Got Milk?

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This morning, I was getting my breakfast ready, and I looked down, and there’s Carly Jo sitting in the kitchen floor. I’m over at the refrigerator, and I don’t even know where she came from. She wasn’t anywhere in sight until I opened the refrigerator.

And she walked over, and she’s standing there next to my leg, just wailing to beat the band. Just, ah! You know how babies do.

And then, I mean, as I didn’t answer her, she got even more upset. Just, you know, she does the deep guttural growl because she’s getting so upset. And Charla walked in and said, she wants some milk.

And I said, Carly, Joe, you’ve got a problem. I’ve told her this before because she will get angry. This was not a one-time occurrence.

She will get angry. First she gets sad. Then she gets angry.

And then she gets irrational if she wants milk because she wants her milk and she wants it now. So I’ve told her she’s got a problem. She’s got an addiction and we’re going to have to try to find her some help because she’s out of control.

But she wants her milk all the time. And by the way, she’d already had breakfast this morning before I ever got in there. But she wanted milk now.

She wants that milk all the time. She doesn’t care how you give it to her. used to when she first got done breastfeeding, we would have to warm it up because that’s what she was used to.

Now she doesn’t care if it’s warm or if it’s ice cold. She just wants it and doesn’t care how. And sometimes it’s the only way to get her to stop screaming.

We’ll think she’s in pain, but no, she just wants the milk. She’s screaming because she’s, she craves it. She’s practically addicted to it.

And there’s a good reason why kids act that way. It’s not just Carly Jo. All kids act that way at some point in their lives.

There’s a good reason for it. It’s because our bodies are designed to start out with that kind of food because it’s something that we take and we use those specific nutrients as a medium to grow on. And the cow’s milk that she drinks now has some health benefits to her.

But, you know, she started out with breast milk and then formula, and that’s where kids start out. That’s especially true of the breast milk and the formula. That has the nutrients that they need in order to be able to grow.

And what happens if they don’t get it? Well, if they don’t get those nutrients from the milk, they get sick and they can even die. You know, back before formula was invented back in the 1860s, if you couldn’t produce the milk that your baby needed, you’d have to go out and hire a wet nurse to come and feed the baby if you could afford to do that.

And sometimes if you couldn’t afford to do that, your baby might just starve. because that milk is essential to life, especially for a baby. It’s essential starting out to grow strong and healthy.

It’s essential to start out with that milk. And last December, I remember reading a story about a vegan couple in Florida who were charged with murder because their baby died of starvation. Now, it wasn’t that they didn’t feed their baby.

It’s that they didn’t feed their baby the right foods. And I went back to verify that I was remembering this story correctly, and I was surprised to discover there wasn’t just the one story I remembered seeing. I had to wade through several articles of several different stories, several different cases where parents have done something along these lines where they have starved their babies either to death or nearly to death because they didn’t give them the milk that they needed.

Instead of milk, they fed their young kids a diet of fruits and vegetables only, like they were eating. Well, that’s all well and good. I’ve lost a lot of weight focusing on the fruits and vegetables, but as a baby, they need that milk.

And you know, there’s this child that died because he didn’t get the milk he needed. It made him deathly ill because God has designed us when we’re starting out in life to need that milk in order to grow strong and healthy. If you’ll open your Bibles with me this morning to 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1, we’re going to start verse 22, as we continue on with this series that we’ve been doing on holiness and God’s call for us to live in holiness, we’re going to see how God designed a certain food just like that milk if we’re going to grow strong and healthy spiritually.

If we’re going to grow to be the holy children of God that he’s designed us to be, then there’s a food that he’s created for our spiritual nourishment. And 1 Peter talks about that. 1 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 22.

And he says, Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babies, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. And so through this passage, at the end of chapter 1 and into the beginning of chapter 2, we see how God has designed us for this new life in Christ, this life where He plucks us out of our sin and makes us holy instead.

He’s given us this new life. When we put faith in Christ, the result is, when we put that faith in Christ for the very first time, the result is that we are starting our spiritual life from the very beginning. In a spiritual sense, we are those babies starting their lives from the very beginning with everything new, with everything a clean slate, just like an actual literal baby starts its physical life brand new from the beginning.

When we first come to Christ, that’s where we are spiritually. And God does some really neat things. Neat is kind of an understatement there, but God does some really neat things in our life when we come to Christ, when we put our faith in Him, and when He gives us that new life.

He transforms us. For starters, He transforms us when we’re in Christ. And we see in verse 23 that we are born again. We are given this new life.

We are born a second time, born spiritually, with an incorruptible seed. And what that means is we are born as the result of our parents in a physical sense. And our parents pass this corruption of sin nature onto us so that we are all born sinners.

