Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 42 from the Spiral Gospel Hymns Hymnal,
number 42. Let's all stand together. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Prophet, priest, and sovereign king ? ? To him render adoration
? ? Laud and homage to him bring ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? God incarnate from above Came to save His chosen people
Sent by God in covenant love ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Who upon Mount Calvary ? ? Shed his blood and sealed our pardon
? ? Died for sin to set us free ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? Prison-conquering, gracious Friend, Advocate and Mediator,
All our hopes on Him depend. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? For he brought us to his fold ? Come exalt his name and worship
? May the Savior be extolled ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
till we see him face to face. And throughout the endless ages,
praise him for his love and grace. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
86, Psalm 86. Olivia and Aaron are the proud
parents of Haley Hanson as of last night about six o'clock.
So they're doing well. I'm able to see them today, so.
I know everybody already knows that, but I wanted to tell you
anyway. Psalm 86. Bow down thine ear, O Lord. Hear me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am holy. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art
good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them
that call upon thee. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer,
and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of
my trouble I will call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me. Among
the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord, neither are there
any works like unto Thy works. All nations whom Thou hast made
shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify
Thy name. for thou art great and doest
wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and
I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly Father, Thank you for causing your people
to be poor and needy. Thank you for stripping us of
our righteousness, causing us, Lord, to, at least
in part, see that we are nothing but sin before thee and in need
of thy mercy and grace. Lord, we thank you for the hope
of salvation that you give to your people in Christ. We thank
you for a savior that was successful in putting away all of our sin
and in establishing himself as our righteousness before thee.
Thank you for the faith that you give to be able to look to
him and Rejoice in him and rest all the hope of our salvation
in him. Thank you for the blessing of
public worship, for the reading of your word and for the opportunity
to join our hearts together in praise. Lord, we pray that you
would find this acceptable in our sight, that you would enable
us to worship. Lord, that And you'll be pleased this hour
to reveal more of your grace and more of your glory to our
hearts. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 268 from the hardback
teminal, 268. Let's all stand together again.
? How firm a foundation, ye saints
of the Lord ? Is laid for your faith in his excellent word ?
What more can he say than to you he hath said ? To you who
for refuge to Jesus hath fled ? Fear not, I am with thee, O
be not dismayed ? For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid
? I'll strengthen thee, help thee stand, upheld by my gracious,
omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow,
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, and sanctify to thee
thy deepest distress. ? When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie ? ? My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply
? ? The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design ? ? Thy draws
to consume and thy gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned
for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That's although all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to 2 Peter
chapter 3. It's been a blessing to look at this letter that Peter
wrote to the believers that were scattered abroad. And we come
this evening to a verse that I've found great comfort in. on many occasions, and I look
forward to tonight, the last verse of chapter three. But grow
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. To him be glory, both now and
forever. It's been said that We are not
able to preach Christ high enough. And that is so true. I know I'm
not. And at the same time, we're not
able to preach man low enough. And thirdly, we're not able to
preach grace free enough. I hope tonight that the Lord
will be exalted, that we will be humbled, and that grace will
be free. Free. Growing in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ cannot be separated. They happen simultaneously. Christ becomes more and more
precious to us as we grow in grace and we're brought by God's
grace to believe that our salvation is all of grace and that God
has made the Lord Jesus Christ to be for us all our wisdom,
all our wisdom. All the wisdom of God is bound
up in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. All our righteousness,
we have no righteousness outside of Him. He is all our righteousness. All of our sanctification, all
of our holiness before God, whatever hope we have in following after
the Lord is found in Him. And all our redemption, we have
No hope of paying the price for our sins and being redeemed before
God outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as we grow in
grace, we become more dependent upon him for these
things. And we see that our salvation
truly is from beginning to end all of grace and all of Christ. Any doctrine that causes us to
look anywhere other than the Lord Jesus Christ for these things
is not only a false doctrine, but it robs Christ of his glory.
