00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
One of my favorite lines from
kind of an old-new song, that first verse, says, Aren't you
glad that your relationship with the Lord is not dependent on
how well you grasp Him, but that He is holding you as well? Blessing today to sing and listen
to music. We have been meditating on the
fact that Jesus is the Lord of all. And I want to encourage
you this morning that if he has conquered sin and if he has conquered
death, if he is the Lord of everything, then whatever that thing is that
you are dealing with in your life is really no challenge to
him. There's nothing that you can
go through that is above his pay grade. He can handle it. And some of you might come in
this morning and you just you're discouraged. You're overwhelmed. You have some trouble that I
might not know about. It's burdening your heart. God knows it. And
he is the Lord of all. He can handle it. He's got this.
I want you to bow in prayer and thank the Lord for His power,
His sovereignty, and personalize it. Lord, the issue that troubles
me, You're Lord even of that. And lay it on His shoulders instead
of carrying it yourself. And after you pray for a moment
quietly, then I will pray on our behalf. We approach you, Lord, as the
unrivaled one, the majestic one, the all-powerful one. We long
for the day when the prophecy will be fulfilled that every
knee will bow to you and every tongue will confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And yet we affirm
the truth today. You are Lord of everything. You're
not in heaven wringing your hands. You're not nervous. You're not
trying to figure out what to do next. You're totally sovereign.
Whatever you desire that you do. Lord, in a cosmic way that
encourages us, but in a personal way, it's a great blessing to
our hearts as well. I know people come in today with
burdens. And though I might not know what they are, you know,
and you are able to address them. I pray, Lord, if you will, that
you will alleviate those needs, but if you will not alleviate
them, I pray with confidence that you will give sustaining
grace that will help us to endure them. You will give us strength
in place of our weakness. You will give us wisdom in place
of our foolishness. So we call on you, Lord of all,
demonstrate your Lordship in the circumstances of our lives.
Praise you, Lord, for the time we've had to be reminded of your
power, of your faithfulness, your mercies that are new every
morning, your love, which holds on to us even when we are so
reckless and unbelieving. Thank you. Now, as we open your
word today, I pray that you will be our teacher. We want to know
the truth. We need to know the truth. Help
me to explain your word accurately. Clearly, I pray, Lord, that my
preaching today will not be in demonstration of fancy speech or man's wisdom. But as Paul said to the Corinthians,
that preaching should be a demonstration of the spirit of power. And I
pray for that today. I pray for Christians to be built
up and matured and that they will grow in grace. I pray that
anyone who comes in today, and it's not just that they need
a church, what they need is a Savior. They need Jesus Christ. I pray
that today they will see their need, that you will shine the
gospel into their dark hearts and save them. I ask you to do
things that I cannot, but I'm confident that you are able and
willing to show your power through the scriptures today by your
spirit. We pray this with expectancy and we thank you in advance in
Jesus name. Amen. And open your Bibles, please,
to the book of Second Peter. We're still in a series of studies
on godliness, and that means we've been in a variety of different
texts. I'm not preaching through a book
right now. I'm getting ready to preach through Daniel and
actually should be starting that in the next several weeks. I've
been studying just personal Christian growth and I've told you I have
a love for this body and ambition for the Lord to keep blessing
us as we proclaim the gospel. But I don't only want to be addressing
what we do corporately together, I want to be addressing your
own individual life, your family. How can you grow in godliness?
