Growing Up

If you plant a seed and you take care of it, you expect to see steady growth.

There are factors that can stunt its development and others that stimulate or sustain the growth. Today on Truth for Life, we'll see how the same holds true when it comes to our spiritual growth. Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses in 1 Peter chapter 2. I think every mother who's here this morning knows exactly where to go in order to be able to provide any onlookers with a quite glittering array of baby pictures. Some of those great historical memories of how we used to look when we were wee, and people love to look at them and say, my, my, look at all that's happened through the years. And there is great joy for a mother to do that. And those of you who are teenagers need to realize what it is for your mother, you see, who still has that baby picture of you in her wallet to suddenly look across to the driver's side of the car and entrust her life to you.

She knows that you have grown up, she knows that you're now age enough to do this, but somehow she just can't imagine that it happened so quickly and that it brought such challenges along the journey. Now, if that's true in a physical realm concerning growing up, then it's certainly true spiritually. And as those who are the fathers in the faith, the apostles, write their letters. You sense from them this great fatherly concern for those who were their spiritual children. When Paul writes to Timothy as his child in the faith, he says he is so glad to see him going on to maturity, and the faith which was there in the early days of his life is now blossoming to usefulness.

And so it is that Peter here, as he addresses these scattered believers throughout the world of his day, is also concerned about their growth in salvation. And he describes this for us, as I say, in these first three verses of chapter 2. Now, let's launch immediately into this, noticing first of all this morning the taste which starts our growth.

The taste which starts our growth. Now, this takes us to the third verse, where he says, Now that you have tasted that the LORD is good. If you have a King James Version, I think it reads, If so be that ye have tasted the goodness of the LORD.

And it is a conditional clause which is posited upon actuality. He is not suggesting that they may not have tasted of the goodness of the LORD, but he just puts it in that certain way. And so he says, Now that you have tasted of the LORD.

It's a very clear picture. Now, this phrase, tasting that the LORD is good, is simply a commentary on what he has already been referring to. For example, in verse 3 of chapter 1, he has described us as having been those who became the recipients of new birth. What does it mean to have tasted that the LORD is good?

It means to be those who have been born anew from above. In verse 9 of chapter 1, he says, For you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. What does it mean to taste that the LORD is good? It means to have salvation for our souls. In verse 18, still in chapter 1, he describes our redemption from an empty way of life, handed down to us from our forefathers. And this tasting of the goodness of the LORD is there in our redemption. And then in verse 21, our believing into God is all part and parcel of what it means that we have tasted that the LORD is good. I want you to notice that the taste to which he refers is, first of all, a personal taste.

A personal taste. We go out for meals every so often, and someone says, Taste this! And you don't know whether it is with expectancy or fear that you should respond, but you may be brave enough to have a go.

Or you may be happy just to respond to their description of whatever it might have been, depending on how outlandish the piece of food or whatever it is happens to look. And if someone eats their way through the meal only describing what it was like, then those of us who sat around the table with them have no immediate knowledge of the same. And it is also true in spiritual terms. If you have never this morning come to taste the goodness of the Lord for yourself, by yourself, then you've never tasted it. It is not enough that you have had parents who gave you little insights into it, perhaps wet your lips with the truth of the gospel, perhaps surrounded your thoughts with the truth of the gospel, perhaps nurtured you along through your days so that as a result of it you've become a member of a church and you're happy to be involved in religious things. The grace of God is not transferred to us genetically through human blood. It is vital that individually we have a personal taste, that we know for ourselves what it means to be born again of the Spirit of God. And if you're here this morning and that's where your confidence for eternity lies, either in your lineage back through a godly heritage or as a result of having been within a religious framework where people who were apparently religious did religious things to you, then I want to say to you, consider tasting of the goodness of the Lord.

It is a personal taste, but it is not a private taste. For it ushers us into a family, and it ushers us into a realm where we declare our faith. As Paul writes in Romans chapter 10 and verse 9, he says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Now, this is exactly what had happened to these individuals. You'll notice at the end of chapter 1 that the word of the Lord had been preached to them. They had been evangelized by the preaching of the word. Verse 25 of chapter 1, and as the word was preached, they had heard about their sin, and they had learned about their Savior. And clearly their hearing of the word was matched by the heeding of the word so that they had come to enter into the benefits of the good news that had been proclaimed to them. And as a result of hearing the word and heeding the word, they had come in repentance and in faith, and they had said, you know, I must today acknowledge that I am sinful. Isn't that what you did to come to faith in Christ, believer? I acknowledge that I am sinful, that my sin separates me from you, a holy God.

