2nd Peter 3 17 ye therefore beloved
Seeing you know these things before Beware lest ye also being
led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness
But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen. I wanted to speak on this subject
this morning, not because I know a lot about it, but because I
want to. I very much want to, and believers
all grow. Everything living grows. There are different degrees of
growth, as with all living things. living things grow At certain
seasons and some seasons are better than others aren't they
I believe it's that way in growth I Know this also to grow in the
scriptures spiritually must include the production of fruit Or we're
not growing in grace the fig tree that our Lord cursed Was
growing Was it was big it looked like it would have figs on it.
That's why they stopped But our Lord cursed it though it had
leaves and branches it wasn't a little sprig They wouldn't
have stopped to get figs off of a tree that tall it was a
big tree that had grown But it didn't have any figs on
it and And our Lord cursed it, and it
withered before their eyes. Now the seed that fell on stony
ground sprung up, didn't it? It grew, but not to fruition. You'll recall
that the Lord said to his disciples herein, as my father glorified,
that you bear much fruit. And he taught them there how
that only by abiding in him could they bear any fruit if you abide
not in me you're cut off and are only good for burning in
him we live and thrive and bear fruit the fruit of the spirit
will be produced in and by those who are growing in grace so we
grow Not necessarily in wisdom, though
the Lord teaches us things. We don't grow in the esteem of
men, that's for certain. We don't grow in accomplishments
or achievements, but grow in grace. Grace. And it doesn't hardly need to
be said that grace is the gift of God. Grace is something God
bestows. So how do we grow in grace? By Him bestowing more of it.
That's how. Growing in grace also is all
about His glory. Herein is my Father glorified,
not you, but you bear much fruit. Not unto us, O Lord, but unto
thy name give glory. Two things are mentioned that
we're to grow in, but clearly they're integral to one another,
grow in grace and in the knowledge, in knowledge. But not just any
knowledge. And this, the Bible is not just
a book of knowledge. It's not just for learning facts. It's a spiritual book. The purpose
of which our Lord stated is that you might know Him, that you
might believe on the Son of God, not just learn more facts, not
just increase in head knowledge, but to believe that you might.
These are written that you might believe. And there again, what
is faith? It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. So growing in grace, there's
no how to on growing in grace. You may as well ask how to get
God to give you grace. He gives it as he pleases. Grace and knowledge. If I read
a book on gardening, I may know more in my head about the facts
of gardening, since we're speaking of growing, I might learn how
things are grown. But if I'm really gonna know
anything, I'm gonna have to grow something. What's the point of
knowledge without experience? To become more knowledgeable,
I really have to grow something. I might know more about a person
by reading a book about them, but this knowledge is more like this. I know more
about my wife than I did the day we met. But that doesn't just mean, you
know, I've asked her what her favorite color is. You know,
does she like long walks on the beach or, you know, things like
that, answer question. It's not about that. We've lived
together. We've experienced one another. We've experienced things together.
I know how she feels about certain things. I know what makes her
happy to a certain extent that you can know what makes women
happy. But I know something about that, a little bit about that.
I know what hurts your feelings. I don't like that, I don't like
it. But we've laughed a lot together, we've wept together, and everything
in between. That's knowledge. It's different,
isn't it? Than just reading a book or asking
questions and getting them answered. It's experience. I guess that's
the best word for it. And look again at verse 17 in
our text. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing
you know these things before, you already have a head knowledge.
It's not about growing in that, although we might well do that.
But what is there new? Have you learned anything new
lately when people preach the gospel? You may say, I've never seen
that before, but what are you seeing? You're seeing Christ,
whom you've seen. Didn't Paul say in Philippians
2 and 3, that I may know him, that I may, wait a minute, Paul,
don't you know him? It wasn't that he knew more facts
about him, nor wanted to know more facts about him. He just
wanted to know him better, experience him more, walk with him in a
way that he never had before. but seeing you know these things
before, beware lest you also being led away with the error
of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness. There are
some things that we know, but we're still vulnerable and susceptible
to being led away. So we need to grow in knowledge,
in that type of knowledge, not just facts as I've said, but
we see some fall from steadfastness. And what does that cause us to
do? We want to be more steadfast. We want to be rooted and grounded
in the faith in Christ. We're prone to error. We've seen
this in our Lord's disciples, haven't we, in his word. But
somehow it's hard to see it in yourself. We also see in our studies that
our Lord was gracious to correct, to rebuke when necessary, to
correct when his disciples erred. And we pray for that. No matter
how much we grow, we're still susceptible to fall, but he's
able to keep us from falling. We pray because this is God's
work. A growing in grace is God's work.
