Drink Milk and Grow Up

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

1 Peter 2:2-3

As a pastor, I have had the privilege of knowing a number of my adult congregants when they were born. A few of them weighed very little at birth; yet they have grown up into men and women of full stature and health. Some have even married and have children of their own.

In this text the apostle Peter is speaking about growth. He is not speaking about physical growth but spiritual growth. As human beings, we are all conceived in sin and born sinful. As Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” But in God’s plan of salvation, some people experience the miracle of regeneration and become children of God. Of them Jesus says, “But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

As a pastor, I have also had the privilege of seeing the signs of new birth in the lives of some of these children who grew up in this church. Everyone chosen of God will be born again by the Holy Spirit and the imperishable seed of the word of God. Such people are part of the true church. It is the growth of such people that we are examining in this study.

The New Nature

All who are members of the body of Christ are characterized by having a new, divine nature implanted into their lives. This new nature is brought about by the operation of the Spirit and the word of God, not of anything we did. Just as we were passive when we were conceived and born, even so we were passive when we were born again by the Holy Spirit.

In an act of divine monergism, God gave us new birth. So in 1 Peter 1:3 we read, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . . .” And in 1 Peter 1:23 we read, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” Peter uses a perfect passive participle in Greek, which means an action that took place in the past whose effect continues to the present.

We have been made alive, born again, by a divine monergistic act of God. As we continue in this new life, we are to grow in grace and knowledge of God. So God the Father was active in our regeneration while we were passive. We could not regenerate ourselves any more than we could cause ourselves to be conceived and born. This regeneration is not based on anything we have done but on God’s great mercy and electing love. Paul also speaks about this aspect of new birth in Titus 3:5, “[God] saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us by the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

This new birth has nothing to do with our physical descent. There is no synergism in our regeneration, as John tells us in John 1:13. We are “children born, not of natural descent, nor of human decision, nor of a husband’s will, but born of God,” ek theou egennêthêsan, meaning “of God begotten.”

In James 1:18 James tells us that the unchanging Father “chose to give us birth through the word of truth. . . .” This new nature is eternal. Jesus said he would give his disciples eternal life. We recently heard about some elderly people who had listened to the gospel throughout their lives but died outside of Christ. What a terrible tragedy it is to live seventy or eighty years only to go into an eternity away from the presence of God! I pray that God will help us understand that there there are only two destinies-everlasting damnation and everlasting life. I pray that all of us who are living now will make every effort to ensure that our destiny is eternal life.

In John 10:28 Jesus said of his disciples, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” Jesus Christ is the eternal God/man and if we are his disciples, we are secure in him. Then Jesus added in verse 29, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” What security! What life! This is not speaking about that which is born of the flesh but about that which is born of the Spirit. It is what Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come.”

Although we are passive in our regeneration, once we are made alive, we become active in the things of God. We will repent of our sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone for our eternal salvation. We will delight in obeying him, and will persevere to the very end. If some people fall away from the church, we must realize the truth that the visible church is a mixture of those who are born again and those who are not. Some may fall away, but those who are born again will not, and in due time, they shall be brought to glory.

In 1 Peter 1:23-25 we read, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.’ And this is the word that was preached to you.” We recently heard of an older man who just ate his breakfast one day, went to his room, and died. Sadly, he died as a fool because he rejected the gospel of Jesus.

By the word and by the Spirit we are born again and given a new nature. Before we were ignorant of God, but now we love God, worship God, and know God. Now we eagerly read the Bible. To us it has become the bread of life.

The New Negation

Second, by this new nature we say “No” to unrighteousness and “Yes” to God. How do you know that you are regenerated? You are given a new life which will manifest itself in this way. If you don’t do these things, it is a sure indication you are not born of God because unbelievers negate God and affirm sin.

In 1 Peter 1:22 we read, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth . . .” This is speaking about our need for cleansing. Before, we reveled in filth, loving and enjoying it. We said “No” to God and “Yes” to filth. But now we have an antipathy toward filth. As the new life manifests itself within us, we will see filth as it is and seek to be cleansed from it.

In 1 Peter 2:1 we read, “Therefore rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.” No unbeliever is going to rid himself of these things. In fact, he loves filth and, like a worm in the sewer, thrives in it. He enjoys it so much he even promotes it and makes money from it. But the moment a person is regenerated, he opposes the filth. He begins to say “No” to ungodliness and “Yes” to holiness.

So Peter tells us, “Therefore, rid yourselves of all ill will or malice, all deceit, all hypocrisies and envies (these are plural in the Greek) and all slander.” You see, after we have been born again, we now have two powers within us, the old and the new. The new is going to win in the end, and is winning even now, but the old, which has already been crucified with Christ, must be dealt with on a daily basis. How do we deal with our old nature? By saying “No!” to ungodliness again and again. We do this in a practical way by obeying the word of God. That is what Peter means when he tells us, “Rid yourselves of all filth.”