We are all born with this inclination towards sin. And really, we can’t do anything else. But when we’re born again of God as our spiritual father, then what he does is he puts in us an incorruptible nature that does not have the corruption of sin.

Now, we still have that sin nature. We still have the flesh. We still have the inclination to sin.

But God puts in us this new nature, this new life, where for the first time we can obey him, for the first time we can choose to obey him. And so we’re born again with this incorruptible seed, which means God is our Father in this spiritual sense. And then we see in verse 22 that the Holy Spirit lives in us and He works in us and He makes it possible for us to live any kind of life of holiness.

You see, God declared us holy. God said at the moment we trust Christ, God says, you’re mine. He says, you belong to me.

We’ve been declared holy, but it’s the Holy Spirit taking up residence and living within us that gives us the power to live that out and begins to transform us into what God wants us to be and into what God has said that we are. And God not only transforms us in Christ, but he has made our slates clean in Christ. All this sin that we’ve had before, God looks at and chooses not to remember any longer. As he’s making us pure, as he’s making us clean, he chooses to forget all of that.

And I hate even using the word forget. It’s more of a choosing not to remember, choosing not to hold it against us. And when God looks at us in Christ as a result of the work of the Spirit, verse 22 tells us that our souls are pure.

He talks in verse 22 about our souls having been purified. Not only our souls, but our hearts are pure. our hearts have been purified.

That’s because of the work of the Spirit. That’s because of being in Christ. It’s not because we’re wonderful. It’s because of the transforming work of God in us.

As He’s molding us and giving us this new life and making us holy, He’s wiped the slate clean. And you see here the soul, the heart, the important parts of us that live forever have been rendered pure in the sight of God. And as a result of what He’s doing, as a result of what he’s done in us and what he’s doing in us, we learn over time to be more like Christ. See, he tells us in verse 22 that we’re one of the results of this is we’re able to obey the truth.

Now, as in the natural state, separated from God, we disobey the truth because we disobey God’s word because it’s the only thing we know. But in Christ, we become able to choose to obey him for the first time. And Christ, we’re able to love others fervently.

This isn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling because you may be sitting there saying, I’m not a believer in Christ, but I love people. I understand that we are able to have a familial love or brotherly love for others, but there’s God’s kind of love, this self-sacrificial, unconditional love that we are not capable of apart from the work of God in us. We’re able to love fervently as we learn to be more like Jesus Christ. When we put our faith Christ, spiritually, we are newborn babies.

It’s the start of a new life, and we are these newborn babies with tremendous potential. Just like a newborn baby has tremendous potential spiritually, we have tremendous potential, but we also have a tremendous amount of room for growth. We’re not everything immediately that we’re going to be. And so to get us to where we need to be from this starting point of this brand new life, God also gives us his eternal truth.

One of the most important tools that God uses, that God has put at our disposal to grow us spiritually and make us more like Jesus Christ, is his word. His word, the Bible, is one of the most important tools that God has chosen to use to make us more like Jesus Christ. And it spells it out here throughout this passage. Peter made that abundantly clear.

The scriptures are involved from the beginning because the scriptures show us our need for Christ in the first place. Verse 25 says, now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. The wording there in English is a little bit confusing, but when I went back and looked at the Greek, it was a little clearer.

That’s crazy, isn’t it? It was a little clearer in the Greek. He says, by this word, the gospel was preached to you.

This word was the basis for your understanding of the gospel. And what that means is the word does all of this by revealing God’s unchanging standard of holiness. It reveals the scriptures, the Bible reveals how holy God is.

But it also shows us, it shines a light on how unholy we are in comparison. And it makes us understand how far short we fall of God and His holiness. And also, it reminds us of our own mortality.

And the fact that one day we’re all going to stand before God and give an answer. He says here in verse 24, all flesh is grass. He describes how men die, how we’re mortal, and eventually we fade away the way the grass does.

We all die and stand before God, and guess what? The only thing remaining is the Word of God. The only thing eternal is God and His Word, and it’s against that standard that we’re judged.

And so there’s this reminder all throughout Scripture of God’s holiness and our sin and the fact that we don’t measure up to God’s standard. It makes us understand that we need God’s forgiveness. It makes us understand that we fall short.

And once that understanding of the truth of Scripture, once that understanding of our need for salvation comes about and we trust Christ as our Savior, then it’s God’s word it’s the Bible that sustains our growth in Christ see the Bible the Holy Spirit can use the Bible to bring us to an understanding of our need for Jesus and once we’ve trusted in Jesus to meet that need for salvation then the Holy Spirit uses the Bible to sustain our growth in Christ because he says in verse 23 that his word lives and abides his word lives and abides like it takes up residence to nourish in us what God has planted. And it says in verse 25 that his word endures forever. His word is unchanging.

