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*Intro*
Welcome to Living Hope!
We are continuing our series in 1 Peter.
We have invested several weeks in the first chapter as we have been dissecting the implications of our great salvation.
We talked about how God expects us to respond to Him in light of this salvation (1 Pet.
1:13-21) and last week, how God expects us to respond to His people (1 Pet.
1:22, 2:1).
Today, we are going to look at how God expects us to respond to His Word in 1 Pet.
1:23-25; 2:2-3.
The title of the message is “Living out our Hope: Longing for the Word of God.”
Only one point for us today.
How does God want you to respond to His Word?
What is the attitude God is looking for in regards to His Word? Look at 1 Pet.
2:2.
Here it is:
*I. **We must eagerly long for the Word of God (1 Pet.
1:23-25; 2:2-3)*
I want to go over four reasons why we must eagerly long for the Word of God.
But before I do that, let’s go over Peter’s point in 1 Pet.
2:2.
I originally had the word “ardent,” which means “very enthusiastic or passionate.”
It literally means “burning.”[1]
I wanted to use that adverb with the word the text uses, which is “long,” but decided to use eagerly instead.
“Long” is a word which means “to have a strong desire for something, with implication of need.
It means to long for, have great affection for, yearn for someone or something.”[2]
Other translations say “crave” (NIV, NLT).
It is an imperative, meaning a command or a call to decisive action.
So it is not an option.
David says, “As the deer PANTS for flowing streams, so my soul PANTS for you, O God” (Ps.
42:1).
Same idea.
Notice what he did not say.
He does not say read the Word, teach the Word, study the Word, memorize the Word or even preach the Word, though they are important and there are other portions of Scripture that tell us to do those things (Josh.
1:8; Ps. 119:11; Acts 17:11; 1 Tim.
4:11, 13; 2 Tim.
2:15; 4:2).
Instead, Peter is after the heart.
He is after the motivation.
He does not want us to have a “have to” attitude, but a “want to” and a “get to” attitude.
Because honestly, if you do not desire the Word, you will not read, teach, study, memorize or preach the Word.
God expects that of us because everything flows out of that.
This is the foundation of it all.
We’ll get more into that later, but let’s talk first about the reasons to long for the Word of God.
First of all:
*a) **The Word is living (1 Pet.
1:23a)*
Look at 1 Pet.
1:23.
He had just been talking about loving the people of God earnestly.
One of the points that came from last week was that we have the capacity to love since God saved us when we obeyed the truth and He cleansed us.
So here again Peter says the same thing on why you can love earnestly: “since you have been born again.”
Peter is back to the Father-child imagery again.
Like he said in 1 Pet.
1:3, he says again that God is a Father who gave us new life with a new capacity.
He then goes into a small tangent about how God made us alive and he says it was through the “living and abiding Word of God.”
He compares the Word of God to a seed.
Where else in Scripture is the Word of God compared to seed?
The Parable of the Sower, where Jesus says clearly, the seed is the Word of God (Luke 8:11).
Peter may have been thinking of that, but it seems like he is referring more to human reproduction than plants.
So just as a human father’s seed is part of creating life, the Word of God also is like a seed that creates life.
However, the human father has a child and he~/she eventually dies.
They are perishable.
However, when God the Father has a child, he~/she is imperishable.
/The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery/ adds, “A seed is a product and a producer, a small investment with large potential value, an essential detail, a step in a continuum of reproduction.
Though one, it becomes many through death.
It is a treasury, an allotment, an investment whose yield depends on its environment…At a physical level, the image of seed is preeminently of the potential for life and generation.”[3]
The seed takes the character of its source.
So going back to loving the people of God earnestly, Peter is saying when you were born again, your Heavenly Father’s nature was given to you.
You can be holy as He is holy (1 Pet.
1:14-16), and you can love because that’s who God is and His Spirit is in you, enabling you to love.
I don’t want to beat the proverbial dead horse here, so I hope that’s clear.
Let’s talk about the living Word of God.
Believers, the Bible is living because the Author is living.
Martin Luther says, "The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me."[4]
The author of Hebrews says, “the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword..” (Heb.
4:12).
We deeply long for the Word of God because the Author deeply longs for us to know Him through His Word.
It’s alive!
Do you ever feel like in reading a good book you wish the author was sitting next to you so you can ask questions and dialogue with him~/her?
You can with the world’s greatest best seller!
Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God (Rom.
10:17).
Peter is reminding us that it was the Word that was preached to us (1 Pet.
1:25) and saved us.
How can a book do that?
Because it’s alive!
We talked about wanting to be whole when we talked about holiness.
That’s what everybody wants and God wants that for you.
Don’t you want to be a whole person?
Don’t you want to be the best employee or student you can be?
The best husband or wife or parent?
The best sibling or child?
The best servant of God here at Living Hope?
Don’t you want encouragement in trial?
How does God accomplish all that in you?
He does it through His living Word.
And if you never bother to open it, how is that life going to breathe life into you?
Your new life began with the Word of God and it continues with the Word of God.
This is why we preach the Word of God here at Living Hope.
I can preach until I am blue in my face, but I know it is not he who plants or he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor.
3:6-7).
He gives the increase because He is alive and His Word is alive.
You may sit through service and sometimes wonder, “Has the preacher been reading my journal?
It feels like he’s speaking right at me!” Well, I can tell you how you are feeling that: the Word of God is living.
I can’t tell you how many times the Word of God has gone HD and 3-D on me.
The other day I was working on a message and suddenly this wave of doubt and despair hit me.
I started thinking, “What’s the point of this?
Does anyone really care?
Why am I doing this?” Then I was upset because I was lacking motivation.
Guess what I was studying? 1 Pet.
1:18.
God has ransomed me from futility!
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