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[0:00] Father, in the last seven days since we last gathered together for worship,! Some of us have experienced great loss and great pain.

[0:13] Others have experienced great reasons for rejoicing. All of us come here now with needs and with burdens, with gratitude, with thanksgiving to be given.

[0:35] And so we come and call out to you as our Father. And we call out to you in the name and through the blood of your Son, Jesus, to say thank you and help us and speak to us and be with us.

[0:57] And I pray that right now as we come to open your word, that you would bring the truth of your word to bear upon each of us.

[1:08] We would see the ways in which we need to adjust our lives and our hearts and our thinking so that we bring honor and glory to Jesus.

[1:20] It's in his name that we ask these things. Amen. I want you to open up your Bibles to the first letter of Peter. We are in chapter 2 this week, beginning chapter 2, and only going to read the first three verses of this chapter.

[1:36] And so as you turn there in your Bibles, I want to ask you all to stand with me as we read God's word. Peter writes, beginning in chapter 2, verse 1, Take your word, we ask again, Father, and apply it to our hearts.

[2:14] In Jesus' name, amen. You can't get very far in these verses. You can't move into chapter 2 more than one word, at least in our English translations, before you realize that you can't fully understand what Peter is trying to tell us here unless you remember what he has told us at the end of chapter 1.

[2:38] Because verse 1 of chapter 2 begins with a simple little word, So, or therefore. So everything that Peter says in these three verses, and in the verses that follow that we'll cover in the coming weeks, is based upon what he has already shown us, what he has already taught us, especially at the end of chapter 1.

[2:57] And we saw last week that Peter's goal at the end of chapter 1 was to motivate us, and encourage us, and move us to be more loving people, to cause us to grow in our love for others within the body of Christ.

[3:15] And he does that by showing us the power of God's word. That this word that God has used, and by which he has caused us to be born again, is a word that is also powerful enough to transform our hearts, and make us into more loving people.

[3:34] You can see that here. Last week we began in verse 22 and went to the end of chapter 1, but he begins by exhorting us, commanding us to be loving. He says, Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, that means you believe the gospel, you've been saved, your sins have been washed away.

[3:52] So, since that's true, then he says, For a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again. And then he tells us that we were not born again by perishable seed, but imperishable seed, which is the living and abiding word of God.

[4:11] The word of God is powerful enough to give life to those who are spiritually dead, and cause us to be born again. And that same word he's telling us is also powerful enough to transform your heart, and make you into a loving person.

[4:26] And then he goes on to highlight the power of God's word by quoting from Isaiah chapter 40, in which we read, That all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass.

[4:39] The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. In other words, Peter is drawing a contrast, as we saw last week, between the eternal, powerful word of God, and the very transient, temporary life of man.

[4:58] So that even our greatest achievements, which we would say is like the flower of the grass, even our greatest achievements are fleeting. They don't last long at all.

[5:10] If our lives are like the grass, which springs up in the spring, and then it dies in the fall, then our greatest accomplishments are like the flowers. The picture here is of maybe a valley, not the kind of nice manicured lawns that a lot of you have, but of just wild grass growing with the flowers growing all over the place.

[5:31] Those flowers, as beautiful as they may be, will at the end of the summer or in the middle of the summer, just wilt and die and fall to the ground as surely as the grass itself is going to fade not long after the flowers.

[5:45] Our greatest accomplishments fade. In fact, this week I was reminded of an article, I remembered of an article that I read a couple of months ago. It was during the NBA All-Star game, and Michael Jordan was turning 50 years old, and it seemed like every sports news report was all about Michael Jordan turning 50 years old.

[6:07] And so I read that week an interview that had been done with him, a very sort of unusual, very intimate, private interview that had been done with him, in which he talks about his legacy and the things that he accomplished and all these sorts of things.

[6:24] And at the end of the interview, I just thought, that was a sad look into the life of an American icon and of a great athlete. Because he says in the middle of the interview, when he's talking about the things that he accomplished and what he wishes he could do now, he says that he would give up everything that he has.

[6:43] Everything. He's sitting in this lavish house. He's got basketball courts and tennis football courts on his land, on his property and in his house. I mean, he owns the part owner and the basketball team now, and he owns the building in which they play.

[6:59] And he says, I'd give all of that up just to play again. Just to play again. That all of his accomplishments and all of his records, everything that he had done, so fleeting, so temporary, and he'd give it all up right now in order to be able to go back and experience it again and be able to play the game again.

