Longing for the Word (1 Peter 2:1-3) | Worship Service

Well, good morning, and we welcome you to Kootenai Church. Would you please stand as we begin our service this morning with a call to worship from Psalm 66. And it says in verses one to four, make a loud shout to God, all the earth.

Sing praise for the glory of his name. Establish his praise as glorious. Say to God, how fearsome are your works. Because of the abundance of your strength, your enemies will cower before you. All the earth will worship you and will sing praises to you.

They will sing praises to your name. Join us together as we sing, oh, for a thousand tongues. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise. The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace.

My gracious master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of thy name. Use us the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease. Tis music in the sinner's ears, tis life and health and peace.

He breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest flee. His blood availed for meeks and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive. Full broken hearts rejoice.

The humble poor be free to God's saints above. The church and earth will sing my great Redeemer's praise. The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace. I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from every fear.

Those who look upon him are radiant. They'll never be ashamed. They'll never be ashamed. His poor man cried, and the Lord heard me and saved me. Surrounds his saints, he will deliver them. He will deliver them.

Come exalt his name. Taste and see. The Lord is good. West is he who hides in him. You saints, he'll give you everything. Come exalt. Let's sing together the song we sang last week, Is He Worthy? Do you feel the world is broken?

Do you feel the shadows deepen? But do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through? I wish that you could see it all. Is all creation groaning? Is a new creation coming? Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst?

Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? It is. Is anyone, is anyone, is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll? The Lion of Judah, the Grave, he is David's Root and the Lamb who died to ransom the slain.

Is he worth, is he worth, of all blessing and all, is he worth? Does the Father truly love us? Does the Spirit move among us? And does Jesus, our Messiah, hold forever those he loves? Does our God intend to dwell again with He does.

Break the seal and who died to ransom the slain. Nation and trust the kingdom and praise to God to reign with the sun. Is he worth, is he worth, is he worth, is he worth, is he worth?

Lots of people said. Amen. Good morning. Along with the other announcements that are in the bulletin, today is the last day to receive the yearly registration discount for the Women's Spring Retreat. You can register in the foyer after the service.

Next Sunday, March 17th, is the last day to donate to the college and military boxes which are out on the table in the foyer. And lastly, there's a sign-up sheet for Resurrection Breakfast on the welcome table.

Men who wish to contribute financially or to help serve, please see Thomas Leo, who isn't here today. Is there anybody identifying as Thomas Leo today? Okay, so Thomas isn't here today, so he'll be here next week and you can sign up with him.

For the scripture reading, would you turn with me to Psalm 119? And we're going to read verses 1 through 40. And for those of you who want to be ready for the second, there is a reading in 1 Peter 1 verses 22 through chapter 2 verse 3.

But first, Psalm 119, 1 through 40. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart.

They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in his ways. You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently. Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. Then I shall not be ashamed.

When I look upon all your commandments, I shall give thanks to you with uprightness of heart. When I learned your righteous judgments, I shall keep your statutes. Do not forsake me utterly. How can a young man keep his way pure?

By keeping it according to your word. With all my heart, I have sought you. Do not let me wander from your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against you. Blessed are you, blessed are you, oh Lord.

Teach me your statutes. With my lips, I have told of all of the ordinances of your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways.

I shall delight in your statutes. I shall not forget your word. Deal bountily with your servant that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your law. I am a stranger in the earth.

Do not hide your commandments from me. My soul is crushed with longing. After your ordinances at all times, you rebuke the arrogant, the cursed who wander from your commandments. Take away reproach and contempt from me for I observe your testimonies.

Even though princes sit and talk against me, your servant meditates on your statutes. Your testimonies are also my delight. They are my counselors. Revive me according to your word. I have told of my ways and you have answered me.

Teach me your statutes. Make me understand the way of your precepts so I will meditate on your wonders. My soul weeps because of grief. Strengthen me according to your word. Remove the false way from me and graciously grant me your law.

I have chosen the faithful way. I have placed your ordinances before me. I cleave to your testimonies. O Lord, do not put me to shame. I shall run the way of your commandments for you will enlarge my heart.