His word never loses its validity. And what we need to understand from that is that God’s word does not change. God’s word changes us.

It’s there to change us. And these two things go hand in hand. This brand new life and this eternal truth, they go hand in hand.

by connecting the two ideas, connecting our changed life with God’s unchanging word, Peter here in this passage was showing his readers that the scriptures are essential to the believer’s spiritual life. This book right here is absolutely essential to your spiritual life this morning if you’re in Christ. Don’t get to a point where you think you can do without it. Don’t get to a point where you think you know all of it.

I’ve been reading the Bible since I knew how to read, and I’m still finding things all the time that I never knew or never understood or never connected. The scriptures are essential in the life of the believer. If we are newborn babies, folks hear me on this, if we are newborn babies in Christ, then the scriptures are our milk.

The scriptures are the milk that we feed on, they’re the milk that we need to grow. And so he tells us, and he does tell us we’re newborn babes in chapter 2 verse 1. Well, there in verse 2, he tells us as a result, desire the pure milk of the word.

He wants us to desire it. He wants us to chase after it because he tells us also in verse 2 that it’s there that we may grow. God didn’t leave us the scriptures to cramp our style or to ruin our fun or to be a list of rules that we live by so that we’re all sticks in the mud.

He gave it to us so that we could grow by learning and applying the scriptures. If we hope to grow spiritually, if we understand that when we start out as Christians, we are babes in Christ, we are newborn babies spiritually, and that we need that milk to grow, then our conclusion is that if we hope to grow spiritually, there is no substitute for a regular healthy diet of scripture in our lives. Let me say that again because it’s so important.

If we hope to grow spiritually, there is no substitute for a regular healthy diet of scripture in our lives. We’re just not going to grow without it. We’re not going to grow strong.

We’re not going to grow healthy. We’re not going to grow into the people that God created us to be. If our goal is to be holy as he’s called us to be, If our goal is to be everything He’s made us to be, then our goal is to be like Jesus Christ. And if our goal is to follow Jesus and grow to become more like Him, then we need to read His Word so that we can hear from Him and so that we can know Him.

But we also need to follow His example. If we’re trying to be more like Him, we need to follow His example. And a big part of that is this familiarity, is this intimacy with the Scriptures.

We need to recognize that Jesus spent a tremendous amount of time reading the scriptures, studying the scriptures, thinking about the scriptures, praying from the scriptures, teaching the scriptures, and don’t leave this one out, doing what the scriptures said. Jesus spent his entire earthly life and his entire earthly ministry doing those things. if we’re going to follow Him, then we need to be doing the same thing.

So God made it clear here what we’re supposed to do. If you are a Christian, if you are a Christian, and I don’t mean in the sense that you went to church with Grandma when you were a little kid, I mean if you’re a Christian in the sense that you have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ as your one and only Savior and your only hope of being forgiven from your sins. If you are a Christian, then you ought to crave the word of God like a baby craves milk.

See, that word there, that word there, crave, means a strong, intense desire. I’ve heard some preachers describe it. I’ve not verified this myself, but I’ve heard some preachers describe it as the Greek word that would have been used for someone who was addicted to a substance.

And the same way an addicted person would crave drugs, we are supposed to desire the scriptures. Go check that out for yourself. But I know that that word desire there means an intense craving.

We should crave God’s word like a baby craves milk. You look at a baby, there’s no pretense or hypocrisy like he talks about in verse 1. There’s no pretending.

They are very clear and very honest about what they want. They want their milk. We should be very clear and very, it should be clear what we want, God’s Word.

You know, there’s no way to distract a baby. There’s no way to distract Carly Jo and get her mind on something else. She is focused, she is laser focused on what she wants.

She wants that milk. We ought to be laser focused on getting the Word of God. And there is no substitute for them.

They are determined to get what they want. Carly Jo likes eating these little spiral pasta things that I make. I have to share with her.

I can put them down in front of her and she’ll snack on them for a moment, but I don’t care how full she gets. She’s still going to want that milk. There is no substitute with her for that milk.

And they’re determined to get what they want. There should be no substitute for us with the Word of God. We should not be able to find our spiritual satisfaction in anything else other than God’s Word.

Nothing else should do. If you want to grow spiritually to be strong and healthy. If you want to grow spiritually to be more like Jesus, then you must, you must consume a regular diet of God’s Word.

So Christians, this morning I would challenge you to make a plan this week to commit to that steady diet of God’s Word. Decide right now, right now before your calendar fills up for the weekend, believe me, it will. If you say, well, I’ll do it when I get around to it.

You will chase that 15, 30 minutes all week. So decide right now before the calendar fills up that you are going to devote time every day to the Word of God, to reading it, to studying it, to praying about it, to seeing how God wants you to apply it. Commit now that you’re going to spend that time.

