one28 PodcastA Desperate Charge
Jonathan Sarr
1 Peter 2:1-3
2010-01-20
one28 Wednesday worship
Have you ever seen a malnourished child? Perhaps you’ll recall some of the pictures from the Weinbergs’ trip to Ethiopia, and the children with stomachs swollen from malnutrition. Those images are particularly disturbing to us because of how unnatural they are. Something screams at us that it’s just not right for a child to look like that from a lack of needed nutrients. Ironically, our society has no problem identifying malnutrition in children and others while their own souls are on the brink of starvation.
A healthy appetite might be one of the most natural things
in the world. There are few things
that can elicit a sense of helplessness in the life of a parent than to have a
child with no appetite. When a kid
isn’t hungry, you know something is wrong. I can recall times when my children have not been hungry,
and I knew something was up. You
can probably relate.
And part of this is because you know what happens when you don’t eat.
You get weak, lethargic, tired, and thin, slowly wasting away. This may happen when you’re sick. You know what it’s like to have a
disdain for food, to not be
hungry, and you know what it’s like to once again enjoy the relief that comes
when you regain your appetite.
Healthy Christians will be growing spiritually. They will put off the former lusts, works and appetites and crave something better, namely, the Word of God!
In five short days we will be leaving for the 2010 Snow Retreat, and it’s always a highlight on the calendar. The time spent together is unmatched the rest of the year, as is the time of spiritual intensity in the life of our ministry. Testimonies and experiences tell us that this is commonly a time of significant spiritual growth for those who attend, and that’s because it’s a spiritual feast! This food promotes our growth in Him.
And growth is an automatic for a healthy human. Growth in physical and emotional maturity, spiritual growth for the believer…. They’re all signs of healthy development. And yet we are constantly surrounded with influences and obstacles that impede our growth. For actual children, it may be malnourishment; for the young believer its any number of distractions and sins and junk food for our souls that we fill ourselves with.
In our passage for this evening, we have nothing less than a
call to grow spiritually.
Contextually, we place this on the growing list of ways that Peter would
have his readers impact a dying world while dying themselves. A tremendous threat to the kingdom of
darkness is for us to be continually growing and gaining strength in the Lord,
nourished by the Word of Truth. We
just keep getting stronger by His Spirit and we gain ground spiritually.
But like so many good things, this does not happen by itself
in the believer’s life. Rather, we
are called to consciously crave the pure spiritual milk.
Now, doesn’t this seem as absurd as telling a tree to
grow? Either it’ll do it or it
won’t; it’s at the mercy of the elements to make it happen. It’s natural for the believer, and yet it is impossible. Isn’t a craving involuntary? Nevertheless, he tells these believers
to crave the pure spiritual milk.
And this is one way to impact the kingdom mightily; the
notion of an ever-strengthening enemy is daunting.
The whole tone of this paragraph loses its apparent sense of
urgency in its translation to English.
Peter means business, and he wants his readers to get this picture. Without being overly dramatic, I will
try to do this paragraph justice in its reading. Join with me in reading 1 Peter 1: 22-2:3.
The outline for this passage contains two headings related
to spiritual growth:
I.
The Desperate Demand (v. 1)
II.
The Desperate Directive (vv. 2-3)
I.
THE DESPERATE DEMAND (v. 1)
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and
envy and all slander.
We find the demand in verse 1 as a prerequisite requirement for the believers
if they are to grow up in salvation in Christ. They absolutely have to rid themselves of these vices listed
here in verse one. They have to
divest themselves of these worldly attributes of malice, deceit, hypocrisy,
envy and slander as a bare minimum.
Read in its contextual flow, verse 1 fades to the background
as an important but almost parenthetical thought. Read again 1:25-2:3.
The emphasis in this paragraph is verse 2 and the longing for the pure spiritual milk.
I confess some general disappointment with the ESV’s
rendering of this entire paragraph and prefer the New American Standard and the
New King James translations, as they treat this as the participial phrase that
it is. It is in the aortist tense
in Greek, making it essentially an antecedent to the main verb we find in verse
two. Let me clarify this:
There is one main point in this paragraph, and it is a
desperate charge to grow spiritually.