The Transformation of the New Life

Peter is speaking about growth in this passage. If we are Christians, our new life, like new sap, will rise up inside us and push out the old, shriveled leaves of our old life. As we see this happening in ourselves, we will be amazed and say, “I used to do all those things. In fact, I used to get a kick out of them. But now I hate them.” Why do we react this way? Having been regenerated, we are experiencing the divine life within us pushing itself up and making itself manifest in every aspect of our life-in our thinking, in our willing, and in our affections.

As Christians, we are also purified by the word of God. That is why, as believers, we must get into the Book! We must study the word of God, love the word of God, and obey the word of God. Through such obedience to God’s word evil will be defeated in our life.

A person who is truly born of God will also have a serious interest in holiness. He may still think dirty thoughts, but when he does so, he will feel dirty and hate the fact that he had those thoughts. He will go to God and confess, “O God, have mercy upon me! Forgive my sin.” You see, he didn’t do that before, but now he feels dirty and sees his need for cleansing.

A regenerate person will have a serious interest in holiness because he wants to be like his heavenly Father. It is only natural for a child to be like his father. God has given us new birth and we are going to be like him more and more. In fact, if a person has no interest in holy living, we must conclude not only that he is not a child of God but also that he is a child of the devil who is merely acting like his father the devil. It is very simple. A child will be like his father. That is the way it is in the natural realm as well as in the spiritual realm.

Many people profess to be Christians, but that doesn’t mean they are. The visible church is always a mixture of believers and pagans. That is why we must examine ourselves and see whether we have this life of God in our souls pushing itself upward and granting us hatred for evil and love for spiritual things. Christians always experience a war deep within them. If you have never experienced such a war, you may have to conclude that you are still a pagan and not born again.

A man who does not experience this change of life remains a child of the devil. His claim that he is a Christian will be false because that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. A true child of God will purify himself from all moral filth by saying “No” to it, on the one hand, and by saying “Yes” to Jesus Christ, on the other hand. That is why Peter says, “Now you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth. . . .” A true Christian will have a profound interest in knowing the word of God and in rendering obedience to it.

Before we were born again, we were characterized by disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). But in 1 Peter 1:14 we are called sons of obedience. In the language of the Bible, a son obeys and loves his father because he has his father’s nature. Just as Jesus Christ loved his Father and obeyed him, so we who are sons of obedience now love and obey our heavenly Father.

Learning Obedience Through Suffering

In Hebrews 5:8-9 we read an interesting statement about Jesus Christ. You see, Americans love salvation but not sanctification. We interpret the Scriptures to say, “Just believe. You don’t have to obey,” and thus bring faith and obedience in opposition to each other.

But in the life of Jesus Christ there is no opposition between faith and obedience. True faith obeys, and Jesus provides the example for us of obedient faith. In Hebrews 5:8 we read, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. . . .” That simply means Jesus learned obedience by doing the will of God, which brought about suffering. He did not avoid suffering, because to avoid suffering, he would have had to say “No” to the will of God that he suffer and die. So Jesus learned obedience through suffering and we are called to do the same.

In verse 9 we read, “And, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Notice, the writer did not say “for all who believe in him,” and we should not do so either. Let us not bring disjunction between faith and obedience. Authentic faith obeys; and where there is obedience, there is faith. But because Americans do not like obedience, many Christians today subscribe to Sandemanianism, which says that if we simply say with our mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” we will be in the kingdom of God; obedience is not necessary for salvation. This is the most popular evangelical teaching in this country and around the world today. The problem is that this is not authentic Christianity.

We can never separate faith from obedience. Where there is faith, there is obedience; where there is obedience, there is faith. By faith Abraham obeyed whatever God told him to do, whether leaving Ur and going to Canaan, or taking Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice to God.

In the Bible, there is no difference between believing the gospel and obeying the gospel. In fact, the first thing we do in salvation is to obey God. When we ask, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved,” which simply means we must respond to God in obedience. But because we are people who don’t like obedience, we have eliminated it from our view of Christianity and created a faith without obedience.

In Romans 6:17 we are told, “But thanks be to God, that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” The phrase “slaves to sin” means we were obeying sin. We never said “No” to sin nor could we. Because of the moral inability of every sinner, he cannot say “No” to sin, but only “Yes.” A sinner can never disobey Satan and his sin nature. He is a slave.

