So Lord, may you graciously help
me, I return your prayerful attention to the second epistle of Peter,
chapter 3, and reading verse 18 for a text this evening. 2 Peter 3, verse 18. The last verse in the second
epistle of Peter. But grow in grace. and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ. To him be glory, both now and
for ever. Amen. Second epistle of Peter, chapter
3 and verse 18. We spoke this morning of the fact that Peter was driving
home the second coming of Christ, and the fact that this world
was not going on forever. The world would tell you that
it's been going on for millions of years and will continue that
way, but it's a false sense of security. In reality, It started
at God's word, it remains by God's word, and it will end when
God's work of new creation is complete in his church. May it be a true concern, we've
just sung of it, when thou, my righteous judge, shalt come,
that we might be part of that building, part of that church
of God, that are looking for that blessed hope. You see, for
the wicked this will be a most fearful, terrible day. Lo, he comes with clouds descending. That hymn is so graphic in picturing
the vast difference between those that are in Christ and those
that are out of Christ. Those that have a hope in his
mercy and find this day a day of the Lord when they go to meet
the Lord in the air. And those which are cast into
everlasting destruction. Peter is putting this before
the people of God. that this is coming. And he's
using this as an incentive, as it were, to push them on in a
spiritual way, to encourage them to go on, to encourage them to
lay hold upon that hope which is set before us in the gospel. And this is so true of so many
of the epistles. Ephesians was, there's some wonderful
things written of the Ephesians that we read. And yet Paul, you see, does not
say, well, the Lord has blessed you. He's called you by his grace. You have the quickened who were
dead in trespasses and in sins. He doesn't say, well, that's
fine. I'm happy with you now. He wants them to grow. This is my burden, the need for
growth. How are we going to grow? Well,
think of this naturally. I'm not particularly known to
be good for growing crops, but I do know that when you plant
the crops out, you plant the seeds out and they start to grow.
What also grows around them is lots of weeds. And as you water
the Plants that you're trying to tend, the runner beans or
the beetroot or lettuces. So as you water them, all the
other weeds, they grow very well too. And if you leave them just
like that, it will choke the plants that you're really trying
to grow. Grow in grace. There is a need,
you see, for putting to death the weeds. That's what you do in your garden,
isn't it? You're ruthless with them. You don't want them to
be there, and you make that clear. You cut them down, you dig them
up, you pull them away. You don't let them stay there. You see, Paul writes in the Colossians
in chapter 3, verse 5, says, mortify therefore your members
which are upon the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate
affection, evil concupiscence, the marginal render of that strong
desires or appetites, especially of a sexual nature, You're to
put these to death. You're not to feed them. You
see, if you go around feeding all the weeds around your plants,
they'll grow very nicely and your beans won't. They'll be
choked. They won't flourish. If we're
going to grow then, there's certain growth around us that's got to
be put to death. Mortify. This is an ongoing work. It's not just, well, you've come
to a knowledge of the truth. You've come to put on an open
profession of the Lord. That's it. We are done. No. It's
ongoing. Even in Chapter 8 of the Romans,
which is often seen as being walking in the spirit and being
in a very good, as it were, spiritual state. It says in Romans 8 verse
13, for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye, through the Spirit,
do mortify, that's put to death, the deeds of the body, ye shall
live. You see, there needs to be a
killing of that which is wrong for the growth of that which
is right. You see, if you keep feeding
the wrong things, if you give a fertilizer to the weeds, well,
they'll get on nicely, but your plants won't grow very well.