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes and I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of your commandments for I delight in it.

Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to dishonest gain. Turn my eyes away from looking at vanity and revive me in your ways. Establish your word to your servant as that which produces reverence for you.

Turn away my reproach which I dread for your ordinances are good. Behold, I long for your precepts. Revive me through your righteousness. And in 1 Peter chapter one, excuse me, chapter two, verse, chapter one, verse 22.

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable.

That is through the living and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass and its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. The flower falls off but the word of the Lord abides forever and this is the word which was preached to you.

Chapter two, therefore putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word that by it you may grow in respect to salvation if you have tasted the goodness, the kindness of the Lord.

Let's pray. Father, we are grateful for your word. It is medicine to our hearts. It is delight to our souls. This morning as we contemplate, as Dave brings your word from first Peter, we pray, Lord, that we would truly be as newborn babes and desire it to seek after it, entertain it as milk, as delight, something that will renew our hearts in worship and in reverence for you.

Might we honor you in all that we do and might Dave bring the word of God in such a way that our hearts will be inclined to you, to bless you, to glorify you, and to glorify your word by our obedience to you.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Would you please stand as we sing Psalm 23b, the king of love, my shepherd is. The king, my shepherd, whose goodness fails Hide, if I is my stream My savior, Jair, the verdant ferns grow But some that foolish hawk I strain

But yet he soars still, but shall I sing your praise? In Romans 12, it says in verses one and two, therefore I exhort you brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect. Would you join us together as we sing, speak O Lord.

Speak O Lord as we come to you To receive the food of your holy word Take your truth, shape and fashion us in your love Might be seen to make us Lord's, cause our failure fail

You may be seated. Well, good morning. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter two. I never thought I'd be able to say that, but finally, 1 Peter chapter two. Before we get started, let's pray together.

Father, it's intimidating and humbling to preach from your word about your word, but that's what you've put in front of me today. So Lord, may I preach today as you have commanded, may I preach as one who shares the very oracles of God, because that's what we're doing.

And I pray, Lord, you'll help me to keep that in my mind. These are your words to your people. I pray that you'd be glorified through them, and that they would leave here with a greater craving to hear from your word, Lord, in Christ's name, amen.

Jim did it to me again. Today is spring forward day, as many of you are aware. So I asked him, I called him out on it this time, said, why are you doing this to me all the time? He said, look, it was sort of like when Adam was confronted with his sin, and he blamed someone else.

Jim blamed John MacArthur for this, for having Shepherd's Conference during this time. Well, the joke's on him, because you guys are more awake than usual. Okay, I'm just trying. We're going to work through this together.

1 Peter 2, read the first three verses. Therefore, laying aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation if you've tasted the kindness of the Lord.

I'm using the LSB today. If you have another translation, maybe a little bit different. I have a few kind of rolling around in my mind, so I may go back and forth between them. I'm basically being LSB.

Long for the pure milk of the word. Long for the pure milk of the word. What does that mean? What's the meaning of the command here? It's a command, we want to understand it. We'll do a careful exegesis of this, but we'll see that it is a command to have a strong desire, a love, a craving for the word of God.

So for the Christian, this is where knowing God begins and where that knowledge deepens. It's where relationship to God is kindled and where it's nourished. It's where eternal life begins and where we grow in sanctification.

So for us to grow in the image of Christ, for us to grow up in our salvation, as it says here, requires that we have this craving for God's word. We see this modeled for us in courage throughout scripture.

In Job, this is Job 23, 12, Job says this. I've not departed from the command of his lips. I've treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. Psalm 19, this is verses seven through 10 from David.

David says the law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of Yahweh is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of Yahweh are true. They are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, even more than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb.

Jeremiah 15, 15, your words were found and I ate them. Your words became for me joy and gladness in my heart, for I've been called by your name, oh Yahweh God of hosts. Psalm 119, Psalm 119 is full of expressions of devotion to God and to his word.

Cornell read the first 40 verses of that psalm today. You know it's much longer than that. There are many repeated statements of the psalmist's hunger for the word of God. These are some of the words that capture the esteem that that psalmist holds, the word of God.

