This is a time for growth. Studies are resuming. Opportunities for Bible discussion are once again at hand. What's your interest? Is there a yearning in your soul? If there isn't, my friends, that is a dangerous position to be in. God has to deliver us from a Sunday morning only spectator mentality about the Christian faith. Being a Christian is not dependent upon, nor is it summed up by, simply sitting in a pew and looking bored with the preacher. That isn't the Christian faith. The Christian faith is living dynamically. It's a yearning for God, to know God, to be excited about God.

This is a hard message, but we need hard messages to shake us. There is so much indifference and lukewarmness. And when God just gets the leftovers, if we have time or if it works out or if I've got the money, or if I'm not doing anything else, then God you get your due. You see the time is coming when only those churches that are strong, filled with vibrant and committed people, will endure. Like newborn babes long, yearn, desire. A little baby not only desires its mother's milk, but that baby has a powerful, instinctive urge for that milk and that's what Peter is talking about here. Having an urge, a passion for Jesus Christ, for His Word. If you're a believer, are you yearning for the Lord? Longing for the pure milk of the Word. The Bible is pure. It's unadulterated. It's truth. The Bible will only do you good. It's good food for your soul. The church, you see, is not an organization. The church is a living organism made up of people called out of this world to have a passion for Jesus.

Peter says, "Spurn, put off the old life." Peter says, "Yearn for the milk, the nourishment of God's Word." Set your will that this year you're going to learn to know God better than you've ever known Him before. And if you set your will to do that, He'll reveal Himself to you in His Word.

That by it you may grow -- Learning (v. 2)

And then, Peter says, "Learn. Learn." Last part of verse 2, "That by it ...," that is, the Word, "that by it you may grow in respect to salvation." Here it is. When you are spurning the wrong things, when you are yearning for the things of God and His presence, when you have a passion for Christ, then comes the learning. You grow in salvation. If you're not growing in your salvation, you're dying spiritually. Peter says, "People you were born again by the Word of God. But now, grow in respect to your salvation." And that's what this life then becomes, one of growing in the knowledge of God. Seeing Him increasingly as the greatest and highest and most excellent treasure in all the world. Is it too late to learn? No, it's never too late to learn. No matter how old you are you can still learn something!

I heard about a police officer who stopped a car that was filled with elderly ladies. The car was traveling too slow on a major highway. The officer came up to the car and talked to the driver. The conversation went something like this. The officer asked, "Ma'am, why are you driving so slowly?" She replied, "Well, officer, I've seen all these signs along the way that say 20 and that's what I've been doing. I've been going 20." The officer replied, "Ma'am, those are signs indicating the number of the highway. It's highway 20. You're going much too slow." "Thank you officer," she responded. "Thank you so much I didn't realize that." But then the officer happened to look in the back seat and he noticed three elderly ladies with panic stricken looks on their faces and white knuckles from having held on to one another too tightly. The officer looked back at the driver and said, "Ma'am, what's wrong with these ladies in the back seat?" Oh, officer, you see, we just got off highway 101 a few miles ago."