Since the growth pictured here is centered on the nourishment of God’s
Word, the main verb is “LONG FOR” in verse two. While some English translations, including the ESV and the
NIV make verse one its own sentence, it is a participle that sets up verse
2. So rather than two main
commands to 1) put off these vices, and 2) long for the pure spiritual milk,
it’s one big, fat command in verse 2 with a necessary prerequisite in verse 1.
That’s why the New American Standard renders this…
Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and
hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so
that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. (1
Peter 2:1-3)
Do you see the difference? I think it is significant and has direct implications to our application. This is not a command by itself, but antecedent to the main verb in verse two. In practice, this means, to quote one commentator, “Before their craving for milk can be realized, there must be a definite break with all the evils that hinder spiritual growth” (Hiebert 121).
So this break with these worldly habits and hindrances to our spiritual growth are prerequisite. This separation is required before you can even buy a ticket to the party, let alone go to the party and invite a friend.
So while we have a great list of vices to put off in verse one, that verse does not stand by itself. We have to consider the putting off of these things – and we’ll look at them one by one – as heart preparation for the craving of pure spiritual milk. This part of the message won’t preach by itself; it needs verse two.
This paragraph then, is a natural outflow of chapter 1 vv. 12-25, and the call to holy living that Peter gives his readers as they looked to impact the world around them for Christ. Peter reminded them of the implications of their salvation and its glories, its being hidden in God’s mind from ages past, and its impact on biblical relationships. All this comes as we are transformed by the living and abiding Word of God, and this word is what we are commanded here to long for. But what must we first put away before we can do that? And what does it mean to “put away” these things?
Well, the verb rendered here “put away” carries with it the sense of laying aside a garment. This verb was commonly used for putting off clothes, but in Scripture more commonly “refers, metaphorically, to the removal of evil” (Hiebert 121). These vices, these sins are a filthy garment that we are to wholly remove if we are to grow spiritually. There is to be a definite break with these “passions of [their] former ignorance” as he instructs them in verse 10.
The language here makes no allowance for a partial discarding of these hindrances to spiritual growth. Read with me again verse 1:
“So put away ALL malice and ALL deceit and hypocrisy and envy and ALL slander” (emphasis added).
If this encumbering sin is preventing their spiritual growth, they have to aggressively kill it, get rid of it. And so do we! And yet, most of us want to come to Christ while reserving the right occasionally to be mean intentioned, or deceitful. We’re commonly hypocritical, and envious, or slanderous smack-talkers.
My daughter Ellie recently wanted to put on her special Cougar boots to dance in the house. The problem was that the last time she had worn those boots had been in the mud. She had dutifully taken them off and set them by the back door when she came in and changed her clothes and took a bath.
Naturally, though the rest of her was clean, when Ellie put those boots on and began to play in the house, she left a trail of filth wherever she went as dirt clods and dried mud began to scatter throughout the downstairs.
I think a lot of us are like that. We’re taking off the soiled jacket of envy and the muddy pants of slander, but clinging tightly to those muddy, filthy boots of hypocrisy. We’re unwilling to part with that precious final item of clothing, and we are unable to approach the carpeted steps of spiritual growth.
For some of us it’s more subtle than muddy boots of hypocrisy. Instead, we will take off all the rest except for our soiled underwear of deceit. We cling to one filthy undergarment that we try to cover up with righteousness, but we remain fundamentally dirty and impaired in our spiritual growth.
I fear that’s where many of you are today; you’re clinging to and harboring sins that you love so much and you think that – because it’s perhaps below the surface – you can successfully hide it from others. Perhaps you can, but you cannot hide it from God, and you can rest assured that it will not just slow down, but it will stop your spiritual growth.
This is why this command from Peter is so desperate! I can hear him pleading with his readers to be rid of these hindrances. It is an urgent and serious charge.
I asked you last time we were together if you’d ever been in a truly biblical relationship, and what it was like. I can tell you that when malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander are removed from individuals’ lives, their relationships are biblical.
