Good morning. All right, we're
going to be in 2 Peter. 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3, verse 18. This will probably be our last
message in this series. 2 Peter 3.18. And Peter writes,
But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and
forever. Amen. So Peter now closes his
second and final epistle with these words, grow in grace, grow
in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And
then he ends that in praise, in glorifying Christ his Lord
and Savior. And what I want us to see this
morning is that growing in grace It's a work that God does in
the sinner. Growing in grace is a work that
God does in the sinner. That's not something that we
work up in our flesh. By this flesh, by our works and
our activities, we don't grow ourselves in grace, but we're
grown of grace by an act of God by the power, the divine power
of Almighty God. He does that in a sinner. And
just as he does that with grace, he also does that in the knowledge
that we have of Christ our Savior. So both our growth in grace and
knowledge is by the Spirit of Christ who applies the gospel,
who applies what we hear in the gospel under the sound of the
gospel. He takes that. And he applies his word in spirit
and in truth so that we hear it rightly, so that we hear it
with the ear of faith, not just with the dead, external, cold,
meaningless, outward religion that so many people have. And he takes that word and he
applies it and feeds the new man, the new man which Christ
has created in us, of the seed of Christ that new man is created. And also this gospel word, any
of you who have sat under it for some time, you know that
it withers the flesh. It withers the flesh. It has
the spirit that makes it alive to us. feeds us and also withers
the flesh at the same time. So these things, this growth
by the Spirit, that leads us to praise. Just as Peter ends
in praise, that leads us to praise and to glorify God and to make
our boast in Him and not in ourselves. We're boasting in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our title is simply Growing in Grace. Growing in Grace. And
we'll just have three simple divisions. Grow in Grace, Grow
in Knowledge, and then Is it taught to praise? Taught to praise.
All right. So let's begin. To grow in grace
is to be grown in humility. To grow in grace is to be grown
in humility. Now there's a lot that I'm implying
in that statement. To be grown in humility there. The grace of God, well the grace,
growing grace, it's a work of God. We know that. Grace is of
God. It's not of this flesh. It's
a work done by God in the sinner and it's not something that the
sinner earns. We don't earn this status where
God now will be merciful to us. We don't earn that, not by our
works, not by our religious works, not by our doings, not by what
we stop doing. We don't do anything to earn
grace. Otherwise it wouldn't be grace.
Grace is given in spite of who we are and what we do. in ourselves. We read in the Bible, in the
scriptures, that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. He didn't earn grace of God,
he found it. God gave it to him freely of
his own choice, of God's choice. So this humbling principle is
that in spite of us, God shows us grace. In spite of who we
are, in spite of the wickedness of this heart, God is gracious
and kind and merciful to me, a sinner. As Paul wrote, he said
in Romans 9, 15, and 16, for he saith to Moses, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon
whom I will have compassion. So then, Paul concluded, and
he concluded rightly, it's not of him that willeth. It's not
of him that runs diligently and hard to earn favor with God,
but rather, it's God who shows mercy. It's all of God. It's
not anything that we've done or earned for ourselves. So that truth, it's very humbling
to the sinner. It's humbling to the flesh. It's
humbling to the flesh, especially when we think that we ourselves
are something. When we think that we're something
and somebody and have something to offer the world, that's very
humbling. And that's why it's a humbling
principle. So because of that relationship,
of grace being a humbling principle, what is it to grow in grace?
But to be grown in humility. We're growing in humility. We're
seeing that all this work is of God. So consider, if our growth
in grace was something that we did, if it's something that I
could look back on and say, well, I did that there, and then I
did that, and then I did that, and that's where I am here today.
I could look back and I'd have something to boast in. I could
look and say, well, I did that. I got myself to where I am now
in the status of grace here. You over there, you didn't do
those things. Look at you, look where you are
now. You're nothing. You're not like me. We'd have
something to boast in and that's exactly what the flesh would
do because that's what we do in the flesh. We boast of and
we look at the things we do and we have pride and we become arrogant
and boastful and self-righteous in what we've achieved and what
we've done. Grace is humbling. It's nothing
that we've earned. Nothing that we can look back
on and say, that was me there. I did that. Only the sinful things.
Now we can look at that and say, yeah, that was me there. I did
that wickedness and the Lord saved me from that in spite of
me. He did that. The Apostle Paul
describes the difference between grace and works. He says, if
it's by grace, then it's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is
no more grace. But if it be of works, then it's
no more of grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. That's mutually exclusive. You can only have one or the
other. You can't have both in any part or measure. It's one
or the other. It's either of grace and not
of works, or it's of works and not of grace. And that's it.