Maybe you've reached a point where you've kind of been stale
and you haven't really seen spiritual progress for a while. Maybe you
feel like you're distant from the Lord. I hope this series
has been an encouragement to you. Come to the book of Second Peter. Second Peter talks often about
godliness, but it does so in a book that is actually one of
the hottest books of the scripture. And by that, I mean Peter is
going to uncork in Second Peter, especially Second Peter, Chapter
two. He's going to uncork on false teachers. OK, here Peter
and first Peter would write to pastors and he said they should
be shepherds that that deal gently with the flock. But in Second
Peter, he's going to say pastors should be people who deal mercilessly
with false teaching. OK, we love the brethren, we
help each other. But when somebody is denying
the truth of Scripture, the gloves come off and we go to battle. Second Peter is a book that most
of it is consumed with a focus on our defense. And yet for our
purposes today, I want us to consider that the best defense
is often a good offense. OK, we're not only defending
the truth against error, but we are trying to grow and progress
in the truth of Scripture. Second Peter is Peter's last
letter. It's written shortly before his
death. Right. He says in chapter one, verse
14, that he knows that he's about to depart from this world as
the Lord Jesus himself prophesied. So sometimes we think of Second
Timothy where Paul writes kind of his last word and he encourages
Timothy to continue in his absence. Peter is doing that. He says,
I want to get you ready. Here's some last instructions
before I leave the world so you can continue on in my absence. It's a call to arms. First in
chapter one, he assures Christians of the certainty of scripture.
He says, basically, I'm about to die, but that's no problem.
You don't need me because you have the Bible. And what you
have from the Bible is a certain word of prophecy. It's not that
we didn't make this up. We didn't come up with it ourselves.
This is the God breathed word. And it is enough to sustain you.
But then he warns us not to tolerate false teaching. And again, chapter
two, along with the book of Jude, is about as militant as any book
of the Bible. In fact, Second Peter and Jude
are two books that are so comparable that sometimes Bible scholars
wonder if one borrowed from the other because they just have
they have a lot of the same analogies when they're exposing false teaching
for how dangerous it is. Peter uncorks and you say, all
right, so this is going to be a book that's all about negativity. No, actually, it's not. The book
begins and ends with calls to Christian growth. It's very instructive
for us, especially as as fundamentalists, our heritage. You know, when
we use the term fundamentalist, we don't just mean that we're
mad about everything. What we mean is that we are willing to
fight for the truth of the faith. Jude says that we earnestly contend
for the faith. So when the Bible is opposed,
we're willing to defend it. And yet I wonder sometimes if
Christians like us can be ready to defend the truth against error,
but we're not really cultivating our own spiritual growth. You
know, we're willing to wield the sword, but in the words of
Spurgeon, we may have forgotten the trowel. That is, Christianity
sometimes is fighting with a sword, but it's always building with
a trowel. We want to be progressing. not
only defending the faith, but growing in the faith. And even
in the book of Second Peter, that is so militant, he kind
of makes this growth sandwich. He starts in the beginning and
his very last words at the end of the book say, grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be glory. I want to read
together then the first 11 verses of the book. And we're actually
not spending most of our time in 2 Peter chapter 1, but it
gives us some back story, some background information for what
we're studying at the end of chapter 3. Let's study the Word
of God together. I'm basically cherry picking
and I'm reading the portions that talk about growth and I'm
not reading the portions today that talk about defending the
faith against heresy. Second Peter, chapter one. For those of you, if some of
you are using your pew Bibles. It's on page one thousand eighteen,
if that helps you, and if you don't have a Bible of your own,
just take it home and we're glad for you to have that. One thousand
eighteen, the book of Second Peter. Simon Peter, a servant
and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a
faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of
our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied
to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. All right.
Even that greeting, even that that blessing is going to come
to play in what we study today. He wants us to have grace and
peace in the knowledge of God and Jesus, our Lord. His divine
power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory
and excellence. by which he has granted to us
his precious and very great promises so that through them you may
become partakers of the divine nature. That is a beautiful phrase.
