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.