I'd like to turn this evening
to the second epistle of Peter, chapter 3, and the very last
verse of the chapter, chapter 3, verse 18. 2 Peter 3, verse
18. And here, of course, we have
the very final words of the Apostle Peter, under the inspiration
of the Spirit of God, to the people of God in all ages. There's something poignant, isn't
there, about the final words of someone. We would hope that
they would be words which are pointing us to Christ and glorifying
Christ And we see that here with the words of the Apostle Peter
under the inspiration of course of God's Spirit. This is his
final instruction we might say to the people of God. Grow in
grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. to Him be glory, both now and
forever. Amen. So I want to ask the question
tonight, are we growing in grace? And I know it's a warm evening
here and it's hard to concentrate But I do hope we'll be able to
touch upon a few things that can help us to understand this
most precious and encouraging doctrine of spiritual growth
in grace. What does it mean? Well, of course,
it means in some way to make progress within our souls in
spiritual things. And I'm sure we're all wanting
to make some progress. We realize we are not the people
we should be. Maybe some of you have the view
that you've arrived. I don't know. But certainly it's
not the case with me. There's much to be done within
my soul concerning making spiritual progress. I have an old nature,
just like you do. And we know that according to
the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 that we need the Spirit of
God within our soul. That's so vital isn't it. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
They are foolishness to him. And at times we have to acknowledge
that we have no interest in spiritual growth. Sad to admit it isn't
it. that we catch ourselves at times.
We say, what's happened? I've lost that sense of connection
with the Lord. There's something amiss, something
wrong. And it's very grieving to us
by trust. Now we might say that there was
a good reason why the Apostle Peter said this to the dear people
he was writing to here. It's because they were coming
under severe persecution. There was tremendous testing
of their faith. And if you were preparing to
run the Olympics in the coming weeks, you wouldn't begin preparation
now, would you? you would have started perhaps
two or three years ago. And it's building up to be able
to run the race or whatever it is that you were to do. And in
spiritual things, friends, we need to understand that we don't
suddenly grow into spiritual Christians, those that are looked
up to, those that are loved for the Lord's name. It is a constant
progress and struggle and work. And you think of planting seeds.
You plant the seed. There's a period, isn't there,
where all kinds of things can happen. There could be a drought. There could be scavengers come
and spoil the crop. There could be weeds grow up
and choke it. All manner of things need to
happen in order for that seed to take root and to grow and
to flourish. And we need to understand that
the work needs to go on within our soul constantly. And Peter,
you see, he was concerned for these dear people. He knew the
tests that would come. Some of them would be put to
death for the faith. I don't know how we would view
that prospect. Would we be here tonight? We
knew that in a few weeks, if we carried on coming into the
house of God, that we would be put to death. Grow in grace and in the knowledge. That was the most important thing,
we might say. for these people who are facing
trials. Now we don't know what's going
to happen in our country. We're perhaps anxious. If we
look back just ten years and we see what's gone on in this
last ten years, the pressure that's building against faithful
believers in this country And we can see the general trend,
and I'm not suggesting or fear-mongering, suggesting that things are only
going to get worse and worse. We can easily fall into that
trap. Sometimes that's not the case. The Lord is sovereign. But nonetheless, believers should
be preparing for further tests. And we cannot do that unless
we are serious and concerned about our spiritual condition,
day by day. Am I growing in grace and in
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Your neighbour, I don't know if you know them,
if you speak to them, but even if you don't particularly speak
to them, They need you to be a sincere godly Christian. That's what they need from you.
The people on your street. That's what they need to see
in you. Somebody who loves the Lord who
is fervent in spirit. Someone who can be a blessing. It's not always possible is it.
Some are struggling with various difficulties. But if they're growing in grace,
they will always be a blessing of sorts to those around us. This country urgently needs sincere
and earnest Christians. That's perhaps the greatest need
of this country, is those that would turn to Christ and follow
him fully. And so Peter saw the dangers.
