2021 is almost here. And the change of the year, I think gets a lot of people thinking about various ways in which we would like to change our lives. That's why people make New Year's resolutions. A few years ago, I came across some research about New Year's resolutions. And I'll show you some statistics in a moment that show you how prevalent making New Year's resolutions is in our culture. This research said that 45% of Americans usually make New Year's resolutions. So more often than not, at the beginning of the year, 45% of Americans decide to change something in their lives. Another 17% of Americans sometimes make New Year's resolutions. Now, math is not my strong suit, but if my math is correct, and as I always say, it seldom is, if you add those two numbers together, that means that 62% of Americans occasionally make some kind of New Year's resolution. And again, math isn't my strong suit, but I think that means a majority of Americans, a majority of Americans from time to time, maybe not every year, but often make some kind of New Year's resolution. Why do we do that? It's because we want to change something about our lives. The reason people make New Year's resolutions is to change something about their lives. And that's because most people want to change their lives in one way or another. But here's the problem. Change is hard. And so, if we look at the same group that made the statistics I showed you earlier, we will see that New Year's resolutions are disappointing when it comes to actually affecting change in people's lives. Of the people who make New Year's resolutions, 39% of people in their 20s achieve those resolutions. When you're in your 20s, your life is changing a lot for many people. You might be finishing your education. You might be getting a new job. You might be getting married, possibly having children. Change in your 20s happens a lot. And so you would think that if you want to improve an area of your life, you are young enough in your 20s and change is happening enough in your life that it should be relatively easy to do. And yet, whoever compiled these statistics say that 39% of people in their 20s actually achieve their resolutions. That's not very good. And it gets worse as you get older. Only 14% of people over 50 achieve their New Year's resolutions. And again, that's because change is hard. We would like to change things, but change is not easy to do. That's the bad news. But God's Word tells us there's good news for us, and that is that God wants us to change too. In fact, God wants to change your life more than you want to change it. The message of Scripture is that if you are a Christian, if you are in Christ, God is undertaking a process of change in your life as a Christian. And His desire to see you change is actually greater than the desire to change that you already innately have as a person. Jesus died and rose again to change you. We see this in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, where the scripture says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This verse sets forth what it really means to be a Christian. It says that in the great mercy of God, God has given us new birth into a living hope. The idea of God's mercy, of course, reminds us that we are sinners and unworthy of God's working in our lives, unworthy of eternal life. But in the mercy of God, since we could never earn favor with God, God, the second person of the Trinity, came down into this world and became a man named Jesus Christ. He died on the cross for our sins. The Bible says when a person comes to believe that truth, The day that you and I stopped trying to earn favor with God, or stopped ignoring God and going our own way, and instead turned and received the free gift of eternal life. The Bible says God gave birth to us. He gave new life to us spiritually. That's what the verse is indicating when it says, in his great mercy, he has given us new birth. That new birth. indicates the possibility and, in fact, the necessity of change. No human being changes more than a baby does. Notice that it says that this new birth is into a living hope. That phrase, living hope, is telling. It's two words, but they're two words that pack tightly with meaning. First of all, the idea that it's living. reminds us that we have this new life in this life. And the fact that the Bible says that there is hope reminds us that what God has given us in this life is not just for this life, but that it's new life that extends into eternity. That is our hope, that when this life is over, and when we enter into the presence of God, we have something to look forward to. And that's something to look forward to is eternal life with Jesus Christ forever in his kingdom. And so the Bible tells us that God has done something to change and grow you in a way that you and I could never do for ourselves as much as we might want to change. The fundamental change that we need, a change of status with God, a change of our relationship with God. happens not by our own good works, our own self-determination, but rather it happens as a gift given to us by God through his son, Jesus Christ. And notice the end of that verse says that all of this was given to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and that is essential to our message as Christians. But just as essential is his resurrection from the dead. Christ, in his resurrection, defeated death. And that means he also defeated the power of sin. And other passages of scripture tell us that the same power that Jesus used to raise himself from the dead has been imparted to every believer to live the Christian life. And so God wants you to change more than you do. And he began that process and gave you the power to do it through the death and resurrection of Christ from the dead. But now there are continuing commands. There are follow on ideas. Now that you and I have been raised with Christ from the dead and we've been given new life, the Bible tells us this, that God calls all believers