of this series in chapter 3, verse 18, it says, but grow in grace, but grow in grace. You know, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we are commanded to grow. We are commanded to grow, spiritually grow, and we've been learning that we start with faith, but then we're to add. Amen? And when you add something, you're increasing. Amen? You're growing. So that's basically the idea of growing, and then he says later, we are to abound. That's also growing. You can't add something if you're not growing. You can't abound in something if you're not growing. Amen? So that's kind of what we see here. But I want you to notice, let's begin reading our text again. Can you number of the times you read knowledge here in chapter 1, 2 Peter chapter 1. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain in the life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, And they make you that ye shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather brethren give a diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, ye shall never fall. Amen. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. So how many times? At least six times, right? Well, you have it too in verse five and six. Maybe I'm wrong, but there's five times you say? Yes, five here. And of course, you'll see it again in chapter, and I think I have it down here in chapter three, as we did notice. So we have it several times throughout this book. And I think it appears another chapter. So what are we seeing here? Growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is a process which begins with the foundation of faith. We laid that foundation. We talked about having real, genuine faith. And to faith, we add the quality of virtue, and that's what we preached about last Sunday. Virtue. Thank you, son. You can let me know about that, or were you trying? It does help. Virtue And then, and we said virtue is striving for excellence. Yes, it does refer to moral excellence, but the idea of is excellence, striving for that excellence. And in all things, and I think we need to think about our faith. Are we growing, are we striving to grow in faith with excellence, striving for excellence in our faith? And then we need to think about that in our knowledge, amen? So we need to also, to faith and virtue, we are to add knowledge. Knowledge, and that's what we want to talk about today. So I ask you the question, what good is it to have conviction or faith and a desire to excel virtue if you don't have the knowledge of where to focus our faith and the channel our virtue? Like if you have no knowledge, what good is that faith and that virtue? So see how it all fits together. These are all essential elements in growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't leave any of these out. God's word is complete. And as I was thinking about chapter one, and I know we're not going to be like studying the whole book. At least I didn't think so. Second Peter. But there's an interesting thought that I came across in chapter two. You have the characteristics of the false prophets, the false teachers. And if you will notice, Chapter 1 is exactly the opposite of the character of false teachers mentioned in Chapter 2. So you will find a contrast between Chapter 1 and what we're reading and studying and the characteristics of false teachers. So it's a very important way to make this contrast. And the definition today, we're going to learn about knowledge. And we start out with that definition. And when we think of knowledge, again, we're talking about the knowledge of Jesus Christ. How many times does it say that? It says in verse two, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord, and verse 3, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us. And that's exactly what we're talking about here, brethren. And verse 8, the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we're talking about knowledge. It's talking about knowing Him. And a lot of the definitions that we would read in a Greek lexicon or so on and so forth, dictionaries, Bible dictionaries. It's talking about part of this knowledge, like there's two Greek words but they're related obviously. One is talking about knowing Him as a person, knowing Him personally, being acquainted with Him, knowing Him thoroughly, to know Him accurately, to know Him well. So you are to be acquainted with Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? And I think that this comes through the knowledge of salvation. Amen? Go to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1 verse 77. You have to know him in salvation. It says, remember this wonderful praise of Zacharias there, beginning of verse 67, and like a prophecy really, right? And he says in verse 67, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins. Amen? And this is in revelation of Jesus Christ. That's what it was all about, brethren, knowing Him. And so Philippians 3, 8, remember Paul, his prayer, his desire, we could say his goal in life was what? to know him and the power of his resurrection. This is a very good passage of scripture about making goals in our own lives. He says in Philippians 3a, Yea, Dallas and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. You see how he knew him? He knew me. He's my Lord. I know him personally. And I've suffered the loss of all things for him. I do count them but done that I may win Christ and be found in him. You see what I'm saying? And then in verse 10, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. We like those first two, but he says also that I may know the fellowship of his suffering. We need to want to know that too. So you get knowledge of him when you receive him as your Lord and Savior. You begin to know him personally in salvation. That's what we talk about. Receive him as your personal Lord and Savior. But also, you know him experientially. You know him by walking with him and talking with him