Now let's turn back there to
2 Peter 1. In the passage I read to you
in 2 Peter 1-4, and then in the passage Brother Ravi read in
1 Peter, there's one word that occurred multiple times in those
verses. That word is going to be the
title for our message, and that word is precious. precious. When scripture speaks about something
being precious, it means that it's more valuable than anything
in this world. It can't be compared to anything
in this world for value. It's rare. It's rare. The more rare, the more precious. The Spirit of God declares there
are some things that are precious to the sinner who God saves.
There are some things that are precious to the sinner God saves.
They are more valuable than anything in this world. They are valuable
to us because they are extremely rare. Very few sinners have these
precious things. They are rare, rare, rare things.
And they are precious to the believer in proportion to how
undeserving we see ourselves. The more undeserving we see ourselves,
the more precious these things will be to us. The more sinful
we see ourselves, the more undeserving we see ourselves. And the more
undeserving we see ourselves, the more precious these things
will be to us. So that it makes us, it constrains
us to not let anything come between us and these things. because
we have to have these precious things. We have to have them.
Now I'm not going to give these in any particular order, but
I have three things that believers are given by God that are precious
to the believer. The first thing is faith. First
thing is faith. Peter writes, Simon Peter, verse
1, 2 Peter 1.1, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus
Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Faith is
precious to God's child because it is so very rare. It is a rare
thing to find someone who has true faith. Very, very few people
in this world, very few, are given faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our Lord Jesus said that. He
said, wide is the gate, broad is the way, and many there be
that go in thereof. And He said, but straight is
the gate, narrow is the way, and there's few, very few that
find it. Very few. Many claim to believe
on Christ. Many make a profession of faith
in Christ, but when you ask them who he is, what he accomplished,
where he is now, why he did what he did, what he's doing now,
What He shall do? When you ask these things, you
find out very few believe the true Christ. Very few believe
the true Christ. Many profess to believe on Him,
but they speak of salvation in the past tense. You talk to somebody
and ask, do they believe on the Lord? And they'll say something
to the effect of, yeah, I got saved so and so many years ago. I got saved back in 2010. and they'll say things like,
I believed on Christ, and they'll refer back to when they walked
an aisle, or when they prayed through, or when they were baptized,
or when they did something whereby they made a profession. It's
always in the past tense. Now there is a sense in which
Christ saved us in the past tense. We saw that Sunday in Colossians
112, we give thanks to the Father which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints and light. Past
tense, he hath done that. He hath delivered us from the
power of darkness. He hath translated us in the
kingdom of his dear son. In Christ we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. There is a sense in
which God's people are saved in the past tense. But from our
viewpoint, scripture speaks of faith as continual. It speaks
of faith as believers continually coming to Christ, continually
being saved by Christ. Scripture that Brother Ravi read
in 1 Peter, Peter said, to whom coming as unto a living stone,
we never stop coming to Christ. Luke 9.23, he said to them all,
if any man will come after me, Let him deny himself and take
up his cross daily and follow me. Daily. We're made partakers
of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast until
the end. Now scripture speaks about many
who began in the faith, or appeared to begin in the faith, but then
they proved they never really were called by the Lord, never
really were called by the Spirit of God. You've got Simon Magus. You've got Ananias and Sapphira.