He spoke of Satan going about like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour. He knew the pressure was building. And so he gives them this instruction,
this focus we might say. Grow in grace. And I want to
just be careful here The first thing really we want to understand,
what does it mean exactly to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well we know what it cannot mean.
It cannot mean that a believer is somehow gaining more security,
gaining more justification before God. gaining in the sense that
they can increase their forgiveness that God has given to them. We
cannot gain more forgiveness by growing in grace. A Christian
is somebody who is forgiven, washed, cleansed and justified
once forever. And so we cannot gain more security
Now you notice here in verse 17, the end, he says, beware
lest ye, also being led away with the error of the wicked,
fall from your own steadfastness. Is he implying that a Christian
can fall away? No, but he's giving the warning
that they must take heed. He says, be aware. There are
dangers around you. It doesn't mean to say the Christian
says, well, I'm completely immune from all errors. How foolish
that would be. We know then that when he's saying,
growing grace, it doesn't mean that somehow our security, the
security of our salvation, is in any way increased. You remember
what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8 verse 1, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. And so we
cannot mean here by growing grace, growing in the salvation or gaining
salvation. we are complete in Christ. Even the weakest believer, once
saved, cannot be lost. But he means that the work of
the Holy Spirit must be encouraged and strengthened
within the soul. You remember how When a believer
comes to know of Christ, it is the work of God. It is the work
of the Spirit of God within the soul, giving us a new birth. We were once dead, but now are
made alive. Our souls are reborn, and we're
added into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Holy
Spirit When he gives that spiritual life, plants graces in the soul. And you might say, that sounds
very strange. The first grace he plants is
that of repentance. We cannot become a Christian,
can we, unless we repent of our sins. And the Lord gives us that
grace of repentance. He gives us the grace of faith. He gives us the grace of humility
to turn away from our sins and confess to the Lord what a needy
souls we are. He gives us the grace of love
to Christ. He gives us a taste of heaven,
of joys to come. It's a wonderful thing, the work
of the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther said the Christian
life is repentance. Well, of course, he didn't mean
to say there was no faith or joy or love. What he was saying
is it's so important that grounding in the Christian life begins
with repentance. And as the work of repentance
goes on, we become more and more aware of the mercy of God to
our soul. And we stand in awe. We say,
Lord, I could have wallowed in despair, but this wonderful love
of Christ has been revealed to me. And it gives me hope. And that hope brightens up. our
life because we suddenly see that there is a way back to God
for our soul and we come alive to Jesus Christ. And so that
grace planted by the Holy Spirit grows and it's a miracle. Every seed that grows, it's in
a way a miracle. all the biological functions
that need to work, the chemical reactions that need to take place. It's astonishing that growth
of one seed could take place. And so it is within the work
of the Holy Spirit, within a believer's soul. It's a miracle to see somebody
reborn. and their soul being transformed
by the work of God within them. The Apostle Paul talks about
our bodies being the temple of the Holy Ghost. Do you not know, he says, that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God? Suddenly
this place that was devoted to sin and devoted to serving Satan
is now turned into a palace of prayer and is swept clean as
it were and is now made new in Christ Jesus. And so it is the
work of the Holy Spirit that enables us to grow in grace. Well I want to hasten on a bit
here tonight but it's a sign of health isn't it? Growth. Something
is going on which is wonderful and good and going to be a blessing. If you had a newborn baby that
was not growing of course we would be so anxious and concerned. What's wrong with this child.