Turn to Mark chapter four. I believe this will teach us
something here about what it is to grow in grace. Mark chapter four, verse 26. And he said, the Lord said, so
is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the
ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should
spring and grow up. And look at these next words,
how interesting is that? He knoweth not how. How does
that happen? I was showing Vicki our, We planted
these strawberries from bare roots. You've probably done that
before, seen somebody do that. It just looks like a withered
up dead thing and you stick it in the ground. And in one night,
one night, a new sprig came out, a green vibrant leaf came up
out of that dead thing. I don't know how that happened.
It was shocking. I couldn't believe it did that
in one night. He knoweth not how, you know why? Because God
did it, not him, not you, not me, God did it. For the earth
bringeth forth fruit of herself. The earth just brought it forth
of itself. Well, we know what that's saying, don't we? God
did it. First, it's saying, what that
means is you didn't, it didn't do it with your help, it just
did it. God did it. First, the blade, then the ear,
and after that, the full corn in the ear. The Lord gives us
things to do. He exhorts us to be faithful. Once we're saved, He doesn't
give us anything to do to be saved, because there's nothing
we can do to be saved. What can I do to be saved? How
can I be saved? With men, it's impossible, the
Lord said. With men, it's impossible. We can't give life. We can't
cause growth. We know not how. How does God
do that? I don't know. There's a song
that says, I know not how. God's wondrous grace to me hath
made known. That's him. So we pray, don't
we? We pray. By God's grace, we can
do that. We can't do that without his
grace. Just saying words is not praying. God's got to give life
to begin with, and he's got to give growth. I believe that's
the first thing we have to learn about growing in grace. We know
not how. I can't tell you how to. There's
no how-to book on how to grow in grace. I don't know how God
does it, but I know where to go if I want to grow. By his grace, I do. Listen to
Ephesians 4.14. that we henceforth be no more
children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby
they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him." It has to do with hearing the truth
about Christ, and where are we growing? not up in stature, not
up in popularity, not up in prosperity, up into Him, which is the head, even Christ. To grow in grace is to grow in
Christ, not self, not me becoming better, not me becoming something
more, It actually involves me becoming less. John said he must
increase, I must decrease. That's how you grow, by decreasing
in self and growing up into Christ. I know that this will involve
growth in faith. To grow in grace is to grow in
faith because faith is a grace that God bestows. Listen, Galatians
5.22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith. The fruit of the Spirit, not
the fruit of the flesh. We can increase in faith in this
flesh because we're born of the Spirit and indwelt by the Spirit
of God. This is what the disciples acknowledged
in Luke 17 three, listen to this. Luke 17 three, take heed to yourselves. If thy brother trespass against
thee, rebuke him. And if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven
times in a day, turn again to thee saying, I repent, thou shalt
forgive him. And the apostle said unto the
Lord, you know, you think, you know, they might say, you know,
teach us how to forgive like that. Well, in a sense they did. What they said was this, increase
our faith. Their response to realizing that
they're not that forgiving was Lord increase our faith. And again, Lord, you do it. It's not gonna happen. It's not
gonna happen. We can't seem to forgive someone
one time, much less seven. We have trouble with that, don't
we? What needs to happen then? Growth, growth, increase. And the only one that gave life
to begin with is the only one that increase it, that can increase
it. can give faith at all is the
only one that can give more of it. He gives the increase. Remember
when Paul said, Barnabas is nothing, I'm nothing, but God that giveth
the increase. 2 Thessalonians 2, 2 Thessalonians
1, 3, we are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as
it is meat. because that your faith groweth
exceedingly." Well, that's a good thing to say about somebody. It's a good thing to have said
about you. Your faith is growing a lot. Oh, what a wonderful thing. And the love of every one of
you all toward each other aboundeth. These fruits go together. Don't
they love, peace, faith, gentleness, goodness? You know why? Because
they're not fruits, they're fruit. It's all one fruit that includes
all of these things, the fruit of the Spirit. Love is another
one of those graces mentioned there in Galatians 5 also, as
well as 2 Thessalonians 1 where we just read, where the fruit
of the Spirit is described. And when Paul writes this, Grow
in these things and increase our faith and your love aboundeth. Your faith groweth exceedingly.
You can almost see like a beautiful garden, can't you? Imagine how
it's thriving and beautiful with vegetables and beautiful flowers. And you see in this verse that
there is a growth in fruit, not just in a mental accumulation
of knowledge, but fruit, these things that the spirit works
in us. It's God which worketh in you
both to will and to do his good pleasure, to bear fruit and to
even want to. You're not even gonna wanna do
anything for God unless he works it in you. We're just going to
have to come to the place, aren't we, where we just say salvation
is of the Lord. It's all Him. Paul wrote to Timothy that there
are those who are ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge
of the truth. It's not that they're not learning
facts about the truth, but they don't know Him who is the truth
of God. He also wrote to the Corinthians
that knowledge without any fruit, just bare knowledge in and of
itself, you know what it'll do? It'll puff you up. It will make
you proud. It'll make you go around saying,
I know more than you and you're going to hell because you don't
know what I know. That's just nothing but self-righteousness. But love, the fruit of the spirit,
what does it do? It doesn't puff you up, it builds
you up. It builds up those that you love.