You've got Demas. You've got Hymenaeus and Alexander
the Coppersmith. You've got many, many more in
Scripture. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Do you believe Jesus Christ is
the Son of God? Do you believe, or has God made
Him to you in wisdom, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Do you believe God when he says
in his word that you are complete in Christ? Do you believe that
he will keep you and already in Christ but Christ abiding
in you? He's made you meet fit right
now to enter into God's holy presence. And do you believe
that he's going to help you, keep you continuing steadfast
to the end, trusting him, and you're entirely trusting him
to do so? Or you believe in him today to
save you? As Paul said, we believe he delivered
us from so great a death, and doth deliver, and we believe
that he shall yet deliver us. It's what faith, faith trusting
him, trusting everything into his hand. Now, if you do, if
you do trust Christ, how did you obtain this thing that Peter
calls like precious faith? How'd you obtain it? He said
it's obtained. You obtained like precious faith. Well, everybody that's been given
true faith will tell you, we did not obtain this faith by
our merit. We didn't merit this. We didn't
obtain it by our works. We didn't obtain it by our decision
for Christ. We obtained it the same way we
obtained grace and mercy from God. It was given freely to us
as a gift of God. That's how we obtained it. That's
what true faith's gonna confess. On one occasion, the Lord Jesus
asked Peter, he said, who do men say that I am? Who do men
say that I, the Son of Man am? And Peter answered, he said,
some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elias, others
you're Jeremiah, others are one of the prophets. There's few
that believe on Christ. He said, there's a lot of talk
going around and people say this and that and the other thing.
Then the Lord asked him this, who do you say that I am? Who
do you say that I am? It doesn't matter what other
men say, who do you say that I am? And Peter answered and
he said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And
this is what the Lord Jesus said to him. How did you obtain this
like precious faith? This is what the Lord Jesus said
to him. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas, for flesh and blood
didn't reveal this to you, but my Father, which is in heaven.
That's how you obtain this faith. Christ was revealed in you by
the Spirit of God. By grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should bow. And brethren, faith is precious. Faith is absolutely precious. Peter said that God-given faith
is more precious than gold that perishes. He said that in 1 Peter
1, 7. He said faith is more precious
than gold that perishes. If somebody gave you an offer
and they said, I'll give you this huge astounding amount of
gold, But you've got to stop believing
on Christ. You've got to forsake the gospel.
You've got to forsake your brethren. You've got to forsake Christ.
Is Christ more precious to you than that gold? Faith in the
Lord Jesus is more precious than gold. Faith is given to only a very
small remnant at any given point in time. You read these scriptures
and it talks about God saving a remnant. And time and again
throughout the scriptures, in different times in the history
of this world, you find men saying, if God had not been gracious
to us, and reserved a very small remnant, we'd have been like
Sodom and Gomorrah. He saves remnants. He saves a
very small remnant. That's why faith is a precious,
precious thing. If you've obtained faith to look
to Christ alone and trust Christ alone, then just like the Lord
told Peter, you're blessed. Flesh and blood did not reveal
it to you. God the Father revealed Christ
to you. You're blessed of God if you have this precious faith.
And God's people know this. You know how precious faith is. It's a precious thing to have
faith in the Lord Jesus. And secondly, faith is precious
because of its object. Go with me now to, well, read
there in 2 Peter 1, and I want you to see, here's how we obtained
it. And here's the object of our
faith. This is how we obtain faith, and this is the object
of faith. Look there, he said, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior, Jesus Christ. That's how we obtained it, through
the righteousness of God our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Go over with me to 1 Peter 1, and look at verse 18. 1 Peter 1, 18. For as much as you know, that
you were not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold from
your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you, who by him do believe in God. that raised him
up from the dead, that gave him glory, that your faith and hope
might be in God." Now did you see there? Faith is through Christ
and faith is to Christ. Faith is precious because it's
given us through the righteousness of Christ. That's what Peter
said in 2 Peter. This faith was given us through
the righteousness of God our Savior. Now, what does that mean?
Well, God the Father elected a people in Christ and Christ
came forth and redeemed us and made us the righteousness of
God in Him. That's why God gave you faith. He gave you faith through the
righteousness of Christ because Christ redeemed you. That's what
Paul said over there in Titus chapter 3. He says it's not by
works of righteousness we've done, but by the Holy Spirit. He washed us in regeneration,
and He did it through the righteousness of Christ, because Christ has
made us righteous. He made us heirs of God by His
shed blood, so that it was the just and right thing for God
to do, to give you faith. It was the only just and right
thing to do, because Christ put your sin away. And then when
He's given you this faith, the blood of Christ becomes precious.
