter says here is that
our lives should be different. We should love one another so
fervently and so greatly that it becomes a testimony to others.
That should be true of us because the seed that God used was pure
and perfect and good seed. It was the seed of the Word of
God. And the Word of God performs its work in you who believe,
just as Paul told the Thessalonians. There’s nothing wrong with the
seed that God uses. But Peter uses that to challenge
these believers, these first century believers into doing
what they ought. They should live differently,
behave differently. The seed that is planted within
them is eternal seed. It’s everlasting seed. Look at
the end. He points to this contrast between
us who are just withering We’re just kind of withering away slowly.
We’re all dying. We all have a terminable disease.
Did you know that? Sooner or later, as the Bible
says, time and chance overtakes them all. I hate to be the bearer
of bad news, but the Word of God, the Word of God isn’t time
bound. The Word of God isn’t limited
by time. The Word of God isn’t perishing.
Look at verse 24. All flesh is like grass. And
what it pictures here is a hot Fort Collins summer in August
after three months of no rain. And you look out on the grass
and everywhere you look, it’s brown unless somebody’s got a
leak in their system like I did. All flesh is like grass and all
its glory is like the flower of grass. The grass withers,
the flower falls off. He’s talking about you and me.
But, the Word of the Lord abides forever. God’s Word is living. It is eternal. It is perpetual. And what Peter says here is during
this brief span, while you are a flourishing blade of grass,
green, as it were, love somebody. Do what you’ve been called to
do. Because the Word that is placed within you is eternal.
There’s nothing wrong with the seed. And it brings us to this question.
How do we grow? Because suddenly we find ourselves
in a shortfall. We know what we’re supposed to
do. We know that we ought to be loving one another. We know
that we ought to be holy like God is holy. We know that we
ought to be loving Christ with a reverence that exudes from
us. But we see the reality. We know
we have to grow, but we don’t know how. We’re at a loss. What we need is a miracle. By way of not only just a brief
overview, but if I may, an advertisement for Psalm 104. Psalm 104 presents
this image of a miracle working God. I remember on Y2K, you remember
when the world was supposed to end and all our computers were
going to crash at once. And that meant the demise of
humanity as we know it. Yeah, it didn’t happen. In preparation for that, we looked
at Psalm 104. Psalm 104, if I may, I break
it up into three distinct sections. The first section, verses one
through four, talk about the God of creation. It talks about
God and His might and His power, and how God is unlimited in those
things. So, you have the God of creation.
And then, in verses 5-9, a very brief overview, what’s been called
Genesis in miniature, Genesis 1. Psalm 104, verses 5-9 just
talk about the creation of God. Not only the God of creation,
but now let’s look at the creation that He made. And it presents
it as a miracle, and it was. Sometimes we get into this debate
that God, you know, was it a literal six day creation? Yes, it was. God merely spoke and those things
came into existence. And you might as well believe
it as the miracle it was. You can’t explain it scientifically. You can’t. Not only the God of
creation and the creation of God, verses five through nine,
that’s what Psalm 104 lays out. But the bulk of Psalm 104 isn’t
about either of those two elements. The bulk of Psalm 104 is about
the sustenance of God’s creation. It’s about that ongoing miracle
of God sustaining His creation and continuing to water the furrows
of the land and continuing to feed the beasts of the fields
and the people. It calls us to treat every day,
every breath that we take as a miracle gift of God. You say, where am I going with
Psalm 104? I’m off on the wrong passage? No, I’m not. So many Christians find themselves
saved and they meditate, and as they should, as we’ve seen,
in the grand glory of their salvation. And they would even tell you
that it is by the grace of God that I was saved. But they forget about the ongoing
miracle. The day-to-day sustenance of
their salvation, which is the ongoing miracle not of food,
but of grace. It is the ongoing meal, if you
will, for the Christian. And that’s exactly where Peter
says our hope lies. If we find ourselves in a shortfall
in the salvation that we have come to acknowledge is great
and glorious, and by God’s grace alone we’ve come to possess it,
And we see the rightful responses that are due to God, the great
God of our salvation, but we find ourselves time after time
falling short. Our holiness isn’t like God’s.
