"Grow" 12-12-21
Overview
Grow Up Into Christ
Peter Pan famously refused to grow up — but Scripture calls God's people in the opposite direction. We are commanded to "grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" Ephesians 4:15, to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" 2 Peter 3:18, to grow "in the knowledge of God" Colossians 1:10, and to press on "toward maturity" Hebrews 6:1. Maturity here means full development — moving steadily into the person God is creating us to be.
The foundation for that growth is laid out in 1 Peter 2:2: "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation." Anyone who has been near a hungry newborn knows that cry — insistent, demanding, impossible to ignore. Peter says that's the kind of passion we should have for the Word of God. The Greek word translated "long for" describes a deep, intense, passionate desire. And what we are to crave is the pure milk — the Word itself, undiluted, not a watered-down version that has been altered to suit our preferences (Psalm 19; Psalm 119).
There is, however, a spiritual version of the Peter Pan syndrome. Hebrews 5:11–14 rebukes believers who, by this time, ought to be teachers but still need someone to teach them the basics — still on milk when they should be on solid food. Why does this stunting happen? Sometimes we refuse to grow because we don't want to be challenged, and the Word of God always challenges us. Sometimes we'd rather settle into our own opinions and create our own reality than submit our beliefs to the scrutiny of Scripture — a temptation magnified in a culture of "your truth and my truth." And sometimes spiritual atrophy happens by sheer default: when we drift from the preaching, teaching, and study of the Word, our faith starves. The tragic danger is that a person can starve spiritually without even realizing it, going through the motions of worship while inwardly dead.
The remedy is to taste again that the Lord is good 1 Peter 2:3. We taste His goodness in His daily provision, in His care, and supremely at the cross and empty tomb, where our sin is paid for and life eternal is opened to us. Having tasted, we hunger for more — and that hunger drives us deeper into the Word, from milk toward solid food. Luther testified that he read through the Bible twice a year and tapped at every branch of that great tree. Spurgeon said of John Bunyan that his very blood was "Bibline" — prick him anywhere and Scripture flowed out. May that be said of us. To every "I won't grow up," God lovingly replies by making us into people who say, "I will — and I am," as He keeps feeding us with His pure spiritual milk and leading us on into the rich solid food of His truth.
Transcript
Would you open your Bible's please with me this morning for our study? 3s
To first Peter the second chapter, if you're using a Pue edition, you're going to find 7s
that on page 206, first Peter the second chapter for our study today. 11s
A fictitious character, a young lad who flies around, never seems to age, and lives on 20s
the island of Neverland. 26s
Peter Pan, Peter Pan. 30s
In the musical there is the song that goes like this. 33s
I won't grow up, I don't want to go to school, just to learn to be a parent and recite 38s
a silly rule. 44s
If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, 46s
never grow up, never grow up, not me, Peter Pan. 55s
That ageless lad who just refused to grow up. 65s
The scriptures present a contrarian view to Peter Pan, doesn't it? 75s
Specifically with regard to spiritual growth. 84s
We read for example in Ephesians the fourth chapter. 88s
But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head 92s
into Christ. 101s
Second Peter 3. 104s
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 107s
Colossians 1. 113s
Grow in the knowledge of God. 115s
Hebrews 6. 119s
Therefore let us go on toward maturity, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ. 121s
The word there that talks about maturity is a word that means full development. 130s
It means perfection. 139s
It means moving from where you are into the person that God is creating you and wants 141s
you to be. 149s
It is that movement into that sense of completeness. 151s
And so to that end, we hear the calls in Holy Scripture to study the word, search the 155s
word, memorize the word, be immersed in the word. 163s
But the call to study to be immersed to memorize what is foundational to all of that. 171s
That's what our text for today gets in. 182s
That which is foundational to that call to grow in the word. 185s
Foundational to even that. 193s
Looking at the place. 200s
A chapter 2 verse 2. 202s
Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk. 207s