The psalmist claims to treasure God's word, to rejoice in it, to muse upon it, to delight in it. He clings to the word. He longs for it. He trusts in it. He seeks it. He loves it. And we're to have that same craving, that abiding love for the word of God.

That's the command. It's also the promised means of our sanctification. We're to gain our spiritual nourishment from the word as a baby gains nourishment from milk. Long for the pure milk of the word.

Note again, it's a command. Look at it there, 1 Peter 2 .2. Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word. It's imperative. You see the intensity of it? We're to crave the word in the same way that a baby craves milk.

Do we have any babies here today? Raise your hand if you're a baby. Oh, lots of hands back there behind that window. If you've ever, well, let's look at the language Peter uses here and we'll understand the analogy.

Because Peter uses some very emphatic language here to communicate that these are little babies. These are newborns. The noun there translated as babies. It can mean a pre-born child or an infant child.

It's used in pre-born John the Baptist. It's used of Jesus in the manger as a baby. But he adds an adjective there, newborn. Peter really wants us to clarify this means a brand new just born baby. This word's only found here.

And it specifically means just born. It's now born, a newborn baby. So Peter is specific. It's not a pre-born baby that doesn't yet have a desire for milk. It's not like a six month old baby who may be interested in other foods.

This is a newborn baby with only one interest. So if you've ever been around a just born baby, you know it's characteristic of newborn babies. They wanna eat. That's what they want. And they want milk.

Nothing else is gonna satisfy them. You could offer them your favorite food. You could offer them a T-bone steak. You could offer them a crab leg. Nothing, right? You could give them a gold bar, a stack of money.

No interest. I think some of the kids, some of the babies here might be interested in Bitcoin at a very young age. But even that is probably gonna pale in comparison to milk. They want milk. If you want your baby to quiet down, you give them milk.

That's what they want. The children of God are happy to have that same extreme single-minded longing for the word of God. That's what we're commanded here. We're commanded to have that longing. As newborn babies long for physical milk, we are to long for the pure milk of the word.

Have to have this powerful, all-consuming, intense desire for one thing above all. Same way a newborn baby longs for this one thing. We're to long for the pure milk of the word. Now that phrase, of the word, it deserves a little bit of attention and clarification.

You may have different translations for the word. I'm treating, you may have different translations for the word that is translated of the word. And yes, the word for today, kids, is word. So you should be doing pretty good.

It's translated here as of the word. You may have spiritual or reasonable, something like that. And I'm treating it as a reference to the word of God, the milk of the word, as I'm treating that as a reference to the word of God, the Bible.

If that's a proper translation, then that would seem to be the right thing to do. I'll get it back there. Well, I can shout, figure that out. I'll go grab Josh's mic.

You know, back in the day, every time that I was up to preach, I would have a sound problem. It's been several years, but here we go again. If you guys get it fixed, let me know and I'll switch it. Where was I?

What was I talking about? Do you guys remember? I do. Of the word. That word, there's a word, a Greek word, it's logikon. It's translated here as of the word. You may have another translation. It's kind of important that we get to that because I'm claiming that this milk is a reference to the word of God, as pertaining to God's word.

And in context, we do know that. It is of the word in the sense of pertaining to God's word, his communication, his reasoning with the world. It's his revealing his truth through humanity. God's communication of himself to us.

Holy spirit to our human spirits. And we can tell that, without going into the word itself, we can tell from our immediate context that it is God's word that Peter's making an analogy to. Turn back to chapter one, verses 22 through 25, the preceding context, just before this.

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for love of the brothers without hypocrisy, fervently love one another from the heart. For you've been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which was proclaimed to you as good news.

You see that? It's the word of God which gives us our eternal life. It makes sense here that it's the word of God that we ought to long for as the means of sanctifying us, of growing that life. That's the context.

So we gain spiritual nourishment from the same source as that from which we gain spiritual life, the word of God, especially the gospel. You see at the end of chapter one, the word which was proclaimed to you as good news, that good news is our word for gospel.