Our reverence isn’t to one who bought us. It’s not as unto one
who bought us. Our love for one another isn’t Isn’t that different than the
world’s? And how do we change? By the
same way that we were saved by the grace of God. We need another
meal, in essence, is what Peter says. If you will, I have a place
in the bulletin for notes with the passage at hand, and I want
to just have you focus there for a few minutes. Because what
I want to do, like I always seem to do, is take you to the simple
sentence of this passage. All I want you to do is look
at the basics. What Peter says here, after this
lengthy exhortation in chapter one, is he takes us to the therefore. How do you grow? You have this
salvation by God’s grace alone. You didn’t work for it or earn
it. You have these commands on how you’re supposed to respond,
and you find yourself falling short. Therefore, long for the
Word. Long for the Word. That’s the
bottom line message of these first few verses. That’s what
Peter says. That is, in a nutshell, what
Peter says is the way that we are to grow to be the people
that God’s called us to be. That’s it. Long for the Word. He doesn’t tell us to memorize
the Word. He doesn’t tell us to preach the Word. He doesn’t
tell us to study the Word. He tells us to cultivate, to
basically create in ourselves a longing for God’s Word. Foster
that hunger. Work up a hunger. Don’t you do like I do on Thanksgiving?
Eat a little bit for lunch and then you kind of get that hunger
going, right? You get that appetite going.
And that’s what Peter says we’re supposed to do spiritually speaking.
Cultivate a hunger. And that’s what the whole section
here is about. It is about the Christian’s appetite
for God’s eternal Word. And I will tell you, people,
nothing frightens me more in our day and age as I look out
on the Christian landscape and I don’t even necessarily look
beyond our church. But as I look out beyond our
church onto the Christian landscape, I see a church that has lost
its appetite for God’s Word. And as you see this, you will
have to wonder to what degree you long. You yearn for God’s
Word. The subject at hand is God’s
Word. It has been ever since Peter
introduced it. It is the Scriptures, the Bible.
It’s clear from the context of 1.22-25. What Peter calls us
to is the divine nourishment that is supplied by God’s Word. And he says the only way to grow
is to long for that nourishment. I’ve called it soul food. Peter calls us here to working
up a spiritual appetite. And I want to give you this morning
just four contributing factors in order to foster a healthy
appetite for God’s Word. Four contributing factors. First
of all, the preparation for the meal. I know we’ve got our ritual in
our home. In preparation for the meal,
the table needs to be set, right? Hands need to be washed. Drinks
need to be set out on the table, napkins, silverware, the whole
deal. Mom needs assistance in the kitchen. And at that moment,
all hands on deck and we’re all called and we all have a duty
to perform. And there is a preparation for
the meal. Not the preparation of the meal.
There is a preparation. There are procedures in place
in order to partake of the meal. Peter says, likewise, there are
procedures in place in order to partake properly of the nourishment
that he has for us. First of all, he says, putting
aside. If we are going to rightly desire
God’s Word, there are some things that we need to get rid of and
we need to get rid of them in a hurry. Putting aside has this
image of old, dirty, filthy garments. It is a laying aside not to be
taken up again. It is a getting rid of, not a
peddling away at the garage sale. This is a burning of those garments.
Romans 13.12 uses the same word. The night is almost gone. The
day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the
deeds of darkness. That’s what these garments are.
That’s the imagery that Peter is using. He is using the imagery
of old, vile, filthy stuff that ought not be part of our lives
anymore that we need to get rid of. That it’s past due. Ephesians
4.22 Same word. In reference to your former manner
of life, and what Paul there points out is that some people
forget that it’s former. There was a way that we used
to live, and the problem is that sometimes it isn’t former. In reference to your former manner
of life, you lay aside. You cast it off. You take it
off like an old, vile, filthy garment and you throw it aside
and get rid of it forever. Lay aside the old self, which
is being corrupted. It’s getting worse. The thing
is disintegrating on your body. Get rid of it. That’s the image.
Colossians 3.5, Paul uses the same thing. Therefore, consider
the members of your earthly body as dead. to immorality, impurity,
passion, evil desire, and greed. The words here that are used
are almost common. They occur so many times in Scripture,
it’s almost redundant to even consider them, but we will briefly. First of all, get rid of all
malice. I find it interesting. I find
it fascinating. To me, this is a stunner that
Paul doesn’t just say, get rid of malice. And therein is the lesson. Because
we can get rid of some malice. We can get rid of some degree
of all malice. But what Peter here urges us
to do is to clean out the closets. Clean out the corners of our
mind. Clean out those undealt with relationships and get rid
of all malice. Every little speck. Get rid of it. This word is an
interesting word and it can and in times seems to kind of speak
of the whole realm of wickedness that was in the pagan world.