And you see, there needs to be then that mortification, but
grow in grace. And a growth in grace, there's
a mortifying that which is of the flesh. Paul describes it like this in
Galatians 2 verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. And the life which I now live,
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. Crucifixion was a death designed,
as it were, to die slowly but very painfully. And here we see,
you see, it's painful to cut off the lust. There's something
in our hearts that loves the world. You might say, well that's,
you've got a child of God, why do they love the world? Why do
they love sinful things? Because they've still got the
old nature. They've still got that old nature. And that will
be with them, you see, all their lives. But what do we do to that
old nature? Like in the garden, you go into
the garden as weeds. You might say, well, I'll get
rid of them this year and then they won't come back next year. They'll be there
again next year. They keep coming back. So what
do you have to do? Keep pulling them up. Keep weeding. Keep chopping their heads off. You see, it says in Ephesians
4, verse that in the chapter that we read, that you put off
concerning the former conversation, the former behavior. In other
words, you put off the old worldly way of carrying on. What the
world thinks is great, what the world lives for, what the world
delights in, what the world boasts of, that's what we're to put
off. And you're not going to grow spiritually if you say,
well, I'll have everything of what the world has, but I have
a little bit of Bible reading too. put off the former conversation,
the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that ye put on the
new man. This is an ongoing, present tense.
You put it on, you keep putting it on, and you keep putting off
the old man until, like I said two weeks ago, till you come
to that seventh day. When you're formed, the work
of God is complete. You enter into your eternal rest. But until then, you've got to
keep putting it off. Until then, you've got to keep
mortifying the old man that you put on the new man, which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Now, is this
easy? Well, Paul was A giant in the
faith, wasn't he? Did he find it easy? Read Romans
7 if you think he did. For we know, Romans 7 verse 14,
for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow
not. For what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that
do I. If I then do that which I would not, I consent unto the
law that is good. Now then it is no more I that
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Those weeds keep coming
up. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. And then he cries
out, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? But he doesn't stop there. I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind
I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of
sin. He had a part of him that kept
on hungering and thirsting after sin. And yet he had that new
nature that hungers and thirsts after righteousness. So what
does he do? He constantly puts to death the
old nature and constantly seeks Well, that really comes on to
my next point. He seeks to feed the new nature. You see, you
need to kill the weeds, but you need to feed the plant that you
are trying to grow, don't you? That's good to water that. It's
good to feed that. And how do we feed the new man?
What do we do? Psalm 1, blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in
the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,
but his delight is in the law of God, of the Lord. And in his
law doth he meditate day and night." A meditation. in the
Word of God. The Word of God becomes precious.
As we see the emptiness of everything around us, as we see the tinsel
glory of the things of this life, there's a meditation on the Word
of God, the law of God, there's something substantial here, there's
something that shall be the occupation of a never-ending eternity here.
To consider Him, to consider His law, His ways, His majesty,
His mercy, His forgiveness, His love. that I may know him, says
Paul, and the power of his resurrection, being made conformable unto his
death, dying to itself and living to Christ. You see in Psalm 1
verse 3, And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. This
one is going to prosper. This one is going to grow, isn't
it? There's growth here. And he shall be like a tree,
planted by the rivers of water. Where's the water? You see, it's
in the Word, it's the Spirit. It's the Spirit to take the Word
of God. I was speaking the other day,
I think, wasn't it, on the sheep. And the sheep, if it eats loads
of grass but has no water to go with it, ends up killing the
sheep. There needs to be the water.
There needs to be the Spirit. And the Word of God, if we read
it without the Spirit, it won't really profit. But we need to
have the Spirit. We need to pray for the Spirit,
that He might bless the Word and make it a lively Word, a
spiritual Word. But His delight is in the law
of the Lord, and in His law doth He meditate day and night. not
just five minutes a day, day and night. There's a continuance
in it, you see. I mean, how much time do we imbibe
what the world has to say? How much time do we listen to
the world and what it has to say to us? And how much time
do we give to listen to the Word and what it has to say to us?
The Word of God, which endures forever, probably, quite possibly,
gets less time hurt than the words and the thoughts and the
ambitions of the world around us. Surely that's not healthy. That's like feeding the weeds,
isn't it? That's like giving nitrogen and giving fertilizer
to the weeds. No, we need to feed on the word. We need the word of God to be
precious to us, but grow in grace, why? but the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
all holy conversation and godliness? We need to have this, you see. This is vital, this is necessary.