I recognize that I have nothing within myself whereby I might make myself acceptable to you. And so I turn by your grace from the sin that robs me of fellowship with you, and I turn in childlike faith to you, and I want you to come and live within my life, to fill me by your Spirit that I might taste, O Lord, that you are good, that I might taste for myself personally, but not privately. Secrecy and discipleship do not go hand in hand.

For either our secrecy will destroy our discipleship, or our discipleship will destroy our secrecy. And it is within our hearts that we believe, and it is with our lips that we give confession. And as he writes to these dear ones of this taste, he reminds us that the taste that we have of the Lord is first of all a life-giving taste. The very tasting of God brings spiritual life within us.

It is by his grace that we have the desire to drink, and it is in drinking that we discover life. John chapter 6, changing the picture from water to bread. In verse 33, Jesus said to them, verse 32, I tell you the truth, it's not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God, notice, is he, namely Jesus, who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

Sir, they said, from now on, give us this bread. Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never grow hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. It is a life-giving taste, and secondly, it is a life-changing taste.

A life-changing taste. Jesus said, I am come, John 10.10, that you might have life and that you might have it in all of its fullness, so that when we come to Christ and we are redeemed from the empty way of life passed on to us by our forefathers, we enter into a whole new dimension which changes our lives. It is not that we trust in Christ by faith, and then suddenly we have to grit our teeth and make our way to heaven's gate on our own strength. It is not that we come and enter into God's goodness as a result of faith, and then we're given a list of rules and regulations whereby we might stay saved.

No. Listen to how Paul put it in Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. For the taste is life-giving, but it is also life-changing. And that brings us then to a reverse process, from verse 3 to verse 1 of 1 Peter chapter 2, to the factors which stunt growth. Because we are not brought by faith into a realm of passivity, but rather we're brought into the realm of diligent activity, whereby our diligent activity bears testimony to the fact that we really have tasted. But the individual who displays no diligent activity in following after Christ has not tasted.

For the taste not only gives life, but the taste changes life. And we have been redeemed from a way of life, from attitudes and actions which marked us before, but we haven't been brought into a realm of sinless perfection. And so says Peter, I want you, since you have tasted of the goodness of the Lord and the God of heaven has begun growth in your life, I want you to make sure that you don't become a spiritual pygmy.

There are factors which will stunt your growth, he says. And here in this first verse, he highlights, I think, five things which remind us this morning that the Christian is not a member of an elite group of prepackaged holy Joes or holy Marys or whoever you like. The redeemed family of God is quite a group. Consider 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9 and following.

Turn to it with me, if you would. 1 Corinthians 6, 9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy.

It's interesting that greedy people go right along with homosexual offenders and sexually immoral adulterers, isn't it? Nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Now notice the next glorious sentence, And that is what some of you were. In other words, let us recognize the fact that the redeemed family of God has been redeemed from all the dreadfulness and horrible nature of sin. That we are a bunch of people who are sinful to the core by our very nature, who have been redeemed by Christ in his goodness, and who now, in walking out on the pilgrimage of life and of faith, are called upon to see to it that some of the things that marked our former way of life, which will inevitably rise for us as temptations along the path, we resist firm in the faith and have nothing to do with them.

And the degree to which a believer buys into this fivefold package in 1 Peter 2.1 is the degree to which you will see a believer that walks around like a spiritual dwarf. They have never grown in their faith. They have never gone on hardly beyond the first few feet of growth. And what is it that has stunted them? These things.

Look at the list. First of all, malice. Malice. Rid yourselves of malice, he says.

Now, how am I going to rid myself? Only by the power of his Spirit within me. It is the Spirit of God that rings the bell that says, Uh-oh! It is the Spirit of God that applies the strength to take action, but it is you and me who take the action to bite our tongue, to turn our gaze, to walk away, to switch it off, to drive out, whatever it may be. And wickedness, which is an all-embracing word for just disobedience and the vicious nature which is bent on harming others, is not to be regarded as having a constituent part of anything to do with our faith. And along with it, secondly, deceit. The trickery, which attempts to deceive other people in order to achieve one's own purposes. That kind of deceitfulness within the family of God stunts growth. It has to do with impure motives. Thirdly, hypocrisy. Whereby, he says, if you want to outwardly play the part which appears acceptable and yet inwardly you're way off, then you're no better than Ananias and Sapphira. You can read that account in Acts chapter 5, where they made a great display in front of the church of what they were doing, and what they were doing in terms of their decision was fine if they'd only been honest about it.

But they tried to make out that in actual fact they were doing more than they were, and consequently, they went quickly into the realm of eternity as a result of hypocrisy. Fourthly, envy. Envy. The jealousy which grudges another something which we desire and don't possess.