It edifies, it buildeth up. So this is the growth that we
desire. Not stony ground kind, which
immediately springs up and having no root when the sun comes, when
the heat of affliction comes, they wither. We don't want that
kind. but to be rooted and grounded
in the faith and grow up into Christ and be fruitful in his
kingdom and for his glory. That's how God is glorified,
that we bear much fruit. Do we bear the fruit of joy? Just knowing things is not going
to do that. Not knowing facts is not going to do that. You
ever notice that people that are really smart and are in theological
things, you know, they study theology and they're real smart. They're always wanting to debate
somebody. They're always wanting to argue with somebody and they're
not happy. They are not happy people. They
just want to prove how much they know. They can't just rejoice. They can't just come together
and rejoice in who we know. I know a few folks like that. If you don't believe what's being
said, go somewhere where you will, right? Instead of arguing about it.
There is nothing to argue about this morning or ever. Not a thing. We just rejoice
in what God's revealed concerning his son. and how he saved us
with his precious blood. Knowledge puffeth up, 1 Corinthians
8.1. It causes division and contention and debate. Stripes of words,
Paul talked about. He said, avoid that. Avoid them
that want to get engaged in that. But love builds up and is accompanied. It's a fruit that has all these
graces included in it. We can rejoice together in Christ
and his truth Which, by the way, is plain as the nose on your
face. How can you argue about Christ
is all? How are you gonna argue about
that? That's pretty simple, isn't it? How are you gonna argue that
salvation is by grace through faith in God's Son? That God
saves who he wants to. That's what grace is. He saves
whoever he wants to. He doesn't try. He doesn't make
salvation available. He just saves sinners. as it
pleases Him. That's hard to argue with it.
You might not believe it, but it's nothing to argue about.
Just go find somebody that'll tell you that's not right and
enjoy it. Or maybe God will have mercy
on you and reveal the truth to you. But I want to grow in joy too,
don't you? That'd be wonderful, wouldn't
it? Just grow in joy, be able to just rejoice in the simple,
clear gospel of our Savior. And growing in joy, it doesn't
mean skipping through life with a stupid religious grin on your
face either. It's more like this. It's more
like Paul and Silas in prison and expecting probably to die
the next day and singing songs of praise unto the Savior. That's the kind of joy I ask
that God would increase in my heart. What about long-suffering,
the fruit now? We've got to bear fruit, you
see that. Forgiveness and tolerance, long-suffering. I've seen those
who I believe know the gospel and love it. I've seen others
and I myself have struggled with that. Forgiveness. We love the idea of forgiveness
until it comes down to the fact that there's actually something
to forgive. And then it's real tough, isn't it? It's real tough. You're bitter and you're hurt.
And it's not like the ideal. There again, it's not just, well,
yeah, you're supposed to forgive people. But have you ever really
forgiven anybody that much? Some things are kind of easy
to forgive, aren't they? Others, not so much. When our Lord taught his disciples
about forgiving, forgiveness, there in that verse we read a
while ago, seven times. And they asked him in another
place, how many times should we forgive our brother? Seven times? And he said, 70
times seven. In other words, and don't count
that up, because it's not. You say, well, there's some people
who are getting pretty close to that number. No, it's not
about that. Remember what they said, make
our faith grow, increase our faith that we might obey you
in that. If we truly believe that he forgave
us, we truly believe that he is long suffering with us, That's the only motivation there
is Scripture doesn't say forgive others because you know, you're
better than that. No, you're not better than that You're not
but he forgave you much Be you can one to another Tenderhearted Forgiving one another even as
God for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. We don't need to learn to answer
complicated theological questions. We need to learn how to be tenderhearted. We need to learn how much the
Lord Jesus forgave us. If your own immortal soul hangs
upon the free forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus, who gave
himself for you, then you must grow in this grace. You see, we don't believe that
growing in grace is, you know, getting better and better, I'm
getting more holy, you know, I'm living and doing a little
bit better and learning from my mistakes and things like that.