and him speaking to you from the word. It's a real thing, by the way. It's a real knowledge. So it's the knowledge of Jesus Christ, but it's also kind of a practical knowledge, a knowledge and practical wisdom. When we say we want knowledge and we're to add knowledge, yes, it's the knowledge of Christ. It's knowing him in salvation and knowing him greater, knowing him personally. But it's also knowing his will and his word or knowing his will through the word of God. That's the knowledge we learn about throughout the Bible. We'll get there in a moment. So this kind of knowledge, when we talk about this, this is the second definition of a kind of a shorter Greek word, where it says to seek, to note, and inquiry, and investigation. Do you really investigate things? Are you interested in knowing about, especially like what we're talking about in Sunday school, You know, these are things you don't just hear or read out of the Bible every day or in your devotions or devotional books. It's a study of understanding why we believe in our faith and how to preach and teach that faith to other people. Are you interested in that? That's the kind of knowledge we're talking about here. So this knowledge, and we talk about this all the time, that it's the normal idea of knowledge. We get an awareness through study and experience. Study and experience. We gain knowledge. And so think about the Word of God. We gain knowledge of how God wants us to live through his word you know everything that you need to know about life remember what we talked about he's given unto us all things that pertain to the life and godliness in uh verse three all things that pertain to the life and godliness i don't think if we spend all of our time investigating the word of god and actually uh classifying all the subjects of study and different areas that the Bible talks about life and godliness You would. That's why there's how many books in libraries and in theological libraries and seminaries and Bible colleges. You go to libraries. Is this books all about the Lord? You know, every doctrine, everything about the Bible, the history, the Jewish people, the Christianity, history of churches. I mean you can't, you can't exhaust, you would spend your lifetime trying to read everything about it because there's a lot of knowledge. But think about it practically. The Bible tells us how to think. It tells us how to speak, how to use our tongue. It tells us how to behave in just about every imaginable situation that you could even come up with. The Bible has an answer. The Bible tells us how to react, how to make decisions, how to make choices in life. There's nothing that the Bible doesn't touch on. That's a wonderful thing, a comfort to know that what you hold in your hands, this treasure, amen. I fixed that page by the way, it's kind of holding up this treasure, amen. So this is the knowledge we need, amen. We would say it's a knowledge of Him personally, but it's a knowledge of His Word. It's a knowledge of His will, His ways through the Word of God. And we need to add to our faith and virtue that knowledge. And that information is necessary to truly know Him. So it all works together. This information from the Word of God, this knowledge is necessary to know Him personally. and to grow in that knowledge of Him. So that's our definition. Secondly, the demand of knowledge. This is where we go to some of the scriptures. Go to Deuteronomy 6. Don't think you can be lazy in this area. Like, well, you know, it's not really... I got other things in my life now that are important to me. Guess what? You're disobeying God. You know what? Not only that, you're setting yourself up for destruction. That's my message today. If you're not growing in knowledge, you're setting yourself up to be destroyed. That's terrible. That's what happens with the lack of knowledge. We'll learn that here in about one minute. Deuteronomy 6, verse 6, what does he say? These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest in thine way, when thou liest down, when thou roustest up. Thou shalt bind them for a side upon thy hand. Thou shalt be as frontless between thine eyes. Thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and thy gates. And it just goes on and on and on. These are commands to Israel, yes, but you go to the New Testament, they're repeated to us. new covenant jeremiah 31 and we are part of that new covenant in christ because we received him as our lord and savior and we know a lot of it's going to be future right like israel is going to be saved we have the kingdom of uh the tribulation the kingdom of god coming and yes we're going to see these things fulfilled but it's part of us today. Jeremiah thirty-one thirty-one says, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt at which my covenant they break. That's sad, right? Although I was a husband unto them, saith the This is a good principle because sometimes I gotta remind myself, I'm not responsible as a pastor for the way you live. I wish I could control that or the choices you make. I have to teach you the truth, but you are responsible. They had the best father ever. God was their father and they still rebelled against him. He was the perfect father. And they had to make the choice to follow that perfect father. There's no perfect pastor. And I'm not trying to make that comparison, but I say this, if God was a perfect father and they still rebelled and became corrupt, then, you know, I can't blame myself every time there's a failure in the church or someone's life. because i try my best but god is the perfect father and he's your father amen if you're saved so we all have him as our father and our he's our head to christ so but that's what i'm getting at look at this you read the old testaments like It's like, what did God give them in the wilderness? And they still complain every time. It's crazy. Verse 33, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law