[7:21] And he thought, how sad. He confessed that he didn't even really know what to do with his life now, what to do with the next stage of his life, because time was catching up with him. And no matter how great he'd been, he's turning 50.

[7:34] End of 10 years, he'll turn 60 and then 70 and things fade, no matter your accomplishments. Can you imagine? The most powerful men in history, the most accomplished people throughout history, and their legacies eventually crumble to the ground and disappear.

[7:53] And Peter tells us that the Word of God is not like that. That the Word of God remains, it abides, and it lasts, and it endures forever.

[8:08] And the things which the Word of God accomplishes within us endure and abide and last forever. They are eternal, they are everlasting.

[8:19] And so you have this great contrast between, here's your life and all that you can do, and it will fade and be gone in the blink of an eye. And here stands God's Word.

[8:30] Immense in power. Eternal in effect. And the amazing thing is that he says at the end of chapter 1, and this is the Word that was preached to you.

[8:45] Now in light of that powerful Word, he begins chapter 2 by saying, So, therefore, because this powerful, infinite, eternal Word has been proclaimed to you, Therefore, so, here's something that ought to be produced in your life.

[9:06] Here's a change that ought to take place within your life and your heart and your desires in light of that truth about the Word of God. So he begins by saying, So, put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

[9:25] Put all those things away. Now, you can see that there's a really close connection between what he's telling us to do here at the beginning of chapter 2 and what he told us to do at the end of chapter 1.

[9:37] At the end of chapter 1, it's love one another earnestly from a pure heart. But if you're going to do that, and if the Word of God is going to come in you and do the work of transforming your heart, obviously something else has to happen.

[9:49] If love is going to be poured into you, then something else is going to have to be removed from you, taken away from you, and he describes those things as malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.

[10:02] And what all of those terms have in common is the fact that they all relate to the ways in which we relate to one another. They're all related in that they refer to things that we do and say to one another.

[10:16] They're closely connected to the relationships that we have, to the community, to the body of Christ. What do you do in regard to other believers? Peter is saying, don't do these things. In fact, the word that he used, to put away, means to take it off.

[10:31] Like you would take off old, dirty clothes at the end of the day. You take this off, you get rid of this, and you're going to replace it with something else. Now these kinds of lists of these, we call them vices, these vice lists are pretty common in the New Testament.

[10:47] We see them all over, especially in Paul's writings. He'll list these various things that we should not pursue as believers. If we've really been born again, if we're genuine followers of Christ, these are the things that we should not pursue.

[10:59] And these are the things that characterize those who don't know Christ. So for instance, if you hold your place there in 1 Peter, you can turn over to Romans chapter 1.

[11:10] Romans chapter 1, in which the Apostle Paul describes the fallen state of mankind. Here's humanity apart from Christ, Paul is telling us in Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 18.

[11:23] And you get down to verse 28, and notice what he begins to say. He says, since they, that is fallen people, did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind, to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

[11:39] And they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They're gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

[12:00] That's man apart from the grace of God. That's you. That's me apart from the transforming power of God's grace given to us in his word that causes us to be born again and fundamentally begins to transform who we are.

[12:18] That's just us apart from grace. And you'll notice a lot of the terms that we see here in 1 Peter are also here. Malice, slander, envy, all those things.

[12:30] You can see a very similar list in Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, he begins to talk to us. If I can turn there in my Bible.

[12:41] Ephesians chapter 4, he begins to talk to us about the things that we are to put off. Verse 25, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for you are members of one another.

[12:55] Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. And give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

[13:09] Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up. You move down to verse 31. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

[13:22] There's some of the same words. These are the things he says that we are to put away. That's the same word that we find here in 1 Peter chapter 2. Put away, put off. Same kind of thing as in Colossians chapter 3, where he tells us that we are to take off the old man and put on the new man.

[13:43] That's the same kind of terminology. Taking it off like old clothes, like old garments. He says in Colossians chapter 3 verse 8, And you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

[13:59] Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. All of this language about these are the things that you are to put off because they, or take off or put away because they characterize life apart from Christ, life apart from the transforming power of God's word.

[14:21] Put them off so that you might be fundamentally changed and transformed into a different person. A person filled with love for one another. A person given over to forgiveness.