Christians are partakers of the divine nature, having escaped
from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every
effort to supplement your faith with virtue. and virtue with
knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control
with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness
with love, excuse me, with brotherly affection and brotherly affection
with love. For if these qualities are yours
and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever
lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten
that he was cleansed from his former sense. Therefore, brothers,
be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you practice these qualities,
you will never fall. For in this way, there will be
richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jump ahead to the end of chapter
three. After railing on false teaching. He ends the book in this way,
and we'll read just the last two verses. He contrasts genuine
Christians with false teachers. He says, you, as opposed to them,
you, therefore, beloved. Knowing this beforehand, knowing
the prophecy that the world is going to come to an end and knowing
that false teachers are coming, knowing this beforehand, take
care That you are not carried away with the error of lawless
people and lose your own stability. But instead. Grow in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to him,
be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. Peter's last words. Grow in grace and the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ for his glory. Amen. Let's study what it means to
grow in grace together, several points that we'll be observing
from chapter three, verses 17 and 18, and we will kind of use
the first paragraph that we read to supplement that. Growth in
grace. happens amidst opposition. I wonder sometimes if Christians
think, you know, if the world weren't so hard, if I didn't
face so many temptations, if I didn't have people that were
opposed to me, if the church wasn't living in such a wicked
day, maybe we would see some spiritual progress. In the middle
of a book, that exposes false teaching. And it does it from
every angle. It compares them to Sodom and Gomorrah. It compares
them to all kinds of lawbreakers from the Old Testament. He uses
all kinds of analogies to talk about how wicked the world is.
And in the middle of a wicked world, he says, Christians, you
need to grow. You need to grow in grace. You
need to grow in your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Growth
happens. in the midst of opposition. I
want everyone to know that. I really like having a bunch
of teenagers down in front. I really want you to know that
this world is so opposed to Jesus. It's so opposed to scripture. And there might be times where
you feel like, how am I supposed to make any progress when there's
so much opposition? The church has always had opposition. The world cannot stop your spiritual
growth. Throughout the history of the
church, the world has persecuted Christians. It has imprisoned
Christians. It has sometimes tortured Christians.
It has ridiculed Christians. But while they can imprison you,
while they can make fun of you, they can't affect your heart.
That's where Peter would say in the book of Philippians, I
might be in prison, but the gospel is not bound. The world is powerless
to stop you. from growing. If you're not growing,
it's not their fault. It's your fault. You can grow
in the midst of a very wicked world. Read the Bible. Sometimes older believers in
particular, they say, you know, the world is in such a wretched
state, I have very little hope for the church. Really? I mean, hasn't Christ said that
the gates of hell won't prevail against his church? What kind
of civilization did the early church progress in? You say, well, things are so
wicked now. How wicked are they? Are they worse than Corinth was?
Are they worse than Ephesus was? Are things today worse than Rome
was? The world was so debauched then.
There is nothing new under the sun. I grant you that in the
last days things are getting worse and worse. But the church
has thrived in the midst of adversity. I don't believe the negativity
and the pessimism that says, you know, the world is so wicked.
What chance does Christianity have? It has every chance in
the world. Didn't Jesus tell us in the world you will have
tribulation, but be of good cheer? Because of what? Because I have
overcome the world because greater is he that's in you than he that's
in the world. Say Christianity is so countercultural. We used
to have a Christian nation and now it's so hard. Number one,
a nation can't really be Christian. It can't. Constantine tried that,
you know, everybody's Christians now. You can't do that. There's no such thing as a Christian
government, there's Christian people and we're blessed when
we have Christian governors. But you say how America used
to be used to be so friendly to Christianity. That I would
say is true. It was friendly to Christianity. But I think
sometimes, you know, we get this idea that that everything's unraveling. Because of a homosexual agenda
or because of a liberal agenda, and we say, you know what? All
of those things can happen in the world, but they can't choke
out what God is doing in the hearts of people, unsaved and
saved alike. Stop using that as an excuse.
Sometimes I hear people talk about the state of the wicked
world and they have a despair and a hopelessness, and it almost
seems like it gets us off the hook. Why is the church in such
a bad state? Well, we live in a wicked world.
No, no, no. We live in a carnal, sleeping church. Don't blame
the world for what's happening in here. The world can't stop
us. He says, you're going to be confronted.