But God emancipated us from that slavery and granted us glorious freedom to obey God. So Paul writes, “You wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” Let us, then, not try to bring an opposition between faith and obedience. Before we were slaves to sin, but now we have been emancipated by Jesus Christ and given this glorious freedom which expresses itself in obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Joy of Obeying God

Modern man will tell us that obedience is a bad thing. He will say it is not a sign of maturity. To modern man, maturity is shown through rebellion and so rebellion is glorified in our society today. In fact, if a child rebels against his father and mother, our society says that he has arrived. He is supposed to break loose of all governmental authorities and give free expression to his own will.

But the Scriptures teach that obedience, not rebellion, is a sign of freedom and salvation. We are not called to escape and avoid obedience; we are called to obedience to Jesus Christ. Rather than being ashamed of this word obedience, the people of God must glory in it. PGM The unbeliever glories in his obedience to sin and Satan; shouldn’t we therefore glory in our obedience to Jesus Christ? So in 1 Peter 1:2 we read Peter’s description of the Christians to whom he is writing. They are those “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ.”

The new gospel says, “Trust in Jesus Christ and you can avoid obedience.” This is the antinomian gospel. But trust and obedience are two sides of the same coin. Those who trust in Jesus Christ will obey him. According to the Bible, the justified are being sanctified by continually conforming their lives to God’s word. “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth,” Jesus prayed in John 17:17.

Ephesians 5:25-26 describes what Jesus Christ is doing with us who are in his church: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy.” What is God’s eternal purpose? To make a sinful bunch of people holy. What is our problem? Sin and guilt. How does God deal with the sin and guilt of his church? By “cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.” So the same word that regenerated us also cleanses us, enabling us to say “No” to ungodliness and “Yes” to the command of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit who regenerated us introduces us into a holy lifestyle, characterized by repentance and faith all of life.

Obedience in Putting Off Sin

The first word in 1 Peter 2:1 is “Therefore,” which refers to that which was spoken in 1 Peter 1. Peter is saying, “in the light of what God has done by regenerating us and planting deep within us the new life of God which affects our thinking, our willing, our affections and which is manifesting itself in our love for God, we are now enabled by this new life to do something.” To say “No” to sin. So Peter says, “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.”

We must rid ourselves, first, of all malice or ill will toward others. Before we were born again, if someone did evil to us, we would want to retaliate. “I am going to take care of that person. I’ll show him. I’m going to destroy him!” But now we are told to get rid of all malice-all of it! Get rid of all ill will and, more specifically, all deceit or trickery.

Then Peter says we have to get rid of hypocrisy, or “all hypocrisy” because in the Greek the word is “hypocrisies.” A hypocrite is one who says one thing but means entirely the opposite. Such a person will say, “I want to join the church,” or “I want to get married,” and when you ask him to agree to certain covenantal stipulations, he will say, “Oh, yes, I agree.” But he has no intention of performing what he agreed to. He is a hypocrite.

Then Peter says we must rid ourselves of all envy. Suppose that when you hear that someone achieved something noteworthy, or is successful in school, or got a job, or had a baby, all of a sudden you do not like it. If you are unhappy at the success of others, you must rid yourself of those thoughts.

Then Peter says to get rid of “all evil speech,” especially in the absence of the person you are speaking about. Evil speech is speaking against another person especially for the purpose of making ourselves look good.

All of these sins are community-destroying sins. True, they are nice, sophisticated sins, not blatant sins like drunkenness and adultery. What a long way we have come! We now have sins that are sophisticated. But the problem is, these sins are quite destructive to the church and must be completely removed. That is why Peter said to rid ourselves of all these sins that seek to destroy the reputation of others while promoting our own interests.

We are to put off all these sins as one would take off old, soiled clothes. That is the language that is used here. Get rid of these things, Peter is saying. They stink-like a dirty diaper! Notice, the apostle is not saying get rid of a little of these sins. No, Peter is saying, “Get rid of all of it” because we are God’s people.

How do we get rid of these sins? By obeying the truth. We must let the new life manifest itself fully in us, and push out these old habits. We must learn to think new, godly thoughts, and perform acts of righteousness. Although we were children of disobedience, we must now act as children of obedience.

If we are born again, we will delight in obeying God. The word of God will be our spiritual bread. It is God’s love letter to us. We will want to read it over and over again, as I observed my mother doing when I was growing up. She would be outside doing work, but throughout the day she would sneak into her room and read the Bible for a few minutes. She would come out crying and rejoicing, and go back to her work with renewed strength and vigor.

Why must we do these things? Because today, as in Peter’s time, the church is facing persecution in the world. How can she survive if she practices sin that destroys her own unity? How could a marriage survive with unity-destroying sin? The church must stand united and resist the devil because a holy church is a mighty church just as a holy marriage is a mighty marriage. It is in holiness that Jesus resisted the devil.

