Our Sermons

Bible Passage: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date: September 5, 2021

I knew a man who was very proud of his Christian heritage. In conversation he loved to bring up that his father helped build a church just north of town. He would help grill brats at the church picnic every year. He would passionately argue about America being a Christian nation and how people needed to return to the church. He was a regular on the church softball team. The thing that might surprise you, however, is that I  rarely saw him in church. Maybe 5-6 times a year and never once in a Bible class. He claimed to be a disciple, but never listened to Jesus’ words.

I knew a woman who loved to talk about her faith. She spoke with passion about how people need more Jesus in their life. She loved to get into spiritual conversations and would post graphics about “trusting God” on Facebook. The thing that might surprise you, however, is that she didn’t belong to any church and said that she trusted her own ideas of truth over what was clearly written in the Bible. Ironically, she said she felt close to Jesus but I don’t think she had any idea of who he actually is.

Which brings me to a question: What does it mean to live a God-lived life? What does that really look like? It will look different for different people, but there’s one thing that is consistent no matter who you are: A God-lived life is one lived in a relationship with God, what the Bible usually calls being a disciple. A disciple is someone who wants to learn more from God, that wants to grow closer to God. In short a disciple is someone who craves God’s Word because that is how you get to know God. That’s how you grow in faith.

I want to look at just two verses of 1 Peter today. He writes: Like newborn babies, crave the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow up with the result being salvation. Certainly you have tasted that the Lord is good!  The picture couldn’t be more relatable to me these days: If my baby, Simeon, is away from his Mama for too long, he is irritable. He whines and cries, loudly. He can’t enjoy any little books or toys that he usually does after he’s been fed. Babies crave milk! Think about why. Well, first, they like it. It tastes good to them. And they need it. When they are a newborn, it’s the only type of food that will nourish them. Now translate that picture to the point Peter makes with it. God’s Word is just as necessary for our faith as milk is for a newborn baby! Without regular feedings in God’s Word, our faith gets weaker and eventually dies. With it, we grow and mature in faith. It’s the only food that will nourish our faith. It’s that simple. 

Now, this analogy is enough to convict my often apathetic heart concerning God’s Word. But more than just apathy, a great threat to our growth in faith is what I’ll call spiritual fatalism—the belief that you are stuck with the way you are. Saying to yourself “Others may have strong desires for God and may enjoy reading the Bible or have deep experiences of personal joy in Jesus, but I don’t have that because…well, I’m just not like that. That’s not me.” I think it is more common than many believe.

Spiritual fatalism is tragic. It’s like saying to a gawky teenager who feels like their body is all out of proportion: well that’s the way you are, and you will always be that way, when in fact they are supposed to be in a period of growth and change. That would be tragic to starve them, to turn off their pituitary gland, to teach them of a kind of physical fatalism—that their growth is stopped right there at 13. This actually happens with faith. Only spiritual fatalism is much worse. Because greater things are at stake, and because we never do get to a point where we’ve arrived at our final stature like we do in our physical bodies. 

So many Christians live year after year without much passion for God or joy in his Word, or hope in his promises and say, “Well, that’s just the way I am. I’m not really spiritual like that” And they just settle in. They remain undernourished and immature their entire life of faith. They do not grow to maturity and take responsibility as leaders in God’s family. They continue to remain overly self-focused, they throw temper tantrums and hurt fellow Christians. They walk around with a sense of falsehood, of hypocrisy, because they know that while they call themselves disciples they aren’t doing what disciples do. They don’t crave the Word.

My friends, God commands his disciples to crave the Word! Now, isn’t that amazing?! A command to crave something! A command to feel desires we do not naturally have. Now there are probably a lot of objections that come up in our minds, like, “How can he command me to have a craving? I can’t just decide to want something! You may as well tell a lame man to walk…” Hmm, can you imagine such a thing—commanding a lame man to walk? Who could do such a thing? Or how about commanding a universe into existence? How about saying that your sins forgiven? How about commanding the dead to rise? Only God can do that. And only God is able to command your desire, because he is the one who lives and works in his Word to form in you a craving for more of it. Yes, you have a lot of things competing for your time. And yes, the Bible can be hard to understand. Yes, you may not ever feel a craving to read, but these words are living and active. They have the power to change you. And God has blessed you with a lot of resources to help you understand and digest his Word. You can crave the Word!

My friends, Peter writes these words to us from experience. He knows what it is like to go from someone who didn’t value the Word to someone who craved it. Peter started out as a fisherman whose mouth often got in gear before his brain. Do you know how patient Jesus was with him? Peter tried to stop him from going to the cross, Peter harmed someone with his sword, Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times, and yet Jesus forgave him and restored him as his disciple. Peter writes to us today, knowing that the Lord doesn’t discard unworthy disciples. Peter writes to us today confident that in Christ our sins are forgiven. Peter writes to us today, knowing how hearing Jesus’ Words makes you crave to hear more. Peter writes to us today, knowing what it is like to grow in faith. He went from a fisherman in Galilee to the leader of the early Christian church in Jerusalem. He knows that growth is possible for you too, through the Word! 

Now, the hard part is that you may not notice the My mom used to fill my head with visions of grandeur. She would say, your grandpas are both above 6’, Peter, you could be quite tall! Well, she was wrong. I’m 5’’9’. And now, as they say, the only way to grow is out, not up for me. But what an amazing reality, that we get to keep growing up spiritually! What a gift that God promises us that we can become continually stronger, wiser, and more joyful in faith. That even though we may be outwardly wasting away, as Paul says, inwardly through the Word we can be renewed day by day. Now, the hard part for pragmatic Americans, like you and me, is that we always want some return for our work. We want instant gratification. We want to be able to see the growth right away! But growth in the Word isn’t usually a fast process. In fact, sometimes it is hard to tell how you’re maturing in faith, but that doesn’t mean that growth isn’t taking place.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree has an unusual growth pattern. It hardly seems to grow at all in the first four years. It doesn’t look like it’s doing anything. But then, sometime during the fifth year, it grows like crazy. It can shoot up to 90 feet in a single month! In fact, it grows so fast you can actually see and hear it growing. Now does that mean the first four years were worthless? Because you didn’t see any visible growth on the surface? No, it was sending down roots, making it possible to sustain that incredible, explosive growth in the 5th year. That’s the way it works with reading God’s Words sometimes. We read the Word and we may not see it, but the growth is happening! I don’t want you to start reading and studying God’s Word and then become discouraged and quit. This is God’s promise, get into his Word and you will grow! 

My friends, crave the Word like a newborn craves its mother’s milk. Commit to a challenge today, get into God’s Word and you will grow in faith. This is God’s promise, not mine. Let us joyfully live a God-lived life, the life of being a disciple who craves the Word.

Amen.