We need to be growing in grace. We need to have that grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ so that he becomes precious. You see,
we read in Ephesians 4, in verse 14 it says
that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine. You see, if you
have a child that hasn't studied very well yet all their subjects,
you could have somebody come along and tell them something
and they might believe it. Whereas if you had somebody that
was more established, they'd come along and say, no, that's
not true. That doesn't add up. You've just told me something
wrong. Well, the child might just say, oh, yes, that sounds
great. I'll go along with that. But
somebody that has a greater maturity will say, no, that doesn't add
up. That's not going the right way. That's some of the words
of worldly wise man as Christian in Pilgrim's Progress. That's
telling me to go the wrong way. I'm not going to do that, that
we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine. Paul doesn't want these Ephesians
to be like that. He wants them to grow up into
men and women, to be mature. You see, and this is the ultimate
aim that he has, till we all come in the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, a
complete man, Adam formed in the image of God, God declaring,
it's very good, till we all come. Of the knowledge of the Son of
God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fullness. of Christ. It's like that, isn't
it? If we have somebody that we really look up to and we want
to copy them, we want to be like them. Well, who's your person
that you're looking up to and looking to be like? Who is it? Is it one of the world's celebrities? Are those the people we look
at and see how they dress and see how they act and see what
they have and see what they say and think, I'd like to imitate
that? I'd like to be like them. Or do we see a beauty in a despised
and a crucified man who left heaven's glory on a mission of
mercy to sinners that didn't deserve a scrap of mercy? Do you see something beautiful
in that? Do you see something attractive? Do you see something... As you look at Stephen, Stephen
being stoned to death for his honest handling of the Word of
God, for his faithful handling of the truth of God, and speaking
it faithfully in love, he was stoned to death. And what does
he cry out? Does he cry out swearing at the
people that are doing it to him and shaking his fist and saying,
I'll get you back? Lay not this sin to their charge. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
his face shone as an angel. Till we all come in the unity
of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man. He was a mature Christian, wasn't he? He was one that glorified
God. Is He somebody you look up to?
Is He somebody you think, oh, that that grace may be in me,
that I may be conformed to that image? Not the image of a proud,
self-righteous person on this earth that vaunts their wealth
and their pride and their selfishness and their own glamour, all for
themselves. That's what the world is, in
it for themselves. Christ is so different. Learn of me, for I am meek and
lowly in heart. Meek? What does meek mean? Meek,
you see, is one that is very strong, but he doesn't use his
strength in a detrimental way for his own ends. He's meek. The Lord Jesus was meek. He had
the power of God, but he didn't use it, you see. in a wrong way. He was able to control that power. And so when he was on the cross,
taunted, despised, rejected, ridiculed, he didn't use his
power in a wrong way. He trusted in God. He put his
faith in his God. He was sustained. And he used
that power of God to bring about a deliverance for the Church
of God that we rejoice in today. See this is, surely this is somebody
that we should look up to. This is something we should admire. Something that should be attractive
to us. But you see by nature, the lust, the pomp, the pride
of life, that's what we find attractive and it seems clear
from scriptures that that remains in us. Part of us still loves
the world. There's part of us would still
hanker after the things of the world and so what do we do? conclude
we're not Christians, no, we're to mortify those things, put
them to death, don't give them any wiggle room, don't feed them,
chop their heads off. You see, we are to be amongst
those who are ruthless, grow in grace, a desire to grow. So
you might say, surely it's the work of God. Well, sanctification
is a work of God. but we're also involved in it. You see in Ephesians. Philippians 2, where it talks
about, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,
who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, took upon him
the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. Let this mind be in
you. This is what God wants us to act out in our lives, as it
were, to be conformed to that image. Let this mind be in you. But then it goes on to say that
at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, this is verse 10,
of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the
earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved,
as ye have always obeyed, not in my presence only but now much
more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear
There's an active part you see in this sanctification. Grow
in grace, not sit there waiting for something to happen to you.