And so it is when a Christian does not grow in grace and they
seem to be stuck as it were in a rut. Then there's a warning
sign. There's something wrong. They're
not growing. What's going on. Bunyan, he said
of the Bible, either this book will keep you from sin or sin
will keep you from this book. To grow in grace, we love the
scriptures and we want to see new believers loving the Word
of God. That's how they can grow in the
knowledge of Jesus Christ. But growth is also a sign of
influence. If we are growing, then we can
be a blessing to others. Then others around us can share
in what the Lord has done for us. And that's a wonderful thing. Are we an influence? What kind
of influence are we on other people? We have in social media
today all these so-called influences. They're trying to promote certain
ways of living. What kind of way of life do we
promote as believers? What do people see if they meet
us from one year to the next? Do they see that we're stuck
in a rut? We're struggling to trust the
Lord. We're struggling to lean upon
him. Jesus said abide in me. rest
in me, trust in me, lean on me. How wonderful it was the Thessalonians,
Paul could say of them that the Word of God had a great influence
from that church, so much so that Paul, when he went preaching
around Thessalonica, he hardly had to preach the Gospel because
the influence of that church was so great. And he said, you
did all the work for me. I just had to, as it were, gather
in the harvest. What kind of influence are we? Abide in me, Jesus says. and
you will glorify the Father bearing much fruit. So we're thinking
then of this spiritual growth. Now there's something we need
to understand here before we move on and that is what do we
mean by growing? Some people have this view that
somehow they've got to become super spiritual Christians They've
got to be able to do this and to do that and to do the other.
And it adds a certain pressure to them. They say, well, I'm obviously
not good enough as I am. And of course, they also want
to make progress. But then they suddenly miss the
point. What does it mean to grow? It's not that we in one sense
have to cause the growth. Nobody causes the growth of one
seed. It's the work of God. And so
as Christians we need to say, what does it mean to grow in
grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ? It is
one simple truth. It is to be rooted. in the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is to be found sitting at
the feet of Jesus. It is to be drawing all our life
sap from Him. That's what it is. Then we can grow because we are
in Him. That's why Jesus said, abide
in me. And we can only keep growing
as we are in Him. That's why you notice that little
word, in. Grow in grace. You see, the seed has to be planted
in the soil. And the soil gives it the nutrients
and the life. And with the water drawn up,
that produces the growth. But if we don't abide in Him,
we cannot grow. So the focus here is upon the
grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want
you to notice four words, Lord, Saviour, Jesus and Christ. And I want to very simply think
of those words briefly this evening. In the knowledge of our Lord. And the first thing that we notice
here about growth is growing in humility. He is our Lord. we must confess Him as our Lord. If we would grow in grace in
every situation in our life, He must be Lord. If it's your
way that you want, if it's the way that you want to go, and
you know it's not the way that the Lord would go, then you know
that that's the wrong way. He grew by humility. He grew by laying aside himself
and doing the will of his Father. That's how he grew in grace.
Now of course at one sense he didn't grow in grace, but do
you know what the Apostle says in Philippians 2, ye know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be
made rich. Can you see? He must be Lord. The Lord. Our Lord. And you notice the emphasis there,
our Lord. You see, Peter was reminding
them that Christ was his Lord and he had had to lay aside so
much and he had had to follow Christ so much and he had had
to learn that sometimes Peter was not Lord but Christ must
be Lord. And that's the first step to
spiritual growth. the awareness of the corruption
within our heart, the unholiness of our soul, the I AMs of the Bible. They lead us to
making Christ Lord. What do we mean, the I AMs of
the Bible? J.C. Ryle gave us some I AMs. He says, can you say with Job
that I am vile? with Abraham that I am dust and
ashes, with Jacob I am not worthy of the least of thy mercies,
with David I am a worm, with Isaiah I am a man of unclean
lips, with Peter I am a sinful man, O Lord. You see, humility, the nearer
you draw near, to Christ, the more holiness, the more humility
that you will see in Him, the more you understand your countless
imperfections. Humility. He is the Lord. Lord, show me the way. Lord,
teach me. Help me. It's the beginning step
of growing in grace, laying aside self and owning him as Lord. Then we have this word, Saviour. And this reminds us, doesn't
it, how can we forget, if we would grow in grace, the great
rescue of our soul? from the depths of our sin and
our shame. It's good for us to be reminded,
and it also induces humility within us, as well as praise
and thanksgiving. When we reflect upon what the
Lord has done, He is the Saviour. He has rescued me. He has redeemed
me. He has shed His blood for me. How wonderful to think of Him
as our Saviour. And we have, of course, the name
Jesus. And if we would grow in grace, then we must grow in our devotion