We’ll go to Romans 129 here in a moment. But the word can mean
either vice in general terms, anything that’s evil. But there’s
an interesting twist to it. Cowardice, treachery. It is evil of a kind that is
behind good company and it’s in good company, but the company
doesn’t know what this person is like. He’s such a coward and
he’s so evil that he can’t even articulate who he really is. Fascinating word, Romans 129,
I mentioned it. Here you have what has been called
the catalog of vices. All of those, whether it’s the
nasty nine or the evil 11, whatever you have it, it is this list,
this grocery list of the sins of the Gentile and evil world. Romans 1.29, this is the natural
man. This is the man without Christ,
filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, full of envy,
murder, strife, deceit, malice. It’s not the only place it occurs. Ephesians 4.31 has it. Let all, and it’s amazing to
me, isn’t it? Isn’t it amazing to you that
Paul has to say this to Christians? That Peter has to say this to
Christians? Romans 1 29 is written about the evil, unbelieving world. Ephesians 4 31 is written to
you and me. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you with all
malice.” You know what I take this to mean? This redundancy
that I see in Scripture on this little word, all. I see that
we have a habit of getting rid of some of malice immediately.
Oh, that’s bad. It’s bad to think evil of my
brother. It’s bad to wish ill of him.
But it’s hard to get rid of all of it. And we need this redundancy
in Scripture, this repetition, this insistence that we go in
and root it out. One pastor said of this verse
that it contains a melancholy genealogy of bad passions. Ascerbity of exciting passion,
that passion heats into indignation, that indignation throws itself
off in indecent brawling, that brawling darkens into libel and
abuse, a malicious element lying all the while at the base of
these enormities.” You know what he says in less flowery language? Behind all the slander and all
the envy and all the gossip lies this one sin, malice. You deep down want evil to come
upon this person. Titus 3. And here, you remember
the context of this beautiful passage. He calls us to live
like we’re ought to live. Live new and different lives.
Live because the world is watching you. Why? Because you used to
be just like them. What were they like? We also
once were foolish ourselves. Disobedient. Deceived. enslaved
to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and
envy. Isn’t that what you were saved
out of? Don’t you remember the hate that coursed through your
blood? The hatefulness? This malice
is a cruelty. It’s an evil frame of mind. It is the desire deep down to
seek the harm of others even if you don’t do it. It’s desiring
ill for another person. And that’s why we tried from
the earliest years of our children’s lives to instill in them that
we do not rejoice in another person’s calamity. When somebody
gets it, even if deep down, we all know they deserved it, right?
They had it coming. Pride comes before the fall.
We do not rejoice in another person’s calamity. Not only that, but envy. Paul says that this malice just
foments these other sins. If malice is just a desire for
the harm of others. Envy is a hatred of others simply
because of what they have. The two are cousins. And in a sense, envy is just
a manifestation of malice. Not only that, old guile. The original word here was used
of fishing bait. to trick somebody so that you
can set the hook. This is desiring deep down in
your heart to trip somebody up. This is guile. This is trickery.
This is trickery about who you are. You know what the best definition
of this word is? Treachery. They don’t know who
you are. They don’t know what you believe.
And so deep down, you’re as subversive as what you are. You’re behind
enemy lines. They don’t know you really. And at the right, the most opportune
time, you spring the trap. This too is found in Romans 1.29,
the catalog of vices, filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,
greed, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit. Even in spite of their conversions,
these are Christian people to whom Peter’s writing. Look, I
know that you’re saved, but knock off the deceit. That’s in essence
what he says. hypocrisy, this temptation to
join the church and decide with the church from false motives.
And Peter probably has in mind the great battle that went on
during the entire time of our Lord’s life in dealing with the
Pharisees who put all these outward observances and standards in
front of the love of man. Remember, that is the context.
Loving one another is the context of this passage. And what Peter
says is we put on this face and we pretend to love when in reality
there’s malice and envy at the core of our being. It’s hypocrisy,
Peter calls it. It is hypocrisy. And finally, this is when it
bubbles to the surface, all slander. You see, because we’re all comfortable
with a little bit of slander, aren’t we? Really, aren’t we? We’re all comfortable sharing
negative things about other people just a little bit. If the context
is right, especially if it’s under the auspices of counseling. You know, you can talk about
anybody and anything if you’re counseling. Or, you know, better
yet, if you’re sharing. Right? If you’re sharing… Oh, and a prayer request. If
you ask somebody to pray for it, you rubber stamp it, carte
blanche, anything goes. Right? And so, this isn’t a matter of
do we or don’t we. It really is a matter of degrees. We all struggle here. The word
is an onomatopoeia. It sounds like, it kind of has
that sound like what it really is. Kata lelios. Kata lelios. Let me tell you
something. Can I share something with you?