Because you see, the only reason you have faith is because the
blood of Christ redeemed you and made you righteous, and that's
why God gave you faith. This is what is so disrespectful
when men talk about believing by their will and by their decision
for Christ, because there's no preciousness there in their heart
for the blood of Christ. What we're preaching is this
thing was done by God choosing us, by Christ redeeming us, and
therefore God gave you faith. The Spirit of God regenerated
you and gave you faith. And that's why you see His blood
as precious. Because you were given life because
of His precious blood. You were given faith because
of His precious blood. You don't hear that in men who
claim to have come to God by their own will and their own
works. They're boasting in themselves. His blood's not precious. But the Lord Jesus, when He gives
you faith, Christ's blood becomes precious because Christ becomes
your righteousness. You see, the only way you've
been made righteous is by the Lord Jesus. And His blood becomes
precious to you. It's through Christ and it's
to Christ. It's through Christ that we're
given this faith by His righteousness, and when we're given the faith,
it's to rest in His righteousness. Therefore, to you who believe,
Christ's blood is precious. Why is His blood precious to
you? Well, the wages of sin is death. And we all sin. That means we're going to have
to die under the justice of God. Everybody, there is not a person,
not a child born of Adam that is going to escape being executed
under the justice and wrath of God because of their sin. Not
a one. Because God's holy and just.
Not a one. Well, life is in the blood. There's
no remission, no remitting our sins except through the blood.
Without death, there's no remission of sin. And Christ, who knew
no sin, this is why his blood's precious. Christ, who knew no
sin, willingly, the spotless Lamb of God, willingly gave himself
to be made sin for us. that God might be just to pour
out wrath on him. God will not condemn one who
sins not upon him. And so he willingly bore our
sin that God might be just to make him a curse and pour out
wrath on him that God might be just in justifying all his elect. Now in Christ we're made the
righteousness of God because he took our place. Only Christ
made truth and mercy meet in harmony. A man can't do that.
Only Christ made truth and mercy meet in harmony. Only Christ
made justice and mercy meet together and kiss. Only the Lord Jesus
could do that. Righteousness is through Christ's
blood. That's the message of the entire
book. You know, people will say, why do you preach the blood of
Christ? Why do you preach this same thing every time you preach?
This is the message. Redemption by the blood of Christ. Righteousness through the blood
and merit of Christ. This is the message. This is
why God made the world. This is why God gave all the
Old Testament law and sacrifices. This is why God ordered and directed
men's lives to show pictures of this throughout men's lives,
throughout history. This is why He directed whole
countries. 200 years before it happened,
God told Israel, you're going to go into bondage. And he said,
and then I'm going to raise up a man that don't even know me. And I'm going to call him and
he's going to come from a far country and he's going to redeem
you out of bondage. Speaking of Cyrus. And he said,
this man won't even know me. He won't even know what I'm doing.
But he did it all to picture the Lord Jesus Christ who came
from a far country, redeemed his people through his precious
blood. God has moved whole nations. and did things with whole nations
to give us pictures and shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ that
we might see Christ's glory. That's why we preach this. It's
the message of the whole book. God told Moses, when those serpents
were biting the children of Israel, God told Moses, you make a brass
serpent, you make the very thing that's killing them and lift
it up on a pole. And he told the children of Israel,
Don't you try to do anything to save yourselves from these
serpents. You just look to that brass serpent. Well, Christ Jesus
came into this world made of a woman, made under the law,
just like the brethren he came to save because sin was killing
us. And so he went to the cross and
was made sin for us and lifted up on that pole. And the message
of this book is, don't you try to save yourself. You look to
Christ and you trust him to save you. That's the message of the
book. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Christ
said, even so shall the son of man be lifted up that whosoever
believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. He
said, look unto me and be ye saved. Does that just mean way
back yonder? That's the deal. We're going
to talk about faith in the past tense. Well, I did that back
yonder when I made a profession. That means today, look to Christ
and you'll be saved. Sarah, you need to be saved from
that broke leg you got. Look to Christ. He'll get you
through that. I'm serious. I'm that serious.