Whether it's a spiritual gift, whether it's a material piece of well-being, whether it's a home, whether whatever it might be. Fifth factor that will stunt growth is slander. Slander of every kind.

You remember, incidentally, that that was also mentioned, along with some of the more heinous sins in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and following. Slanderers. And slander is essentially the verbal fruit of an envious heart. The verb here simply means to run down. It means disparaging talk.

It means that which just drives a person down, probably and most usually in their absence. It is the exact reverse of what Paul calls the Ephesians to in Ephesians 4.29, where he says, Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths.

Okay? Did any unwholesome talk come out? But only what is helpful for building others up. Did anything come out that didn't build people up but pulled them down? According to their needs, did my words help to answer the needs of their life, or did they hinder?

And when I spoke and people heard my conversation, did it benefit those who listened? Slander will stunt our growth as fast as anything. I want to suggest to you this morning, as I move to this final point, that these are the sins of the evangelical church. These are the little sins that we've decided, you know, aren't so overt and aren't so dramatic, and we can somehow just absorb them, you know. We can be guilty of deceit and of a little bit of malice, and envy, and slander, and wickedness. And the fact of the matter is that these destroy the fellowship of God's people, and these stunt the growth of individuals in the faith.

Finally, there is a nourishment here which sustains our growth. 1 Peter 2.2, like newborn babies, not as newborn babies. Notice, he's not saying, be baby-like. He is saying—well, he is saying, be baby-like, but he's not saying, be babies. There's a difference between being a baby and being baby-like. And we are to be baby-like in the way in which they crave pure spiritual milk. Okay, so you're a father, you're a new father. Your first child comes along, he's breastfed. Your wife goes out for the evening, assuring you that she will be home in time for his meal. And as the clock makes its way towards that time, the little character starts to wriggle and squirm a bit, and then he gets completely cranked up, and then the clock goes past the hour, and you've got this bundle of stuff in your hands that you can do a thing with. And he gets more and more consumed in his search. You get more and more frustrated by your inability to provide.

And finally, your wife walks through the door, and you say to her, do you know what a powerful reaction you set up in this tiny little guy here? He is not possessed of a marginal interest in what you provide. This is not an addendum to his life.

He doesn't regard the milk as a fringe benefit. This is his right to life. It's an amazing thing. Even from day one, it's an amazing thing. It has to do with birth, right? It has to do with real birth. And that's why, loved ones, Peter says what he does. Where there has been a real birth, there will be a real craving. And where there is no craving, then we call in question the profession that we're making.

And so he says, this is how you're to go at the Word of God. You're to crave it like pure spiritual milk. You're to seek after it. You're to seek the nourishment that comes from it. You're to go for it with the same zest and eagerness which very young infants display at their feeding time. But here's the issue, loved ones, and I will go to my grave never understanding this.

I do not yet understand how when the morning meal is prepared, people gather in their droves, and when the evening meal is offered, the majority absent themselves. Because I want to know—forget the traveling, forget the mom staying home with her little one, forget the dad taking his care of the babysitting—I want to know, where does the craving of the Word of life display itself in the lives of those who are his own? Now, finally, notice that the milk of the Word needs to be free from additives. Crave pure spiritual milk, not a watered-down version. Don't let's water down the Word so that people feel more comfortable.

Don't let's add little things of our own to apparently make it more attractive. Let's just allow the Word to say its piece. And this is what it says, that I cannot profess an allegiance to the Scriptures unless I have a displayed allegiance to the Lord of the Scriptures. And I cannot profess to love the Lord Jesus unless within my heart there is a love for his Word. For when I come to the Word of the Lord, there I meet the Lord of the Word. There is a taste with which growth begins.

There are factors by which growth is stunted, and there is nourishment by which growth is accelerated. Let us together look into the Word this morning and ask of ourselves, where am I in this growth cycle? 1 Peter 2, verses 1 to 3.

That is Alistair Begg with an important question for each of us to consider. You're listening to Truth for Life. It is clear as we read books like 1 Peter to see the unashamed zeal that the apostle had for the Lord. And that same zeal is present in the writing of the Puritans.

But sometimes their centuries-old language can be challenging. Author Chris Lundgaard has simplified for us the process of reading the Puritans by updating the language and adapting the works of Puritan writer John Owen. Lundgaard has written a book called The Glorious Christ, Meditations on His Person, Work, and Love. Tomorrow is the last day we're offering the book The Glorious Christ, so be sure to request your copy today when you donate to support the Bible Teaching Ministry of Truth for Life. You can give through our mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Or if you'd prefer, call us at 888-588-7884.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for studying God's Word with us today. Tomorrow we'll take a closer look at the nature and function of the church. We'll find out why the Apostle Peter spoke about being the church, not attending church. The Bible Teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.