Commit that you’re going to set aside a time and a place every day to make sure it happens. Decide, commit that you’re not going to do it to read it and get through it. That’s so easy to do.

Here, I’m going to read a chapter and then I’m going to go on. Treat it like something to check off on my list. Commit that you’re not going to just read it to get through it, but you’re going to study it. You’re going to soak it in.

You’re going to pray that God will guide you and teach you and show you what He wants you to do. That you’re going to approach this prayerfully, understanding that I am meeting with God and hearing from Him for my own growth. My growth depends on this.

Commit that you’re going to do it because you want to grow closer to Jesus and grow to be more like him. Now, there’s some objections that always tend to come up when you talk about things like this. People will say, and maybe you’re in one of these boats, but people will say, well, I don’t know where to start.

Okay, start here. If you have some kind of question that’s burning in your mind and heart, go and research that. If you’re dealing with unforgiveness and you’re saying, how am I supposed to forgive?

Go study God’s Word, all the places where it talks about forgiveness. You’re not going to get through all of them in one day. But commit to that as the basis for your study until you have wrestled with the Scriptures and God has shown you a clear answer.

If, you know, it could be prayer. Well, I really feel weak in prayer. Go read everything Jesus said about prayer.

Take as much time as you need, but wrestle with those Scriptures. Dig into them until you have an answer to your question. You may say, well, I don’t have any burning questions.

Then just start with the book of John. Just start with the book of John. If for no other reason than I told you to.

Start with the book of John. It’s a great place to start. But know this, if you’re reading through it prayerfully, I believe that whatever you turn to, God can use it.

Just make sure you study it in context. Don’t just read one verse and say, well, that’s got to be what I’m supposed to do. No, go read it and study it in context.

And I believe God will use any part of it as he sees fit. People say, well, I don’t have time. That’s a weak argument.

We have time and we make time for the things we want to make time for. So we have to make time to do it. Put it first thing on your calendar and don’t let it be changed.

Block it off on your schedule. Put it on your calendar like I do. Set a reminder so that you don’t get distracted.

Start small. You’re saying, I don’t have time. You’ve got 15 minutes to spend with God if you really want to.

So I don’t know that I could read that long. Start with 15 minutes. Start with 10 minutes.

Start small. Just start somewhere. And I can just about guarantee you, you’re going to want more before too long.

And you’re going to make more time. Some people might say, I can’t understand. And I don’t want to belittle any of these.

I’m sympathetic toward this one. I can’t understand. Folks, start reading.

Just start reading. And you’ll be surprised at how much you’ll understand. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll grow to understand.

go out and get the most literal translation that you can understand and start reading and ask questions ask christian friends there there are people at the church there’s me that we have deacons we have sunday school teachers any number of people who we don’t profess to have all the answers but we’d love to help you look for them if we don’t know there are people you can turn to ask questions but also trust the fact that god has already given you the ultimate teacher of his word if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, he has already given you the ultimate teacher of his word, and that teacher lives inside you today, the Holy Spirit. He indwells you, and Jesus said that that Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. But just start reading the bottom line.

Commit now that you’re going to start today. Commit that you’re going to take in a steady diet of God’s word, that it’s not going to be about a sense of religious obligation, but that you’re going to study God’s Word because of the hunger, a craving to know Jesus better and to be more like Him. That you’re going to take in that steady diet of the milk of the Word, and eventually the milk of the Word will give way to the meat of the Word.

But start. Start. Commit to that steady diet or you’ll never grow without it.

But I want to tell you this morning that before you can understand the Bible, because I know that not everybody that I’m speaking to this morning has trusted Christ as their Savior and experienced that event of being born again, never put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. I want to tell you this morning that before you can understand the Bible, before you can obey what God has said there, before you can even think about being more like Jesus, you need a relationship with God through Jesus. You need that relationship with him where he begins to transform you and make you more like Jesus. And what you need to understand this morning is that you won’t get any closer to God by just going and trying to study the Bible.

It’s not some religious exercise that we do to try to earn his favor. No, instead we need to understand that we have sinned against God and that our sin separates us from him. Both in this life, it separates us from a relationship with him in this life, and it separates us from his presence in the life to come.

Anytime we’ve disobeyed God, it’s thrown up a brick wall between us and him that we cannot tear down. We can’t do anything to earn our forgiveness. We can’t do anything to change the fact that we’re sinners.

And so Jesus Christ came and died, came and shed his blood on the cross and died to pay for every one of our sins in full, The whole thing. And then rose again to prove it. And God now offers to forgive us, to adopt us as His children, to bring us into that relationship with Him, and change us from the inside out.

Not because we’re good. Not because of anything we can ever do, but because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.