Everything you have a problem with in your life, you look to
Christ and trust Christ and he'll save you. God-given faith is the look whereby
we believe unto righteousness. This is why it's called like
precious faith. It might be great faith in some
and small faith in others, but here's what makes it like precious
faith. Each sinner God chose that Christ
redeemed are given faith through Christ's righteousness. That's
the same in every one of God's people. And the same Holy Spirit
gives it, and each believer is given faith in the same object,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what do we all alike confess? You know what we're confessing
by faith? If we really believe Christ, what we're confessing
is we do not have a righteousness and we cannot produce a righteousness. We cannot make ourselves accepted
of God. We cannot do it. I'm so tired
of this new phrase that everybody's using, that's unacceptable. You
know how proud and arrogant it is for one unacceptable sinner
to say to another sinner, that's unacceptable. None of us are accepted before
God if it was left to us. By faith, we confess we're grass. We are only sinners, and all
we can produce is sin. That's saying, I can't produce
a righteousness. Why? Because sin's mixed with
everything I try to do. We're saved entirely by the Lord
Jesus Christ, our righteousness apart from any merit or works
in us. That's why we preach so much on the blood. because his
blood's precious to us. I preach it because his blood's
precious to me. He's my righteousness. He's my
light. And to you that I'm declaring
this to who have light, precious faith, his blood's precious to
you. It's what we want to hear. This is our gospel. This is our
life. It's Christ's blood that cleanseth us from all sin. He
entered into God's presence with his own blood. Our conscience
is purged by God sprinkling the blood of Christ and continues
to be purged by the Spirit sprinkling the blood of Christ, pointing
us to Christ, showing us that he's our righteousness. His blood
is continually cleansing us from all sin. And what did God say?
He said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Christ gave
us his table. Why? To remember his blood. He
said this is the New Testament. The wine represents the New Testament,
the covenant of grace written in my blood by me laying down
my life for you. Oh, we love the blood. When you're
in the world and you meet professing believers who don't want to hear
of Christ's blood, then you know they don't have the light, precious
faith that Peter's talking about. Because those that have it, they
know that that faith they have is precious and they know Christ's
blood is precious. Be sure to understand this now.
Now here's where we get to the point of the message. It's through
the preaching of the gospel. of Christ's blood and Christ's
righteousness that we were quickened by the Spirit, by God's divine
power, and given faith in the Lord Jesus through this gospel
message of Christ and Him crucified. It's how we were given this gospel,
given this faith, and all things that pertain to life and godliness.
And it's how He's going to grow us. It's how we were given faith
in Christ. It's how we were given love for
one another. and love for Christ, and it's
how we were purified, given a pure heart within, as Peter said there
in 1 Peter, the rest of that chapter in chapter 1. So this
is how he's going to grow us. He did this by the incorruptible
seed through the gospel that's preached to you. And so when
you have this precious faith, and you made to see this precious
blood, and it was given you through the preaching of Christ and Him
crucified, then the gospel becomes precious to you. And so, we're
going to be continually, we're taught to put off everything
and put it away to be at peace with one another so we can have
this gospel so that we can grow by the Spirit of God. Look here
now, 1 Peter 1.23. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. And you, this is, this is the
life, brethren, because all flesh is grass. All the glory of man
is the flower of grass. The grass withereth, the flower
thereof falleth away. Our flesh is dying every day.
Nothing good in the flesh. The flesh profits nothing, Christ
said. And usually when we have problems,
this is what we're trying to protect, is our flesh. And it's
fading, it's perishing. The grass wither, the flower
thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever,
and this is the word which by the gospel is preached to you.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies,
and envies, and all evil speakings, And that right there, brethren,
is something we're going to be doing all the rest of our days
as sanctified, holy children of God. Because we have a sin
nature, that's not something you do and you get that over
with either. That's something you're going to be doing the
rest of your days, is laying aside all malice and guile and
hypocrisies and envies and evil speakings. Why? Why do you do this? because as
newborn babes you desire the sincere milk of the word that
you may grow thereby, if so be you've tasted the Lord is gracious."