Nurtured by the Word

Third, we must nurture ourselves by the word of God. If we have received a new nature from God, we will negate sin and nurture our new life by the word of God.

How do we know a person is truly born of God? The same way we know that a newborn baby is healthy: He will cry for nourishment. A healthy newborn baby will cry continuously and fervently, and won’t stop until its need is met.

Parents of infants know this. A healthy newborn will cry, although it is always at the wrong time! It will cry in the middle of the night, when we are sound asleep, when we are tired or sick. But we know that this child is not crying for fringe benefits but for basic nourishment. So when we hear it cry, we will wake up and feed it. Then it will stop crying and everything will be all right-for the next two hours or so!

Even so, Christians who are born of the Spirit and of the word will long for the word of God. They will be addicted to it. Do you have a yearning for the word of God? If so, that will be a sure indication that you are born of God. Just as newborn infants crave their mother’s milk, so those who have been born of God crave the word of God.

Notice, Peter uses the term “pure spiritual milk.” He is speaking about the unadulterated word of God-the real thing. You see, in this country especially, we are reluctant to give people the pure unadulterated word of God. Just as in olden days people used to pour water and other things into milk and wine to stretch them, so now we want to add water and all kinds of other things to to the word of God so that we can give people a little nothing and they will be happy. Let me tell you, if you are happy with such a watered down mixture, you are not born again. Those who are truly born again want the pure, unadulterated milk of the word of God.

Psalm 42:1 we read something about this yearning and craving true Christians experience. The psalmist writes, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” It is in the word of God that we see God. In Psalm 84:2 the psalmist writes, “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”

How can we know if we have experienced new birth? We can examine our own lives in terms of our response to God’s word. So in Psalm 119:20 we read, “My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.”

What are we longing for? A television program? A new movie? Born-of-God people will long for the real thing-the word of God, the word that created the universe and regenerated them. They crave the word that alone can nourish and satisfy their souls.

Remember what Jesus said when he was tempted by the devil? “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). In John 4:34 Jesus told his disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” Here we find the idea that serving God provides us with strength. Jesus was saying, “My food, my happiness, my joy, my nourishment, is to do the will of God and to finish it.”

In Isaiah 55 God issues a great invitation: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”

In the word of the Lord, we experience the Lord of the word. We taste him, experience him, and see that he is good. Do you see him when you read the word of God? Do you taste him? Do you experience his blessings that are designed to strengthen your soul?

Thus, Peter is declaring that God’s word is our only soul food. But Peter is not saying this nourishment is only for infants. According to Peter, God’s word is the food for believers of all ages. It is our only nourishment. We must, therefore, eat the bread of the word and grow up into maturity. The more we eat, the more we will gain the spiritual weight of glory. We will grow from a one pound infant to a hundred and eighty-five pound adult. We must grow in glory, in the fruit of the Spirit, in hope of our salvation. And as we grow, the things of this world will grow strangely dim compared to the eternal kingdom of God.

As we drink of the pure milk of the word of God, we will discover that there is no enduring city or country here and that the fashion of this world is passing away. We will grow in strength and spiritual wisdom and eagerly look for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will give us an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. As we grow spiritually by the regular use of the milk of the word, we will grow to love our brothers more and more deeply from the heart. We will not just tolerate or accept or put up with one another; we will love one another as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.

What About You?

Are you born of God? That is the first question we must all ask ourselves. As Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And if you are born of God, do you nourish yourself by the word of God? Are you growing from glory to glory? Are you taking in regular nourishment for your soul through private reading of and meditation on the Bible? What about your family? Do you, as a family, take in the nourishment of the word of God before you take in nourishment for your body?

What about the public ministry of the word? What happens when you listen to the preaching of the word? Are you going to sleep? Does it interest you? If you are not fascinated with the word of God, that is a sure sign either that you are not born again or are very sick.

Do you understand that your spiritual vitality and strength comes not by mere hearing or reading, but by obeying the truth? Most modern church life consists in simply hearing the word, and so people live impoverished lives.

As for me, the things of this world are growing strangely dim. As we get older, if we are Christians, our minds will become increasingly interested in the things of God. Nothing excites me as the word of God. Nothing appeals to me in this world because I know there is a new world coming. My citizenship is in heaven and I am waiting for him to come. When he does so, I will receive an inheritance that will not fade, perish, or spoil, eternally kept in heaven for us. Therefore, nothing in this world, whether more money or more things, will make me happy. Nothing makes me happy but God. As a deer pants after water streams, so we pant after the living and true God.

May God open our eyes and give us discerning hearts that we may love God and his kingdom above everything else. May we nourish ourselves with God’s word and say “No” to sin and “Yes” to Jesus Christ. May God help us to taste and see that the Lord is good for us and for our children, for it is he alone who blesses us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Amen.