And it exalts man. And it's not true. And if believed
to the end, it will be the damnation of our souls. We're so prone
to try to find hope for our salvation somewhere else. It's natural
for us as sinners to try to find our hope and comfort outside
of Christ. But as the spirit of God is pleased
to grow us in his grace, we become more dependent upon the Lord
Jesus and we see more and more of our need for him. The scripture
says where grace abounds, sin does, where sin abounds, I'm
sorry, grace does much more abound. And so the more of our sin we
see, the more of our grace and the more of God's grace we see
our need for. And the reverse of that is that
grace cannot abound without sin abounding. And so we don't see
our need for more grace unless the Spirit of God is pleased
to reveal to us more and more of our sin. These things go hand
in hand. As we grow more in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we grow more out
of love with ourselves and more in love with him. In the same
amount that I grow to loathe myself and my sin, to that same
amount, I grow to love and depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ for
all my salvation. These two things cannot be separated. Scriptures refers to believers
as the trees of righteousness which are the plantings of the
Lord. The Lord plants the tree. And my limited experience with
trees and trying to grow trees, particularly fruit trees, is
oftentimes the problem with a tree that's manifested in its leaves
and in its fruit is really in the root of the tree. A tree
has to grow healthy roots deep into the soil in order for it
to be healthy in its fruit bearing. And if there is a disease in
the roots, it will manifest itself in the fruit. And so it is with
the believers, the trees of righteousness have roots that go dark, go down
into the darkness of darkness. of our sin. Paul said, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? When Job was, when the Lord revealed
himself to Job, what was the first thing out of Job's mouth?
Behold, oh, I see something I never saw before. I am vile. I'm a sinner. Growing in grace is both ways. The tree has to grow up even
as it grows down. Now, I want to contrast this growing
in grace to what is popularly taught in a lot of religious
circles today, referred to as progressive sanctification. What
is the difference between growing in grace and progressive sanctification? And before I do that, I want
to make some statements about our sins. and about our hatred
for it. The Holy Spirit causes the child
of God to hate their sin. We don't condone sin. We don't justify it. We're certainly
not pleased with it. If we could, we would never sin
again. That's our heart's desire. And our longing is for that day
when we will be rid of this body of death and we will be without
sin, seeing him as he is and being made like him. That's the
desire of our hearts and that's our hope. We pray for the Lord to restrain
our sin so that it doesn't manifest itself in shameful behavior. We're convicted by the Holy Spirit
of our sin and we grieve over our sin and we're brought by
the Spirit of God to confess our sin and to rejoice in the
forgiveness that the Lord has given us for our sin. We don't need a board of elders
to stand over us and monitor our behavior. We don't need the
law to motivate us. We're motivated by grace. We
grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it is the Lord that works in us, causing us to will and to
do of his good pleasure. Being put under the law is not
a solution for lawlessness. It's not a deterrent for sin. Grace is. The strength of sin,
the scripture says, is the law. The only thing being put under
the law does is it inspires and motivates more sin. It doesn't
curb sin. It might temporarily mask the
outward behavior of it, but it doesn't change the heart. The
law can't change the heart, and that's where the sin problem
is. Scripture says sin shall not
have dominion over you. Why? Because you're not under
the law, you're under grace. Growing in grace into the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only hope that we have
of restraining this sin nature that we live with. Believers want to grow in grace,
they want to increase in their knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They want to obey the commandments of God. They want to walk in
such a way as to please him and to honor him. His commandments
are not burdensome to them. They delight in God's law. They
love God's law. So what is the difference between
growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and
what's being taught as progressive sanctification? I want to be careful in not presenting an argument that it's
not fair because there are, as in all error, as in all false
doctrine, there are things that are said that are true. But a
little leaven leavens the whole lump and so once you introduce
a little error, It doesn't matter how many true
things you might believe and might say, that error corrupts
the whole lump and the whole thing becomes false. Seems to
me, having come from that religious tradition and having experienced
in my own life and having read much of what is believed in that
camp, one of the major problems is
this understanding of grace that that in order for us to grow
in grace we have to understand that our salvation is all of
grace it's all of grace it's all a gift it's all the Lord
Jesus Christ himself is the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and
the end the first and the last and everything in between so
This growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which every child of God desires, is a work of grace
from beginning to end. We require God's grace, his sovereign
grace, his free grace In order to have any knowledge at all
of him, we can't achieve the knowledge of God apart from God's
grace. We can't be educated by the right
teaching and the right books and the right degrees and the
right schools, the Lord must reveal himself. Nothing wrong with education. I was thinking about the two
men that God used most in the Old Testament and the New Testament,
Moses and the Apostle Paul to write his word. And I don't suppose
there's two men that had been educated more than those two
men. And yet Moses at the age of 40
tried to use his education and tried to use his influence and
tried to use his power in Egypt to deliver the children of Israel.
