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First Peter 1 22 through 2 3. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly, from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding 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. But the word of the Lord remains forever, and this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up in salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

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And that is the word family. The world likes to use this word a little too often and a little too softly sometimes. You could go to the grocery store, Publix, or Aldi or Walmart or Costco, and you could buy a regular size bag of chips, or you could buy a family-sized bag of chips. You could go to a restaurant and you could buy an individual entree, or you could buy a family platter. Now, I don't know about you, but all these family platters are described as serving four people, but I think whoever designed the portions of these family platters has never met a teenage boy. Family-sized bags of chips, family platters. The world also likes to use the word family maybe to describe some popular television shows. The Adams family, for example. They're creepy and they're kooky, they're mysterious and spooky. Y'all thought I was too young to know about the Addams family. You've got modern family and family guy, and you've got family feud with Steve Harvey, and you've got family matters with Steve Urkel, and the list goes on. But is that really all there is to it? Is family just a good word to describe a large portion of food and a funny television show, or is there something more? The idea of family was designed and created by God. God has a design for your family and for your household. But additionally, God has used the image of family and the language of family to describe his kingdom and how we should relate to him and how we should relate to one another. As Christians, we should relate to God as our Father. We've been born again, we've been adopted into His family. Other Christians are our brothers and sisters. The kingdom of God is like one big family. And so that begs the question: if in Christ all of us are members of God's family, then what does it look like to function well in God's family? Well, as we study this morning, 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 22 through chapter 2, verse 3, we're going to answer that question. What does it look like to function well in God's family? And so if you haven't already, uh turn with me in your Bibles to the book of 1 Peter, chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1, and I'll meet you there in just a moment. You know, it was awesome having our senior pastor Cliff Lee and his wife, Miss Susie, here at Oxford Campus live and in person last week. Pastor Cliff delivered the fourth message in our sermon series, our living hope series through the books of 1st and 2 Peter. And I'm thrilled to be back in the pulpit with you today for the fifth message in this series about functioning well in God's family. Now, this morning, church, we have a lot to get to in these seven verses of Scripture. So let's dive right in. If you're taking notes this morning, number one on your notes is this number one, loving one another deeply. Functioning well in God's family, well, it requires loving one another deeply. Look with me in verse 22 of 1 Peter chapter 1. Peter tells us that having purified your souls by the obedience to the truth, you should have a sincere brotherly love, and you should love one another earnestly with a pure heart, having purified your souls. Now we know that we cannot purify our own souls. We had to have Jesus do that for us. And your soul was purified the moment that you repented of your sins and you believed in the gospel for the first time. But the way Peter is phrasing things here in verse 22 is he's saying that past event, the purification of your soul, it has present implications for today. Your souls, having been purified, should change how you live today. You were purified by your obedience to the truth. Now, this is the second time already, excuse me, the third time already that Peter has mentioned the concept or the word obedience. He mentioned it in verse 2 when he talks about our obedience to Jesus. He mentioned it in verse 14, when he talks about us as being children of obedience, verse 2, verse 14, and now in verse 22. He says that we should be obedient to the truth. That's what purifies our souls. Now we've been working on this concept of obedience in our household a little bit. We have three children, a four-year-old, three-year-old, and two-year-old. You saw some of them on the video earlier this morning. We've been telling our kids, they're sweet kids generally, but we've been telling our kids, obedience goes like this. You should obey mom and dad right away, all the way with a happy heart. Right away. You shouldn't delay. All the way. There should be no mediocrity in your obedience and with a happy heart. You shouldn't be disgruntled when you obey mom and dad. Now that applies for my kids and their obedience to me and Hannah, but doesn't that also apply to you and me and our obedience to our Heavenly Father? We should obey God right away. All the way with a happy heart. Don't have any delay or mediocrity or disdain in your obedience to our Heavenly Father. Obey the truth, and that will purify your souls. You were purified for a sincere brotherly love. That word sincere, genuine, authentic. That