in Christ to change and become like he is, like that caterpillar entering a chrysalis and transforming into a butterfly. So God in Christ begins a process of change, a process of transformation, taking you and me from who we were as sinners and transforming us to become like Jesus Christ is. And before we look at the verse in 1 Peter that tells us this, I want to set it up in contrast to the ways in which Americans want to change. We've been talking about how most people want some kind of change and how New Year's resolutions are the ways in which most Americans try to undergo a process of change, at least in some way. But what are the ways in which Americans try to change themselves when the New Year begins? Well, a few years ago, this list of resolutions was ranked. Number one is lose weight. Not surprising. Number two was get organized. Again, not surprising. Third is spend less and save more. A lot of Americans have debt or have very little savings, and so this would be a good thing to change about your life. Number four is enjoy life to the fullest. And number five is to stay fit and healthy. By the way, all of these are terrible goals. Goals need to be much more specific than this. But that's maybe the difference between a resolution and a goal. A resolution is a wish and a goal has more specific things put into it. But as we look down this list, there might be at least one thing that resonates with you and maybe more than one thing that you too would like to change about your life. And I've already told you that God wants to change you more than you want to change yourself. But what does this list have to do with the changes that God wants to make within us? And the answer is that while this is a good list and there's nothing wrong with anything on this list at all, in fact, these would be good changes for many of us, all of us to make maybe. They are very much secondary to the changes that God wants to make in our lives. In 1 Peter 1, verses 14 through 16, the scripture says this, as obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. That is, change from who you were before you were a Christian, before the enlightenment of God's truth came into your life. And then it says this, but just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, be holy because I am holy. How does God want us to change? Well, he wants to change us in a much deeper, in a much more fundamental way than the surface changes that important though they are, many people, many Americans make in their New Year's resolutions. The Bible says God's desire for you to change is to make you holy. And in making you holy, it's to pattern you, to make you like He is in His very character. Now the word holy means set apart. And it's used in several ways in Scripture, all of them are important. But I think because of the contrast in this verse between the evil desires that he talks about in the first part of the verse, I think the contrast that Peter is getting at in this passage is that God wants us to make us morally holy. That is, He wants us to be separate. He wants us to be set apart from sin. God wants to change you more than you want to change yourself. But the change that God wants to make in your life is a moral one. It's a change away from the patterns of sinfulness that we were born with, that come naturally to us because we have a sin nature. And two, a greater conformity, a greater separation from sin that we call holiness. And so if God were to put together a top five list, of changes or resolutions that he wants to make in your life. They would all be the same. God's top five resolutions for you would be to be holy. Losing weight is a good thing, but God wants you to be holy. Getting organized is a good thing, but it's more important to God that you become holy. Spending less and saving more is a great thing to do. But God wants you to be set apart from the sins that come so easily to us and from the world around us. Enjoying life to the fullest is a good thing as well. The Bible talks about this and says Jesus said he came to give us life more abundantly. But the only way to really experience that as a Christian is to become holy in the process. Staying fit and healthy is a good resolution but God wants you to be holy. And so God calls all believers in him to change and grow and to become holy like he is. Now, as we come to 1 Peter 2, which is going to be the focus of the rest of this message, the scripture is going to describe for us how God does this process of change. You and I are commanded to change and to become holy, but we don't do that on our own. We don't do it through a process of self-imposed discipline. Rather, God works with us to change us into holiness, to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ. And how does God do that? Well, just to put a banner over it, and really this is the big idea for the message this morning, the way that God changes us is by changing what we want. God will change your life by changing you inside. There are certain actions that should accompany a godly and growing Christian, but God doesn't say, change your actions. No, God says, I'm gonna change your heart and then your actions will follow. And as we look at 1 Peter 2 verses 1-3 together, I think this is the banner, this is the overall idea that encompasses all the other ideas in these three verses of 1 Peter 2 verses 1-3. The idea is that God is going to change us by changing what we want. God's method for changing people is to change us inside and give us different desires than the ones that come naturally to us. And let's look together and let's reread these verses because these really give us the way forward for us if we're going to develop holiness and if we're going to change the way that God calls us and commands us to change in 2021. 