Growing Up

I invite you to take your Bibles, and we’ll turn once again to 1 Peter chapter 2. And as we prepare this morning to invite all those who love the Lord Jesus to gather with us around his table, we look first of all to the Word of the Lord before we come to meet the Lord of the Word at the place of his appointing. And we have reached the first three verses of 1 Peter chapter 2, where we are provided by Peter with instruction concerning what it means to be “growing up” in our salvation. You will find that phrase at the end of verse 2. Hence, our title this morning is simply “Growing Up.”

I think every mother who’s here this morning knows exactly where to go, which dresser to reach for or which wallet to grab for, 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 not surprisingly so. However, mothers recognize—although they’re a little slower to it than, I think, fathers—that there is a wonder and a joy in seeing babies grow, and that suddenly, that little one whose picture was in the wallet and on the dresser is now large enough to drive a car, and even to drive the mother to the grocery store. 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 of age enough to do this. But somehow, she 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. We’ve noted, for example, in the evenings in 1 John that John writes and says that it is his great delight to see his children walking in the truth.[1] 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.[2] 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.

The Taste Which Starts Our Growth

Now, let’s launch immediately into this—and you have an outline in your bulletin if you choose to use it—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. It’s a picture that is used many times throughout Scripture: of a tasting of God. The psalmist writes, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”[3] When we eat the bread and drink this cup this morning, we are symbolically indicating the fact that at an earlier point in our lives, we tasted of the kindness of the Lord Jesus. We feasted upon him spiritually. He became for us a Lord and a Savior. And it is that which gives significance, then, to what we do in obedience to his command.

Now, this phrase, “tast[ing] that the Lord is good,” is simply a commentary on what he has already been referring to. For example, in 1:3, 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 1:9, 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 1:18, 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. Then, in verse 21, our “believing into God”[4] 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. It’s not enough that we’ve been baptized, whether as a child or even as an adult, because you don’t become a Christian as a result of somebody doing something to you, no matter whether he be a religious professional or not. He is unable to transfer the grace of God through his actions. 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 10:9, 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—1:25. 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.

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. A life-giving taste. Turn with me for a moment to John’s Gospel. John chapter 4: the story of the lady who meets Jesus at the well. You remember how that story develops. We won’t dip back into it. It begins with the idea of a drink of water. Verse 7: “Will you give me a drink?” John 4. The lady says, “Why would you, being a Jew, and me, a Samaritan woman, get involved in a conversation like this?”[5] Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God”—verse 10—“and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Verse 13: “Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I [will] give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him”—notice this now—“a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” so that the taste is 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.”

The hymn writer says,

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Behold, I freely give
The living water, thirsty one;
Stoop down and drink and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in him.[6]

That is a testimony to one who has tasted that the Lord is good.

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.

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,”[7] so that when we come to Christ, and we’re redeemed from the empty way of life passed onto 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. In fact, you probably should turn to it and just notice the verse right there. 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.” In other words, paraphrasing Galatians 2:20, as we’ve done before, Paul says, “Jesus gave his life for me that he might take my life from me that he might live his life through me.” For the taste is life-giving, but it is also life-changing.

The Factors Which Stunt Growth

And that brings us, then, to—in 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, as we shall see tonight in 1 John, 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 pigmy. 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 6:9 and following. Turn to it with me, if you would. First 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,[8] 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. So, first of all, if you want to be a stunted believer, then just embrace malice. Just nurture that nature within yourself which is vicious, which is malicious, which is bent on harming others. But if you want to grow, then malice needs to go.

And along with it, secondly, “deceit.” The trickery which attempts to deceive other people in order to achieve one’s own purposes. The trickery of the salesman who meets his client or speaks to them on the phone and tells them that the order will be there within ten days—however, realizing that the carpet has not even been manufactured yet, and the soonest that the carpet will roll out of the mill is two and a half weeks. But the salesman has figures to make, a wife to feed, and children to keep. And so he’s deceitful in the hope that when ten days has passed, there will only be now a smaller gap to the point where the carpet will begin to come. I do apologize to all carpet salesmen this morning. I haven’t had anything to do with carpet salesmen at all this week, last week, last year, or the year before, so there is nothing there at all. It’s just gripped out of the air. But 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 only they’d 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.[9]