You're going to be opposed. Heresy will abound. But you grow
in grace. It's exactly what Paul said to
Timothy in chapter three. The world is going to get worse
and worse. People will deceive and be deceived. But you, Timothy,
continue in what you've learned and have been assured of knowing
from whom you've learned them. And from a child, you've known
the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise into salvation
through faith that is in Christ Jesus. OK, the world is wicked. Newsflash. And Christians can
and must grow in godliness. In fact, I would say it's not
that the world stops your growth. The fact that the world is as
bad as it is, it necessitates your growth. Don't use the wicked
world to excuse your lethargy. Use the wickedness of the world
to say, you know what? You better get your A game on
because you're living amidst such opposition. You can't afford
to be careless. You better take care. The fact
that we live in wicked days. Means that our growth and godliness
is more important, not less important. OK, so I'm saying to everyone,
especially young people. The fact that the world is wicked
does not mean that you can't be godly. In fact, it means you
better be godly. You better be growing in grace,
you better be watching for your own soul, making spiritual progress. I especially want you to learn
this today. Progress in truth is the best defense against apostasy. Apostasy is falling away from
the faith and it's the best way to stability. Read with me. Second,
Peter 317. You Christians, therefore, beloved. Knowing this beforehand, how
how messy things will be. Take care that you are not carried
away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. I want you to be spiritually
stable. What's the very next thing he
says? Grow in grace. Grow in grace. The best way for
you to be stable in a wicked world is to grow. So in verse 17, he says, if you're
not going to fall, You need to grow. And that's where I say
the best defense is a good offense. Imagine a church saying, you
know, we live in such a wicked world, we should get we should
get our young people ready by really studying the world. You
know what, they're probably going to get a pretty good handle on
the world without our help. We need to help them study the
truth. The best way not to be deceived, the best way not to
fall away is to grow. Let me give you some illustrations
of this. I was talking to Bill Bruce about
erosion in a yard. Say that my yard is being washed
away by rain. What's the best way to stop erosion? What's the best way to stop erosion?
grass. I'm not just putting out a tarp.
I'm not just building a retaining wall. I'm not just making drains. If I want to stop my soil from
getting washed away, I need to do something productive. I need
grass. The best way to protect my yard is grass. The best way
to protect my yard from a bunch of thorns and thistles and weeds
is to have a really thick, lush lawn. In order to defend ourselves,
we keep growing. How do you defend yourself against
the world? You have a really robust, theologically sound,
Christ-saturated, joyful, becoming, positive faith in Christ. Use another illustration. You
get a quarter. Take a quarter and try to put
it on its edge and see if you can make it stand. Okay, you
think you can do that? Put a quarter on its edge and
make it stand. How's that going to go for you? It's probably
difficult, unless what? Unless you roll it. Okay, you
get a quarter and if it's standing still, it's probably just going
to wobble and fall. But if you roll it forward, at
least for a time, it's going to keep going. Spin it if you
like that idea. Where there is motion, there's
stability. Let me make it more personal
for you. There are a few people that can get on a stationary
bike. I don't mean an exercise bike slash clothes rack. I mean
a bike that really moves, only two wheels. You can't use training
wheels. There are some people that can
stand on a bike and not fall. Probably very few, if any of
them, are in this room. How do you stay on two wheels?