And God had to send him out into the backside of the desert for
40 years to humble him, to show him. that all the advantages
that he had the first 40 years of his life, growing up as Pharaoh's
son and all the, I mean, no telling how many languages Moses spoke,
were of no avail. The Lord had to reveal himself
to Moses and he did that at the burning bush. And of course, we look at the
apostle Paul having learned under Gamaliel and having advanced
beyond his peers and having become as a relatively young man, a
member of the various Sanhedrin. I mean, he had excelled greatly
in his religious pursuits. And yet when the Lord spoke to
him from heaven, revealed himself to him and knocked him off his
high horse, Paul confessed, that which I
thought was gain, I now realize was loss. I was relying upon
those things for the hope of myself. I didn't know it was
all of grace. It had to come by grace. And so it is for you
and me. I hear men speaking and talking
as if you can you can grow in grace and in the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ if you just apply the right teaching and the right education. You know, the wisest and most
humble and mature and most spiritual and sweetest believers I know
are some of the some of the least educated and it's just the way
it is. The Lord's not going to share
his glory with another and he's not going to allow man to boast
in anything that he has. God's going to get all the glory.
So growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is all
of grace. It's all of grace. It's not of
effort. It is not of him that willeth.
It is not of him that runneth. It is not of him that pursueth. It's a God that shows mercy. God that shows mercy. So here
we are. Those who hold to progressive
sanctification seem to exalt knowledge over faith, and they
value degrees more than having been with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't you love what the, in Acts chapter four, when the Sanhedrin,
these very well-educated Jews brought Peter and John,
a fisherman, before them and interrogated
them. And the scripture says they took
notice that Peter and John were ignorant
and uneducated men. And they marveled, they marveled,
but they took notice that they had been with Jesus. There it
is, there it is right there. Growing in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ is not a matter of of putting forth
the efforts of natural, the natural mind or natural education or
natural degrees, it's a work of grace and revelation. Now I've read I've read a lot
of theologians over the years and some of them were fluent
in Latin and Greek and Hebrew and they write on and on and
on and you read them and your eyes glaze over and you think,
what in the world are they talking about? And you listen to some
of these men preach today and you think, well, you know, I
don't know what he said, but it sure did sound good. And if
I could just learn his theological vocabulary and if I could have
the degrees that he has, maybe I could be as spiritual as he
is. Spirituality grown in grace and the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ has nothing to do with any of that. It has everything
to do with having been with Jesus. Grace is by its very nature a
humbling principle. It is a humbling principle. Turn
with me to 1 Peter chapter five. Look at verse five. Likewise,
ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea, all of you
be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud and
giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourself, therefore, unto
the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time,
casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Now let
me say this about humility. The minute you and I think that
we're being humble is the very moment we're not. Humility cannot
see itself. I hope that by God's grace, you
might see a little bit of it in me and I rejoice in seeing
it in you, but you can't see it in yourself. When the believer
looks at himself, all he sees is his pride and his self-righteousness
and his sin. We can't. But here's God, God
says, I'm going to give grace to the humble. I'm going to humble
you, bring you to that place where you realize that this is,
this has got to be of God. I'm going to shut your mouth.
I'm going to make you quiet. I'm going to make you humble. I'm going to make you gentle
and considerate and I'm going to Not allow you to promote yourself
and you know, these are, then I'm gonna show you grace. Grace,
growing in grace. Taking a back seat. Self-loathing. That's humility. Lord, if I'm gonna have any growth
in grace and if I'm gonna have any knowledge of Christ, you're
gonna have to give it to me and you're gonna get all the glory
for it. I fear those who, I've read some even recently just
to make sure I was, up-to-date on this, what those who teach
progressive sanctification really mean by it. And they talked about the means
that God uses to progress us in our sanctification, to make
us more holy, less sinful. And he uses prayer and worship
and church discipline and the authority of the elders
and all these things in order to progress you in your sanctification. And I fear that in there, sin
is only seen as a behavioral problem. It's not recognized
for what it is, pride. And in their attempt to curb the outward manifestations
of sin, they only feed the very root of sin, pride and self-righteousness
and pharisaicalism. And they wear their phylacteries
like the Pharisees and they parade themselves among men. Then, of course, feigned humility. I mean, that becomes pretty apparent
pretty quick, doesn't it? You see a religious person who