Did you know? And what it is, it spills out. It’s the fruit of envy. It’s
the fruit of malice. It’s the desire, ultimately,
what’s back of all of that is a desire to have the person found
out. To have the person pay what he’s
owed. Or pay, rather, what he’s owing. James 4.11 speaks against this
in the strongest terms. Do not speak against one another. Same word. Don’t do it. Because he who speaks against
a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges
the law. To begin with, what does it mean
to speak against? Now that it’s all bubbled to
the surface, we know what’s behind it. Malice and envy. We know that guile and hypocrisy
are worked in there because we pretend to love them. But now
it’s bubbled to the surface. A lot of different translations
treat this in a lot of different ways. King James says, do not
speak evil of one another. The message says, don’t bad mouth
each other. I mean, it’s at least in the
ballpark, right? One says, do not disparage one
another. And to disparage is something
that we do with our tongues. This backbiting, this disparaging
is the utterance of false charges or misrepresentations or just
plain negative things about somebody else that is not profitable. It’s not solution oriented. They
damage, they defame. These words do. They disparage.
They lower other people in their rank or reputation in other people’s
eyes. And God’s Word repeatedly says
it is wrong. What he condemns here is this
derogatory, careless, critical, slanderous accusation against
other people. It’s not just talking about others.
It’s running each other down. One pastor challenged this way. He said to speak harshly of or
to speak evil of someone else in that person’s absence, to
criticize, to insult, to slander someone when he is not there
to defend himself. See, isn’t that when it’s the
easiest? It is the sin of those who meet
in corners and gather in groups and pass on confidential tidbits
of whispered information. which destroy the reputation
and good name of those who are not there to defend themselves. And we’re all guilty. And we
all have need of growing. Speaking evil of one another
can be done by raising false reports, bringing false charges,
even picking at little things that they do and say. Thomas
Manton clarified it this way when he said, there are several
kinds of evil speaking, whispering and backbiting. Whispering is
a private defamation of our brother among those who think well of
him. In other words, you’re wanting to take him down a notch. And
remember, what’s behind all this is malice. You want to take him
down a notch. He needs to be taken down a notch.
By golly, he’s getting too big for his britches and I’m going
to take care of it. Backbiting, on the other hand,
is more public. Both may be done in many ways, not only by false
accusations, but by divulging of their secret evils or extenuating
their graces. In other words, downplaying what
God has done in their lives. Increasing, aggravating their
faults, defrauding of them of their necessary excuse and mitigation. In other words, not thinking
the best of your brother. Not giving him the benefit of
a doubt. You know what Peter says? I mean,
get the context, people. You know what Peter says? You
will have no appetite for God’s Word until you get rid of that. You will have no longing desire
to be nourished and fed and challenged by God’s Word until you get rid
of this vile stuff that’s in your closet. I said there were four contributing
factors fostering to desire for God’s Word. Not only the preparation
for the meal, but look at the likeness of the meal. The likeness
of the meal. Therefore, putting aside all
malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like
newborn babes, long for the Word. You know, one of the most dangerous
appetites in a human’s life or dangerous appetites, dangerous
symptoms in a human’s life is the loss of appetite. Not just
when we have the flu, but as age advances, but certainly for
a child, a little infant, to lose the desire for food is a
very dangerous symptom. It means something that is not
good is going on. How much worse in the spiritual
realm? To lose an appetite, to not have a real burning hunger
to learn of God, to be challenged by His Word, to be in His Word,
to be in the attendance of the preaching of the Word, to be
studying the Bible together with other like-minded believers.