How do you stay up? Man, you better be moving. You
better be making progress. You don't just stand there and
try to work on your balance. If you would just get busy and
start pedaling and moving ahead, you would find out that, hey,
this really isn't that hard. I wonder sometimes if Christians
aren't in the wicked world and we're on a bike and we're saying,
hey, be careful, it's dangerous out there. Man, stop freaking
out and start pedaling. Start growing. Worry less about
the wicked world and more about the glories of Jesus. Just grow
your soul! I confess, I was reading some
blogs this week. And and I have I have blogged
in my past and I actually put up a blog this week. But I'm
reading these blogs and and I remember a time in my spiritual life where
if somebody was in error, I was like, hey. Somebody better stand
up for the truth and it better be me and, you know, super blogger
Christian, you know, I make it fun of me. Do you know what inspires
a blogger? The possibility that somewhere,
someone might be mistaken on the internet. And I'm going to
fix it. And I was reading, especially
when it's all about controversy, and I'm telling you, we're in
a book that's about controversy and Paul says don't tolerate
it, fight it. But in my life, there was a time
where I was using my energy, my time, my love for words, and
I was just fighting and defending and exposing. And if somebody
made a mistake, I would be like, hey, everybody, look, did you
see, did you see? And I read some of that this week, and it
bothered me. And it didn't just bother me
because of my exposure to it. It bothered me because, man,
I've been like that. And I came to a point of deciding,
if I have time to write, I don't want to spend the majority of
my time exposing. I want to spend the majority
of my time worshiping and exalting and magnifying Christ. And at
some point, man, stop worrying so much about the Antichrist
and make much of Christ. There's a balance. We're studying
a book that balances that. OK, Peter is willing to say,
hey, bring it. If you're fighting the faith,
you're fighting against me. But the love of our lives should
be the truth. I might put it this way. Don't
just hate error. Love truth, and sometimes in
our circles, it's so possible to be defending the faith that
we're not cultivating our own faith and our own Christ-likeness
and our own joy in the Lord. He says, listen, wicked times
are coming. Beware of them. Don't fall for the error around
you, but grow in faith. to grow in the knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Spurgeon was no stranger to controversy. And you know he fought the downgrade
in his own denomination. And he did so valiantly. And
he paid the price for it. But Spurgeon said the best way
to stand is to grow. The way to be steadfast is to
go forward. There is no standing except by
progression. Older people and younger people,
I want you to be steadfast. I don't want you to be movable.
And what that means is I want you to grow. I want you to grow. I want you to know more about
Scripture. I want you to have a greater love for Christ. I
want you to be evangelistic. I don't want us to be cowering
inside the church as though the church is merely a refuge. I want us to come here, strengthen
our faith and then get out and get busy. And we're not just
hiding and defending, we're offensive. And we are taking the fight to
the gates of hell, not just hoping they don't get in here. In the
midst of opposition, the Bible says we can grow. We must grow. Now we come to verse 18. You,
beloved, knowing that all of this is coming,
you're not surprised by it. Says you grow in grace and in
the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Growing
grace. All right. So once again, we've
seen many, many passages that command us to make spiritual
progress, to exercise or train ourselves in order to be godly. For word nerds, the word grow
obviously is an imperative. OK, it's a command for you to
actually literally keep on growing. It is a present active imperative. Present means it doesn't just
happen once. It's an ongoing keep on growing. Active means
you're not a passive recipient. You're an active participant.
An imperative means it's a command. To us. Keep on growing. You can and you must. Look at
verse 14. 2 Peter 3 14. Says, therefore, beloved, he
keeps calling him beloved, I love you. Of tenderness toward you. Since you are waiting for these,
be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at
peace. OK, you're standing and Christ
has been settled when you became a Christian. But now be diligent
so that your life isn't covered with blemishes and stains. Be
diligent. Now. That phrase be diligent. Is the exact same phrase that
we saw in chapter one and verse five. Go back there, it says
for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith
with virtue and then knowledge and then self-control and steadfastness.
And he goes through this list of virtues and he says, make
every effort. Now, isn't that very clear that
Christian growth is a result of your engagement? You know,
the whole idea that, you know, you just you just just depend
on Jesus and he'll he'll get it done for you. He got your
justification done for you. But in your spiritual growth,
in your sanctification, you have to make every effort. You have
to be diligent. The same phrase is used in chapter
one in verse 10, where it says, be all the more diligent to make
your calling and election sure. You're part of this process.
He says, grow in grace, he doesn't just say grow. I'm so glad that
he says you grow. It's a command. Get busy. But
you grow in grace. You grow in grace. Every part of your life is saturated
by grace. You're breathing it. You're living
in it. You grow in grace. Now, it's
not that grace grows. OK, it's not that God is giving
you more grace. The grace isn't growing. You
and I are growing as Christians. And we're growing in our appreciation
of grace and our experience of grace, our exercising of grace.