on their inward parts, write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more, every man his neighbor, every man his brother, saying, Know ye the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, and I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. That's the part that's applied to us. in the book of Hebrews, right? It repeats these verses. Even in Corinthians, he's our God. And I will be your God and you will be my people. That's in Corinthians 2. And in Hebrews, he's going to remember our iniquity no more because of Christ. Amen? So what a wonderful thing. But think about the New Testament believer. He wants us to have knowledge. Go over there to Colossians. chapter one what's he want you to have knowledge of he says this for this cause we also since today we heard it do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you might walk worthy of the Lord in all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. And it keeps going on and on and on, amen? But think about it. He wants to be filled with the knowledge of his will. Brethren, his will is right here. You can't, you have to Learn to read the Bible and make application. We don't just want knowledge here like, okay, I know all these facts. Okay, how does this apply to this decision I'm making in my life? What's God's will for me here? What does his word say about this? What choice should I make here? This is a very practical exercise. But God wants all of us to be filled with the knowledge of his will. God wants, he wanted them to be filled with the knowledge of his word. The new covenant, that's his goal. And here in the New Testament, obviously we could spend the rest of our time speaking of this point in all the verses of the Bible that talk about God wanting us to have knowledge. but we also have to talk about this and I said one minute I made it into 10 I'm good at that Hosea chapter 4 God is displeased when we don't have knowledge and it's a very dangerous thing brethren it's a very dangerous thing why what did he say about the people of God He said, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Now, I like this verse because it really reveals why we don't have knowledge. Because a lot of times we just want to stop here and say, well, you know, I didn't have this opportunity to know all these things. So therefore I did this, this, and this. I just didn't know. That's a poor excuse, by the way. Because it says here, the real reason they lack knowledge, it says in the next phrase, because thou hast rejected knowledge. Isn't that what the Bible says? They didn't have knowledge because they rejected it they didn't want it and that's where a lot of people are today in what way well a lot of people want their own will before they want to follow God's word like okay I understand that but this is what I want this is what I'm going to do That's the same thing as rejecting knowledge. And guess what? My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because they rejected it. That's where destruction comes. And this does not please the Lord because we have every opportunity to get knowledge. He says, Seeing that thou hast forgotten the law of God, I will also forget thy children. You know, it's sad. It's sad how many nations, you could study this in history, they have the truth. I think of England. Man, there's empty church buildings everywhere over there. Like, what I mean, big church buildings that used to be flourishing with people that wanted to know the Lord now are empty. That's sad, isn't it? Why? Go to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, because it'd be good if I put the verses up there, wouldn't it? 1 Thessalonians, what's going to happen? What's the Lord say about this knowledge? Or 2 Thessalonians, did I put verse 2? I'm saying it wrong. 2 Thessalonians 1, 8. He's gonna come, this is when the Lord Jesus comes back, verse seven, and to you who are troubled, who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them, that, no, not God. and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. Do you see this? What's awaiting people who know not God? I think of Romans 10, go over there. What about the Jews that had zeal but no knowledge? You heard about that, right? Paul had a burden for them, Romans 10, 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer for God, to God for Israel, is that they might be saved. Amen? We still need to pray that. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. What good is all the zeal when you don't have knowledge? It says they were ignorant of God's righteousness, going about their statement. They were so zealous in what? All their ceremonies, their circumcision, keeping the law of Moses. But as they were doing that, they never accepted the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus to be saved. That's sad, isn't it? So we need to add knowledge because brethren, God is displeased with us and dangers. We could be destroyed, but I want you to go to 1 Corinthians 8. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because there's a whole chapter and I don't want to go through the whole chapter because I want to get to the last point. But 1 Corinthians 8, it's talking about the danger of having knowledge without love. Right? Now, as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. And then he goes down through the whole chapter, and there's some principles here that we ought to very be very aware of, but the main points of this, knowledge can make you arrogant. It can puff you up rather than build you up. That's what he's saying here. Knowledge puffeth up, but doesn't build up because love builds up. Not knowledge in the sense, knowledge without love, it doesn't work that way. Because he's talking about having knowledge with love and meekness in this chapter because really love is what edifies so if we have knowledge we need to use it with love because