1 Peter 2, verses one through three says, therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind, like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." These verses describe the process of change that God is undertaking in every believer's life. And as commands, these are laid out for us to follow the Lord's ways and to put His word into practice in our lives. And when we talk about changing our desires, verse 1 of 1 Peter 2 tells us we need to change our desires toward other people. That is, that one way we change our lives is that God calls us to stop wanting to defeat other people. Verse 1 lists a number of sins that are very common to the human race and common among Christians. But I think there's a common denominator among the list of sins that Peter gives us here. And that common denominator is that they are all outwardly focused. They are all focused on making ourselves appear, at least, better than other people. Let's look again at 1 Peter 2, verse 1. It says, Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Let's work one at a time, quickly, through this list of sins. The first one that Peter lists for us is the sin that is called malice. And malice is just an evil. It's just a desire to do evil towards someone else, or more specifically, it's a desire to see harm come to others. When we say somebody's actions were malicious, We're saying the way that you hurt me or the way that you acted toward me was not an accident. It was not an accidental injury. It was intentional. It was intentionally designed to bring harm to my life. And this is one way in which people try to better themselves by cutting down their competition, by cutting off the people that they don't want to see succeed. Maybe I can't win the race on my own, but if I can trip my nearest opponent, Perhaps I can cross the finish line first. When we live in malice, it's a way of trying to handicap other people and harm them in some way or another. The second sin that Peter lists here is the sin of deceit. And that is a deliberate form of dishonesty. Sometimes we are dishonest, but it's due to ignorance or it's not necessarily deliberate. Deceit is deliberate. It's a desire to purposefully mislead someone else, maybe about what you've done or what you want. Some of the ways we manipulate other people is by telling them false things about things that we have done. Either we lie to cover up sins that we've committed that might affect them, That's dishonest. Or we lie about ourselves. We lie about our accomplishments. We are dishonest in a way that makes us look better than who we truly are. Or sometimes we're dishonest about what we want. We tell people we want things that are good and pure and that they would want, but we actually have an ulterior motive. We have an unseen desire. And so one of the ways in which we try to improve ourselves is through deceit. We are intentionally dishonest with other people. God says if you're going to change and grow, you need to stop trying to defeat other people with deceit. The third sin that's listed in chapter two, verse one, is the sin of hypocrisy. The sin of hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is a desire to project an image of yourself that's not real. A hypocrite wants to look better, wants to look more spiritual, than they truly are. And the truth of the matter is that all of us have some level of hypocrisy. If anybody knew what we were really like, it would be a bad thing for all of us. And the truth is we all, in our own hearts, deceive ourselves. But there's a difference in scripture between the kind of self-deception and the kind of unintentional hypocrisy that all of us engage in because we are sinners and so we are constantly striving against the sin nature and with the spirit. There's going to be some level of hypocrisy in all of us. The hypocrisy that Christ fiercely denounced in his life on this earth and the one that I believe Peter is talking about here is an intentional form of hypocrisy. That is, it is doing certain actions or saying certain words in a certain way to try to convey a sense of morality or spirituality that you don't have at all. It's one thing to fall into sin. despite your best desires. It's another to practice sin in secret and tell other people you're someone else. But one of the ways in which we try to defeat others is just to look better than we truly are. That's the sin of hypocrisy. Next comes the sin of envy. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 lists these sins and one of them is envy. And envy is a desire to have what someone else has. We envy other people. when we wish we could have the life that they have, or the possessions that they have, or the esteem that they have, or whatever. And envy is one of the most poisonous sins that can happen. It's one that's completely internal, and it doesn't do any good for anyone. Envy ruins your joy. And it seeps out and corrodes your relationships with other people. If you envy someone, you can't truly love that person or be friends with them. And in fact, someone that you envy is someone that you're probably hoping secretly will slip and fall and maybe maliciously, maybe the malice, the first one will come into view and you'll see an opportunity to hurt that person. The final sin that Peter discusses in this passage is the sin of slander. This is a desire to harm someone else's reputation through words. One of the ways in which we try to make ourselves look better than we are, one of the ways in which we try to improve our lives by hurting others is by slandering them with our words, by saying things about other people that may or may not be true. Sometimes slander is true, but that doesn't make it any less sinful. If we desire to hurt someone else's reputation, often to enhance our own reputation, often to enhance our own standing with other people, that's the sin of slander. And as I said before, all of these sins are tied together with the desire to defeat someone else rather than to grow yourself. There used to be a book called, I think it was called Winning Through Intimidation. I never read it, but that's the point. It's like, I'm going to hurt other people to try to win on my own. That's a