Feb. 15, 2026

“BE HOPEFUL”

“HOW TO STAY LEAN AND MEAN”

1 PETER 2:1-3

“How To Be Lean And Mean!”

1.  Peter’s Advice Is To Lay Aside Or Put-Off What Is Evil- as one would do to an old rotten garment. 1 Peter 2:1

1 Peter 2:1 “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking.”

*We Need A Plan For Weight Reduction: The Sin To Be Put Off, or Thrown Aside Are:

1 Peter 1:22. 

Peter says there is a need to lay aside:

*Malice- vs.3- delights in another persons hurts, has to do with motives, especially self-seeking motive, a persons heart attitude.

James 1:21 “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

1 Corinthians 5:8 “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

Colossians 3:8 “But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.”

*Deceit or guile- vs.1- deceiving people, manipulating others to get what you want and then giving them nothing in return.

*Hypocrisy- vs.1- you hold one standard for yourself and another for other people. You do what is best for you.

*Envy-vs.1- feeling that you are in constant competition with others, we have to have what they have, grieving at the good and welfare of another; at their abilities, prosperity, fame, or successful labour.

*Evil Speakings-vs.1-slander, gossip, using your mouth to hurt others, you can destroy people with your words.

2 Corinthians 12:20 “For I fear lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish; lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumults.”

Ephesians 4:29 “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

Do you have some spiritual excess weight to lay aside, strip off?

2.  We Need To Be Lean- 1 Peter 2:2

Hebrew 12:1 “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 endurance the race that is set before us.”

*The Best Christians  have a need to be cautioned and warned against the worst sins, such as malice, hypocrisy, and envy.

We have to have a strong and constant desire for God’s Word and then to be a doer of the word- exercising.

1 Peter 2:2 “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.”

• “Newborn babes or little children”

Ephesians 4:14 “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.”

1 Corinthians 3:1 “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.”

Hebrews 5:12 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”

1 Corinthians 14:20 “Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.”

Matthew 18:1-4- childlike faith, humble and sincere hearts.

2 Peter 3:18 “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.”

*We Need To Have A Childlike Appetite- as “newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word…” vs.1

“The milk of the word” “is pure” not adulterated by the mixture of men, who corrupt the Word of God.

You should never outgrow your need for milk!!

Why? “…that you may grow thereby.” vs.2

3.  Being Mean- Having Experience- You have tasted- 1 Peter 2:3

1 Peter 2:3 “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

“Desire”- crave-speaks of an intense yearning.

Psalms 34:8 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”

If you have really been saved you will have a hunger for the Word of God.

John 8:47 “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

“The Lord is gracious” vs.3

How strong is your desire for the Word of God?

Have you taken a good, honest look at yourself spiritually? Do you have some excess weight?

Look at yourself in the mirror:

James 1:23-25

Do it today! Proper diet, proper exercise, you need to get up and get involved.