Grow in grace as a command. For it is God that worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. These are
two sides, isn't it? Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both
to will and to do of his good pleasure. I believe some have
described it like this, it's God's work to get us working. It's God's work to work in our
hearts to get us working, to wake us up, to make us all that
we ought to be. For it is God that worketh in
you. But we're to work out our own
salvation. This is not to put our feet up and say, well, you
know, when all these things happen, then that would be fine. No,
we're to be in the word. We're to be diligent. We're to
be, you see, if you say, You know, two people growing crops,
one never weeds and the other does, one never feeds and the
other does. Do you think those two patches
of ground would be the same? They won't be, will they? You
see, we do read of those who, that the one foundation is Christ
Jesus, but if you build wood, hay and stubble on that foundation,
which seems to be the works of the flesh, it will be burned
up, but they may be saved. They may not lose their salvation,
but they lose all the things that they've been doing. But
we're to build up those gold, silver, precious stones, those
things that will last, those things that will endure the fire.
That's what we're to be. You see, we are to be amongst
those who do that. So we've spoken firstly of the
mortification The growing in grace is to kill the weeds, to
kill the sin that does so easily beset us. And it keeps rearing
its ugly head. And you might say, but it's doing
it again. So I've gained nothing. But you
see, we're to go on mortifying it. It's an ongoing work. And
we can't say, well, we've got to this age and therefore we're
safe. but so we're to mortify and then
we're to feed, we're to feed, you see. But we also have that in the
word of God that we are to not just hear the word of God, you
see. See, James is a very practical epistle. And in James chapter one, he
first of all says, 21. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness, all filthiness and superfluity
of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word."
The Word, you see. So they're to put off the things
that are of the flesh and they're to drink in the Word of God. They're to fill themselves with
the Word of God. They're to find the Word of God
precious. They're to listen. They're to grow, which is able
to save your souls. But in verse 22, you see, of
James 1, it says this, but be ye doers of the word. So it's
not enough to just read out Bibles and ask the Spirit to bless that. That's good, but it's not enough. were to do it in our lives. See,
Jesus likened that in his Sermon on the Mount, didn't he? He spoke
all these words and then he said at the end, there's these two
people. One built his house on the sand
and one on the rock. And the vast difference between
them, when the floods came, one washed away and one didn't. And
he likened it to the person who heard the word of God but didn't
do it. They didn't do it. They just knew that, yes, this
is what it was, and this is what a Christian should do. They could
talk about it. They knew about it. Perhaps they
read the Bible, no doubt. But they didn't do it. They didn't
put it into practice in their lives. They didn't show forth
His praise in their lives. They didn't work it out in their
own lives so that it had practical outworking in their daily lives. But be doers of the Word. And you see, the difference between
those two houses was one fell and the other didn't. And one,
you see, was practical. One was doing, but be doers of
the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For
if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto
a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth
himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner
of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty, and continueth therein the word of God, he being
not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be
blessed in his deed. This is the one that's blessed,
who puts evil out of the way, and that's an ongoing process,
it's not a one-off, it's an ongoing process, grow in grace, and they're
to be active in it. They're not to sit down, well,
when the Lord works in my heart, then I'll put away all these
evils. No, they're to get hold of them and throw them away.
They're to deal with them. They're to be active, active. It's part of the growing in grace. If we're serious about growth,
if we're serious about being ready, you see, if we're serious
gardeners, we will attack weeds. We'll be against them. We won't
let them have a place in our gardens. but whoso looketh into
the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being
not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be
blessed in his deed. If any man among you seemeth
to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, in other words,
he doesn't have a practical outworking, he has all his religion, but
yet his tongue is absolutely let loose, he does what he wants,
he doesn't say sorry for it, he doesn't realise that he's
wrong in it, he just carries on, but deceiveth his own heart,
this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. not to imbibe the world, not
to just be one of the world, not to laugh at what they laugh
at, not to enjoy what they enjoy, but to have a separate, our conversation
is in heaven, our aim is in heaven, we're looking for this blessed
hope, for the glorious appearing of the great God, this coming
of the Lord, which to the world is the most awful day. Well,
to most part of them it's a day to be mocked at, a day to laugh
at, a day to mock at, the scoffers mocking. But ultimately, it's
gonna be a solemn day, a solemn day. Well, we have in Peter's epistle then, but grow
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. We're to seek to know him, to be conformed to the image
of his dear son. This is the goal, this is the
aim, this is the objective. This is what God has in mind
for his church. He didn't. You see, there can be this idea
that there's a separation between justification and sanctification. So, as it were, there's some
Christians that God justifies but never gets round to sanctifying.