Okay, so all that's to say that we are safe to continue to interpret the analogy of the milk of the word to be a reference to the word of God. Okay, so Peter refers to that word of God here as pure, do you see that?

Pure, crave the pure milk of the word. What does that mean here? Why would he put it here? The word is adolos. Adolos is used only here in your Bible. There are other words that are translated pure in your Bible.

If you look for the English word pure, you'll see it other places, but it's not this word. Those other words mean things like clean, or genuine, or holy. This word pure means without deceit, without adulteration of any kind.

It was used almost entirely of agricultural products like milk, and it meant unadulterated or unmixed. So in the context of physical milk, you can think of it as pure being not skim milk, nothing added to it or subtracted to it.

It's just milk, pure milk as close to its original form as possible. Some of you may think of it as raw milk. It's not changed. It's not added to or subtracted from. So we're to long for pure, unadulterated, genuine word of God.

What would that mean? Well, I don't have time to go through all that, right? You see, that's an entire sermon on its own. What does that mean for the word to be pure? We're to crave, we're to long for, what we are to consume in our spirits is the word of God unadulterated, the word of God straight, unmixed.

We're to consume God's word in a condition as near to its pure, original form as possible. So I hope you can see without going into this much detail, it has a lot to say about a lot of things. It has a lot to say about the translations that you use.

It has a lot to say about the books that you read, the sermons that we preach, the teaching that we consume, videos and podcasts and all that stuff. We're to consume God's word unadulterated and unmixed.

That's what we're to crave, not from usings of man and have a few Bible verses sprinkled in. We're to ingest no perversions, in other words, of the word of God. As newborn babies crave physical milk, so we as children of God are to long for the pure, unadulterated, unmixed milk of the word.

That's a command, that's the command. Long for God's word, crave it. Desire it strongly, powerfully. We're commanded to want to consume the word of God as if we would starve to death without it. That's the command.

Now, I know some of you, you can't say that you have that craving. You can't say you have that kind of longing for God's word like a baby craves milk. Others may be further along in this regard, but those who are spiritually mature, they understand their shortcomings even better.

Nobody can say that they have this all-consuming, always-on desire, irresistible longing for God's word. Peter describes here. None of us can be satisfied with the degree or the consistency of our commitment to our love for God's word.

Aren't we all occasionally, at least distracted in our reading? Aren't we? Aren't we sometimes deficient in our commitment to being regular in the word and to doing what's necessary to carefully comprehend it?

We all get tired, especially today. We all let our sinful flesh get the better of us at times, don't we? We let sin keep us away from the word for a time or less careful with it. We can let sin diminish our desire for the word.

There are times when it just doesn't fit into our busy lives. We have a lot to do today. It's not a priority today. We can find all sorts of reasons to give it a cursory glance, a dutiful glance, if anything at all.

And I don't care who you are. I don't care what you think of yourself. None of us has this nailed. None of us crave the word of God as a baby craves milk. We don't have that intensity and consistency always, okay?

We have a command here to long for God's word. We can take it to heart. We can admit we don't have the longing to the degree or consistency that Peter commands here, the Holy Spirit commands, and we can use that as a reality check.

Say, okay, let's now do what's necessary to grow in our love for God's word. Not going to stop there, right? That would leave you in nothing but despair. But the word helps us with this longing. The word itself helps us.

Peter doesn't leave us with just the command. Look, he gives us a motivation to help us crave God's word. Look, if you long for it, you'll be sanctified by it. Look at verse two again. Like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

That's the promise. There's a motivation there. Long for the pure milk of the word. If you do that, you'll grow in respect to your salvation. All right, now, that's a strong focus of the book of 1 Peter, the sanctification of God's people, rising above the world.

Peter explains in the book that our life on this earth is for the purpose of sanctification. That is 1 Peter in a nutshell. You can read that in chapter one. You can listen to one of the prior 18 messages on 1 Peter.

If you really long for the pure milk of the word, you can listen to all 18 of them. We'll see. I don't think I could do that. You get the idea. In 1 Peter, it's all about sanctification. That is the point of the book.