We're growing in our response to grace. We grow in grace. You say, what does that look
like? I don't know. I don't have time to unpack it,
but. We already read in chapter one
where he says that we should be progressing and he actually
lists out kind of a map of what spiritual progress and virtues
looks like. He defines growth this way. He
says, if you're going to grow, you need to be devouring the
scriptures. God has given you everything
necessary for life and godliness. You're not on your own. God has
provided for you in the person of Christ, in the authority of
scripture. God has given you everything
you need for life and godliness. So he says, feed on the precious,
powerful promises of Scripture. And then he says, be developing
your character. And he doesn't even just leave
it open. You know, grow in Christian character, he says, grow in Christian
character and let me define it for you. And he starts giving
you this list would be worth a study just to go through that
list. Jim Berg has written a book on this, this first paragraph
from Second Peter, and it goes through these excellent virtues.
And it talks about that kind of spiritual progress. What does
it look like to grow in grace? It means you're devouring the
word. It means that you're developing Christ like character. And look
at verse 4 of chapter 1. I love this. This gives me more hope. It gives
me more confidence that I'm actually going to make progress in this.
Start reading in 2 Peter 1. His divine power has granted
to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through
the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.
We're not on our own. He's given us what we need. by
which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises,
so that through them, this is an amazing statement, through
them, through our study of scripture and its promises, we may become
partakers of the divine nature. We become partakers of the divine
nature. That is, as I am growing in grace, it's not just me working,
it's actually me working. And it can happen because in
me, as a Christian, I have a spiritual DNA that has God's attributes
all over it. The growth is not merely you
trying to change yourself. Growth is actually you participating
in the reading of Scripture, in the study of Christ and prayer
and the means of grace. But as you do that, what is coming
to light is God's divine nature is in you. When you got saved. You're not
the same old person now forgiven. OK, you are forgiven, but you're
not the same old person. You have been born again. You've been born of God. You have the nature of God in
you being developed in you. Second, John 3 9 says that we
have the seed of God in us. So what we're saying is my growth
into Christ likeness is not merely my external change of habit. There is an internal change of
nature. I am becoming less like Chris
and more like Christ, but it's happening because the divine
nature is in me from the moment I was born again. Does that make
sense? You know, we often think of adoption. Where, you know, I'm adopting
someone into my home and they don't share my genes, but I'm
adopting them and accepting them as children. The Bible uses that
analogy to describe our salvation. We've been adopted into the family
of God. But it also uses a genetic sense
in which we have been born of God. And we have his DNA and
we start acting like Christ because we are like Christ through the
new birth. And now that's being cultivated
as we grow. In grace. I want to experience the divine
nature, I'm so sick of my fallen nature. God, as I grow in Christ
likeness. Allow your. Allow your character
to be revealed in me so that people say, you look a lot like
your dad. You know, I would look a lot
like my dad because I have his divine nature in me. And I'm
prayerfully cultivating it, so it becomes more and more apparent. And I say this just kind of for
free. Because, beloved, I care for
you. When he says grow in grace, he's
not just cracking the whip. He says the way you grow is not
by guilt. He doesn't say grow in guilt.
He doesn't say, you know, grow because there's a heavy hand
on you. Grow because you're so afraid. Grow because you're trying desperately
to make God like you. He says you grow in grace. Legalism, the idea that, you
know what, I have to do my best, God's mad at me, and I have to
dot my I's and cross my T's so He doesn't whack me. That is
deadening. What I mean is that it does something
to your own heart. It's bad for you. And it can
be deadly because it makes you trust yourself instead of Christ.
He says in light of what Christ has done in providing His righteousness,
In light of the fact that you have been born again, you grow
and you grow in grace. Some of you, you need grace to
open the windows. What do I mean by that analogy? I had a conversation with a man
in Ohio. He'd been saved for a long time. And he had grown
to know the scriptures, taught his family, his children walked
with the Lord. But he visited our church, Tri-County Bible
Church. And I say this to the glory of God, I'm not boasting. But the way he put this was so
insightful for me. He came from a church that was
focused to a very large degree on ought to and duty and standards
and performance and. And he came to try county and he
was around for a while and he said to me one time, he says,
Pastor, it's hard for me to define the difference. except to put
it this way. Have you ever been in a room
that's hot? And stuffy and you're sweaty
and you have a hard time breathing. And then if you had somebody
come in and start opening windows and fresh air comes in and you're
like, oh, that feels so much better. Have you ever been in
a hot room and you just walk out onto the patio and you feel
so good? All right, grace to legalism. Even if it's a Bible preaching
church where you're learning the gospel, sometimes it can
be so uptight and claustrophobic. And you say, I know I'm learning
the truth, but I'm not joyful. And when you when you learn how
central grace is, it's like the windows are open, all of a sudden
you say, I'm reading the same Bible, I'm singing the same hymns.