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, whatever it might be. “Envy,” says Peter. “You’ve got to get rid of it. It will stunt your growth as a believer. If you’re just a jealous person, you’ll never grow up in your salvation.” And how easily we clothe envy in a kind of Sunday dress, in the garb of pseudospirituality, especially living with all the ravages of materialism around us. How easy it is for us to say of somebody else, “You know, if he or she were spiritual, like we are, then they wouldn’t have that,” when, in point of fact, the answer may be: if we were spiritual, we wouldn’t grudge them that. And envy has eaten the soul out of so many that they’re pygmies in their Christian faith.

Fifth factor that will stunt growth is “slander”—“slander of every kind.” You’ll 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. Slander is that which comes out through the mouth as a result of what has been going on in our hearts. It’s usually engaged in most frequently and most effectively when the victim is not there to defend themselves. 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.”

What a verse! What a test! Turn to it and look at it! Ephesians 4:29. Do a video replay of this week for yourself, just as you look at Ephesians 4:29. Just do an action replay of some of your words, as I do of mine, and let’s see how well we’ve done on the Ephesians 4:29 test. “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 listen[ed]”? 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. But 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.

Let me give you again the most challenging little words concerning our tongues:

 If all that we say
 In a single day,
With never a word left out,
 Were printed each night
 In plain black and white,
It would make strange reading, no doubt.

 And then just suppose,
 Ere our eyes would close,
We should read the whole record through;
 Then wouldn’t we sigh,
 And wouldn’t we try
A great deal less talking to do?

 And I more than half think
 That many a kink
Would be smoother in life’s tangled thread
 If half what we say
 In a single day
Were to be left forever unsaid.

There is a factor here which stunts our growth.

The Nourishment Which Sustains Growth

Finally, there is a nourishment here which sustains our growth. First Peter 2:2: “Like newborn babies…” Not “As newborn babies,” notice. He’s not saying, “Be baby-like.” 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’re to be baby-like in the way in which they “crave pure spiritual milk.”

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.

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 it 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’t do a thing with. He reaches for you, grabs for you, moves all around your body, can’t find anything worthwhile at all. Nothing! 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!” And as you hand him over and they go wherever they go... Well, we don’t need to get any more descriptive than that. You’ve been there. You know what I mean. 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.”

In the same way, you know, when you travel around in the countryside—many of you who have come from an agricultural background—you will notice that at certain times of the year, when beasts are being fed in a particular way and they are being fed at a regular time, all the beasts in the field, as if by clockwork, will gather themselves to a certain sector of that field. And as you drive along in your car and you see them all congregated, you know what they’re waiting for. They’re waiting for the food as it comes. And if there are stragglers or wanderers or one is away on their own, there is more than an even chance that that beast is about to get a visit from the vet, because the very fact that it has not gathered with the rest gives indication of the fact that it has no hunger, and the absence of hunger is a question concerning its well-being.

That’s a rather unfortunate illustration to make the application that I’m about to make. Because I want to move from the beasts of the field to the congregation in the pews. Please don’t be offended by it. 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 travelling. Forget the mom staying home with their 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?” First Peter 2:1–3.

Bow with me, if you would, in prayer.

I want to encourage us this morning, as we bow to express to God our desire to give our offerings to him, to consider giving our very lives to him. Some of us, perhaps, have never personally tasted of the Lord, and this morning you want to and, just where you sit, to cry out to God for mercy and for grace.

Father God, we pray that you will look upon us in your great tenderness, that you will begin growth in some of our lives, that you will help others of us to root out that which stunts and to gladly and vociferously and eagerly receive that which provides nourishment. For we pray in your precious name. Amen.

[1] See 3 John 1:4.

[2] See 2 Timothy 1:2–5.

[3] Psalm 34:8 (NIV 1984).

[4] 1 Peter 1:21 (paraphrased).

[5] John 4:9 (paraphrased).

[6] Horatius Bonar, “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (1846).

[7] John 10:10 (paraphrased).

[8] See 1 Peter 5:9.

[9] See Acts 5:1–11.