We believe that God forgave us freely for Christ's sake. And if we're gonna learn that
better, he's gonna have to give us more grace. Doesn't the scripture
say, he giveth more grace? He does do that. So by his grace,
let's ask him, ask him for it. The fruit of goodness is mentioned
in Galatians 5, and that includes a lot of things, but mainly it
simply just means to be like Him, goodness. All of this really
is to be like Him, isn't it? Listen to this, Matthew 5, 44,
but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse
you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children
of your father, which is in heaven. That does not mean if you do
those things and you qualify to be one of his children. That
does not mean that. You know what it means? If you're
gonna be like him, like children or like their father, then this
is how you're gonna be. Forgiving, long-suffering, loving,
Actually care about somebody besides yourself That's that's
his way now, that's his way That you may be the children of your
father for he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the
good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust for if
you love them which love you What reward have you? God didn't
love them that loved him He loved them that despised him Do not even the publicans the
same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more
than others? Do not even publicans so? But
be ye therefore perfect, mature, grown up in grace, as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect. Growth in grace will cause us
to more and more want to be like Remember when we talked about
to follow him and to walk, to walk in love and things like
that. The word means, I believe the
word follow means to imitate. I know that, I believe that's
right. And that's what children do. They can't do what we do when they're little,
can they? But they're right in there, you
know, with their little plastic hammer. They want to be like us. And that's how this is. We're
not going to be like him perfectly yet, but we want to imitate him. This is what Paul was talking
about in 2 Corinthians 8, seven, therefore, as you abound in everything
in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all diligence and in your
love to us, see that you abound in this grace also. He's talking
about giving there in that chapter, 2 Corinthians 8. And our father
is the great giver of every good and perfect gift. What do you
have that you didn't receive from him? And to bear the fruit of goodness
comes from a desire to be like him. We grow also in peace if
the Lord is pleased to give us grace to grow. Now what is peace? There are a lot of different
kinds of peace. Look at Philippians chapter four. Let's turn over
there together. Philippians chapter four. 10 Philippians 4 10 but I rejoiced
in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath
flourished again wherein you were also careful, but you lacked
opportunity and Not that I speak in respect of
want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased
and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things
I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound
and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me, notwithstanding You have well done that you did
communicate with my affliction. Now, Paul didn't learn to be
content in every state by reading facts or learning from commentaries
and things like that. He learned that, how? By experience, by suffering some
things, by walking with Christ a while. and knowing him, not
just by a head knowledge, but by faith, living with Christ
for years and finding that if he had Christ, if we just have
him, we can do without some other things, can't we? We can do without
things if we have him. He said he knew how to abound
also. So whether he abounded or was
suffering what? He was at peace. Because the
Prince of Peace gives that to his people. And I know this,
the fruit of meekness will come with this kind of growth. Meekness
is not weakness. It's not being, you know, shy
and unassuming and letting people trample on you. It's humble obedience. That's a strength, not a weakness. If you don't understand that
it takes strength to have humility, then you don't have any. Because
the Lord gives that often through trial, through
having our patients tested, our pride, Let me just put it in
plain language, an old preacher that I love used to say all the
time, by the Lord's knocking the stuffing out of you a few
times. That's how you learn to be humble. And it takes more
strength than we have. The Lord's got to do that. He's
got to accomplish that in us. humble submission and obedience
Growth in grace will not make you proud The way an increase
in head knowledge only will knowledge puffeth up Grace won't do that the love
of God shed abroad in your heart won't do that Romans 12 3 for
I say through the grace given unto me I The only reason I can
say this, Paul said, is God gave me grace. To every man that is
among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but to think soberly. Now think about that. He's talking
about meekness, humility, submission. How are you gonna do that? According
as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. the measure of faith. You see,
when they said increase our faith, that really includes all of this,
doesn't it? You're gonna be humble. You're
not gonna think more highly of yourself than you ought to think
to the degree that God gives you the measure of faith in him. Faith is just looking to him,
isn't it? That's what brings us down. He
must increase, but not me. How are you gonna see that? Look
into him by faith. How does God deal faith? That's
interesting the way that Paul said that, isn't it? According
as God hath dealt to every man the measure, there are measures
of faith. How does he deal faith? How did
he give you faith to begin with? So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. That's how. If he gave us faith by hearing,
how will he increase that faith? How will we grow? First Peter 2.2, as newborn babes,
desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If so be you have tasted that
the Lord is gracious. He gives faith by the gospel
and he'll give you more of it by the same means. Do I need
to tell you what my advice about everything to everyone every
time is again? You know it, don't you? I don't
even have to say it anymore. May the Lord deal to us a greater
measure of faith. He does it, doesn't he? He makes
it to grow, and we know not how. We know not how. If I get any
tomatoes this year, it'll just be the Lord on it. It'll be the
Lord. We know not how, but we know
who. We know who. And he deal us a
greater measure of faith that we might bear more fruit to his
everlasting glory. In our text, he said, may glory
abound unto him both right now and forever. By his grace, may
we start right now glorifying him in everything and wanting
to grow that we might glorify him even more. Yeah, let's bow
in prayer.