Before the Sermon, Part 1

Driving home: Consciously cultivate a fresh awareness that you will be confronted with the very word of the living God.

Jesus's response to temptation, quoting Deuteronomy, illustrates that He regarded the written Word as the living God speaking in that very moment, emphasizing the Word's present and active authority.

Consciously cultivate a fresh awareness that you will be confronted with the very word of the living God. For example, when our Lord Jesus in his wilderness temptation confronted that first temptation from the tempter and said, It is right. It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word...

5:24 - 5:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Engage in an internal soliloquy before hearing the Word, reminding yourself of God's identity and His speaking to you.

The analogy of God speaking through the preached Word in worship, as if thundering from heaven, highlights the reverence and conscious awareness believers should have when hearing Scripture.

And if, we are to take heed how we hear, we must develop by the grace of God and independence upon the Holy Spirit, that ability to cultivate a fresh awareness each time we come to the preaching of the word of God. That beneath and around and above, that word that we see in this book, that is open to the psalms at the beginning of our work. The word of God is the thing that is the next chapter in our worship. The word of God is read in the old and new testaments, and then is opened up in one area or another, and expounded to us that this almighty living God who made us and all things, who give...

8:16 - 9:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Engage in an internal soliloquy before hearing the Word, reminding yourself of God's identity and His speaking to you.

Martin suggests an 'internal soliloquy' where believers remind themselves of God's identity as Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Redeemer, to cultivate a fresh awareness that God Himself is about to speak through His Word.

Oh, you creature made by the living God, whose very breath is given to you by that God, you son or daughter of Adam, who must stand before this God in the last day. And if you are a Christian, you who have been the object of the eternal love and the sovereign electing purpose of this God, and the object of the outpouring of the love of this God in the giving of His Son, oh, heart, awake! This your God is to speak to you in His word.

9:31 - 10:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Practice the spiritual discipline of emptying your spiritual gut of wickedness, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speaking.

The metaphor of 'emptying your spiritual gut' of hindering sins before receiving spiritual milk illustrates the necessity of repentance to prepare the heart for the Word's beneficial assimilation.

Putting away, therefore, if you Greek students, you have an aorist participle preceding the aorist imperative. And you know what that means. That here is an activity that happens, as the weight of an imperative, but it must precede our obedience to the imperative. So Peter is saying, if you're going to truly long for the spiritual milk and grow, there's got to be a spiritual discipline of emptying your spiritual gut of that which will neutralize the benefit of that spiritual milk.

17:12 - 17:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Practice the spiritual discipline of emptying your spiritual gut of wickedness, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speaking.

The analogy of a 'spiritual digestive system' needing to be in good health to receive and benefit from spiritual milk (the Word) emphasizes that unconfessed sin hinders spiritual growth.

Now see the application to our passage. Peter is saying to these who've received, who've received life by the instrumentality of the word of God, that they are to long for the spiritual milk that they may grow. But he says your digestive system must be in a good state of health. And if it's to be in a good state of health, then you have got to put away.

17:48 - 18:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Practice the spiritual discipline of emptying your spiritual gut of wickedness, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speaking.

The word 'guile' is explained using the metaphor of a fisherman baiting a hook, illustrating deceit and pretense in one's dealings with others.

It's taken from a verb that you would use if you were to describe what you were doing when you were baiting a hook as a fisherman. It speaks of a person who is not what he appears to be in his dealings with you. He's full of guile and deceit, seeking to catch you. He says, put away, guile, and hypocrisies, pretense, wearing of the mask,

19:09 - 19:32 Read in full sermon