[14:34] To bearing with others. A different kind of person. And Peter says to us in chapter 2, Since you've received this powerful, powerful word of God, these things are to be put away, and are to no longer characterize your life.

[14:58] But that's not, it's not really in the original language, it's not really a direct command there. Because he says it as if this is something that's, it's just something that's going to happen. It's more along the lines of, So, putting away all malice.

[15:13] So, you're putting these things away. This is sort of the natural consequence of the word at work in your life. It's the outworking, it's the overflow of the word of God, having caused you to be born again, having given you a new heart.

[15:27] This is the work that it begins to do. So, you're putting off all these things. You're taking all of these sorts of things off. Malice, which is really just a general word most of the time for evil, but in this kind of a context, it refers to bad things that we direct at other people.

[15:46] So, it's kind of a general term for everything else that he's describing here. Anything, anything mean, anything that we would do towards another person that could be called bad, he says it's malice, it's ill intent towards others.

[16:01] And then he talks about deceit and hypocrisy, which really go hand in hand. Because what is hypocrisy if not the attempt to convince other people that you are more spiritual than you are, or that you are better than you are, when in reality, either behind closed doors, or when you're around a different group of people, you're another person.

[16:23] These sorts of things, he says, have no place in the lives of those who have been born again by the power of God's word. And then he adds two more things that I think can be the downfall of the fellowship of a church.

[16:38] Envy and slander. Because we often, we see what other people have, or we see what other people are able to experience in their lives, and we become easily envious.

[16:55] Not just of people in the world. We become envious, we become jealous of other people in the church. Maybe it's because of the gifts that God has given them, and we think, well, if God would give me the kinds of gifts that they have, I would be able to do more.

[17:10] Or maybe it's because of their personality, they just garner more attention than you garner naturally, and so you become envious and you become jealous of other people within the body.

[17:21] Even though in reality, if you were faced with the kind of attention that they get on a regular basis because of their personality, you know that in the end you would probably be uncomfortable with it, but you see it happening, and it looks so good happening in other people's lives that you begin to become a bit envious of them.

[17:39] These things start small in our hearts, and they grow. And they usually blossom, envy usually blossoms into slander. Any attempt to say something negative about another person.

[17:53] It's not necessarily the technical sense of the term that we think of when we lie about someone else, we think of that, but it's any negative thing that we might say about someone else, about someone else, and particularly in this context, about someone else in the body of Christ.

[18:07] So that if you don't put away envy, envy will begin to grow within you until you find yourself making little comments to other people, hoping that they will sort of agree with you and affirm the way that you feel about this other person.

[18:21] And it just morphs into slander, which brings on gossip. And before you know it, the bonds and the unity within the church begin to be fractured, and all of this disunity begins to appear simply because we allowed envy to take root.

[18:38] So these things are deadly to our fellowship. These things are dangerous for us as the body of Christ. But Peter says, the good news is Peter says, these are the kinds of things that those who have been born again, these are the kinds of things that Christians put off.

[18:57] We take off. They're not the kinds of things, notice that he says, that disappear. If they just disappeared the moment that you were converted, he would never have to mention them because this is a letter for Christians.

[19:08] So if they just disappeared the moment that you were born again, then there would be no need to address them at all because they wouldn't be a part of our lives within the body of Christ. So it's not that they're automatically gone, but they are the kinds of things that, as the Holy Spirit works in us through the Word, they are the kinds of things that we progressively repent of more and more, and he begins to work out of us.

[19:33] That is, he begins to work them out of us, and that process increases in its speed and in its effectiveness if we obey the command that follows the statement in verse 1.

[19:46] See, verse 1 is not a direct command. It's more of a, okay, so putting away these things, but there's a command that comes to us in verse 2. Putting away all these things, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk.

[20:05] Long for it. Long for it. Desire it. Crave it. This is an important word to take note of. It's so important that he wants us to zero in on what he means by this longing and this desire that he modifies it with a little phrase, like newborn infants.

[20:28] Like they crave milk. If you've ever, and I have recent experience with this, but if you've ever seen a newborn, when it's time to eat, it doesn't matter if it's 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the afternoon or if you're in the middle of doing something else, it doesn't matter if they're in the middle of doing something else.

[20:46] All they know is, I've got to eat. It's an instantaneous overwhelming urge that sort of causes everything else to fade out for a newborn, for an infant.

