Scripture reading is 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 1 And I should turn there remind you that last Sunday. We talked about one benefit of the Christian life Being that God can make his people love well God can cause his people to love excessively and even supernaturally The end of chapter 1 portrays born-again believers in Jesus Christ as having the word of God within them. And a reminder that the gospel had been preached to them. They've been changed because of that gospel. Because of Jesus Christ. Because of the agency of the Holy Spirit. And then the start of chapter 2 contains a directive, an exhortation, a command for the people of God. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, in all evil speaking, Lord God for us, the people of God, let us again look to God in prayer. Father in our God, may the weak words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be transformed by your spirit to the praise and glory of Christ in whose name I pray. Amen. According to our text, Christians need to get rid of any attitude or any hindrance that could threaten their love for brothers and sisters in Christ, that could imperil their capacity to love people well. Laying aside these bad behaviors or casting them off. The scripture speaks about casting off things and speaks to it more than once. Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 31. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and give yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should ye die, O house of Israel?" The summons was given to the entire covenantal people of Israel. Romans chapter 13, verse 12. The night is far spent, the day is at hand, and therefore Let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. In this process of casting off the works of darkness, it's vital to living the Christian life. Certain attitudes, certain habits, Certain practices are to be cast off, they are to be laid aside. Hebrews chapter 12, after that glorious 11th chapter highlighting the heroes of the Old Testament, the Faith Hall of Fame. Hebrews 12 verse 1, therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with the doors of the race that are set before us. So laying aside something involves putting it away from you. Ephesians chapter 4 talks at length about the unity of the body of Christ, what that means, practically for the people of Christ. And in Ephesians 4 verse 31, the people of Christ are summoned to let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, along with all malice. Quite similar to this theme, this exhortation that we have from Peter here, laying aside all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. Very often, much of the time, Before laying something aside, prior to casting something off or getting rid of something, you've got to let it go. Now turn to Job chapter 20. Job chapter 20, we have here in Job 20, a speech from Zophar, one of the friends of Job. And recall that The friends of Job were wrong about some very important things, but they were not wrong about absolutely everything. They were right about some things. In Job chapter 20, beginning with verse 4, and going on up through verse 15, the Scripture reads as follows. Do you not know this of old? since man was placed on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment. Though his haughtiness mounts up to the heavens, and his head reaches to the clouds, yet he will perish forever like his own refuse. Those who have seen him will say, where is he? He will fly away like a dream and not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place behold him anymore. His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will restore his wealth. His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust. Though evil is sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue, though he spares it and does not forsake it, but still keeps it in his mouth, yet his food in his stomach turns sour. It becomes cobra venom within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again. God casts them out of his belly. Now, Zophar's evaluation indicates that one characteristic of the wicked, one reason why God punishes the wicked, has to do with a stubborn refusal to let go of evil. unwilling to forsake evil. He keeps it in his mouth that he can't let it go. In my contrast, Peter addressed the born again, the people of the new covenant, people of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, forsaved. And he instructed them to lay aside bad attitudes and misbehaviors, even those which might have had a certain appeal for the readers of this epistle. Now, I was reminded of a movie, and perhaps most of us have seen it, Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail. And toward the end of that motion picture, The key action scene, the Nazis and Indiana Jones and his father, they're all trying to get the Holy Grail. And toward the end of that particular scene, Indiana starts falling and he grabs, he's about to fall off this long precipice, he's dangling, he's just holding on. And his father, played by Sean Connery, trying to pull him up. And the grail is just outside his reach, so close. But we know, we can tell as we're watching it that he's, if he stands any further at all, Sean Connery's going to not be able to hold him and pull him up. And Sean Connery has been calling him Indiana or Junior the whole movie. And Indiana hated the name Junior. But during this crucial scene, as he's about to fall, Henry Jones says to him, Indiana, Indiana, let it go. And then he turned back to his father and Sean Connery pulled him back up to safety. The spiritual life is like that. We want something that appeals to us. It may not even necessarily be sinful, but if we do that, we know we're out of the will of God. And God's not going to bless that. And sometimes we Christians have a very hard time of letting go of certain things. And again, this brings to the fore the fact that authentic Bible-believing spiritual Christians struggle with sin because we're sinners. Born again servants of Jesus Christ, do not become sinless beings prior to our glorification in heaven. That'd be nice. Be my personal preference. It's not going to happen. And to those from the first century who were saved, they believed in the Bible, they belonged to Jesus Christ. Peter communicated to them, you gotta lay aside some things. You