I've had the blessing recently of being come acquainted once again with the cry of a newborn. 215s
That cry of a newborn is a particular cry, isn't it? 223s
That cry of a newborn is insistent, it is demanding, and it gets things in motion rather 226s
quickly, doesn't it? 234s
Isn't it interesting that Peter uses the image of the newborn, and specifically the newborn's 236s
cry for the mother's milk and associates it with a longing for the word? 244s
Look again, please, at verse 2. 253s
Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk. 255s
What's the pure spiritual milk? 265s
The pure spiritual milk is the word of God. 267s
The rabbis in ancient day used to talk about the word of God as being the pure milk. 270s
What it is that we are to long for with the assistance of a hungry newborn wanting the 277s
milk of the mother is a longing for the very word of God. 283s
That word long there in the Greek. 289s
It means a passion, a desire, Paul uses it seven times in his writings and each and 291s
every time. 297s
It talks about a deep, intense, passionate desire for something. 298s
And so like a newborn wants the milk of the mother and insistently cries out for it, 305s
with a passion and a desire, that's the image that Peter lifts up for us. 313s
In that is the desire and the passion and the longing that we are to have for the very word of God. 320s
And it is to be for that pure spiritual milk. 329s
That's God's word, not a watered down version of it. 335s
But the pure word right from the word, not changing the word, but receiving that word. 340s
Psalm 119 and Psalm 19 talks about the word as being pure and clean. 348s
And why is it that we are to have such a longing for the word of God like a newborn 356s
longs for the milk of the mother? 364s
What's the answer? 366s
Last part of verse 2. 368s
So that by it you may grow into salvation. 371s
So that we might spiritually grow up. 382s
Grow up. 391s
It's called the Peter Pan syndrome. 395s
And it is used for those that refuse to grow up. 401s
It is used for those that refuse to become the adult. 409s
It is used for those that refer to or that defer taking on responsibility, 414s
that defer taking on accountability, that prefer to be the child and the designation that is put upon it. 423s
Is what is called the Peter Pan syndrome. 434s
You know, I won't grow up. 439s
I won't grow up. 444s
The Bible talks about the spiritual edition of the Peter Pan syndrome. 450s
In Hebrews, the fifth chapter, we hear this. 456s
About this, we have much to say that is hard to explain since you've become dull in understanding. 463s
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again. 471s
The basic elements of the oracles of God. 478s
You need milk, not solid food. 482s
For everyone who lives on milk being still an infant is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 486s
But solid food is for the mature. 494s
You notice here how milk is being used in a different way. 499s
In our text for today, there is to be that longing for the pure spiritual milk of the word of God. 502s
Here in Hebrews, now you're addressing a stunted growth among Christians. 509s
A stunted growth where they're still receiving a newborn milk and they haven't moved on to solid food. 516s
That's the spiritual edition of the Peter Pan syndrome. 524s
I won't grow up. 531s
Why is it? 534s
Why is there that temptation to simply not grow up spiritually? 536s
What is it? 548s
The word is that which divides as the scripture says, joint from moral. 552s
It pierces us. 559s
There will be those that will refuse spiritual growth. 562s
Why? 567s
Because they don't want to be challenged. 567s
They don't want to be challenged. 568s
And the word of God challenges them. 571s
There is the refusal to grow because of an avoidance for challenge. 576s
What also is the temptation with regard to refusing spiritual growth? 586s
The temptation is also to settle in on one's opinions. 594s
One doesn't want to grow because it might challenge the opinion. 599s
You see it as much easier is it not to create your own reality based upon what it is that you think and live in it. 608s
Regardless of the facts that a bone. 614s
Have you had a conversation with someone where it is absolutely mind-boggling and you want to bang your head against the wall? 618s
Why is it that you believe that and the response is because I believe it? 627s
Have you had a conversation like that? 633s
You see that is creating one's own reality and living in one's own fact-based and one's own reality. 636s
And no matter what fact-based then you bring forward to the person it doesn't matter because what is the source of the truth themselves? 642s