Now, I don't think that's I think whom he justified, them he also
sanctified. There's a link. And therefore,
if in your life there's no evidence of the sanctification, there
should rightly be a big question mark about whether there ever
was the justification. We shouldn't say, well, I was
justified, so therefore, whether I'm sanctified or not, that's
an optional extra. No. the sanctification is a mark
that you have been justified. And if there's no sanctification,
if there's no holy making, I understand that that word sanctification
in the Dutch is rendered holy making. It's making us holy. And you see, if there's none
of that in our lives, if we're not growing in grace, then we
need to put a big question mark about whether ever the justification
was valid. Because you see, God didn't make
the world and then go off and leave it. He started the process
of creation and he continued it till it was complete. And
his church, you see, will not be a half-finished building.
We start projects that we don't finish sometimes. We start things
and we don't get round to completing them. Don't say that of our God. The work, he starts, he completes. He will go on and if there's
no growth then there needs to be huge questions asked. Is this
person alive? Has this person really entered
in? Or are they a talkative? Are they an ignorance? Who never
really entered right? They climbed up some other way.
Because you don't see the evidence in it. You don't see their delight
in being in the house of God. You don't hear them speaking
of their love to the things of God. Their delight to be with
the people of God. Their delight to read the word
of God. Their delight to speak of those things that are precious.
You don't see that in those people. Where's the evidence? Where's
the evidence for growing grace? There needs to be growth. And
if there's no growth, there needs to be huge questions asked. Because
I challenge you, where can you find justification that is not
linked to sanctification? There's a link in the word of
God, and God won't break his link. He won't justify loads
of people and leave half of them just to live as the world live,
and to have no evidence of being a Christian. What glory does
that bring to God? Do you see true Christians? are
saved to serve, saved to glorify him, saved to be conformed to
the image of his son. And that's the process that's
going on. And if that process honestly is not going on in your
hearts, I want to wake you up because it's serious. There's
no evidence of the original taking place. There's no evidence of
life if there's no growth. You know it yourself, if your
child didn't grow, you'd be taking them to the doctor, you'd be
saying, something's wrong with this child. I didn't worry when it was one
year old and it couldn't talk, but now it's five, six, seven,
eight, won't talk. What's the problem? Something's
wrong. There's something not right. There should be that development,
there's something, this child's stunted in some way. And you
see, we are to grow and we are to develop because we are to
glorify God. And if there's no glory given
to God in our lives, we need to question whether we are a
child of God. Now, I don't say this to pour uncertainty into your hearts.
You see, it says examine yourselves to see if you'd be in the faith,
not to see whether you'd be out. But the purpose of examination
is so that you can say, yes, we have. And you see, but having
said that, there are some of course that have been blessed
and then they go into a backsliding state. But you see, the quicker
we wake up the backsliders, the better. The quicker the backsliders
realize that they've gone the wrong way and they're not on
track as they should be, the quicker they get back to the
right way, the better. We don't want to leave them backsliding.
You see, it's a wonderful thing when David in Psalm 51, when
he had sinned against God, when he had done that with Bathsheba,
he lost the joy of his salvation. And good he did. Otherwise he'd
have carried on content, you see, away from God. He lost the
joy of his salvation. He wasn't walking as a child
of God. He had no evidence that he was a child of God. He lost
his assurance. And good. He needed to. He needed
to lose that assurance because he needed to go back to God and
to get right with God. He needed to come back to that
God that he defended. He needed to plead for mercy
and obtain mercy. And then he speaks, then will
I teach transgressors thy ways. Then he would glorify God again.
