Getting our Bibles here. We're gonna look at 1 Peter, chapter number two. We will continue our series on what's next. Last week, we looked at the idea of know what you got. When you got saved, you got a whole lot of things. If you didn't get saved, then you're missing out on a whole lot. I'll go back and listen to the lesson because I can't take time to reteach it today. So today we're going to get into the next lesson as far as what's next. What's next after salvation? And some of these things you will see are not like a one and done thing. This one here we're going to talk about is to begin to grow. That's if you're a new Christian you should begin to grow. What if you're an old Christian? Is this too early? continue to grow. All right, I'm sorry to make you think this early in the morning. So, we wanna see a couple things here from this passage of scripture. And of course, what we wanna do is learn the importance of growing as a Christian and hopefully provide a couple practical suggestions. So, 1 Peter 2, verses one through three, wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that she may grow thereby, if so be that she have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Let's pray. Father, thank you. You've given us time together and we ask that you'd challenge us as we look at your word now. We really need to take this whole idea very seriously about growing as Christians. No matter if someone's a new believer or someone who's been saved for a long time, we pray that these truths would be helpful. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. So when a baby's born, I know the ladies get all excited about that, but when a baby's born, Nobody expects them to remain the same size, right? That would be a bit odd. Growth is expected, and we'd be concerned if a baby wasn't developing. And if you haven't seen a child for a few months, especially when they're young, and you see them again, it's like, whoa, this kid's really taken off, right? They've grown a lot. And when a person receives Christ as his Savior, he becomes a child of God. He may be an adult physically, but as a believer he's, as the Bible terms it, like a newborn babe, and he requires spiritual nourishment in order to grow. And so one of the utmost goals of the Christian life should be to become a healthy, productive Christian. And if someone fails to grow physically, they're gonna be weak. If someone fails to grow spiritually, they will also be weak. It doesn't matter how much you've grown in the past. If you don't continue to grow and take steps, you won't be strong. You know, I ate food yesterday. That was good for yesterday's strength. But I need to be strong today, so I ate again. and I'm gonna keep eating. I like eating, right, because I like strength and it helps me. And so babies can do very, very little for themselves because they're dependent on everyone around them. That's okay if they're a baby physically, but that's not a good condition to be in spiritually when you always need someone to take care of you. There are some people who get saved and grow at a very slow rate, and they just expect everybody else to do all the spiritual things for them. They won't pick up the Bible and read it for themselves. They won't pray. They just come to church and say, okay, well, give me something. And you will get something if you come and pay attention at church, but you need more than just coming and listening once or twice a week. So I want to consider some questions about growing for the Lord and give the answers. So the first question is this, why should we grow? If you do have a handout, then you've got it there. Why should we grow? Well, let me give you a couple of things here. First of all, growth is natural. When you look around God's creation, you see a lot of examples of growth. The seeds planted, It germinates, shoots up, produces fruit, all of that. Little puppy, doesn't stay a little puppy forever, right? It wasn't too long ago, my son got a puppy, and now it's basically looking like a full-sized dog. And that tiny tadpole turns into a frog. That fluffy, day-old chick turns into someone's dinner a few weeks later. All right, that's just how it goes. So growth in nature can be fast in some cases and can be slow in others. But when there is life, you expect growth. So if you have new life in Christ, you will grow. at some rate. And so growing at a healthy rate depends on you as a believer. Now it's true, some Christians grow faster than others and it's not necessarily because God loves one believer more than he loves another believer. It really depends on how they nourish themselves spiritually and how they react to that nourishment. So first of all, growth is natural. Secondly, we see growth is exciting. You know, when, you know, children are younger, they always look forward to being the next age, right? You ask a 12-year-old, so how old are you? Well, I'm going to be 13. And it might be 11 months from then, but, you know, I'm going on 13. Why? Because when they're younger, they're always looking forward. They want to be a teenager. You know, when they're 17, it's like, no, I'm almost 18. Why? Because they wanna be an adult. Because as you get older, physically, you get more opportunities, right? As kids, you know, hey, I wanna go do this. And parents will say, well, no, your brother and sister are older, they get to. And when you're that old, you can do that too. I wanna be all that old now. And so people wanna drive. Well, you can't drive as a 10-year-old. You have to wait till you're old enough to get your license. And so there's opportunities that we receive when we grow physically. And as you grow spiritually, you get more opportunities to serve the Lord. And God has a place for every Christian in his church. It's his will that we get saved, get baptized, join the church. And he has equipped each believer with abilities to serve in his church. It's kinda hard to serve the Lord in a position in a church when you're not growing spiritually. I'm not talking again about how much you might know about the Bible and the past, but how are you doing now? What's your relationship