Becoming

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Transcript:

1 Peter chapter 1. Now Peter’s writing to Christian believers. He’s not writing to any church in particular, but just to anybody who will pay attention, anybody who will listen.

Because what he says in this letter wasn’t just a specific need of any particular church, but of all Christians. And especially he writes in a time when they were about to be persecuted and scattered, I think within about five years or less of this being written, Jerusalem was going to be destroyed by Roman armies and Christians and Jews were going to be scattered throughout the entire empire, running for their lives. And when you get away from everything you’ve known, when you’re under intense persecution, there can be a temptation to neglect spiritual things.

There can be a temptation to turn your back on God. There can be a temptation to let go of things that we need to cling to, especially in times of trouble. As we’ve been discussing the subject of discipleship for a few weeks, last week we talked about conviction.

where God presses it on our heart and we realize the weight and the awfulness of our sins and we’re broken under it. And we talked about conversion, where we trust Christ as our Savior. It’s not simply repeating some words.

It’s not the physical act of walking an aisle. It’s not raising a hand, but it’s in our hearts, trusting Jesus Christ, realizing that we’ve sinned against a holy God. We’ve incurred a penalty that we cannot pay and trusting Him to have died in our place and paid for the sins that we were supposed to pay for.

Trusting Him and Him alone as our Savior and asking God’s forgiveness on that basis. This morning, we talk about one of the first steps of discipleship after the point of conversion. Now, the place we’re going to talk about tonight, I could have easily swapped out this morning’s message and tonight’s message, because it’s not one after the other.

These things go on at the same time. This morning, Brother Ward, do I need to switch microphones? Here we go.

Now this morning we’re going to talk about becoming, and tonight we’re going to talk about belonging. Becoming means that we’ve been saved and now we’re learning to live for Christ. These are sort of the baby steps of the Christian faith. Tonight we’ll talk about belonging, being part of a local church as we do it, because I believe that’s indispensable.

I believe you can be saved without being part of the local church, but it’s really hard to be a Christian outside the local church. God put us together for a reason, to grow together. We’ll talk about that tonight.

But he writes this morning, Peter writes in 1 Peter, to people who are becoming, who it seems are just learning what it means to be a Christian. We’ll start in verse 24 of chapter 1. It says, for all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass.

The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. And this is a reference back to the book of Isaiah, where he says, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God, the word of our God shall stand forever. But the word of the Lord, he says in verse 25, endureth forever.

All the world around us, ladies and gentlemen, changes. All the world changes. The political situation outside us changes.

Our financial situation changes. Our families change. Our jobs change.

The word of God is the constant. The word of God endures forever. And this, he says, and this is the word by which the gospel is preached unto you.

The gospel was not preached in a vacuum. Folks, they referred back to the scriptures in order to point them to Jesus Christ because the scriptures they had, which were the Old Testament, the scriptures they had are about Jesus Christ. The entire Old Testament points to Jesus Christ being the fulfillment of God’s law, being the promised Messiah, being the one who would be punished in our place and deal with sin. And so he says, and this is the word by which the gospel was preached unto you.

He’s writing to believers. He’s writing to people who had heard the preaching of the gospel and had responded in faith. And he says in chapter 2 verse 1, wherefore, and when we see that word wherefore, we need to look back because what it’s saying is because of this.

So we look back and it’s on the basis of that word and the gospel being preached to you through that word. Because of this, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings. He says, take these things about you’ve always lived.

Take these things about human nature, these practices that we are all inclined to, this malice, which is just meanness and anger, this guile, same thing, hypocrisies. We know what hypocrisy is. Saying one thing and doing another.

Envies, jealousy, and a misplaced jealousy, and often a jealousy that leads us to do things we’re not supposed to, and all evil speakings, all evil speakings. Folks, he doesn’t just say, get saved and stop cursing, or get saved and stop telling dirty jokes. What he says is, get rid of all evil speakings.

And he says in verse 2, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Desire the milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

This passage is about new believers or at the very least weak believers because there are several references in the New Testament to babes in Christ and it usually refers to people who are new in the faith. There are places where it talks about the milk of the Word and that’s to be given, that’s the simple truths of God’s Word that are to be given to those who are new in the faith. He tells them to desire the milk of the Word.

This passage is written to new believers or at least believers who have not yet reached a point of maturity where they can handle what the Bible calls the meat of the Word and about and about them learning what it means to follow Christ, about them learning how to be Christians. See, the Bible calls it being born again for a reason. And I’m still Jared.

I was Jared before I was saved. I’m Jared afterwards. But I’m a different person.

He’s born again. The Bible says if any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. He’s a new creature.