gotta let go of all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and then being evil speaking. Let go of all that. Why? Well, because these perspectives, these traits, are damaging to positive Christian relationships and love for the brethren. We can't love people well if we keep doing these things. Augustine commented about the ingredients of this verse. Malice delights and another's hurt. Envy pines, or aches, and another's good. Deceit imparts duplicity to the heart. Hypocrisy, or flattery, imparts duplicity to the tongue. And evil speakings wound the character of another. Many Christians have had problems some of these things. We think about a problem church, a church of God, a Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 14, verse 20, the brethren, do not be children in understanding. In malice, be babes. Be babes when it comes to malice. But in understanding, be mature. A malicious person, one who is trademarked by ongoing malice, can never become spiritually mature. That's impossible. Someone who's deliberately malicious all the time cannot resemble the Prince of Peace. And a malicious person delights in the misery and the anguish of other people. That's as un-Christian as you can possibly get. I mean, we want other people to be blessed. The way we are, we're blessed. Psalm 32 verse 2 talks about deceitful persons. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Psalm 34, verse 13, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Peter said, let go of malice and deceit. And in our text, some Bible scholars, some expositors, see a progression from one sin to another, a descending pattern of bad and wrong behavior. Each successive sin springs from the preceding sin. Out of malice comes deceit. Out of deceit comes hypocrisy. Remember what hypocrisy is. Hypocrisy is pretending to be what we're not. We're not showing who we really are. If someone's malicious, they pretend to not be malicious. But by pretending to be not malicious, they're actually being hypocritical because they are malicious. Play acting, trickery. And in this view, envy proceeds from hypocrisy. And the book of Proverbs, as we know, puts envy in the most negative light. Proverbs 3 verse 31 do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways Don't be envy envious of the wicked because envy is wicked Proverbs 14 verse 30 a sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones Each up inside Proverbs 24 verse 1, Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them. If possible, avoid them. Then verse 19 of Proverbs 24, Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the wicked. Sometimes I fret too much about wicked people who seem to get away with all kinds of dreadful things. But the recurring instruction, whether it's the book of Proverbs or the books of the New Testament indicate that we are not to envy. If here's catalog of sins concludes with envy in all, evil speaking. Or slander. And some translations have it. Slanderous speech. Slander means destroying another's reputation by lies, by gossip, by spreading unkind rumors designed to harm them. It's connected very much so to malicious intent. We've all heard the witticism, whoever gossips to you will also gossip of you or about you. And perhaps an even older witticism goes something like this. If you cannot avoid gossip or spreading rumors, tell your story to a tape recorder and don't bother using the tape. Genuine Christians push back against this tendency to broadcast each other's weaknesses. And worldliness, the perspectives of this world, worldliness is those scruples about slandering, speaking evil of others, because worldly perspectives tend to believe it's actually fun to destroy others with the words we say. It's fun to cause pain. And some persons, evidently, in the early church, were addicted to gossip. That they must slander or else their day is not quite complete. But what is it that Peter communicated? Let go of all that. And then he pointed out what we aspire to as born-again believers in Jesus Christ. Verses 2-3 of chapter 2 here. As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word. Okay? Center your life upon that. Desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow nearby. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and that final portion of verse three there is reminiscent of Psalm 34, verse eight, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in Him. God is gracious, God is good. Center yourself on that, in those realities. And God's people desire to be godly, not godlike in power, but godly in our demeanor and throughout each relationship that we have. We as the people of Christ desire to be good and to do good rather than to promote what's bad according to Scripture. And that's why Paul declared, Philippians 4, verse 8, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, And if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Focus on that. Live them out. And live them out as you prayerfully endeavor to love people well. I want to conclude with words from a hymn that most of you have heard before, but it's been a few years. And the lyrics go this way. Gracious spirit, dwell with me. I myself would gracious be. And with words that help and heal, would thy life in mine reveal. And with actions bold and meek, would for Christ my savior speak. Truthful spirit, dwell with me. I myself would truthful be. And with wisdom kind and clear, let thy life and mine appear. And with actions brotherly, speak my Lord's sincerity. Tender spirit, dwell with me. I myself would tender be. shut my heart up like a flower at temptation's dark some hour open it when shines the sun and his love by fragrance own holy spirit dwell with me i myself would wholly be separate from sin i would choose and cherish all things good and whatever i can be give to him who gave me thee. Let's pray together. Glorious Heavenly Father, we cannot claim ignorance about what your scripture teaches and who we are to be as a people of Christ. We pray your ongoing forgiveness for things that we struggle with, things we just can't quite let go of, at least not yet. But gracious Father, we thank you that our sufficiency is in Jesus Christ and that we can, in the power of your Holy Spirit, Yielding ourselves to His leading, we can love well. And we can love for Jesus' sake. And I pray this all in Jesus' strong and perfect name. Amen.