But why? Why is there so much refreshment
than there used to be? Grace. I'm not saying you have
grace to sin. I'm saying you have grace not
to sin. You grow in grace. Don't fear it. I wonder if I'm
talking to some, maybe spend a lifetime and, you know, be
careful, don't make a mistake, don't mess up. And and at some
point, instead of being so constrained by fear, you just say, you know
what? Go be a Christian. Enjoy Christ. Enjoy your walk with Christ.
Enjoy serving Christ. If you mess up, he's so gracious. You don't fear grace, you embrace
it. That's a great statement. You just embrace grace. You say,
isn't that going to make me sin? We're reading a letter telling
you not to sin, not to tolerate sin, to fight false teachers.
But the P.S. at the end of the book, after
he talked about false teachers, he says, now, listen, all that's
true. It's necessary. Pay attention to it. Don't tolerate
false teaching. But the last thing I'm going
to say to you, P.S. Grow in grace. And then the knowledge of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That last statement at the end
of verse 18, we don't only grow in grace, we grow in grace and
we grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Don't don't miss that. The only way to grow in grace
is to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
You know, it's not just a good feeling, positive, warm, fuzzy
grace. He says grace is connected to
Christ. To grow in grace means you are
growing in your knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Word knowledge occurs 16 times
in the book, so three chapters long, it includes learning information,
facts, doctrine, theology, but the word also includes fellowship.
Kate, to grow in my knowledge of Christ doesn't just mean that
I'm memorizing bullet points about his person at work. I know
about his person at work and I know him and I'm fellowshipping
with him. If you're not growing in your
knowledge of Christ, then you're not growing in grace. Kate, to
grow in grace is to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, I put it this way, Jesus is the whole race. He's
not the beginning, the starting line and the finish line. OK,
do you remember we said from Titus two that we are walking
between the appearances of Christ? He came the first time. He's
coming a second time. But it's not like he started it and he's
going to end it. And in the meantime, we're on
our own. That is not true. Christ is saturating every step
of your Christian life. You move further into the gospel.
You don't get past it. I have to be quick here. But
when he says to grow in grace by growing in your knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, what he's saying is you
didn't start with Christ and then you outgrew him and you
move on to better things. Every step of your Christian
life, you're learning more about Christ and what he did, and I
put it in these terms, Jesus is the milk and the meat of the
word. You don't graduate to something
better. There's no Christianity that
gets you past Christ. You keep growing in your knowledge
of Christ. Let me just say this for free too. When we talk about
how much we love the Gospel, we mean Jesus. We're not just
excited about the Gospel as a set of doctrines. The Gospel is the
person and work of Christ. It's all about a person, the
Lord Jesus. There's no growth apart from
Him. If we neglect Jesus, we will shrivel. But if we will
feed on Christ, we will thrive. And we talked about that last
week. We talked about the more we gaze
on Christ, beholding him as in a glass, we are changed into
his image from one degree of glory to the next. When we focus
on Christ through the word. We grow in him. We become more
and more like him. And so I could ask you, I say,
are you growing? Well, what do you mean? I don't
know. It's hard to it's hard to identify. Am I growing? It's really not
that hard. What are you learning and enjoying about your Savior?
Are you studying His person? Are you reading the Gospels?
Are you reading all of that unpacked in the Epistles? Are you reading
just books about the Gospel? Are you reading books about His
crucifixion and His resurrection? Do you love to feed your soul
on Jesus? You say, well, you know, all
that is kind of elementary. Then you're thinking wrongly.