love, true love in the Bible won't puff itself up. We can cross-reference chapter 13. Charity is not puffed up, right? So what I'm getting at We need to, the knowledge and wisdom that we have gained, we need to share that, we need to impart that, and in the spirit of meekness, go to James 3. And I don't think I have all that here, but maybe I do. No. James 3. I know Brother Jose was wanting to speak about James 3, but this is later in the chapter. It says, verse 13, who is a wise man and dude with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. Amen. Do you see that? meekness verse 17 but the wisdom that is from above is first pure peaceable gentle and easy being treated full of immersing good fruits without partiality without hypocrisy so we need to temper our knowledge with love and first corinthians 8 you could walk through that because the danger is this knowledge can be used to destroy others and I'm not going to go through the chapter like a sharp knife knowledge can be dangerous when used improperly and that's what we're seeing in first Corinthians chapter 8 because we despise the lack of knowledge in others that's where love comes in if you don't respect others and what they've learned and their experience. And you can't run roughshod over the weak conscience of others. So there's a lot, and then Romans 14, and we will not get into all this, but you know, that'd be a great message, 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14. So if we abuse knowledge this way, guess what? It's producing sin in our lives. Isn't that crazy? That you can abuse knowledge in such a way it becomes sinful. The way you use it. Let's be careful. This is why we need that practical wisdom of God. Because that practical knowledge and wisdom of God is going to reach, or love, true, I mean love, let's just speak about that quality of love like he said over in 1 Corinthians 8, because love will restrain the knowledge that we have so that we use it in a proper way. In political terms today, we will take a scalpel rather than a hatchet All right? And it may be wise to do that on certain things, especially when it comes to the Word of God and knowledge. Amen? Now, last but not least, and we know that the source of our knowledge is Jesus Christ. Colossians 2, 3. I want you to see this verse. It's a short verse. In whom, Jesus, because it says, and of Christ, verse two, the last phrase, in whom, who, in Christ, are hid all the treasures of what? Wisdom and knowledge. Do you see why it's so important to know Jesus Christ as your Savior? Do you see why it's so important to grow in this knowledge of Him, the knowledge of His will for us? So we see how essential it is. We get some folks in. Scott, oh, I guess John's out there. We're getting some families in, some visitors, some men. Maybe you could go out and assist. Have them fill out the cards while they're there. Use all your Spanish, Scott, please. OK. We'll tell them we'll be done in a minute. The source of knowledge is Jesus and also brethren and I'm going to cut it off. I'm sorry that it is the Word of God and we were learning about this today in Sunday school. I'll try to touch on it. I think tonight. A little bit but brethren as you get into the Word of God, you're building that knowledge. and Jesus. And this is the point I was going to make to help connect it with Josh. This is what makes the New Testament essential, because all of the knowledge that we have is found in Jesus Christ and the New Testament is about him. So for it, it contains the only reliable source of information concerning his teaching while on earth and later through the apostles. We have those reliable writings of the new testament amen thank you son i'll take that tip later this search not only the source of knowledge but the search of knowledge and this is where i'd hate to cut it off but remember our study in proverbs We need to have a heart that longs and searches for knowledge. How many verses can we go through in Proverbs about the way our heart should seek knowledge and wisdom? How about, we are to love it even more than gold, knowledge. And then, brethren, The New Testament talks about diligent study of God's word and how it will bless us and increase our knowledge. So if we have these attitudes right here, you know what it's going to do for you? You'll be reading the Bible daily. You'll make it a priority in your life to study God's word. And this, get this, this is what I hope, you know what? How many of you take for granted church? Like, oh church, I got church. Do you know that it's a privilege to be in this church? Not because I'm the pastor or we have other teachers and men. But you get fed the knowledge of God here. The knowledge of the word of God. Do not take that for granted in your life. even other churches they have church but they don't give knowledge like this and the word like this so don't take for granted for example the ladies bible study the men's brotherhood breakfast conferences retreats what a time to grow So I ask you today, do we demonstrate, do you demonstrate that acquiring knowledge of God's word is a priority in your life? First Timothy says you're profiting, your progress will be known by all. Because of this, just the opposite is true. When you're not, you're suffering and your you know weakness and apathy will be known by all maybe even destruction for lack of knowledge so we have a good good exhortation today to add knowledge add knowledge and as you are adding knowledge guess what when you're the more you're in this word see how it affects You're growing in faith because faith comes through the word of God. So you're growing in faith as you add knowledge and you're growing in virtue. Praise the Lord. And as you're doing that, you're growing in grace. In the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord, you're fulfilling God's purpose for your life. Let's all stand. Father, today,