with God right now? Now, in Hebrews, chapter number five, We see some great disappointment that was expressed toward some people who failed to grow properly. He said, for when, for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God. and are become such as have need of milk and not strong meat. So they should have matured to the place where they could eat meat, but instead they were still partaking of milk like a little baby. You're not going to get a five-month-old a piece of steak. They can't chew on it. But by the time they're 15 years old, if you really want to spend that much money on a 15 year old and get them a steak, right? But by the time they're 15 years old, they should be well able to eat a piece of steak. They need more than just drinking milk all day long at that stage of their life. Because if you're just drinking milk all day long, you're not having the strength that you need. So, let us not limit our service for the Lord because we stunt our growth by not partaking of more. Now, I don't know about you, but I would rather be treated as an adult than treated as a baby. And God was disappointed with them. He says, the time is here is that you should be teachers. You should be instructing others. You should know the Bible enough where you should be able to be helping other people. It gets this way sometimes that people get saved and they just sit around like a bump on a log and it's like, well, they're more than content to let everybody else do all the work and they're not, willing to jump in and help. And so really growth is important because it's exciting and we get more opportunities to do more for Lord. And when we don't grow as a Christian, then we're hindering our growth. And maybe you'll sit back and say, well, I wanna do more for God and no one's recognizing me. Well, maybe they're recognizing something else. Maybe they're recognizing that you're not growing as much as you think you are. They see that you're really struggling with some areas in your life, sin areas, and no, you know, if someone's really battling with major issues, we're probably not going to put someone in charge of a Sunday school class. or make him a bus captain. Well, so what if I drink a six pack every Friday night? Why can't I be a bus captain? Well, that's a good start right there, is you're not following the word of God. How are you gonna get up and lead people to follow God when you're not following? And that's an extreme case, but you get the point. So the third thing I want to talk about growth here is that growth is commanded. Now, it's natural. It's exciting, so it would seem odd that we should be commanded to grow as a Christian. Nevertheless, that's what we find in 2 Peter, we were just looking there in 1 Peter, but in 2 Peter 3, verse 18, we're told, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, what hinders our growth? Unfortunately, we don't always have an appetite for spiritual matters. And that's because we would rather fulfill our fleshly cravings than any spiritual kind of appetite. You can't feed on carnality and spirituality at the same time. You can tell me, you know, you can tell me that you have 100 Bible verses memorized. I'd be happy, but if you're not doing anything with those 100 Bible verses, and you consistently live a carnal life, living for the lust of the flesh, you're not growing spiritually. And you may have had those 100 Bible verses memorized, but it was probably maybe because you were made to do it for a class or something like that. Most people who are feasting on sin aren't also feasting on the Bible at the same time. So, someone who enjoys, you know, maybe someone likes their trashy romance novels or looking at the dirty pictures in a, it used to be in a magazine, now it's on the phone or whatever. Those people don't typically also really love and enjoy getting into the Bible. They may do it to say they did it, but that's not their passion. They're not like pouring over the Word of God saying, oh yes, abstain from fornication, oh flee all so youthful lust, yes I need to do this. And then they're picking up something else, oh yeah. It doesn't go hand in hand. if you have a hunger and an appetite for worldly music, for worldly pleasures, for going to the movies, or watching all these horrible things. and all that, what you're doing is you're limiting your ability to grow as a Christian. You're just not going to be close to the Lord. You're not going to be able and fit. By the way, so when you're not growing, you're not strong as you should be. And so when the attacks of the devil come and when temptation comes, you won't be strong enough to fend for yourself. You can't fight it off. You can't. You won't be strong enough to resist the devil or to flee temptation. And so we've got to take this thing seriously, and the reason again that it's commanded is because we have a weak, corrupt, sinful flesh that is bent toward sin. If you just let some child to do whatever they want, they're not going to just be obedient by nature. They're not gonna always tell the truth by nature. They're not gonna be nice and kind to everybody they see by nature. The default position for us is to sin and to do wrong. So we've gotta learn to hunger for the right things. And that's why Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mountain, Matthew 5, 6, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. So all sinful pleasures spoil our appetite for spiritual matters. And so we've got to deny those sinful pleasures. But we're living in a culture where we're not taught or even suggested, it's not even suggested to us that should we deny ourselves. You deserve a break today, you deserve everything. And you listen to all the commercials, you know, get the vehicle that you deserve. What do you mean the vehicle I deserve? I deserve a, you know, $120,000 car? Why do I deserve that? I don't want that payment. Okay? So, yeah. So God commands us to grow and that reminds us then about our responsibility to advance in our faith. Is that command, you know, growing grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is that only given to new