The reality is that we aren't worthy of eternal life. The scriptures show us and teach
us that we're not worthy. We're not worthy. We've earned
the wages of sin, which is death. We've earned that. That's what
we're worthy of. We're worthy of being cut off
and sealed off from God, who is lovely and holy and beautiful
and righteous. That's what we've earned. That's
what we're worthy of. But in spite of us, God is merciful
to us. Turn over to Isaiah 59. Isaiah
59, and go right to verse 1. The child of God understands
is taught by the Spirit. showing them what they are. We're
showing that this here in Isaiah 59 verse 1, this is our testimony
by nature. This is what is true of us in
the flesh. Isaiah 59 verse 1. Behold, the
Lord's hand is not short that it cannot save, neither is his
ear heavy that it cannot hear. And he's saying the problem's
not with God. God is able to save. The problem
is you and me. We're the problem. We're the
hindrance here in this thing. He says in verse two, but your
iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins
have hid his face from you that he will not hear. for your hands
are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips
have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. And the reason why the Lord has
this in scriptures and the reason why he's showing us is because
when the Lord saves us, He's going to make us to know that
it's in spite of ourselves. He's going to make us to know
what he saved us from. We're going to know the corruption
that this heart is by nature. We're going to understand that.
God's going to make it known to us because Will-worshippers,
that's what they boast in. They boast in what they've done
to get God, to motivate God and move God to action in their favor
and for their benefit. That's a will-worshipper. They
say, I've decided to follow Jesus. I've accepted Christ as my Lord
and Savior. I did all the things I'm supposed
to do. Aren't I a child of God now? I've done everything that
religion's told me to do, and never realizing that that kind
of language isn't even in the scriptures. There's no deciding
to follow Jesus, and there's no accepting Him as Lord and
Savior. He is the Lord and Savior, whether
you accept Him or not, whether you believe it or not. He is
Lord and He is the Savior that God has provided for His people. And so, we're the happy recipients. We receive him as Savior, not
as something we've done, but as the passive recipient, the
way a glass receives water when you pour it into it. It can't
help but receive it. It takes it because you're pouring
it into it and that's what God does. He pours his grace into
the sinner and they receive that grace by his mercy and compassion
and kindness toward them. So God saves by grace and he
makes the sinner to know it and to some measure will confess
Like Paul, when Paul said in Romans 7, 24, O wretched man
that I am, who shall save me? Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death, this corrupt, filthy, vile thing in which I
commit all these acts of unrighteousness and sin against my God and my
Creator? Lord, who's going to save me?
And he says, I thank God through Jesus Christ. I thank God through
Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. He's the one who saved me. He's
the one who delivered me and delivers me continually and shall
deliver me from the body of this death. So as long as we count
ourselves to be among the greatest, as contributors to our glory,
as contributors to our self-sanctifying actions, as long as that's what
we look at and say, I've done something, I'm pretty good, at
that area, whether it's our works of holiness, or righteousness,
or how far we've excelled in doctrinal understanding, or our
system of theology, or we look at things like, well, you know,
I can tell that I'm the most knowledgeable among these people
here, or I'm the best dressed, or I'm the best looking, or I'm
something, I'm the most well-read, or the most well-spoken, as long
as we think of ourselves as having something where that puts us
among the best, We're not growing in grace. We're not growing at
all. We're stunted if we're in Christ
even at all. We're just, we're like that Pharisee,
right? That Pharisee who stood on the
corner and prayed thus with himself, Lord, I thank you I ain't like
these other people over here. I thank you I'm not like that
publican. I'm something. I'm somebody.
Don't I look good with these big wide You know, borders on
my garment and these phylacteries over my face and everything.
Don't I look good before you? I do all these things for you,
Lord. And that's just a Pharisee who's empty and dead and full
of dead men's bones. And there's nothing glorious
or beautiful about that. And there's that publican. who
couldn't even lift his eyes up to heaven and said, Lord, have
mercy on me, the sinner. And that man went down to his
house justified that day. And that's where the Lord puts
his people. They all know that they're nothing. Before men and before this world,
they're counted as the off-scouring, the off-scouring of the world.