It's helping you to understand that the trials that are in this life, trials that are necessary and temporary, are working in us to demonstrate the genuineness of an invincible, God-given faith that will result in inheritance that's already waiting for us.

You see it. I don't have all of chapter one in front of me. A salvation that's ready to be revealed, that's promised as we go through even chapter one. Now, here in chapter two, verse two, Peter tells us one of the means by which God sanctifies us.

It's through his word. And so we have to have a craving for the word. We have to have a longing for the word so that we grow in sanctification through it. Okay, again, it makes sense in context. The word that gave us life in the end of chapter one, that is the same word that gives us growth in that life.

It's our source of nourishment just as a source of life. Now, this calls for a degree of discontent. If you remember the last few weeks, we've been learning a lot about contentment from Hebrews, being content with what you have.

And the rationale for that contentment is what? Do you remember from last week? Yeah, I know, it's not a Sunday school lesson. It's hard to know, but you do, I'm sure a lot of you remember the continual companionship that we have with Christ.

That's the source of our contentment. But Jim reminded us a few weeks ago that we also have to have a discontent. We have to have a discontent with our level of spiritual maturity. And that's what's called for here as well.

We have to want to grow in sanctification. As a means to that end, we long for the word of God. It is the primary means of our sanctification. If chapter one tells us that it is trials, that the trials of this life are the purpose, the purpose of all of that is for our sanctification.

Those trials are for our sanctification. Well, how is the word also for our sanctification? Look, it doesn't do you any good to go through trials if you don't know how you are to respond to them. If you don't know the God in whose image you are supposed to be growing, doesn't do you any good.

It is the word of God that teaches us how to respond properly. We have to know how we're to respond from the word of God. We have to learn him if we're going to grow to be like him. And we can only do that through the Bible.

That is the only means. That's the only revelation of God to man. Okay, so that's our motivation, the long for the pure milk of the word. We want to please God. We want to become more mature. We want to be able to better handle a hand mic.

That's not in the Bible. I made that part up to try to. But we want to be complete in our faith. And the only way to do that, the only way to accomplish growth, the only promise of growth comes to us through the word.

So let's back up to verse one. And I know it starts with a conjunction. I know it starts with therefore in most translations. I'm going to pass over that right now. We'll come back to it when we get to verse three.

There's a reason for that. The verb in verse one is a participle. It's translated here as laying aside. You may have another translation. This has laying aside. So it's an action that's assumed to have been done in the past.

It's a prerequisite for the kind of longing that we're commanded to have. Do you see that? It takes the full force of a command for that reason. So even though it's not an imperative verb, it is a command because you have to have done this in order to fulfill the terms of the command.

So we first must lay aside these five vices that are listed in verse one. That's the only way we can then long for the pure milk of the word. You see the vices, all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

I'm going to go through these quickly. The verb translated laying aside, then we'll see what all these vices mean. To lay aside means to lay aside. Very simple translation. It means to set aside. Some of you may have cast off.

To place away from you. It's used in the New Testament nine times. Seven of them, very similar to this one, and we'll look at those seven. But the other two are kind of instructive to help you understand what the verb means.

It's used once of John the Baptist being cast into prison. He was laid aside into the prison. The other time was when at the stoning of Stephen, when the people laid their cloaks aside, they laid them aside at the feet of a man named Saul.

So you get the idea. It's laying aside. Here are the six similar uses. We'll go through these quickly. They're all somewhat similar. In Romans, Paul says to lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Similar to this. In Ephesians, we're told to lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit. We're told to lay aside falsehood. In Colossians, we're commanded to lay them all aside, wrath, anger, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

You remember Hebrews 12 .1, laying aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles us. And then James 1 .21, very similar to this one in 1 Peter. Therefore, laying aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness and gentleness, receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

So in all of those verses, we're told to lay aside, I've read you all the usages of lay aside in the New Testament. Other than John the Baptist, other than the cloaks, we're told to lay aside what? In every instance, sin.