Now, if this faith is so precious that I wouldn't trade gold for
it, if the blood of Christ is so precious I wouldn't trade
gold for it. And am I going to trade my flesh
for it? And am I going to insist on my
way and trade having my way for it? Or am I going to put it all
aside and forgive and be at peace with my brethren and say, we
got to all put this away and look to Christ because we need
to grow by this gospel. This gospel is more important
than anything else we have. At some point, that's what we
have to do. And here's what he said, to whom
coming. We are coming to Christ. He is
saving through this means. This is the only means by which
He saves is the Gospel. And we are coming to Christ and
He is drawing you to Him just like He drew you the first hour
through this Gospel. He is drawing you tonight through
this Gospel. And He is going to keep drawing
His people to Him through the preaching of this Word until
He draws us into His holy presence. To whom coming as unto a living
stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Precious to God. He's precious
to God. You also, as living stones, are
built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. That's where
you need to be worried about this thing of being acceptable.
Am I acceptable to God? Is what I'm doing acceptable
to God? There's only one way it is. That's through faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that's accepted.
If we're going to be acceptable to God, it's got to be in Christ. But we are and all our sacrifices
are in Christ. Wherefore also is contained in
Scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone elect precious
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto
you there which believe he is precious. When you have precious faith
and you have His blood is precious, and He Himself is precious to
you, brethren. You ready to sing from the heart
what we just sang in that first song? Take the world, but give
me Jesus. Nothing is worth parting over
and missing out on Him. Nothing. We're going to have
to be laying aside the sins of this flesh all our days, but
we're made willing to do so that we might have the gospel, that
we might grow thereby because of this light, precious faith,
this precious blood, because He is precious. In proportion,
as we see our personal sinfulness and our undeservedness of all
of this grace, That's how much we're going to value Christ and
this gospel and these gifts he's given us. And in proportion as
we see how fully Christ has met all of our needs through the
preaching of the gospel, that's how valuable the preaching of
the gospel is going to be to us too. Has he met your needs
through the preaching of the gospel? He's met every need I
have through the preaching of his word. Every need I have. And he's done that for you too
if you have precious faith. And in proportion as you see
that, that's how you're going to see how valuable the preaching
of this word is. God's so, He's so wise to save
through this means. This is how He knits our hearts
together in love because we got to have the gospel. We got to
have Christ. And this is how He's growing
us to see it more and more. And it's just amazing that He
would put us together and work this in us and keep us together
and keep showing you and me what He's doing and how He's saving
and keeping us and growing us thereby. That's just amazing
wisdom. You go home and read Ephesians
4 and you see how that this is a precious gift of God to give
you preachers and to give you the gospel and to put you in
a body with believers and to knit you together. And just like
we saw Sunday, He's the head from whom all the nourishment
is ministered. It's Christ doing it. I don't
have any power to nourish anything to you. I couldn't even get this
message without Him giving it to me. I can't preach it without
Him giving me the strength to preach it. But I can't make it
go into your heart. He's got to do that. It's all
from Him. It's all from Him. And in proportion
as we see Him meet our need, that's how valuable this faith
and His precious blood, yea, Him, will be to us and this Gospel. So nothing will be more valuable
to you than this. Now lastly, go with me back over
there to 2 Peter 1. God's promises to us are precious. God's promises are precious.
He said there, you've obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And
to you that have, he says, grace and peace be multiplied unto
you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. That's how grace and peace are
going to be multiplied to you. That's how you're going to be
grown in grace and in peace. It's going to be through the
knowledge of God and learning more of Jesus our Lord. Now look
what he says, according as his divine power hath given to us
all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge
of him that called us to glory and virtue. What's he saying
there? He's saying you'll be grown the same way you started.
You'll be grown by the same power through the same gospel just
like you started by him giving you faith and calling you through
this gospel. It was his divine power that
did it. He did it through the knowledge of him that called
you. And whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious
promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature
having escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust.