word sincere in the Greek, it's this word, on hypocriton. Now the latter half of that word might sound a little bit familiar to you, Hippocriton. It sounds like hypocrite. Now we'll talk about hypocrisy a bit more in chapter 2, verse 1. But here in verse 22 of chapter 1, Peter is saying, you should have a brotherly love that is without hypocrisy. A brotherly love that has no double speak or no double standard. You should have a sincere, genuine, authentic, brotherly love. In English, that phrase brotherly love, it's two words in English, but in the Greek it's one word. It's another word that might sound familiar to you. It's the word Philadelphion. Sounds a lot like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, doesn't it? The city of brotherly love. Peter's saying we should possess a sincere brotherly love. He moves on in verse 22 from a description with a noun to a command with a verb, doesn't he? He says you should possess a sincere brotherly love, a noun, and since you possess it, you should therefore love one another earnestly. It's a command with a verb. Love one another earnestly. Now that word love in the command, it's a different word from the word love in the description. Brotherly love, it's philosoph, it's a familial, a brotherly love, but love one another, it's agape love. It's the deepest form of love in the Greek language. It's a sacrificial love. Since you possess brotherly love, therefore actively, sacrificially love your Christian brother and sister. It's interesting that you're probably familiar with that command, love one another. It's a common command in the scriptures, especially from Jesus or Paul or John. But Peter only mentions it twice in all of his writings. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 22, and again in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 8, and that's it. Now, as one of my friends in ministry says, the Bible only has to say something once in order for that thing to be true. And Peter says it here twice, so we should love one another, but it is noticeable that he mentions that command with less frequency than some other New Testament writers. Love one another earnestly. Or maybe your translation says fervently. That word earnestly or fervently, it's actually an athletic term. It means to stretch a muscle to its limitation. If you go to the gym, you might could do an exercise and you could do three sets of ten on a certain exercise or something like that. Or you could do an exercise until the failure of the muscle. Do an exercise with a certain weight until the muscle can go no further. That's the kind of love you're supposed to have for one another. God is calling you to love one another. Love the person to your left and the person to your right to the limits of your love. Don't just love your Christian brother and sister when it's convenient or comfortable, although sometimes it will be convenient and comfortable, but love them even when it's not. Love your Christian brother and sister even when it pushes you to the limitation, to the very limits of your love. Love one another earnestly, love one another fervently with a pure heart. If we want to function well in God's family, then we must love one another deeply. You know, there's a name that is probably familiar to many of you, and it's the name Vince Lombardi. Vince Lombardi was the head football coach of the Green Bay Packers, I think, for about 12 years. In the 1960s, Lombardi led the Packers to win five championships, including the first two Super Bowls. Lombardi passed away a long time ago as a result of colon cancer, but before he passed away, Lombardi was in an interview. And they asked Lombardi, what are the essential ingredients to a Super Bowl team? Why did your team win and all the other teams did not? And Lombardi said three things. He said, number one, if you want to be a winning team, you've got to teach and reteach the fundamentals. Doesn't matter if you're eight years old in a recreation league or if you're 28 years old in the NFL, you've got to teach and reteach the fundamentals. You better block and tackle. Number two, you've got to hold the team accountable to the fundamentals. And you've got to have some discipline to get people back on track. But Lombardi said, number three, the team has got to love one another when the helmets come off. There's a lot of football teams, Lombardi said, that teach and reteach the fundamentals and have some accountability and discipline, but they fail to love one another, and therefore they fail to win. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure Jesus came up with these ideas before Vince Lombardi. But Lombardi's words sound a lot like the words of Jesus. Lombardi's formula for a winning football team sounds a lot like Christ's formula for a healthy and growing church. If you want the family of God to function well, if you want the family of God to grow, then you've got to teach and reteach the fundamentals. Bible study, worship, prayer, evangelism. You've got to hold people accountable to the fundamentals. But most importantly of all, we've got to love one another. We've got to love one another earnestly if we're going to win, if we're going to be healthy, if we're going to grow. That's the formula for a winning football team, but more importantly, it's the formula for a healthy and growing family of God. In John chapter 13, verses 34 through 35, Jesus himself gives the command: love one another. But Jesus goes on in John 13, 35 to say, It's by your love for