Then he would speak of the mercy of God. It all got going again
in his heart, didn't he? He got in a terrible place and
we can too. So if we lose our assurance,
it's a good thing if we're in a backsliding state. We need
to lose it. We need to get out of our place. We need to call mightily to God
and to be awakened by Nathan and said, thou art the man, return. Don't stay on your knees. Don't
say, well, you know, some Christians just carry on like this all the
time. They're baptized once. You never hear a word of the
things of God after that. They just come and go and come and
go. Don't hear anything, nothing spiritual, just talking about
the weather, talking about everything and anything, but nothing about
the things of God. Growth. Growth is an evidence of life. No growth. no evidence of life,
and there shouldn't be assurance. But what we want, beloved friends,
is growth, is assurance, is to know that God is my God. And when we lose that, we want
to go back to God quickly. I think Luther said this, he
liked to keep a short account with God. That means when he
sinned and when he fell, as the people of God do, he wanted to
go back to God and quickly confess his sins and get right with God
again. And that's what we need to do. Not just, well, I've departed
from God. My Bible reading's not very important. I don't bother doing that too
much. I don't really like coming to the house of God. It's more
of a chore than anything else. All these things, and on and
on it goes. We need to get back. We need to say there's something
wrong here. We need to go to the doctors, don't we? If the
child's not well, you go to the doctors. You don't just say,
well, give it another five years. You don't do that, do you? You
say, I've got to go. And here we have the physician
of souls. Grow in grace. Grow in grace. This is God's
intention. It's not God's intention that his people should live in
a backsliding state from the time they're baptised to evermore.
It's not God's intention. It's not in the word of God.
David didn't live like that. He fell, but he was restored.
There was restoration. He restoreth my soul. It doesn't leave them in a backsliding
state forever. Yes, there are dark times. Don't
write bitter things about yourself if you're in a dark time just
now. But if you're always in a dark
time, then you need to question. You need to question. But you
see, the intention of doing these things in seeking to preach to you tonight
is for the good of your souls. Because, because of what? But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens will
pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with
fervent heat. The earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burned up Seeing then that all these
things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to
be in all holy conversation? Holy, not weather-talking, holy
conversation, something that speaks of our souls and eternity
and need to be right with God, a need for forgiveness, our love
to God. Do we show our love to God? Do
we speak of it? Do we speak to others and say,
that did my soul good. My soul went out after him this
afternoon. I had a good time this morning
in God's house or in my private devotions. Do you ever say that
to people? Do you say that? I don't mean just say it if it's
not true, of course. But do you know these things?
Are you on the stretch after Christ? Nevertheless, we, according
to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness." A new heaven. We read it in the Revelations. Coming down from heaven as a
bride adorned for her husband. No more weeping, no more crying.
What must it be to be there? Oh, this is a blessing of the
people of God. Yes, they have their trials here below. Paul
adds, Romans 7, that, oh, wretched man that I am, but he was looking.
Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of glory, and not for
me only, but for all that wait for his appearing. A crown of
glory, that's what he was looking for. Beloved friends, are you growing? Are you growing? Are you killing
the weeds? Are you feeding on the word of
God? I don't mean just reading the word of God, but feeding
on it. feed on something, you have to eat it. You have to digest
it. You need the spirit to make that
a precious so that you may grow and that you may demonstrate
life by your walk, by your conversation. So that when that thief, that
day of the coming of the Lord comes as a thief in the night,
you're able to say, like it says in the revelation, Even so, come, Lord Jesus. You see a readiness. My bridegroom
has come. This is not my rest. I'm looking
for that hope. I fed upon the word of God and
now I'm ready to be with Christ, which is far
better. God has formed Christ in me the
hope of glory so that I'm not taken up with the here and now.
It does not mean we will not fall and we will not sometimes
have the wrong side manifest itself and we need to subdue
that, we need to hate it, we need to kill it as much as we
can. But we're looking for that blessed hope. This is growth.
This is being conformed to the image of his son that we may
glorify God. Amen.