God promises here through Peter, he's promising to grow his children
in grace and grow us in peace the same way he gave us life
and faith to begin with, by his divine power, through the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, through the preaching
of this word. And we have these exceeding great and precious
promises. By these promises, by this gospel, He came and created
in you a new nature. Christ was formed in you and
made you a partaker of the divine nature. That doesn't mean you
became God. That doesn't mean you became
little gods. That doesn't mean anything like what it means is
you have a new holy nature where Christ abides in spirit so that
you have a fellowship with Christ Jesus, the Lord, and that's unbreakable. It's never gonna be separated.
You're not gonna be separated from him. You're a partaker now
with the Lord Jesus in the new nature where you worship God.
And by that, you have escaped the corruption that's in the
world through lust. He's made you to escape your
own fleshly lust corruption. that has the whole world under
its power. And he's done it through the
preaching of the gospel, giving you a knowledge of Christ, calling
you to glory and virtue. That's why we value the gospel
so much. And we have, in this gospel,
he's given us, constantly given us exceeding great and precious
promises. And these promises are all yes
and amen in Christ. That's what makes them so precious
to us. And that's what makes Him even more precious to us. Everything's in Christ. Now what
are some of these exceeding great precious promises that are precious
to us? He promises us, brethren, there
is no more offering for sin. The Holy Ghost is a witness to
us that where remission of our sins is, due to Christ perfecting
us forever by His one offering, where the remission of our sins
is, there is no more offering for sin. That's a promise from
God. I will not remember their sins
and iniquities anymore. I won't remember them. We have
the promise that we're reconciled to God, and we've been sanctified,
and we're going to be kept holy, and we're going to be presented
holy to God by Christ. He said that in Colossians 121.
You that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled. He's brought you into friendship
with God. In the body of his flesh through death, to present
you holy, and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. If
you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, be not moved away
from the hope of the gospel, which you've heard, which was
preached to every creature which is under heaven, wherever I,
Paul, have made a minister." You see, it's going to be proven
you're his if you continue trusting Christ, if you continue under
the gospel of Christ, looking to Christ alone. And that's the
promise. He's gonna keep you sanctified,
keep you holy, keep you unblameable, and present you so to the Father. In Christ, we have the promise
that He'll keep us and raise us up at the last day. He said
in John 6, 54, whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. What
happens after that? We have the promise of eternal
inheritance. He said, if you're children,
then you're heirs. You're heirs of God. And John
heirs with Christ. I remember a boy that was close
to my age. He's a little older than me.
And his dad, I remember his dad had a giant home. And this boy
was my age and driving a Porsche. And I can remember everybody
talking about, oh, he's just going to look at what he's going
to inherit. And we all thought, man, that guy, that kid's set
for life. Look what he's going to inherit.
That's nothing. Child of God, you're a joint
heir with Christ. Everything, you're heir of God.
Everything is His. He's given it freely to you.
The sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that should be revealed in us. Our Savior promises,
we shall reign with Christ forever in eternity. He said in Revelation
3.21, to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in
my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father
in his throne. You see what he's saying, the
promise of it is, brethren, he shall save you from beginning
to end. Peter said, according as his
divine power started this work in you, So he gonna continue
this work in you. And these are what makes his
promises precious to us. Now, if you begin with giving
this faith, which is precious, such a rare thing, and Christ
and his blood have been made precious to you, precious to
you. And all these promises are precious
to you. and you know that it's all given
to you and it's grown through the preaching of the Gospel of
Christ and Him crucified, then throughout our life we're going to continue to lay
aside all our fleshly lusts and our fleshly differences because
we desire the sincere milk of the Word that we might grow thereby
like a little baby Remember Christ said, except you become as little
children. He said, in wisdom and understanding,
don't be children. We're going to grow. We're growing
beyond being children in wisdom and understanding. But Peter
said, put off malice and evil speaking and all these. He said,
and in those things, be children. Be children. That's why Peter
says, as newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the Word.
Put off that stuff and desire the sincere milk of the Word.
And that's what we're going to do if Christ and His blood and
His faith and all these promises is more precious to us than anything
in this world. He'll make you do that. He'll
make you do that. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.