knows they're supposed to show for some humility, so we'll pretend
to be humble. And anybody that has any grace
at all can see through that. There's such arrogance and condescension
and self-righteousness in this whole... I'm not talking about free will Arminianism. I'm talking about those who say
they believe that salvation's all of grace. And what they say
is that justification is a work of sovereign grace. It's a unilateral
work of God whereby the Lord arrests us on our road to destruction
and saves us and positionally puts us in a place of perfect
sanctification before God. And then at that point, we begin
on a pilgrimage where we have to cooperate. And so man participates
now. in his progression of sanctification
as he becomes less sinful and more holy. There's just such pride in it,
brethren. Grow in grace. Grace is all of
God. The more we grow in grace, the
more dependent and The more we see that all of this is wholly
outside of ourselves, we become less confident in ourselves. We see more and more of our need
for the Lord to get all the glory and to do all of it. Grace exposes more and more of
our sin. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter
16, Ezekiel chapter 16. Verse 63, the last verse of that
chapter. That thou mayest remember and
be confounded and never open thy mouth anymore because of
thy shame when I am pacified toward thee. For all that thou hast done,
saith the Lord God. You know this. What the Lord
is saying is what Daniel experienced. And Daniel saw the Lord and Daniel
cried and he said, oh, my comeliness, my strength, my ability, my beauty,
my power has been turned into corruption. I've already mentioned
Job. Behold, I'm Baal. Lord, surely
I had spoke to you without knowledge. Job was presenting his case before
God and accusing God of wrongdoing until the Lord was pleased to
reveal himself to Job. And Job said, Job said, I repent
in dust and ashes. I didn't know what I was talking
about. Lord, you've shut my mouth. Lord, you're right. You're right. I need grace, that's all I can
have. And all that grace has got to
be found in Christ. A good example of growing in
grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is what
the Apostle Paul said when at the early years of his ministry,
he professed himself to be the least of the saints. And then he declared, no, I'm
sorry. He began by saying, I'm the least
of the apostles. I'm not worthy to be called an
apostle. I was born out of due time. He
puts himself on the bottom of the pile with all the other apostles.
And then later in his ministry, he refers to himself as the least
of all the saints. And then right at the very end
of his ministry in Timothy, he said, I'm the chief of all sinners. Now there's growing in grace.
The way up is down. Always works that way. Growing
in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know,
you get around some religious people who who think that they're
progressing in their sanctification and there's just, there's no
humility, there's no... Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 12. Paul said in verse two, I knew
a man, he's speaking of himself of course, I knew a man in Christ
about 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether
out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. And such a one was
caught up into the third heaven. Paul was given a vision and revelations. Look what he goes on to say,
and I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body,
I cannot tell, God knoweth. how that he was caught up in
the paradise. And he heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for
a man to utter. And of such a one will I glory. Yet of myself,
I will not glory, but in my infirmities. For though I would desire to
glory, though it's in me to glory, God showed me things that he'd
never showed anyone else. I shall not be a fool. For I
will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of
me above that which he seeth me to be, and that he heareth
of me. Unless I should be exalted above
measure through the abundance of the revelations that were
given unto me, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger
of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. With the revelation, that was given to the Apostle
Paul came afflictions in the flesh. And I don't believe he
was talking about a physical affliction. I believe he's, you know, a lot
of times men have speculated, what was Paul's thorn in the
flesh? Well, it was a messenger of Satan and it affected his
flesh. And I think it was the same thorn in the flesh that
you and I experience. It's the accuser of the brethren,
it's the presence of our own unbelief and our own sin. And
with the greater, here it is again, where sin abounds, grace
does much more abound. These two things go together
just like the tree grows. And the more the Lord grows us
in his grace, the more revelation he gives us, the more of Christ
we We know the more of ourselves we see. These two things go hand
in hand. And as all believers do, as all
believers do, We cry out in agony over the unbelief and the sin
that remains in us. And we ask the Lord, Lord, take
it away. Take it away. Remove this. And so in verse 80 says, in this
thing I besought the Lord thrice that I might be, that it might
depart from me. Lord, I don't want this unbelief.
I don't want this sin. I don't want this. And he said unto me, my grace
is sufficient for thee. Now there it is. There's growing
in grace. And my grace is sufficient. I'm
not going to take that thorn away. Matter of fact, the more
you grow in grace, the more of your sin you're going to see.