to the Lord Jesus in the sense that we remember His great work
of salvation as it impacted Him You see the word saviour teaches
us about what Christ has done for us and how that should cause
us to be thankful to him and praise him. But the name Jesus
reminds us what it meant for him to save us from our sins. The name Jesus means saviour
for he shall save his people. from their sins. And what did
it mean for the Lord Jesus? It reminds us of all of his offices. He is to be a substitute, to
stand in our place. He was the one that would go
to the cross. He is the one who would be the
priest And it is only because he was the priest on our behalf
that he makes us kings and priests to God. And it is through his
entrance in beyond the veil with his own heart's blood that it
opens the way of access for us sinners. So we need to grow in
grace in the sense that we meditate on the humility of Christ, on
all that he has done for us in saving us. And it is only when
we forget these things that it feels like we're drifting away
from him. We need to be more devoted to
him. This is what is meant here, grow
in grace and in the knowledge, in the knowledge, knowing, understanding,
meditating on, thinking about, considering, taking to heart,
believing, rejoicing in Jesus. Think of him as the shepherd
of your soul. How he leads you and has promised
to guide you. How he carries you in his arms. How he is your husband, your
friend, your provider, your brother, your mediator. He hears your prayers. Jesus. This name teaches us so much
about our devotion to him. Augustine, one of the early church
fathers, he spent so much time looking for the Lord outside
of his heart. And it was only when he, as it
were, realised that the Lord had already entered his heart. There you see within his soul
he could then meditate upon, consider who the Lord Jesus was. He had come into his heart and
these graces grow within the soul, within the heart and Christ
comes within the soul and he teaches us of himself. Some of the old writers called
the soul, the spirit, the holy of holies, where the Lord himself
comes. We grow in grace when we meditate
on him. We come to him in prayer and
we say, Lord Jesus, you have come into my heart. By grace
you have saved me. By grace you have loved me. You
are now my prophet and my priest and my king.' And he hears the prayers of our
heart and he enables us to pray and we sense that he is with
us and we rest in him and we rejoice in him. and we grow in the knowledge
of Him. But then we have this last word,
Christ, means the Anointed One. It reminds us of the purpose
of God throughout all ages and that promise from Genesis 3.15
where the serpent would bruise his heel, but he,
the promised Messiah, would crush the head of the serpent. It reminds
us of the promise that there was one long promise to come
who would redeem the people of God. And you see, we grow in
grace when we consider, when we understand that this world
in which we live will not be here forever. We look for new
heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We look
for a world of love, a world which has no sorrow or crying
or tears or death or pain. And this word reminds us that
God has a plan. It has a purpose. Whatever I'm
going through today, Christ, the Anointed One, has come according
to God's purpose and he will come again according to God's
purpose. And this stirs our love and it
shows us that we can trust the Lord throughout all the trials
of life. that we go through. Grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In closing this evening I just
want to mention a few things that may hinder us from growing
in grace. Sometimes Christians might say
that I'm not growing in grace because of my circumstances. And that's sad, isn't it? Perhaps
you've spoken to another Christian and you get the impression that
they're truly stuck in a rut. They're unable to look up and
they're unable to sense the nearness of the Lord. And we need to ask
the question, why is that? Of course, we've thought about
the answer, haven't we? Rooting, being rooted in Christ,
in the knowledge of Him, considering Him. But sometimes Christians
can become careless, even lazy. in seeking the Lord. We rarely
spend any time reading the scriptures. Perhaps there have never been
so many sermons available to us as there is today. People that lived even a hundred
years ago sometimes had to travel many miles to go and hear somebody
to preach. Now we just click, don't we? We can hear whichever preacher
happens to be our favourite at that time. And we can become
like consumers through the supermarket. Here are all the preachers that
we might like to hear and that's our favourite this time. We need
to be careful. Listening to sermons doesn't
necessarily mean that we will grow in grace. Even coming to services, and
there's no way of course I'd discourage either thing, but
sadly there seems little profit, little growth. And the Lord Jesus
Christ warns, he says, that we need to take heed how we hear. We need, you see, to grow in
the knowledge of Christ. That's the primary thing, is
to know more of Jesus. Be still and know that I am God. Enter your closet, call upon
the Lord. When the door is shut, we can be so careless and neglect
prayer. Perhaps it's our friends that have caused us not to grow
in grace. Christians can, as it were, make
friends with people who are unhelpful and they can be a hindrance and
a stumbling block. Perhaps they have different perspectives
to the way of worship which we know and love. And they don't
respect our stance on certain aspects of the Christian life.