And when we’re born as babies, we’re born knowing some things. There are some things that are just inherent, that are instinct, but there are other things that are learned. My kids, for example, and your kids were born knowing how to eat.

I didn’t have to cram the bottle in their mouths and say, here, take this. No, they knew what to do when that bottle was put there. Most babies are born knowing what to do when you put the bottle there.

Learning how to eat on their own, learning how to feed themselves, learning how to eat solid foods, that’s a different story, isn’t it? And you had to teach your children how to hold the spoon and feed themselves. You had to teach them how to cut the food so they could fit it in their mouths.

You had to teach them how to blow on it when it was hot. We had a lesson the other night on how to hold a coffee mug. I have little coffee mugs from Ikea that only fit one finger.

And Benjamin was trying to hold them with his whole hand, and it just wasn’t working. He said, no, son, you have to hold it like this. And we spent all of dinner having a lesson on how to hold the cup.

Folks, we’re born knowing some things. And we’re born again, I believe, knowing some things. We know we love God.

We know we want to please Him, but we may not know how to do that. And we’ve got to learn, and we’ve got to be taught. And as we’ll talk about tonight, I believe we’re best taught within the context of the local church.

But we’ve got about three things to look at in just the next few minutes. And it’s okay that we just have a few minutes because I think they’re fairly simple, fairly easy to understand. We just may not think about them all the time.

First of all, the job of the new believer is to conform to God’s will. He tells them, laying aside all malice, all guile, all hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, He tells them the very first thing that they need to do is start laying aside those habits that mark the old way of life. There’s a song that I’ve heard Brother Ed sing several times.

I don’t remember all the words to it, but I know it says, thanks to Calvary, I don’t live here anymore. The life changes, and some of the places we used to go and some of the things we used to do are supposed to go by the wayside. That’s not the mark of being a religious fanatic, ladies and gentlemen, when you come to Jesus Christ and everything changes.

That’s a mark of being a follower of Jesus Christ. That’s not just expected for the super Christian that there’s a changed life. To be saved and to begin to follow Jesus Christ means that it’s our job to conform to God’s will. And so he tells them, some of these big things that you already have begun to notice in your own life, and some of these big things that you know by the conviction of the Holy Spirit don’t belong there, he says, get rid of them.

Now, sometimes we want sanctification to happen all at once for new believers. Well, they ought not to do this. Well, they ought not to do that or say that.

And I agree, they shouldn’t do that or say that. And we maybe should gently approach them about that. But the fact is, they’re not born knowing everything about God’s Word any more than my son was born knowing all about table manners.

They’re not born knowing everything. They’re not reborn knowing everything about God’s Word. The job is not for them to immediately get saved and be perfect.

The job is to get saved, is to trust Christ, and then as God reveals things, respond in obedience. When God shows us that’s not right, we need to stop. And sometimes God does use more mature Christians to do that.

Whether it’s through the reading of God’s Word, whether it’s through the counsel of other believers, when God begins to reveal things to us, when God begins to reveal His will, and not just about things we need to get rid of, but about things we need to do, when God reveals His will, it’s the job of the believer to obey. And it’s the job of the new believer to learn to obey. Now, some of you here this morning may be new believers.

Folks, as God reveals His will to you, it’s your job to be conformed to that. If God speaks to you about you need to stop going to a certain place, don’t question Him, don’t fight with Him, you need to do what He says. When He says you need to stop doing that, when He says you need to change this pattern in your life, when God begins to reveal things, it’s the job of the new believer to learn how to conform to God’s will.

And by extension, for us who’ve been saved longer, I’m younger than most of you, but I can’t really consider myself a new believer anymore. I’ve been saved for 22 years. It’s our job, yes, to be conformed to God’s will.

That doesn’t change. We never get to a point where we say, okay, God, I’ve done enough of what you wanted. Now it’s time for me again.

It’s still our job to learn to be obedient, but it’s also our job to help the new believer conform to the will of God. Second of all, it’s the job of the new believer to desire and learn God’s Word. It’s the job of the new believer to desire and learn God’s Word.

Now, this word here for desire in Greek, and I can’t tell you what the Greek word is anymore. I didn’t write it down. But I do remember that it’s a word that reflects a craving.

See, when he says, desire the sincere milk of the Word, he doesn’t mean like, I would desire a glass of milk. I don’t like milk. Or like, I would desire, say, I enjoy tea more.

When he says desire, that’s not desire like I desire a glass of tea. I wouldn’t mind, you know, if somebody brought me a glass of tea, I’ll take it. No, he means to desire milk the way our children, the way babies desire milk.