Christians? Absolutely not. It's given to everyone who reads the Bible. It's given to all believers. So regardless of how long you've been saved, you should still be growing. I'm still growing as a Christian. I'm not growing physic, well, not this way anymore. There's another direction I grow physically. But spiritually, I should still be growing. We should all still be growing. And that's a command that we should not take lightly. That's why This lesson is not, you know, you say, why are we going for things that are for new believers? Because things that are for new believers are also for all of us. We need them also. And when you forget the basics, you forget that, hey, me, no matter how long I've been saved, I need to grow. When you forget that, you'll stop growing. When you forget that, My carnal appetites are hindering my spiritual appetite, my spiritual growth. Well, then I better deal with my sin because this is keeping me from obeying God. I'm not growing as a Christian. We need to be advancing. We need to get to the next stage. I'm not saying we're trying to climb the corporate ladder, but we want to be closer to the Lord and more equipped so that when we're called upon by God and have opportunities to do more for Him, that we're fit and able to do that. So that's the first question that we looked at, was why should we grow? Secondly, in what areas should we grow? We read that verse, 2 Peter 3.18, but grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So there are two areas, grace and knowledge. Think of it this way, knowledge tells us what we should do in grace helps us to do it. Let me show you that. So the first area says grow in grace. Grace is, you know, people say grace. Well, they don't really say grace, but that's what sometimes prayer is called. No, grace is favor that is shown to us by God. that obviously is completely undeserved. But there's something about grace, if you really study it out sometime, time to do a thorough study on grace, but grace enables us to do things that we would not normally be able to do on our own. Now, that's a lot of things in life. That's a lot of things in the Christian life. I can't just naturally or easily do a lot of things that God commands me to do, nor can you. We need God's help to do that, and so that help comes through this avenue called grace. Let me give you an example here in 1 Corinthians 15, it says, Paul was speaking, but by the grace of God, now just listen for the word grace to pop up here, but by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me. So how did he become what he became? He said it was the grace that God gave to him. He became a strong Christian, used of the Lord because of grace. And he says, I labored, he says, but it wasn't me, it was the grace of God, which was with me. So if you need to do a work for the Lord or God's called upon you to do something for Him, learn to realize this, it's not just me doing, it's His grace working with me. So three times in that one verse, He talks about God's empowerment through grace. We can plan and purpose to serve God all we want, but the only way we're gonna be able to properly do that and have overcoming strength is by obtaining more grace. And the best thing about grace is that God never runs out of it. He says in James 4, 6, He giveth more grace. I had grace to serve yesterday. That was good for yesterday. I need grace today. I'm teaching today. I need grace to teach. You say, well, no, you just have a lesson. You just get up and teach. Yeah, but I had to put the lesson together and I have to make sure I get through it. and I need God to work with me, and I need God to take His word and help get those thoughts across to people. Let me give you the second thing here. So grow in grace, and then next it says grow in knowledge. We grow in grace, and then we grow in knowledge. Is there anybody here that knows everything you need to know about God? the Bible and his will for your life. I mean, you know everything about it. I don't know everything. I'm still studying. I'm still learning more about the scriptures. And so you can't take the command to grow in knowledge casually because it's a command. You could be saved for 60 years God says, grow in grace, grow in knowledge. So then, what are you doing to grow in knowledge? Well, coming to church is a good thing. If we don't come to church, we're not gonna grow in knowledge. Coming to Sunday school is a good thing, too, because when you come to Sunday school, you get to hear more of the Bible. You come back this evening, you'll hear more of the Bible. So we have Sunday school, we have Sunday morning, we have Sunday evening, we have the Thursday evening service. So it's at least four times a week where we can get something from God's word to grow. Amen? So what if we come for one of those? Well, we're missing out on 75% of what God has for us. There's a whole lot more that we could learn and more areas that we can grow. And so it's not just that. God wants us to be in His Word every day. It's our duty to get into the Bible at home and be in church when the doors are open, where the scriptures are being taught. because none of us know everything there is to know about marriage, none of us know everything there is to know about raising children, having victory over sin, obtaining answers to prayer, and even the things that we do know, we forget. We need to be reminded, oh yeah, that's right, I need this, I need that. And not even the most mature Christian here is with total knowledge. So we gotta keep growing, all of us. And then let's look last of all at how we can grow. I'm just gonna have time to, you know what? I'm not gonna have time to do that. I am gonna take and do that next week and then we'll start the next lesson and then we'll just see how it goes. Because I'm teaching next week, I can do that. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and your faithfulness and pray that you'd help us as we continue in this Christian life to make sure that we're taking steps to grow. And Lord, we need your help to do that. Pray that you guide us now in Jesus' name, amen. All right, you're dismissed.