[20:59] And all they want is for that desire and that craving to be satisfied. And they'll scream and they'll cry and they'll wiggle around and they won't stop until that desire is quenched.

[21:14] And Peter says with that same kind of longing, that same kind of intense desire should be directed at what he calls the spiritual pure milk.

[21:26] Pure spiritual milk. Now the question becomes for us in understanding this passage is, what exactly is this milk? What is it? What do we make of that?

[21:38] Now if you're reading in some translations, say for instance, the King James or the New King James, or if you're reading the New American Standard Bible, then your translation says something like, long for the pure milk of the word.

[21:51] It doesn't say long for pure spiritual milk. It says something along the lines of, long for the pure milk of the word. So which is it? Is it pure spiritual milk, in which case all we have is a couple of adjectives telling us what the milk is like, we have to figure out what the milk is.

[22:07] Or is it the pure milk of the word, in which case the milk is the word of God? Which one is it? And why are there different translations? What's happening here? Well there are different translations because there's an odd word here.

[22:18] And I generally try not to bore you with a lot of Greek things, but in this instance it's very important. There's an odd word here that only occurs one other time in the New Testament. And it's the word logikain.

[22:29] And the reason why I'm telling you the word is because it looks a lot like logos, which means word. They look very similar. They always start with L-O-G.

[22:41] They start with the same syllable. But it's not the same word. It's not word. It's something else. And you probably, if you've memorized very many Bible verses, you've probably memorized the only other verse in the New Testament in which this word occurs.

[22:57] And that's in Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Where we're told to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices. And we're told that that's our spiritual service of worship.

[23:09] Well that word translated spiritual is the same word that we find here. In that context, it's an adjective describing the offering up of our bodies.

[23:21] And so the translators almost across the board translate it as spiritual. But what does it really mean? It means in secular Greek literature most of the time it means something like reasonable.

[23:35] Something that accords with understanding and reason. And so it's a little bit difficult to translate in either of these in Romans chapter 12 or here in 2 Peter chapter 2 because that meaning doesn't quite fit, doesn't quite make sense.

[23:48] If you were to translate it long for pure, rational, or reasonable milk. Well that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. That doesn't seem to be what Peter is saying here. So when you have a rare word like this, a strange word, you just have to throw your best guess at it and then look at the context to figure out what's going on.

[24:07] And so the best guess at this word that I can give to you is that Peter is indicating to us that this milk is something greater than the normal things that we experience in everyday life.

[24:22] So translate it spiritual, translate it reasonable, or whatever you want to translate it. It is on another level. It's something better. And then he modifies it with another adjective which is translated in my translation and most of the others as pure.

[24:38] But that word, I want you to mark it down, you can, if you like to write in your Bible, some of you don't, but you can underline that word. And then I want you to go up to verse 1 and also underline the word deceit.

[24:53] Because they're the same root. So in English, if I want to say that something is, say, funny, I would just say it's funny.

[25:07] But if I want to say that something's not funny, I could just make up a word and say it's unfunny. I could just add the letters U-N to the beginning of it and it would be unfunny. Alright, so we can do that in English. We can add I-N to the beginning of a word, okay?

[25:20] Something can be defensible or indefensible, okay? And it negates the word. It makes it the opposite of it. Well, that's exactly what happens here. They add an A to the beginning of it. And so that it's undeceitful.

[25:34] It's without deceit. It's not... It hasn't been compromised. It hasn't been tampered with. It's not trying to convince you that it's something other than what it is, which is why the translators often say that it's pure.

[25:51] The translators are pure because it's unadulterated. It's not pointing you in the wrong direction. It is exactly what it claims to be. It's exactly as it appears to be. So we have this milk that is above and beyond anything else that we experience.

[26:06] This word spiritual, however you want to translate it. And it is straightforward. It is unadulterated. It is pure and clean. We know all those things about it.

[26:17] But we still don't know what it is. We still don't know what it is. Now it is tempting, even though of the word is not a good translation, because it's not what the text says.

[26:30] The word logos is not there. That's not a good translation. But it is tempting to say it's a good interpretation. To say, well, the milk is the word. Because in the context, we've seen that already Peter has been describing the power of God's word, the eternality of God's word, and everything that he's saying in these verses is based upon us having had that word preached to us.

[26:54] And so it is plausible, impossible, and you might even say likely that the milk being described here is just a figurative way of talking about the same word that he's been talking about.