That's the trash. We don't need them. Those are
precious to the Lord. He's merciful. to them because
he's brought them to that. So that's growing in grace. Lord,
I'm nothing and you're everything. And I'm the servant of these
people, right? Christ said that. The greatest
among you shall be your servant. Be your servant. He or she is
nothing in their own eyes. They're willing to serve because
they know they're just happy. Happy to be here. If I had to
be a doorman in the kingdom of God, and that's good, Lord. I'll take that. Thank you so
much for that. The Lord taught his disciples
in Matthew 18, verses 2 through 4. Matthew 18, when they came
to him, they said, Lord, who's the greatest in the kingdom?
We want to know who's the greatest, who's the most awesome person
in the kingdom. And so he brought a little child
and he put the child in their midst. In verse three, he said
unto them, Verily, truly I say unto you, except ye be converted
and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom
of heaven. You've got to be converted from
the way you're even talking. You're talking nonsense. Who's
going to be the greatest? What are you worried about who's
going to be the greatest for? Be like this little child. Be turned
from your foolish talk. And that's the way that we think,
because it's so natural to this flesh. Whosoever therefore shall
humble himself, verse 4, whosoever shall humble himself as this
little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And
whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth
me. That's a good thing to work on,
to remind yourself, what am I? I'm nothing. Why do I keep putting
myself before my brethren and keep getting myself up before
others? Lord, help me to put others first,
and to put their feelings first, and their needs and their cares
first. That's such an odd way to think
for those that are assertive and confident and bold, and yet
it's a good thing. Humble yourself and pray. Don't
humble yourself to the point where you're looking at yourself
and saying, well, they're not like me. But really, Lord, Show
me what I am, that I not think more highly of myself than I
ought to think. Turn over to Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16 and go down to verse
62. We naturally think that growing
in grace, when we think of someone who's gracious, who's grown in
grace, we think, that's a great person. That's somebody great.
That's a pillar in the church. That's somebody worthy to take
note of and to look at them. I want to be that pillar in the
church. That's what we think of when
we think of growing in grace, that we're something. We've grown
in and something glorious or wonderful,
but what it is to grow and raise, it's to understand, to know the
plague of our own heart. It's to realize that I really
am nothing. I've been saved from the cesspool
of sin that I am, that I'm nothing. When we're focused on the things
that the world counts as glorious and mighty and influential and
persuasive in this world, that's not the mighty in the kingdom
of God, but they're humble. So God shows his children the
plague of their own heart so that they know what God has worked
in them, what God has done for them through Christ. Because
it exalts Christ. It makes Christ glorious. When
we see the depths of this heart and our wickedness, it exalts
Christ before our eyes. We know that we're the rebel,
that we're the sinner, that we're worthy of death. Ezekiel 16.62
says, And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou
shalt know that I am the Lord. Now listen to this verse 63 here. That thou mayest remember, and
be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more. because of
thy shame." Right? It shuts our mouth. It takes
that boast. So what he's saying is not that
we don't talk anymore. He's saying, I'm done boasting of myself.
I'm done boasting in my righteousness. I'm done boasting of my religious
works and my deeds. They're all a big pile of dog
dung. They're just dung. They're refuse. Worse than refuse.
It's arrogance and it's and it's vile and filthy in God's sight.
And the Lord says, that's what it'll be when I'm pacified toward
thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God. He's going to show himself gracious
to his people, but it ain't because we did anything to earn that
grace. We didn't earn that favor in
spite of us. God is merciful to us. We'll
get it. We'll get the message because
our mouths will be shut and we'll stop glorying. and what we've
done. We won't say, I've decided to
follow Jesus. We won't say, I've accepted him. We won't talk like
that. The Lord delivers us from that kind of nonsense. So we see that Christ is our
righteousness, and so by his instruction, we'll confess like
John Baptist confessed when he said in John 3.30, I must decrease
He must increase. I must decrease. He must increase. And so that's what we see is
the Lord's got to increase. He's going to grow and grow and
grow in our hearts. That's growing in grace because
we're growing down in humility and the Lord's growing up in
glory and power and awe and wonder of Him because He's everything
to us. All right. Now to grow in knowledge. Next we read in 2 Peter 3.18,
it says, But grow in grace, and, and you can put that word grow,
and grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So Peter would have these dear,
beloved brethren grow in knowledge of Christ. And how is that done? You know, again, we think, oh,
I should really be growing in my ability to articulate doctrines
and my understanding of the system of theology that we hold to and
things like that. But that's not what it is. We
don't teach and preach that it's what you know. We don't have
to know a certain amount of things. It's who you know. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ, and in knowing Him, He makes it known what He's
accomplished for us. We'll understand a lot of glorious
truths and blessed truths, but it's who you know. It's that
we're coming to the Savior, the Lord and the Savior, and He'll
clean up that foolish talk of ours. He'll deliver us from that idle
Jesus and that vain thoughts that we have of God. He does
that. He works it in us by blessing us to be brought under the gospel,
to hunger and thirst to know more of him as he draws us out
and draws us, delivering us from this flesh and its works. He
does that. So we'll know him. We'll know
what he did because he's going to teach us the gospel. And if
you're under the true gospel, it withers this flesh, it dries
it up, it brings it down to nothing. It brings us to that, it's not
this flesh producing fruit, but the spirit of Christ in us, that
new man that's being fed, that's where that fruit will come from,
his work in us. He'll bear those righteous things
and we won't be looking to ourselves, we'll be saying, thank you Lord.