one another that the world will be interested in me, interested in Jesus. You see, our greatest evangelistic tool is certainly our words. It's impossible to share the gospel with someone without using words. But a very close second, in terms of our greatest evangelistic tool in this world, is our love for one another. The way that you love the person to your left and the person to your right sends a very strong and clear message to the watching world. Now it's interesting what Jesus says in John chapter 13, verse 35. It's not our love for the world that sends a strong message to the world about Jesus. It's not our love for maybe in the video we just watched a minute ago about Malaysia. It's not our love for the Hindu or the Buddhist or the Muslim that sends a strong message to the watching world, although we should love those people with a neighborly love. The strong message we send to the world is the way that we love one another. The way that we love the other people in this room, the world is watching. As Oxford campus, the way that we love the people at our three campuses, as First Baptist Church Leesburg, the way that we love other Baptist churches in the community, as a denomination, the way that we love other Bible-believing evangelical denominations. The world is watching. The way that Christians love one another, it sends a message to a lost and dying world about whether or not Jesus is worth it. What message are you sending? John 13, 35. The last thing I'll say about love, and we gotta move on. We got six more verses, guys. Last thing I'll say about love is the world has this idea of love that if you truly love someone, you'll do your very best to avoid upsetting them. That's a terrible view of love, though, and here's why. I told you I've got three kids, they're four, three, and two. I love to, uh I love to grill on the back porch. I've got a black stone, someone gave me a black stone. Imagine if my two-year-old, no one's ever done this, but he's probably the most likely. Imagine if my two-year-old just starts running toward the grill with his hand outstretched because he's gonna slap his hand on top of the hot griddle. As his dad, I'm gonna raise my voice and tell him to back off. I'm going to upset my son momentarily for the betterment of his long-term well-being. That's true love. Well, brothers and sisters, perhaps the person to your left or the person to your right is running toward the grill right now with their hand outstretched. And the Lord is calling you to momentarily upset them for the betterment of their long-term well-being. The Lord is calling you to momentarily upset them by calling out the sin in their life so that they can fix it and put it away for good. True love doesn't mean avoiding upsetting at someone at all costs. True love calls out sin. True love is sacrificial. And if the family of God is going to function well, if the family of God is going to grow at Oxford campus, then we have to love one another earnestly and fervently and deeply. Hey, church, number two on your notes is this. Number two, taking God's word seriously. Functioning well in God's family, it requires taking his word seriously. Hey, look with me in verses 23 through 25 of our passage today. Peter tells us that having been born again, not through a perishable seed, but through an imperishable seed, namely the living and abiding word of God. That word it never fades, it never fails, it endures forever. We should take God's word seriously. Peter begins verse 23 of chapter 1 by saying, You were born again. This is the second time that Peter has mentioned this concept of regeneration and rebirth. The first time he mentions it is in verse 3 of chapter 1. And now here we are again. He's mentioning our rebirth again in verse 23 of chapter 1. You were born again. It was Ronald Reagan who popularized the somewhat redundant term, a born-again Christian. If you're a Christian, you're born again. You don't need to qualify that, but it was neither original to Reagan nor to Peter, this idea of regeneration and rebirth. It was original to Jesus. In John chapter 3, Jesus is having a late-night discussion with the rabbi Nicodemus. Nicodemus, he's not a Christian yet. I do believe later in the Gospel of John, Nicodemus places his faith in Jesus. But in John chapter 3, he's on the outside looking in, and he's asking Jesus some questions. And in John 3, verse 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, if you want to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. And that's true of you today as well. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, but you want to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. Now, this concept of regeneration and rebirth, it is essential to our Christian faith for many reasons, but I'll give you a couple examples. Sometimes you may hear someone in the world say, I can't help it. I was just born this way. Well, maybe you were, maybe you weren't. I don't know. But I'll tell you what, if you believe in Jesus, you can be born again. You can be made a new creation. How about that? Regeneration and rebirth, it also has a lot to do with our eternity. As one preacher puts it, check this out. Born once, die twice. Born twice, die once. Regeneration and rebirth, it has a lot to do with your evangelism and your eternity and everything we do as Christians. First Peter 1 23, you've been born again. You were born again not by perishable seed, but by imperishable seed this time. This is the second time that Peter uses the word imperishable. The first time he uses it is in verse 5. He talks about our inheritance being imperishable. There's an inheritance awaiting us in heaven that is imperishable, but an imperishable inheritance is awaiting us because here on earth we were born again by an imperishable seed. Namely the living and abiding word of God. Verse 23. Church, we know this book is not expired. It's not old, it's not dead. This book is living and abiding. This book is living and active. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 says that the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Bible is a living and active two-edged sword. It's two-edged, it cuts when it goes in and it heals when it comes out. It's a living and abiding, a living and active book. And that's the means by which you were born again. You were not born again by some sort of flashy program or quick fix or overnight success. You were born again by the living and active word of God. Now remember, the Holy Spirit had us in mind when Peter wrote this book, but Peter's original audience was a Jewish audience, and so he quotes the Old Testament quite often. And he does that here in verses 24 and 25. He quotes from Isaiah chapter 40, verses 6 through 8, where Isaiah tells us, and Peter reiterates, that the grass may wither, and the flower may fade, but you know what? The word of God will endure forever. Peter closes out this passage and ultimately this chapter in verse 25 by saying, And this is the word I preached to you. Now, very quickly, in the in the English, you may overlook a quick change that Peter just made. He uses some different Greek words for the English word, word. Follow me. In verses 23, in the beginning of verse 25, Peter says, You were born again through the living and abiding word, the Lagos. In the beginning of verse 25, Peter says, the word, the Lagos, endures forever. And then at the end of verse 25, he says, This is the word, the Rhema, that I preached to you. The Lagos refers to the entirety of the scriptures, all sixty-six books of God's inspired, inerrant word. Remah is simply an utterance, a speech, or a sermon. And in verse 25, Peter is saying, Every time I preached to you, my words were worded in God's word. And Peter's saying, Anytime that my words are not rooted in God's word, I'm just blowing hot air. In 1 Peter 1 25, it's also true of this pulpit, church. Anyone, myself included, who stands in this pulpit and whose words are not rooted in the word of God, we're doing nothing more than just filling this sanctuary with hot air. Our words must always be rooted in the word of God. Our Rhema should be rooted in the Lagos every single time. And if we want to function well in this family, if we want this family of God to grow, then we have to take God's word seriously. It's not flashy, but it's God's ordained means for growing his family. In uh the year 1984, there was a movie that came out. Called the Karate Kid, okay? I'm assuming most of you have seen the Karate Kid. You could think about Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid or Daniel LaRusso in the Karate Kid, played by Pete Macchio. So LaRusso moves to California. If you haven't seen the movie, LaRusso moves to California and he starts getting bullied by these kids who know karate. And then Daniel, he gets introduced to Mr. Miyagi, who's going to train him in karate so that Daniel can fight back. And LaRusso, he wants these, he wants these quick fixes and these flashy skills and this overnight success. But when he shows up to train with Mr. Miyagi, you know what he says? Mr. Miyagi says, wax the car, sand the floor, paint the fence. And then he comes back the next day and he says, wax the car, sand the floor, paint the fence. You know, I think uh Mr. Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso, they're not perfect characters in the movie, and the actors who play them are not perfect actors in real life. But I think if we were to call out to God about this campus and about this church and call out to God for growth in this family of God, we might be asking him for flashy programs and quick fixes and overnight success, but God is going to answer back to us and say, show up on Sunday, wax the car, sand the floor, and paint the fence. 1 Peter 1:23, you were not saved and born again through flashy programs, quick fixes and overnight success. You were born again through the living and abiding word of God. It's not flashy, but man, is it powerful. And if we're going to grow this family of God, if this family of God is gonna function well, then we've got to show up every Sunday to wax and sand and paint, and then show up next Sunday and do it again. Wax and sand and paint. Those are God's ordained, ordinary means for a growing, well-functioning family. And so let's show up next Sunday and let's wax and sand and paint. Take God's word seriously. Well, Oxford Campus, let's keep moving in our notes here. Number three in your notes is this. Number three, putting sin away constantly. If you want to function well in God's family, then you must be putting sin away constantly. Look with me in chapter two now, in verse one. Peter says, put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. That word put away, it's really a word in a phrase that refers to clothing. Peter is saying that spiritually speaking, we should strip off our old and dirty clothes of sin, our sinful, dirty rags. We should strip them off. That's a good image because throughout the scriptures, the Bible uses this imagery of