Reference: 1 Peter 2:1-3
If you would like to turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 2:1-3. They may be fairly familiar words to you, but we trust that as you dig and delve into them, as we do that together, that you will be blessed, encouraged, and challenged – to do what that song said – that we would hear God as He speaks through His word. Our subject is Nourished for Growth.
“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”
1 Peter 2:1-3 (NASB)
In the Last Days newsletter, Leonard Ravenhill tells about a group of tourists visiting a village who walked by an old man sitting beside a fence. In a rather patronising way, one tourist asked, “were any great men born in this village?” The old man replied, “no – only babies.”
Babies have four distinctive desires: to be clean, to eat, to grow, and to be loved. Peter uses the picture of that basic form of life – the earliest stages of human life – to describe for us what’s necessary to accomplish what he’s already brought out that God is doing in us: preparing us for heaven. By the way – heaven will be nothing like anything we’ve ever seen upon this earth. Why? Not only because it’s the domain of God, but because He will have stripped everything from us that is not of Him. We will be a radiant reflection of Him, we will be pure love, pure grace, because we will be in the presence of eternal love and grace. There will not be one contrary aspect to our lives.
Sometimes, if you’re not careful, it’s easy to rest on your laurels: “well, I am the way that I am – and you just have to put up with it.” God doesn’t want to put up with it. He wants to change you. He started when He first drew you to himself. He isn’t finished with you yet – in case you think you’ve arrived – you’re still a work in progress. …
Listen to the rest of this sermon here:
Neil Ward, Foothills Church of Christ, Sunday 1 October 2017