You keep learning more and more about Christ. And you grow. Convicting statement I came across
from Spurgeon this week, he says, do not imagine, my dear friends,
that because you are getting old, you are growing in grace.
Are you growing? I've been a Christian for a long
time. Yeah, that was not the same topic. I don't care how
long you've been a Christian, are you growing? You know, you
can give funny answers that are somewhat they sound accurate.
My brother has a big library, people come into his library,
there's one guy came to his library, looked all these books and he
said, man, pastor, have you read all these books? He says. I've read some of them twice.
All right, well. That is a sneaky way to avoid
answering the question. Are you growing? Man, I've been
going to church for years. Are you growing? Are you more like Jesus than
you were a year ago? Do you love him more? Are there
songs that the more you think about them, the more you appreciate
them? Not just are you doing things, are you growing in grace,
helping you grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ? I end with this growth and grace
brings glory to God. He says. Growing grace and the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ, to him, be the
glory both now and to the day of eternity. The last thing he
says isn't grow. He says grow and the result will
be glory. The purpose of our growth is
not just so that we feel better about ourselves, so we look better.
The purpose of my growth is that it brings glory to God. All of
life, all of life is doxology. You say, man, I've been a Christian
for a long time. Why do I need to grow? Because your growth brings God
glory. And I say that the Bible is remarkably
predictable. Sometimes I feel like I preach
basically the same message. I just use different passages
of scripture because the Bible is going to talk about the importance
of grace and how grace saves you and grace is changing you.
And it says it brings God glory. And it says in a variety of ways
in different passages. But ultimately, everything in
my life is supposed to bring glory to God. And so I'm living
for something beyond me, beyond my job, beyond my home, beyond
my family. I have a bigger calling than
just me. living for the glory of God now
and into eternity. Your pursuit of godliness really
is a pursuit of Christ. To know him more is to love him
more, is to become more and more like him. You grow in grace as
you grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Grace is the antidote to your spiritual struggles. Some of
you think it's godly to feel guilty all the time. It's godly
to kind of be morose and tentative and, you know, what if I mess
up? You know what? You need it. You need a big breath of grace.
And Christianity is fun. And God gives you power and he
gives you joy. You need grace. You grow in grace. And as always, I appeal to you,
if you came in today, I don't care if you've been here years
or first time you come in today and you say, I feel like I'm
an outsider looking in. Well, don't stay on the outside.
What you need is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've never confessed
your sins and said, Jesus, I'm sick of sin, would you save me?
Would you forgive me? Would you give me life? If you
would pray in your seat today, Jesus, save me. I need you. Save me from hell to heaven.
Save me from sin to righteousness. I need grace. Save my soul. If
you ask him today, he'll save you. What would stop you from
doing that? I'm going to close in prayer
and give you just a moment to respond to the Lord, respond
to the truth you've heard. If there's something that God
has kind of pressed on your conscience, you say, you know what? Either
I'm not growing or I'm stuck in the hot room of legalism and
God, I want some grace. Whatever God's doing in your
heart, you pray and ask Him to complete it to help you grow
in grace and in your knowledge of Him. You pray quietly and
the musicians can come. And as you're praying, I'll wait
and then I will pray on our behalf. Lord, the best I can do is to
explain the truth. People need more than I have.
But you can apply it. You can save those who are lost.
You can refresh those who are just overwhelmed with guilt and
duty and legalism. You can grow all of us in the
virtues of Christ by grace as we grow in our knowledge of our
Lord and Savior. I pray that you will do in hearts what I
can't. Do it in mine. Do it in the hearts of those
who are gathered here today. Oh, great God, grow us, we pray.
In Jesus' name, Amen. If you'll stand, we're going
to sing a great hymn of confession, a great hymn that desires God
to win. My flesh fights against the truth.
God, I want you to win and conquer. Number 97 in Hymns Modern and
Ancient, if you want to turn to that. Oh, great God, glorify
your name through me. Let's stand. Turn in your smaller
hymn book to number 97.
Growing in Grace
| Sermon ID | 818141125362 |
| Duration | 53:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 2 Peter 3:18 |
| Language | English |
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.