clothing to talk about our righteousness. I think of Isaiah chapter 61, verse 10, where Isaiah tells us that if we are in Christ, then we've been clothed with a robe of righteousness. Or I think about that old classic hymn: dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. And so here in verse 1 of chapter 2, Peter is saying, You've been clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. So spend the rest of your days stripping off those old dirty clothes of sin. Put them away and put them away for good. Peter uses this word all three times here in verse 1 of chapter 2. Put away all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. You know, last week Pastor Jackson told us that the Hebrew word for all, it means all. And so I went ahead and looked up for you the Greek word for all, and guess what? It means all. There's really no escaping. The comprehensive, exhaustive nature of verse 1 in chapter 2. You can't put away some of your sin or most of your sin and be okay. You've got to put away all your sin. Now Peter gives us five sins here in verse 1. These are certainly not all of them, but perhaps these are some sins that the church he wrote to was struggling with at the time. Peter begins his list with the sin of malice. It's interesting because that's probably the heart posture that leads to the other four sins on the list, isn't it? There's a difference between doing something accidentally and doing something maliciously. Let me think about this with me. If I were walking through the lobby this morning and I accidentally bumped into somebody and spilled a little bit of their coffee and then turned around and said, I'm so sorry, and helped them clean it up. That's very different from me walking through the lobby, seeing one of you, targeting you, bumping into you, knocking over all your coffee, and saying, take that and storming off. That would be malicious. You know, in the family of God, in the church of God, we have a lot of grace for accidents. We have no grace for malice. Malice should be identified quickly and rooted out and put away quickly. Peter goes on to say, you should also put away deceit. Deceit is a very specific kind of dishonesty. Providing to someone misinformation, intentionally trying to mislead them and misguide them to harm. The original Greek word here, it's really with reference to fishing. I love fishing. I went bass fishing a couple weeks ago. Peter was a fisherman. And this word deceit is really with regard to fishing. When you take a bait and put it on a hook, you're deceiving the fish. So that you can hook them and reel them into the boat. Don't deceive your brothers and sisters. Put away all hypocrisy. We said back in chapter 1, verse 22 that we talk some more about hypocrisy. Well, here we are in chapter 2, verse 1. I think we have a poor understanding of hypocrisy. We think about hypocrisy as a static state. In other words, some of us are hypocrites and we'll always be hypocrites, and some of us are not hypocrites and we'll never be hypocrites. That's not the case. Instead, hypocrisy is a posture, a heart posture, a sinful heart posture that all of us are prone to. And you have moments and seasons of hypocrisy, I have moments and seasons of hypocrisy, and when we see them, we should root them out and put them away quickly. This is why, whenever someone who's unchurched says to me, I can't go to church. The church is full of hypocrites. I can say to them with a straight face, You're right. Oxford campus is full of hypocrites, and sometimes I'm one of them. Because our hearts, brothers and sisters, are prone to hypocrisy. But when we see hypocrisy in our lives, we should root it out and put it away quickly. Peter goes on to say, put away all envy. Envy is different from jealousy. Envy is saying, I want what you have. Jealousy is saying, I don't want you to have what I have. They're two different things, but Peter specifically is addressing envy here in chapter 2, verse 1. And lastly, he says, put away all slander. Slander is different from gossip. Gossip is when you unnecessarily spread something true about someone to people that don't need to know. You know what? If you're not part of the problem and you're not part of the solution, you shouldn't be part of the conversation. That's how gossip works. Slander is intentionally telling a lie about someone looking to tear them down. So gossip and slander, they're both sinful, but gossip leverages truth for harm. Slander is a lie from start to finish. And Peter says, put it all away. All the malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, just put it all away. Put sin away constantly if you want a healthy, functioning family of God. You know, a couple weeks ago, we uh redid the landscaping in front of our house. It took me uh a couple weekends to get some trees and some stumps out and some overgrown bushes and the root systems and all the old mulch. Uh that was the hardest part. And then we we put in new soil and weed barrier and 17 bags of mulch and a dozen new plants. And I'll tell you what, church, it's not perfect, okay? But it's it looks 10 times better than it did, and it was a fraction of the cost, so just do it ourselves, okay? But here's the thing. Now we walk outside multiple times a day, and every time we go outside, uh, Hannah will glance over at our front landscaping, and if she notices even just the smallest weed poking through, she'll walk over there and pluck it out and toss it in the grass. And our hearts are kind of like that flower