We're told repeatedly to lay aside sin. In all of these passages, or some of these passages, there are specific sins listed, but all of them are sufficiently general to tell us to lay aside sin. It's not like, oh, lay aside these and we'll prioritize them and we'll indulge these for a while while we work on these.

There's none of that. It's a comprehensive casting off of sin. Okay, that's the idea. The idea is casting off of filthy garments. Get them off of you. So what are we to lay aside? Here are the five vices.

First is all malice. In some of your Bibles, it will be all evil or all wickedness. And malice, in English, malice is an intent or desire to do evil toward another person. But the Greek word is actually broader than that.

It includes all sorts of evil intent, whether that's directed at a person or not. And it's more than just intent. It's also action. So that's why it's often translated just as wickedness or evil. It's a general term for evil or wickedness.

Peter then gets more specific with the second vice listed. It's translated here as deceit. It's sometimes translated as guile or trickery. Okay, now it's dalas. When we looked at pure a minute ago, it was adalas, the only difference being that prefix alpha, which is the negation.

So this is the antonym, the opposite of that word translated pure. It means any deceitful means to hide the truth, especially to harm somebody else. But it most literally referred to the bait on a fishhook.

That gives you an idea what deceit is, right? It's that alluring thing that really means harm. It was used in the manner in which the Lord was arrested, the kiss of a friend. We're to lay aside all evil, including all deceit.

And also the third vice listed, hypocrisy. We saw this in context, it's opposite in context. In 1 Peter 1 .22, Cornell read a sincere love of the brothers. I think that's how it reads in NASB, a sincere love of the brothers.

In the LSB, it's the love of the brothers without hypocrisy. So that word sincere translated here without hypocrisy. It's again, the antonym of this word here, hypocrisy. So it means to present yourself in a way that hides who you really are, who you are in secret.

So as Christians, we know, don't we? We know we are always before God. Remember that Latin phrase, quorum Deo, before God, the face of God. We are always before the face of God. We know that he's our judge.

He's our master, he's our king. We can't hide anything from him. And he's the only one that matters. So hypocrisy is stupid and it's pointless. It accomplishes nothing. It's difficult, it's frustrating.

It's hard to remember how you're supposed to present yourself in one place versus how you are in another. It can cause you mental illness, it can cause you physical illness, but more importantly, hypocrisy dishonors God.

It's a vice that we are commanded here to lay aside. I have to note, the noun hypocrisy is plural in the original language, hypocrisies. We're to lay aside all hypocrisies. The Spirit knows we're very capable of having more than one hypocrisy, right?

We could show up with one mask here. We can have another with our families. We can have another at work. We can have another with a group of friends. We can have another when we're anonymous somewhere in a city, some other place.

And then we can have another when we're alone in secret. We're to throw away all of those. Stop hiding all of that evil activity and evil intent. Stop being deceitful. Look, there's, and this has meant a lot lately as we've had different counseling situations.

And stop hiding, stop hiding evil activity. Stop pretending you're something you're not. You will be found out. Whether any human being ever finds you out, you will be found out. Stop, let's deal with this thing now.

We're never gonna have the kind of love for one another that Peter described in chapter one if we aren't open and authentic and honest with one another about who we are, right? We can work together to overcome sin in your life, but we have to know that it exists, okay?

We're also told to lay aside envy. It's another vice that's listed often in the New Testament list of vices. It's, again, plural here, envies or jealousies. That carries the idea of being energized by bitterness toward other people, having ill will.

You wanna bring someone else down to your level rather than raising yourself up to theirs. That's the idea. It's the opposite of being happy for somebody else's blessing. 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter, it summarizes love.

I think if you just chose one of those phrases in 1 Corinthians 13, love doesn't seek its own. Remember that? That's the essence of Christian love. So for us to love that way, we have to lay aside envy, lay aside all envies, all malicious jealousies.

The last vice listed is slander or evil speaking. It's also plural, evil speakings or slanders. And it just means to prattle on in a negative way, to speak somebody down. It's evil speaking or evil babbling.

So all of these have to be cast aside, laid aside. If you put all of them together, you put those five vices there in that verse together, you see a connection of thought from Peter's thought before, right?