And so when the source of the truth is yourself, one can simply create whatever reality it is you want to believe. 652s
No matter what the facts say, whatever it is you want to believe then becomes reality. 659s
That then launches into will you've got your truth and I've got my truth. 666s
And now we live in a day of post-truth and post-fact where we say, well what's reality for you? 670s
Because this is reality for me. 680s
But your reality isn't reality. Oh sure it is. Why? Because it's because I think so. 684s
You see the conundrum? 689s
That's a logger hit, the spiritual growth, logger hit. 692s
Because instead of putting one's beliefs up to the scrutiny of the fact of the word, one chooses to live in one's own fact-based and one's own reality and create their own truth. 699s
What's the temptation? 723s
Station also with regard to spiritual growth is to wind up in a lack of spiritual growth based upon a default action. 727s
Now what do I mean by that? 738s
If you pull yourself away from the preaching and the teaching of God's holy word, you place yourself in the world. 740s
Because you will starve yourself. 753s
Just as with our children and grandchildren, we feed them because if we don't feed them, they'll die. 755s
So also in our faith lives. 761s
If we pull ourselves from the very means whereby God says, this is how I not only establish you in the faith, but keep you in the faith. 763s
If we pull ourselves away from the hearing and the study of God's word, our faith will die. 773s
One can wind up with a lack of spiritual growth by default. 781s
And the terrible thing about it is, is someone can starve themselves, not realize that they've starve themselves. 789s
They then become the walking dead spiritually. 798s
Where it can actually come to the point where one can come to service on Christmas Eve or Easter, 804s
because it's a habit or something that one has done all of their lives, and absolutely be spiritually dead inside. 815s
Because the practice of worship is just the practice and death has occurred by default, because there's been a pull away from the word. 826s
There is such temptation, such temptation to not grow spiritually. 844s
It's the Peter Pan syndrome, spiritual edition, right? 853s
Spiritual edition. 865s
Look with me, please. 867s
Edverse 2. 870s
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation. 874s
Now catch first three. 905s
If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 909s
We taste, don't we, that the Lord is good. 918s
We taste that the Lord is good in the common grace, it's called the common grace that falls on unbeliever and believer life. 923s
We taste that the Lord is good, based upon the grace of His provision in our lives. 933s
We taste that the Lord is good, based upon His care with regard to our lives. 940s
We taste that the Lord is good, chiefly, because of the cross in the empty tomb. 950s
The cross in the empty tomb, whereby His grace and mercy and love is most supremely put on display, where our sin has been paid forth through the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, where death has been overcome. 961s
Where God opens up for us life abundant and life eternal. 978s
We taste that the Lord is good. 984s
And tasting that the Lord is good, as He continues to come to us through the pure spiritual milk, that gives us a hunger and a longing for more milk so that we will grow up to solid food so that we will understand. 989s
That our faith is to constantly, by God's grace, be maturing and moving and growing. 1018s
Martin Luther said this, 1034s
He said, what I was young, I read the Bible over and over and over again. 1038s
He says, I know annually read through the Bible twice. 1044s
If the Bible were a large mighty tree and all of its words were like branches, I have tapped at all of the branches, eager to know what was there and what it had to offer. 1048s
Spurgeon said of a 17th century preacher by the name of John Bunyan. 1065s
He said this, this man's a living Bible. 1071s
Pretty many where and you'll find that his blood is biblian. 1075s
The very essence of the Bible flows from him. 1080s
Oh, to have people say that of each one of us to say, you asked them a question and the Bible flows. 1088s
It's not one's personal opinion, but the Bible flows out of them. 1097s
Peter Pan, I won't grow up. 1110s
I won't grow up. 1115s
I won't grow up. 1117s
God will have none of that with us. 1122s
None of it. 1127s
He loves us too much. 1129s
And so to all of our, I won't. 1133s
God changes us in the people that say, I will. 1138s
And I am. 1146s
As he keeps coming with this pure spiritual milk so that we move into the thick filet minion and beyond. 1152s
God is good. 1177s