And they can unsettle us and even embitter us. And we need
to be aware. Perhaps There have been examples,
bad examples in our family and it has destroyed much of our
confidence in the Lord and now our growth is stunted. I remember
sadly hearing of one well-respected preacher who one day became very
irate in a restaurant and people that were in that restaurant
knew who he was and they lost their respect for him and it
caused a great amount of cynicism concerning
the doctrine that he taught. Growing grace. Perhaps we've
been offended or we have offended somebody else. Our tongues have
run away with us and we've not sought their forgiveness. Maybe we need to write an apology.
You see, these are very real aspects of the Christian life.
We cannot grow in grace unless we are rooted in what Christ
would do. He is our example. And if we
fail, we need to be honest. We need to be repentant. We need
to be open. Maybe we've been dishonest. We
need to come clean before the Lord and before others. Maybe we refuse to take responsibility
and there are sadly many churches who are crying out for people
to take responsibility. And there are many homes like
that as well. Fathers to take responsibility
in the home for worship. Do we let it drift? How can we
grow in grace? And so there may be unconfessed
and secret sin in the believer's life. You think of Achan. Much evil was brought upon the
nation because of his one sin in the midst of the camp. Well
friends, these are searching thoughts as we close tonight.
But we think of these words, grow in grace, and I hope they'll
be a help to us this evening and in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Don't compare yourself to other
Christians. There's such a danger that we
just live as though it is what other Christians think of us
that matters. You see the great message of
this verse. It is what Christ knows of us. That's all that matters. That's
all that mattered to Peter as he himself had to be crucified
and exited this world in the midst of the horrific Nero persecutions. But you see the Lord Jesus is
all and in all for the Christian. Our life here below is a pilgrimage
and we are to centre our life upon Christ. Every fruit bearing
branch he prunes, Spurgeon says. Every golden strand he casts
into the furnace Losses and crosses are not welcome but the most
important thing is do they make us grow in grace and look unto
Jesus. May the Lord bless his own word. Amen. May the Lord help us singing
our final hymn as we close our worship here today from Hymns
for Worship number 138. 138. Lord Jesus think on me and
purge away my sin from earth-born passions set me free and make
me pure within. Hymns for Worship 138, tune 70. O Jesus, think on me, and purge
away my sin. O math-born passion, set me free,
and make me pure within. Lord Jesus, think on me with
care and woe oppressed, Let me thy loving servant be, and taste
thy promised rest. Lord Jesus, think on me. Amid the battle's strife, ? In
all my pain and misery ? ? Be Thou my health and life ? ? Lord
Jesus, think on me ? ? Nor let me go astray ? Darkness and perplexity point
out the heavenly way. Lord Jesus, think on me. When froze the tempest high,
When on doth rush the enemy, O Saviour, be Thou mine. O Jesus, think on me, that when
the flood is past, Now may the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the love of God our Heavenly Father, the help
of the Holy Spirit, be with you now and always. Amen.