Thank you. Thank you for doing that work
in me, Lord, because it wasn't me. And Peter says, if you turn
over to 1 Peter 1.22, 1 Peter 1.22, Peter writes, seeing ye have
purified your souls in obeying the truth. Now the carnal religious
man stops right there. Seeing you have obeyed. purified
your souls in obeying the truth, and so the self-righteous person
reflects on what they've done in obeying the truth, what they've
done to purify their hearts, and they're looking back over
their deeds and their works and what they've done or not done,
to find some satisfaction, some convincing that they've purified
themselves and have done enough to purify themselves and maybe
even are satisfied that they've done enough to purify and to
sanctify themselves. But the child of God goes just
a little further. They go a lot further. They go
all the way, because that verse says, seeing ye have purified
your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. Through the
Spirit. That's how we honor the Lord. That's how our hearts are purified. Not through this flesh here,
but through the Spirit. The Spirit purifies us. The Spirit
sanctifies us. He separates us apart and takes
us out from the wicked, dead corner ways of natural man's
religion. And what happens? It leads us,
that work of the Spirit leads us unto unfeigned, or not fake,
not pretended, love of the brethren. And see that you love one another
with a pure heart, fervently. And what we see in the Scripture
is that if we are children of God, we're going to love the
Brethren. We're going to have a true, genuine
love for the Brethren, especially as you're out there in the world
and the Spirit of God is showing you, this world doesn't love
me. This world doesn't love Christ. It doesn't love you who love
Christ. It doesn't love your ways, your
thoughts, and doesn't appreciate your love and joy in me. It hates those things. And as
long as you're loving the world and going along with the world
and joining yourself to the world in that way, we have to go out
there and work and do things, but as long as you're acting
as much like them and doing their system in ways as possible, they're
fine with you. They'll get upset with you, because
you're going to offend them, but it's when you don't partake. Not even necessarily saying anything,
but when you don't partake, they get angry. But you'll love your
brethren, because you'll see, every time I'm there, I'm just
drawn away with their foolishness and nonsense. And the Lord fixes
and works that love and desire to be with your brethren more
and more. He does that in his people. Sometimes we get to thinking,
and I just say this, we can get offended with one another, but
don't ever think, how could they do that to me? They're a brother. If they're a brother in Christ,
they would never do that to me. They would never say that to
me, or they'd never have done that. to me, but have you read
the Bible? We can see in the scriptures
how, yeah, the people of God can be pretty horrible. Just
looking at David, for example, that man He committed adultery
and then took his friend, his friend's wife, and sent that
man off to be murdered. He had him killed so his sin
wouldn't be found out of what he had done. So, you know, and
not just in the Scriptures, but just be honest with what's in
your own heart. You know, we see what's in our
heart and the Lord shows us, yeah, I can do that. I can be
pretty cruel and ignorant and harmful to my brethren. So it
can be done, so we shouldn't think that. But the Lord gives
us a love for our brethren and a desire to see them grow and
fed in Christ, and we're thankful for that. And he says, being
born again not of corruptible seed, verse 23, but of incorruptible
by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. And that
word spoken there, that's Christ. He's the one that lives and abides
forever. One day we won't have these Bibles here that we're
reading every day and looking into, we're going to know Him
who is the Word. He's the One that lives and abides
forever and He makes these things known to us through the preaching
of the Gospel. and were fed in him. And then he says, verse
24, for all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the
flower thereof falleth away. And you see the Lord, he's making
this known to us. We understand, we're gonna get
it. We're gonna understand more and more that this flesh is grass,
it's withering, it's perishing, it's adding no value to me. It's
like making a house out of straw. It's of no value. It's not going
to hold up or last. And so it's withered through
the preaching of the gospel. The spirit blows upon it and
this flesh withers and dies, thankfully. And so, because we've
got to understand, we're going to stand before God in judgment.
