Taste the Goodness of God
From Gospel Translations
(Created page with '{{info}}'''Audio Transcrip'''t Like newborn babies — so he’s picking up on “You just got born.” So 1 Peter 2:2–3, ''Like newborn babies, desire the pure milk'' — me...')
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By John Piper
About Sanctification & Growth
Part of the series Message Excerpt
Audio Transcript
Like newborn babies — so he’s picking up on “You just got born.” So 1 Peter 2:2–3, Like newborn babies, desire the pure milk — meaning the word, not distinguishing it from meat at all. That’s not what’s going on here.
This is just to get at: how do babies want the Bible? “Wah, wah, wah, wah.” “Drive me crazy. Shut up!” “No, feed him. Feed him.” That’s the point. These babies won’t shut up. They’re hungry.
So, like that, desire “the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.” And then, he adds this if-clause, which has always blown me away. Peter, why’d you add this next clause in 1 Peter 2:3? Earnestly desire the pure spiritual milk, which I think is the word, by which we were born again. So, you were conceived by the word; you’re going to grow by the word. Desire the word, that you may grow into salvation “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” — or the goodness, the kindness of the Lord. What do you mean “if”? What’s that?
What that means is: if you’ve never tasted in and through the word the precious kindness of the Lord to you, then you’re not going to come like this. You’re not going to come. I’m saying, “Come, come drink, come drink.” And if you haven’t tasted, you’ll come to church — friends at church, good reputation in the community. But you’re not coming to him. You’re not drinking. You’re not eating, because you’ve never tasted. This taste is everything. This is what the new birth gives you: a new taste.
Natural people don’t want to read their Bibles. Spiritual people with a new taste want to read their Bibles, because they love Christ — they love the kindness of the Lord. They get up in the morning and they need to feel the kindness of God. They can’t live without the kindness of Almighty God on them. It’s draining out like a leaky bucket, and so the Bible is the only place I can taste that he might be for me today. I have to be told again by an authority above me that he’s for me again today.
That’s the way spiritual people live: by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.