You're going to discover things in the dark. Those roots are
going to go down into areas they've never been before. And you're
going to see things about yourself that you never saw before. It's
going to grieve you. You see, here's the problem with
progressive sanctification. They just see, they want to control
sin and see sin just as an outward manifestation. But this sin problem
is in the heart. It's not gonna go away. Do we want it restrained? Of
course we do. Do we desire to honor the Lord
and not have this sin nature break out in our behavior and
manifest itself shamefully? Of course we do. But does that
change the nature of sin that's in the heart? No. He said unto me, my grace is
sufficient for thee, for my strength is going to be made perfect in
your weakness. You've got to be made more and
more sinful by my grace in order for my strength and my glory
to be manifested in your heart for you to grow in grace and
the knowledge of Christ, for you to become more humble and
more dependent and to cast more of your care upon me, I'm gonna
have to show you more of what you are. And so Paul said, most gladly
therefore, while I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in
infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions,
distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I'm
strong. Any teaching that would cause
me to look at myself and the behavior of my life to get assurance
of salvation. is I don't get any assurance. Only liars get assurance from
that. Only people who are not honest,
only people who don't know themselves and don't know Christ. That's
an evidence of not having any knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we have any knowledge of Him, we can't find any comfort in
anything that we do or don't do. all of our comfort and all
of our hope, all of our wisdom, all of our righteousness, all
of our sanctification, all of our redemption must be found
in him. You know, some will say, well,
you know, if we're progressing in our sanctification, then we
learn how to how to navigate our lives in
such a way to not be tempted with sin and exposed to sin and
we become less sinful because we become more holy and more. But we ought to avoid anything
that would cause us to sin. There's no question about that.
But let me show you something in the scriptures. Turn with
me to Exodus 13. Exodus 13. This is, if the Lord gives us
any understanding on this, I think it'll be an encouragement to
sinners. It'll be an encouragement to
sinners. It won't be an encouragement to the self-righteous, but it'll
be an encouragement to a sinner. Look at Exodus chapter 13 at
verse 17. And it shall be, I'm sorry, Exodus 13, 17. Yeah, yes. And it shall be, verse
16, for a token upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine
eyes for by strength the hand of the Lord brought us forth
out of Egypt, the hand of God brought us out. And it came to
pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them
through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that
was near." He led them away from the land of the Philistines,
although that was near. For God said, peradventure, the
people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt. So
when the Lord first delivered the children of Israel out of
Egypt, he purposefully led them in such a way as they would not
be immediately confronted with an opposing nation. Now that
didn't stand, they eventually had to fight a lot of battles.
But the Lord said, they're too tender, they're too young, they're
too, I'm not going to I'm not going to put them in that battle
until they become, until they're ready for it. They had to go
through a lot of experiences in the wilderness before they
were ready for those spiritual battles. What are we saying? That the struggle between the
flesh and the spirit increases as we grow in grace and in the
knowledge of Christ. It increases. The Lord allows
us to confront enemies that we didn't know we had before as
we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Things
that we weren't prepared for earlier. Well, this idea that we grow
in grace, he exposes us to more formable enemies. And why would
that be? So that we become more dependent
upon him. Let's go back to our text in
closing. Second Peter. Here's how I know if I'm growing
in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
last phrase in this verse, to him be glory now and forever. He gets all
the glory. David said in Psalm 115, he said,
Lord, not unto us, not unto us, but into thy name be glory for
thy truth's sake. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ gets
all the glory when we are growing in grace and in the knowledge
of Christ. If I were Sanctification is progressing
and we're becoming less sinful and more holy and it's because
of some contribution that we've made to it. Who gets glory for that? And
if you just hang out with some of those folks for just a little
while, you'll see very clearly and very quickly who's getting
the glory. who's getting the glory. It's
not God, it's not Christ. All right. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your grace. Thank you for
the putting away of all our sin on Calvary's cross. And Lord,
thank you for your Holy Spirit restraining us grow us, reveal
more of Christ to us. We ask it in his name, amen. 26, 26, let's stand together. In the spiral hymnal number 26,
just as I am. ? Thank God for love, his sovereign
love ? Unchanging is God's covenant love ? Which predestined that
I should be one of the chosen family ? Thank God for grace,
his matchless grace Amazing free, eternal grace. Grace chose me and devised a
way to save me and put sin away. Thank God for blood, His Son's
own blood, effectual sin, atoning blood. The blood of Christ poured
out for me, obtained redemption, full and free. ? Thank God for power, His Spirit's
power ? Regenerating, saving power ? The Spirit's power caused
me to live ? And made me willing to die ? Thank God for peace, His perfect
peace ? The blood of Christ has brought me peace ? My conscience
free, my heart at ease ? I am redeemed and I have peace