We have to know these things. We have to know Christ because
we're going to stand before God one day in judgment. And it's
either going to be in your own righteousness and in your own
works and what you've done, or you're going to stand before
God in the righteousness and the works of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's where we want to be, in His righteousness, not our
own. Not our own filthy, flimsy, full
of holes, works garment. We're going to be ashamed. That's
the shame it's talking about, your nakedness. your carnal nakedness,
but it's a picture, it's a type that just as you'd be ashamed
to stand out in front of your brethren naked, so it is that
if you stand before God in your own works, it's going to be worse
than just standing before your brethren naked. It's going to
be shameful. And that's not where we want
to be. But the word of the Lord endures forever. And what it's
saying there is that when He shuts the door, the door is shut. There ain't no opening. But when
He opens that door, which He's done for His people, now is the
day of grace. Go in, enter in, seek to enter
in to Christ while the day of grace is upon us. Seek to enter
into him who is life and light and liberty and the Lord. And
this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. It withers that flesh and it
exalts and shows forth the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
and that he is precious. Now, notice that this truth In
this truth, we're not all at the same level. We don't all
have the same understanding. Turn over to 1 John, 1 John 2. 1 John 2, go to verse 12. And what
John has shown us here is be patient with your brethren and
love them. Love them, because we're not
all at the same level, but we're all Christ. We're all one in
the Lord Jesus Christ, but love them. And he says, verse 12,
we see this here, John, 1 John 2.12, I write unto you, little
children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because
ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you,
young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. Now, what he's
saying is, you, and he's not just talking to men, but men
and women. He's calling them young children, and young men
and fathers, and it's a picture that that's where we all are
in our knowledge of Christ. We're all at a different, maybe
a different understanding. Some have been in the faith for
a long time, and they know the gospel, and they believe the
gospel, and they live by the Spirit of Christ helping them
and have put away childish things you know, sinful things that
they know are just not profitable and not helpful. But there's little babes. There's
young people in Christ, little babes. And that doesn't necessarily
mean that a young person is a babe and an old person is a father,
but you could have an old person who's a babe in Christ and a
young person, a pretty young person, who's been a faithful
converted follower of Christ for a long time and they're settled
and established and not moved off of these things. And you
have all these levels between of young men and women who hope
and trust Christ and look to Him and serve Him. And so we
see that preciousness, that calling them little children, young men
and fathers is just a reference, not to the natural age, but to
where we are in Christ, and he encourages us in that. Nevertheless, Paul said, where
to we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule,
let us mime the same thing. The reality is, don't be frustrated
or angry when your brethren do something. Don't judge them,
and don't be looking at them and their fruit. Look to your
own self and what you're doing and just be faithful to the Lord
yourself. Because we're not to hate our
brethren. When you're focusing in on what others are doing or
not doing, and not keeping up with you. I saw it in work all
the time. I always had somebody in my group who was worried about
what so-and-so was doing. All the time. They're not working
hard like me. Don't worry about them. You're
making what you make, and they're not making what you make. Don't
you worry about them. You just do what you're going
to do. That's the beauty of being in a capitalist society, if it's
working right. Anyway, the reality is our inheritance
is Christ. And if God calls you to work
harder than everybody else, then look to him to give you the trust,
the spirit, to say, well, that's fine with me. I mean, look at
Paul. That man worked hard. He was, he was, he went through,
I mean, shipwrecked and beaten and whipped and went hungry and
cold and naked and just, I never heard him complain and say, why
isn't everybody else doing what I'm doing? He was content. That's
what God called him to do. You know, so whether you're called
in the beginning of the heat of the day or at the very end
of the heat of the day, and you're giving Christ rejoice. That's
what God calls you to do. That's what He calls you to do. He calls us all to do what... We serve our Master, our Lord. Each one is the servant of his
Master, of his Lord, and who are we to judge the other? So
just trust that the Lord knows what He's doing. And John wrote
that in 1 John, I just have verse 9 which says,
He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in
darkness even until now. And so, you know if you're the
one in darkness if you're doing the hating, right? If you're
the one hating on your brother, because the works of the flesh
is is that maliciousness and that covetousness and that envy
and that backbiting and that talking bad about your brethren.