[27:07] And that's possible, okay? But I'm not quite sure that it's exactly right. Here's the reason. I think that Peter gives us a clue to what he means by milk.

[27:21] Because as you move down in the passage, at the very end of it, he says in verse 3, If indeed, so obey this command, long for this milk, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

[27:38] If you've tasted that the Lord is good. So that I think the milk that Peter tells us to crave is the very kindness and goodness of God that has been shown to us.

[27:51] That is, in fact, a paraphrase of Psalm 34, verse 8, that Bill read to us earlier. We are commanded to come, taste and see that the Lord is good.

[28:04] Taste of Him. Taste of Him. See that He's good. That His goodness and His faithfulness and His kindness toward us is immense and without measure.

[28:16] I think Peter is saying to us, Long crave to know in a greater way the goodness and kindness of God.

[28:27] So let's pause for a moment and think about the kindness of God. The goodness of God. When God revealed Himself to Moses, and Moses begged God, I want to see your face.

[28:42] And so, God hid Moses in a rock in Exodus chapter 33, in a little crack in a cave-like thing, Exodus 33, and God passed by Moses, allowed Moses to get a glimpse of God's glory.

[28:54] But as he passed by, God declares His name to Moses. In other words, He's telling Moses, this is who I am. And he describes himself as gracious, compassionate.

[29:08] That He's slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and mercy. That He has mercy upon whom He wants to have mercy, and He has compassion upon whom He wants to have compassion.

[29:19] And that highlights the sovereignty of God, for sure. But it also highlights the fact that He is merciful, and He is compassionate. He is good. He is kind. That's who God is in His very nature.

[29:31] Don't be mistaken. God is wrathful as well. And He sends out His wrath and His anger upon sinners who deserve it. That's true, no doubt.

[29:42] Romans 1.18, The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. I don't want to minimize that. But I also don't want to miss, and I don't want to minimize the great goodness and kindness of God.

[29:53] It's who He is in His very nature. He is predisposed to shower goodness upon His people. It is the kindness of God, Paul tells us, that leads us to repentance.

[30:06] The only reason that you ever repented and that you ever trusted in Christ in the first place was because He showed kindness and mercy and compassion toward you when you did not deserve it at all.

[30:18] The goodness of God is the foundation of all that we receive from Him and all that we have in Him. And sometimes I think that we lose our focus upon His kindness.

[30:34] I read this week, it was so funny, I read a quote that was recorded from Charles Spurgeon that he had said an offhand comment one time as he was sitting and listening to another preacher go on and on, praying off just an elaborate long prayer, and apparently Spurgeon leaned over to someone sitting next to him or sat under his breath.

[30:56] Somebody heard it and wrote it down that he said, just get on with it and call Him Father and ask Him for something. In other words, it's a nice eloquent prayer, but come on, just acknowledge Him as Father and do what kids do to their dads and ask them for something.

[31:11] Because why? Because He's good and because He is a heavenly Father to those who've trusted in Christ. And He is kind and loving toward us. And Peter tells us, if you've tasted of His goodness, then you ought to have a craving to know His goodness more.

[31:30] You ought to long for and desire a greater taste of that goodness. Now, it does come full circle back to the Word.

[31:41] Because while we experience evidence of His goodness, and the outworkings of His kindness in our lives, His goodness and His kindness are shown to us and revealed to us in His Word.

[32:01] Every example I just gave you came from this book. Because it is here that He has revealed Himself to us.

[32:12] So if you want to know God's goodness, and you long and crave to experience His kindness and His sweetness, there's only one place to go to see it and marvel at it and be transformed by it.

[32:27] And that is to the Word of God. And since this Word has been preached to you, and since this Word has caused you to be born again, now, the primary aim of your spiritual life ought to be to seek to see and know and savor the very goodness of God as it's revealed to us in His Word.

[32:52] All of your spiritual energies ought to be directed to seeing and displaying the goodness of God revealed in this book. All of it. Long for it.

[33:05] Crave it. Refuse to be satisfied. As a baby cannot be satisfied apart from milk. Refuse to be satisfied apart from this pure spiritual milk.

[33:18] So, Peter says, end of verse 2, that by it you may grow up into salvation.

[33:30] What in the world does that mean? Grow up into salvation. That's an interesting phrase there. Because he's talking to people who've already been born again.