The loss of appetite is a very, very frightening sign. God’s Word is clearly the subject
here that is being longed for or desired. And this desire,
this is what I want to characterize. What I want to look at is the
likeness. What is this desire like? We’ve all desired a meal before,
but we’ve never desired a meal like a newborn baby does. Not
since we were newborn. That’s the image that Peter brings
to mind. And he says, how many of you
long for your time in God’s Word like a newborn baby does? God gave me the privilege to
hold my own, to watch Emmy particularly when it was dinner time. She
would just be quivering. She couldn’t even contain herself. Crying sometimes. Isn’t that
right, moms? You don’t need me to characterize
for you what it’s like at four in the morning when the baby’s
hungry, but it is this intense yearning. Would you say that’s
what characterizes your desire for personal Bible study? Would you say that your appetite
has been mitigated, taken care of when
you come and you feast on God’s word on Sunday morning? That’s
the image that Peter is bringing to mind. This word is often used
of the heartfelt longing to see one’s family or a dear one. In
the translation in the Septuagint, it is used of the dear panting,
longing for the water books. and of the psalmist in Psalm
119 longing for the salvation of the Lord. It is a deep, yearning
desire. It is appetite. Job said it this way, I have
not departed from the command of His lips. I have treasured
the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. How many of
us can really say that? How many of us would even really
skip a meal? A single meal? If it meant either
this or Bible study, but not both. It’s likened to a desire of an
infant’s yearning for milk. What the author wants to express
is this image of a nursing child, a human illustration. God’s Word here, Peter says,
to the Christian child is like milk to a baby. It is pure nourishment. Do we desire God’s Word like
that? Do we desire personal Bible study? Corporate Bible study?
Do we desire to shore up our doctrinal understanding of things? Do we have a regular time in
God’s Word, whether it’s daily or weekly? Do we attend worship
and do we do so out of drudgery? Is it just something that we’ve
got to check off our list? Barbara and I were having a discussion
last night. We heard something on the radio. Make church attendance
a priority. A priority? If you do anything, I’ve said
this as long as you’ve known me, if I do, if there’s anything
that God deserves on Sunday, it is our worship. That’s it. Not a whole list of priorities
on Sunday. It’s our worship. Do we desire
to hear God’s Word? You know, there’s a lot of people
that have lost their desire to the point where they don’t even
want to hear God’s position on the matter. I know what I think
God’s going to say here, so I’m going to bypass this section
of Scripture, or I’m not going to listen to what so-and-so has
to say about it, or I’m not going to read this particular book.
I don’t want to know. I want to try to remain as ignorant
as I can be. Or is it the first place that
we turn? If we come across some difficulty in life, some challenge,
some controversy, do we turn? Do we rush to God’s Word to see
what does God have to say? Do we even see a need to grow?
Have we plateaued? Have we reached some kind of
place in our lives where, you know, we’re there? We’re pretty
much there because I look around, I see everybody else and I see
what they’re struggling. I just don’t struggle with that. You
know, I’m pretty much God. I’m pretty much there. You can
come back soon. Do we desire to grow? Even if we see that we’ve got
great shortcomings, we’re not loving each other as we ought.
We’re not as holy as we ought. We’re not as reverent as we ought
to be. But I just don’t care. This Christianity
stuff has proven to be more work than it’s even worth. I work,
and I serve, and I’ve served God, and I’ve done this thing
before, and at one point, I was really, really, really spiritual,
and the return on investment just wasn’t that great. Are you giving first priority
to God’s means of grace? You know, you get all kinds of
theological arguments of what are the means of grace and how
many there are. If there is only one, it’s God’s
Word. And is this first priority? Is attendance to God’s Word and
His doctrine your top priority? Your ultimate
priority, even if all else fails? It’s certainly purpose to get
further this morning. We’ll take up the passage next time. My
challenge to you is simple. Prepare for the meal. Get rid
of the stuff and lay aside the stuff that you should have laid
aside a long time ago. And then check your heart. And
if there isn’t a burning intense desire to learn and know and
feast upon God’s Word, it is a very distinct sign that
you are not well. Let’s bow before our Almighty
God. O Merciful God, we pause and
bow before You. And Lord, we’re thankful for
this passage When it was so easy for us, Lord, in the opening
chapters of 1 Peter to think upon the glories of salvation
and drink it in and feast upon it. Lord, you know, we became
more convicted as time went on and we heard what the responses
were to be. Lord, we acknowledged humbly
that we have fallen short. But now, Lord, the weight of
this whole passage is upon us. And only You can affirm in our
hearts whether we indeed desire and really long for Your Word,
or whether other things have crowded it out right out of our
lives. And so, Lord, we do pray. We pray that You would cultivate
in us Fan the flames in us of a desire for Your Word. Grant
us by Your grace to identify and seal up and eradicate those
things that stand in the way. Those things that prevent a real
hunger for Your Word. Lord God, be pleased to change
us, to make us into the people that You’ve called us to be by
way of Your Word. It’s there where we get the desire.
It’s there where we get the desire to worship Christ as we ought
and to love others as we ought, to be the people that we’ve been
called to be. Lord, grant us that additional
grace. We are absolutely dependent upon
it. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray,
Amen. Oh yeah!