bed. When we became Christians, we we cleared it out. We're righteous before God. Your salvation is yours, and it's yours forever. But between now and the day you step foot into heaven, there's gonna be little weeds popping up in your heart. There's gonna be sin popping up in your heart. And something that's true about weeds that's also true about sin, weeds are way easier to pull when they're small. But if you leave weeds alone and let them go, they'll grow, they'll multiply, they'll harm the good plants, and they'll grow some roots and be really hard to pull out. But if you pluck sin out early, then sin won't have a chance to multiply. Sin won't have a chance to harm the fruit of the Spirit in your heart, and it won't have roots, it'll be easier to pluck. Put away sin constantly, put it away daily, root out sin and put it away as soon as you see it starting to sprout up in your heart. If we want the family of God here to function well, if we want the family of God here to grow, then it must be filled with members who are constantly putting away sin. Hey, church, number four on your notes is this number four, craving God's word personally. Functioning well in God's family, well, it requires craving God's word personally. Look with me in verses two and three of First Peter chapter two. Peter says, like a newborn infant, long for the pure spiritual milk, and by it you shall grow up in your salvation, if indeed you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Peter in verse two, he refers to us as newborn infants. Now that word infant in in the Greek, it's it's a word brefeh. And that word is specifically referring to nursing babies. So there are different words for babies that have been weaned or toddlers or small children, but the word that Peter uses here, brefe, is specifically referring to nursing infants, nursing babies. And it's most commonly used for very young babies, babies that are weeks old. And so, knowing that, it's kind of funny that Peter would say, a newborn brefeh. It's almost redundant in 1 Peter 2, 2, you should act like a newborn newborn. But what Peter's really saying is you shouldn't just act like a baby that's a couple weeks old. You should act like a baby that's a couple minutes old. Like a baby that just came out of the womb, just took his first breath, is is crying profusely for its first drink of its mother's milk. Moms, there's nothing like that moment in the world, is there? I've seen that moment between uh Hannah and our three kids three times. There's nothing like it on the face of the planet. But Peter is saying we should act like that, like a newborn, newborn, like a baby that's just minutes old. Well, how are we supposed to imitate a newborn newborn? Peter goes on to say, imitate that baby by longing for the pure spiritual milk. Now it's important to know here in verse 2 that Peter's emphasis is not on the milk, but is on the longing. And that's really important because elsewhere in the scriptures, we are told to grow up and no longer need someone to feed us milk, but to cook for ourselves a steak dinner of God's word. We are supposed to move from bottle feeders to self-feeders in our spiritual maturity. And so what Peter's not doing in verse 2 is telling us to regress in our spiritual progress and act like spiritual infants again. That's not what he's saying. The emphasis is not on the milk, the emphasis is on the longing. Peter is saying, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey, no matter how mature you are in your spirituality, never lose that longing, that desire, that craving for God's word that you had minutes after you were reborn. You may grow up and eat and consume other forms of God's word as you mature, but never lose that craving that you had when you were first born again. That craving just like a newborn, newborn. Peter goes on to say that by it you will grow up in spiritual maturity. The it, again, is referring to the desire, not to the spiritual milk. And that seems a bit odd. Why would Peter say that the desire for God's word is going to cause us to grow rather than saying God's word is gonna cause us to grow? Well, here's the thing, brothers and sisters: God's word, the Bible, in your life, it's powerless and useless if it just sits on the shelf collecting dust. You have to crave the word of God. You've got to open it every day and consume it if it's gonna do something in your life. It's not just the word of God that's gonna cause you to grow, it's your craving for the word of God that's gonna cause you to grow. 1 Peter 2, too. Peter goes on in verse 3 to finish our passage today, to quote from the Old Testament. Now you may not recognize it as an Old Testament quote because it doesn't have quotation marks around it in the English, but remember, Peter's original audience of Jewish converts would definitely recognize 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 3, as quoting Psalm 34, verse 8. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Peter says here in verse 3, if you have indeed done Psalm 34, 8, if you have indeed tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then you are capable of cultivating and maintaining a craving for God's word. Now, whether you do or not is up to you, but you are capable of it if you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. If you want to function well in God's family, and ultimately, if we want God's family at Oxford Campus to grow, then it has to be filled with members who have a personal craving for the Word of God.