Many of you have remarked on Madeline how good and how sweet and how calm she is until she’s hungry. And then she screams because she wants that milk. Now, she’s getting to where she’s eating some solid food now, but we’ve all seen that in small children, that craving for milk, that screaming, I’m going to die if I don’t get some milk kind of desire, kind of craving.

When is the last time, ladies and gentlemen, that you felt that kind of desire to get into the Word of God? Have you ever felt that kind of desire to get into the Word of God? There have been times where God’s pressed something on my heart, and I’ve thought, I’ve got to know this, or I’ve got to find this out, and that’s all I wanted to do.

But if I’m being honest, I should be being honest, I have to admit to you, that kind of craving and desire is not there enough. And that’s my fault for not nurturing that desire. But as a newborn babe in Christ, a new believer is supposed to desire, is supposed to cry out to yearn for God’s Word, supposed to be hungry for it, the way a baby is hungry for milk because they draw their strength and their nourishment and their sustenance from it.

If you’re a new believer, you can listen to sermons and that’s great. You can listen to Christian music and that’s great, but you’re going to draw your strength and your nourishment, not just from me and not from the radio. You’re going to draw your strength and your nourishment from God’s Word.

If as a new believer you’re saying, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now, get in God’s Word. It won’t steer you wrong. We’re supposed to desire and to learn God’s Word.

Now, for believers who’ve been believers longer, that doesn’t mean we stop. Now, the Bible does talk about us moving on from the milk to the meat of the Word, where we move on from the simple truths of God’s Word to try to deeper and deeper and understand more things, like a child goes from milk to solid food. But we’re never supposed to stop desiring God’s Word, I believe.

Never supposed to stop learning from God’s Word and applying God’s Word. And on top of it, we get the privilege. We get the privilege of helping the new believers around us to learn and to desire God’s Word.

Folks, that should be our goal as a church when somebody gets saved, is to help them desire and learn God’s Word. It should be our desire for our children downstairs. It should be our desire for our teenagers.

I read something this week I thought made an excellent point, even if it was written by an Anglican, that our job as a church is not to entertain our young people and our new believers. Our job as a church is to train up the best pastors and Sunday school teachers and deacons and missionaries and missionaries to the workplace for the next generation that we possibly can. Folks, we do that by instilling in our children, in our grandchildren, in our kids at church, in our young people, in new believers, in people who aren’t new believers anymore but haven’t moved past that new believer stage, that we instill in them a love and a desire for God’s Word and to learn it.

And third of all this morning, the job of the new believer is to spend time in God’s presence. See, He speaks to them about laying aside all these things, and He speaks to them about desiring the Word, And it all assumes that they have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Now that means not only that they have experienced the grace of God, I hope this makes sense outside my head, not just that they’ve experienced the grace of God, but they have experienced that God is gracious.

Folks, God doesn’t just extend grace to us, God is gracious. And it’s the job of the new believer, if we can put it in human terms, to sort of bond with their new heavenly Father. We began, a few months ago I talked to you about, I told you we were beginning to look into the process of adoption.

And I know that’s probably still a few years off. But they began to caution us as we talked to people. You know, Madeline’s still new in the family.

You need time to bond with her before you bring other people, bring other kids into the family. You need time to bond with her. And we’d go to the doctor and they’d talk about bonding time with the baby.

It’s so important that the child is bonded to the parent. Folks, we need to spend time in the presence of God. especially as new believers but as more mature believers as well.

We need to spend time in the presence of God. Not just getting to experience and have the things that He does for us but getting to know who He is. Now we do that through the study of God’s Word.

We do that through prayer. We do that through meditation on God’s Word. We do that by focusing on Him.

Folks, it’s the job of the new believer to spend time in the presence of the Lord. All of these things I’ve given to you this morning are jobs for new believers. jobs for us as more mature believers as well.

There may be some in the congregation this morning who say, you know, I haven’t been saved all that long and I’m still growing. This is what you need to do to grow. There may be some of you who are saying, I’ve been saved a long time, but I’ve never gotten past that baby stage in Christ. Folks, this is what we’re expected to do.

Maybe you’ve been saved a long time. Maybe you’ve been following Christ a long time. Folks, we’re still supposed to desire God’s Word, desire fellowship with Him, and desire to conform to His will.

But we have the added privilege. We have the added privilege of helping those who are coming behind us on in this journey to be disciples of Jesus Christ. One of the most joyous things I’ve experienced in my life up to this time is spending time with my kids and watching as they learn things, as they learn how the world works. Not the bad things about the world, but as they learn things like how to walk, how to say words, how to hold a cup.

I love that. Folks, it’s the same privilege that we have as believers when we help believers behind us grow in Christ, taking a babe in Christ to maturity.