MALICE
While this term can refer generally to wickedness or evil in all its forms, it seems here to refer “to the basic attitude of ill-will toward others.” Peter wants his readers to have godly relationships with one another, using their strong testimony for the world to see. For this to be of any effectiveness, they’d have to put off any sense of ill-will toward others.
If believers wish to grow spiritually, they may not harbor feelings of ill-will toward others. This sort of bitterness and malice is a hindrance to the blessings of God.
DECEIT
This one is fundamentally crafty. It is intended to mislead others. It is guile, cunning or craftiness.
This sin scares me when I see it in myself and in others. I have opportunity to interact with a number of young people who pretend to be ignorant, or they lie. When you lie and deceive, you’re usually doing so because you don’t want the truth to come to light, because more often than not, that would reveal your guilt. We usually know what the right thing is to do, but we don’t often do it. And that’s why we lie; we know that what we did was wrong. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t feel the need to lie about it.
This goes hand in hand with deception. This is a willful misleading of others. You don’t want for them to know the truth.
HYPOCRISY
This one really gets to me, because it is the opposite of integrity. A hypocrite behaves differently from what he thinks. If you’re thinking unrighteously but behaving righteously, you’re a hypocrite. It’s not just a matter of doing one thing while saying another, it’s doing one thing while even thinking another. Christ went after this in the Sermon on the Mount and John went after it in his first letter, but Peter is going after it here.
One biblical example that colored Peter’s view of hypocrisy was the story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10). You’ll recall that they were trying to impress the early church and lied to the Holy Spirit. Peter was very familiar with the ugly outworkings of hypocrisy.
If that weren’t bad enough, he had his own experience to draw on, as one who – when Christ walked the Earth – was fearful of man at the cost of his integrity.
When you are smiling on the outside but you want to punch your brother on the inside, this is a gross obstacle to your spiritual growth. When you pretend to be someone’s friend when she’s around, but speak badly of her when she’s not, that is disgusting to God.
ENVY
Envy is defined as “the feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing of the advantage or prosperity of others.” This is jealousy and covetousness, and it is ugly. It is also one of the most deeply-entrenched sins in the human heart. I know this because it is one of the most difficult things to root out in my life and in the heart of my children.
The envious person has no sense of real joy or happiness or delight in the successes and prosperity of other people. When’s the last time you were genuinely thrilled for someone who got something better than you, or who accomplished something you’ve been trying got accomplish and have failed? The natural response is envy, and it is ugly, and it is a hindrance to our spiritual growth.
It’s been said, “Envy is the running mate of hypocrisy.” I can see that. Imagine someone tells you, “Hey! My parents are buying me a new Jetta!” And you’ve been saving for years to buy a used 1994 White Toyota Tercel. On the inside you might be screaming “NOT FAIR! He doesn’t deserve that! That should be MY car!” But on the outside you say, “Hey, that’s awesome! Good for you.” Is that not hypocritical? Do you see how, if that is what characterizes your heart, you need to remove this ugly hindrance to your growth?
SLANDER
And then of course, slander. This word is onomatopoetic in Greek: katalalias, sounding like indiscernible whispering. This vice “deliberately assaults the character
of another person, and usually takes place behind a victim’s back” (Hiebert
122).
I take time to go over these one by one for a few reasons. I love the lists in the New Testament epistles. They make for great prayer lists and check lists. Yet they tend to be some of the first things we just casually gloss over, like genealogies.
Further, I am personally convicted by this list. I can tend to excuse the ugly appearance of envy or hypocrisy in my own life as completely understandable. “I’m only human; how else can I be expected to respond when….(fill in the blank)” I say.” And yet, Peter commands his readers to take immediate and permanent action against these vices because they directly impair spiritual growth.
And we all have to see it as that. These things have to go if we would grow in Christ. If God’s Word is the milk that causes us to grow, these things are the pacifier that may keep the baby quiet, but that also keep the nourishment out.
That is Peter’s demand before he issues his directive. That takes us to point two:
II.