sinful way of trying to get a better life. The Bible says if you belong to Jesus Christ, if you have this new nature within, One of the ways in which God wants you to become holy, one of the ways in which God wants you to grow, one of the New Year's resolutions that should always be on your list of New Year's resolutions, is to purge these sins out of your life that are all negative toward other people. God wants to change you by changing your desire, and the first thing he wants to change about your desire is to subtract. the desire to harm and defeat and hurt other people. That's what verse 1 says. But now we come to verse 2. And as we talk about what God wants to change about us, God wants us to reach forward for something else. And that's described in verse 2 of 1 Peter chapter 2 where it says, like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. The word crave is a command but it's the kind of command that doesn't have to be commanded to someone who has a new nature. Babies don't have to be commanded to desire food. It's natural. It arises from the human nature that desires to thrive and to grow. And by making this comparison, Peter describes the change that God wants to see within us, the desire that God wants to change, is not only to stop wanting to defeat other people, but rather to replace that with wanting Him instead. That's what the point of verses 2 and 3 are. When the scripture says that we are to crave pure spiritual milk, it's telling us, like an infant, to seek the sustenance that God provides, to seek the things that will cause our own spiritual life to thrive and grow. Instead of trying to win through intimidation or harming other people, God wants us to change what we want. Instead of being so outwardly focused, on other people and what they think of us. God wants us to look within and desire from the heart the new life and growth that he's given to us in Jesus Christ. Now this phrase, crave pure spiritual milk is not defined by Peter specifically. And God has given us many things to help us grow in our walk with Christ. He's given us the new nature itself, the new life within that does automatically crave the truth of God and the things that God has given to us to grow. But in addition to that, God has also given us the Holy Spirit who causes us to want to know and love and serve God even more. God has given us one another in the church. But one of the steps and one of the things that God has given to us that will help us grow the strongest and the thing that I believe is primary in Peter's mind as he tells us to create pure spiritual milk is the Word of God. At the end of chapter one, that's what he talks about. He talks about how we were born again by the living and abiding word of God. And he said, this is the word that was preached to you. And then he goes right into talking about this process of change. If you want to grow in your faith, if you want to follow God's resolutions for your life, if you want to become a holy Christian in 2021, you need to crave the things that God has given to us to grow. And one of those primary ones is to crave his word. to desire to know God through the Word of God that reveals Him to you. And as you crave God's Word and that crave is satisfied, as you look into God's Word, you'll move closer to holiness and away from the sins that are described in verse 1. Kind of one of the points that I wanted to bring to you this morning as we look forward to 2021, starting later this week, is to look at your consumption of God's word. As Christians, we need to be in the word of God daily to help us grow. to help us see the beauty of the holiness of God and help us crave to be like that in our own lives. And yet many Christians do not read the Word of God on a regular basis. One of the greatest things you could do, specifically in 2021, to help your growth in holiness, to move you toward God's resolution of be holy in your life, one of the greatest things you could do is to start a daily Bible reading habit. A daily Bible reading habit will cause you to crave knowing God even more and will cause you to understand the person of God in a greater way. It'll change your desires and as God changes your desires within, those changes will be seen, they'll be manifest on the outside. Now there are all kinds of ways in which people can read the Word of God on a daily basis. But I've created one too. I have a daily Bible reading program. And you can sign up for it and it will be automatically delivered to your email inbox every single morning. In 2021, we'll be reading the Old Testament. And every week, every day, there will be three separate chapters from the Old Testament that you can read. And then there will be a devotional about one of those chapters that will help you to understand what you've read and hopefully put it to practice in your life. It doesn't matter to me if you use my devotional or not. I'm just telling you this is one of the tools that's available. It's in our app every day and you can get it there or you can subscribe in your email as I said. If you'd like to subscribe, there's multiple ways you can do it. But you can also just scan this QR code, like literally point your phone at this QR code right now. I tried it earlier from various places in the room. And it'll take you immediately to the sign-up form. Again, I'm not... I don't get anything extra out of this. I created this as a tool to help us as a church grow in our faith and help us grow in Christ's likeness. It's not important that you use my method. It's important that you are in the word of God daily because that's how God changes our desires so that we want to grow in him, so that we want to change and become like Jesus Christ. And so as we stand on the brink or almost near the brink of a new year, God will change you in 2021 by causing you to change what you want. Let me encourage you to think about what that means in your life and what practical steps you can use to change your desires to become holy like God is.