[33:42] So, we've already been, he says, purified in our souls. Our sins have been forgiven. We've received new life from God.

[33:53] We've heard and believed in the gospel of Christ. So, we are saved people. He's addressing people who are, in fact, saved people. So, what does it mean to grow up into salvation if you already possess salvation?

[34:09] That's an important question to ask as you try to figure out what all this is about. Of course, it means that you can't experience this.

[34:22] You can't have this longing and you can't grow up into salvation if you have not yet been forgiven.

[34:33] If you've not yet trusted in Christ. If you've not yet been born again. It's impossible. Jesus, in fact, told Nicodemus in John chapter 3 that, apart from the new birth, you can't see the kingdom of God.

[34:49] You cannot. Unless you are born again, you cannot see, you cannot enter the kingdom of God, Jesus said.

[35:00] So, these sorts of things are being spoken to those who have been born again. Those who are going to fully enter into the kingdom of God one day. And if that's not you, then I urge you to trust in Christ and turn from sin so that it might be you.

[35:23] But for those of us for whom we can say we are, we have been born again, we have been forgiven, purified, we have received the word that has been preached to us.

[35:35] For us who possess salvation, what does it mean to grow up into salvation? It means that not only the initial moment of conversion, or what we call justification in which God declares us righteous by faith in Jesus, not just the initial forgiveness of sins, salvation is much, much more than that initial experience.

[36:00] That begins the experience of salvation. But salvation includes your ultimate salvation someday, in which God raises you from the dead and gives you a glorified body, and you live forever in ever increasing joy with Christ in the new heavens and new earth.

[36:17] That's the ultimate aim of salvation. And then in between conversion and glorification, there is this lifelong process of becoming more holy, of being made more like Christ that we call sanctification.

[36:32] And I think that's what Peter has in mind when he says, you crave this milk after having tasted God's goodness, and you crave to know more of His goodness through His word.

[36:44] If that characterizes you, that will cause you to grow up in salvation and become more holy, more obedient. So that now in Peter, we've really come full circle.

[36:58] Because he commanded us early in the middle of chapter 2, quoting from Leviticus, Be holy, for I am holy. And we have been seeing in the last few weeks various means by which God causes us to become more holy people.

[37:16] As we fear God, he commands us to fear. As we meditate upon and think upon the cost of our redemption from the power of sin through the blood of Jesus.

[37:32] As we come to understand more the power of God's word, and now we see here, we become more holy, we become more Christ-like, our fear for God increases, as we long and crave and desire to know the goodness of God.

[37:56] And here's something you need to know about the goodness of God. If you think that this is not all that applicable to you, and it doesn't impact your life in all that powerful of a way, you need to understand that the goodness of God, seen by you, will transform you.

[38:11] It will change your heart. It will work new thoughts into your mind and new desires into your heart. It will happen. It does not matter how bad you think that you are or you have been.

[38:26] The goodness of God is infinitely more powerful than your badness. And the sweetness of God can overpower all of your sinfulness. It does not matter what remains in your past.

[38:40] It does not matter what thoughts you had this morning or yesterday or what things you said or did. Those things can be erased from your heart and your life by continual gazing at the goodness of God.

[39:02] Holiness does not come to us by effort. I'm sure if you're aware of that. Increased spirituality and spiritual growth, they don't happen because we try harder.

[39:16] They don't. They don't happen because we come up with better techniques or we come up with a better plan or any of those sorts of things. They don't happen because of those things. They happen because we see something and we come to know something that changes us.

[39:29] And that something is the goodness of God revealed most fully in Christ through the Word. And I urge you, as Peter does, crave to see and know the goodness of God.

[39:43] Let's pray. We can't really measure your goodness and we can't fully describe your goodness.

[39:58] But we can be transformed by it, Father. And I pray that you would do that work within us. I pray that we would not be satisfied with what we know of you now.

[40:12] But we would long to know more, to see more, to experience more. And that we would know where to go to see you most fully.

[40:26] And that we would not be a people who open their Bibles on Sunday and feel refreshed for the week. But we would be a people who so long to see you and know you that every day, every available moment, we would grab a Bible and open it and begin to read expecting the Holy Spirit to reveal you to us and transform us by what we see.

[40:54] So let us have that kind of longing, increase that longing. When it waxes and wanes and grows weak in our lives, draw us back to the place where we long and desire to know you.

[41:06]  I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.