THE DESPERATE DIRECTIVE (vv. 2-3)
2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure
spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation- 3 if indeed you have tasted
that the Lord is good.
A directive is a command to do something. And here Peter is commanding a craving. It’s a strange concept, but he is directing his readers to long for the pure spiritual milk like a baby longs for his mother’s milk.
This is the sort of way that you need to speak to your own heart, and that you need to plead with God to effect in your life. You need to say, “Soul, LONG after God’s Word! God, GROW this desire in me, I beg. My desire is after junk food, but give me a hunger for Your truth!” Do you get it?
A newborn’s longing for his mother’s milk is not apathetic. It is his one, solitary craving. He wants nothing else. His appetite is for that one thing, and it is tenacious. He craves it as though it is the only thing that will satisfy, and as though his life depends on it, because it does.
My son Joshua is almost seven months old. He is nursing, and I could put a juicy steak on a platter before him, and he’d have no idea what to do with it. When he is shrieking in hunger, as he sometimes does, a self-help book or some quiet meditation or pornography or drugs or Facebook are not going to pacify him. Only pure, undiluted milk will satisfy him.
We need a perspective as narrow as Joshua’s but with a spiritual focus. We need a sustaining, pure spiritual food for our insatiable spiritual appetite.
What is the food that we’re talking of? What doest Peter say? “Long for the pure spiritual milk.” Many of your translations read “the pure milk of the word.” Well, the ESV is accurate here, in that the Word is not included technically, though it is clearly understood linguistically and textually. Don’t forget the context here. At the tail end of chapter one, Peter was remarking on the lasting nature of the Word of God and its impact on behavior and relationships in the church. They were to have right relationships with one another because they’ve been transformed by their obedience to the truth, and because it would impact their world mightily. He beautifully contrasts it with perishable grass in 1:24-25 as he quotes Isaiah. Then he says, LONG FOR IT! Crave it! Hunger violently for the transforming Word of God.
So why is this command a good one for Peter to issue his readers? I see two reasons: its Nature and our Need.
Its Nature. We are talking about the Word of God that He used to create and to give life. It is his instruction for us to live lives that honor Him in this world.
Our Need. Simply put, we cannot grow in Christ without it any more than a baby can grow without physical milk. Says Hiebert, “Such an ardor for spiritual food is essential for spiritual growth.” It is a good sign when a baby has what we call a “healthy” appetite.
So whether we are grown up in the faith or mere babies, the truths of God’s Word are an appropriate food for us as they bring the soul sustenance we need. How do we know this? Look at the second half of verse 2:
“…that by it you may grow up to salvation.” I initially got hung up on this, because spiritual life is required for spiritual growth; you can’t grow unless you’re first born again. But the sense of the passage is lost in the translation of the prepositions. It may be better translated, “…grow in your salvation.” That is, grow spiritually in your saved state.
A helpful analogy may be pregnancy. A woman’s either pregnant or she’s not, but we know what it means for her to be growing in her pregnancy, right? It means in her pregnant state to be getting farther along. Her baby grows, she grows, a goal is in view.
It’s the same thing with us. We desperately need the Word of God to grow in respect to our salvation.
Then Peter follows this thought with something of a play on words: “If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Peter was undoubtedly familiar with Psalm 34:8: “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!” and he likely loved to remind his readers of God’s goodness.
The term rendered “if” is a subordinating conjunction that is elsewhere translated “since,” “although,” or “whatever.” Clearly it is not intended to elicit doubt, but reasoning. It’s as if to say, “Long for the pure spiritual milk…since you’ve tasted that the Lord is good!” Those who have tasted of God’s goodness already will naturally crave more of the milk of His Word.
CONCLUSION
1. What soiled garments of sin are you still clinging to that are preventing your spiritual growth?
2. What are the implications of this passage especially as we approach the Snow Retreat?
3. How exactly does the Word bring about our growth in Him?
4. Why is growth so important to believers engaged in spiritual battle?
5. Why might spiritual growth be an important weapon in the hand of Peter’s readers?
6. Is your longing for the Word comparable to a baby’s longing for milk? How or how not?
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