Don't talk about your brethren. Don't even practice it. If you've
got a problem, especially if you were in the same family,
it's probably a little easier because you know each other so
well. Don't be that much more careful not to speak ill of your
brethren. If you've got a problem, don't
even say it to your spouse. Just say it to the Lord and pray.
We want to love our brethren, and it's so easy to offend one
another and get, you know, because you know one another well. But
Paul said in Romans 12, 3, So be patient, love your brethren,
love them, Like Clay told me, and I guess
it was Henry who told him, love the people to Christ, and let
each of us love one another to Christ, and be patient with one
another, and caring, and praying for one another, and focus on
that, because hatred comes so easy. Being mean and hard on
one another, that comes so natural to the flesh, and we don't want
foster and provoke that and stir that flame up. We want to be
like one of those churches where the people come and visit and
say, there's love, there's peace here, there's peace there. That's
what we want. We want there to be peace and
people to be glad to come and to be with us. But when you have
little clicks and talking, I'm not saying there's nothing like
that here. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just bringing it
out so we know it and we want to foster that. and love one
another. There is one place, though, where
love does cease. As we grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, our thoughts and
feelings towards this world and its ways, that diminishes. That goes away. The Lord takes
that from us. As John said in 2.15, 1 John
2.15, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. He's going to give us heart for
the sheep. Now, we know that there are still
sheep out there, and that doesn't mean that you just cut yourself
off and become a monk away from the world, but when you go out
there, know that the Lord has his sheep out there, and be praying
that the Lord will give you an opportunity. I go away from so
many situations thinking, ah, I could have said this, I wish
I had said that, I wish I had held my line a little better
and spoke, but we fail constantly, but pray that the Lord The Lord
is able to take even our feeble words and sometimes it connects
with people in a way that they need to hear it. discouraged,
but always praying. So that's where love ceases,
is toward this world. As Paul wrote as well in Romans
12-2, he said, Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove, that you may
know what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And
so the Spirit teaches us and He grows us in these things that
we do grow in the knowledge of Christ. We don't want to do those
things that are that bring reproach upon the gospel. He teaches us
that. We do things thinking that will
help and help people see that we're not all old, stodgy people
that are mean and nasty. We want to look a little bit
like them to a degree, but you don't have to do that. The Lord,
he's able to call out and draw out his sheep in truth. When we speak of growing in the
knowledge of Christ, it's to grow in love with Him. It's to fall in love with Him
and be in love with the Lord Jesus Christ because we're growing
in what He's done. We see what we are every day
and we see the grace and the mercy God has on us daily and
how He's forgiven us for Christ's sake. We want to have that forgiving
heart to others for Christ's sake, even as God has forgiven
us for Christ's sake. And remember Paul's words, it's
not about, again, it's not about that doctrinal knowledge and
excelling in the system of theology and things like that. It's not
excelling in that kind of knowledge, but it's growing in love with
Christ. And Paul said, I love how he
says it in 1 Corinthians 8.1, we know that we all have knowledge. We all know things. Knowledge
puffeth up, but charity edifyeth. Love edifies. In love, we grow
in the love of Christ, seeing what He did for us, and that
edifies. That's how we serve one another,
in love. And it's not about, I know what I'm talking about,
and I'm going to teach them a thing or two, and I'm thankful. I don't
see that here, but just as the Lord grows us, just remember
to be patient and kind with others, especially as the Lord brings
people here to hear the Gospel. All right, now, finally, talk
to praise. This one's a little bit shorter.
This growth in love and the humbleness that the Lord teaches us and
the growth in our knowledge of what Christ has done for us,
how he laid down his life for us, how that the spirit, he's
given us a spirit whereby we are given life in him to know
him and to seek him and to serve him. That leads us to praise
him, all right? That's where we see we're done
boasting of ourselves, we're done looking to ourselves, to
feel good about ourselves and purifying ourselves, and we're
looking to Christ to purify us and to keep our hearts and to
bring us to the end. That's what Peter says in 318,
but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen. And the apostles often did that
when they would be speaking of some glorious truth of what Christ
has done. They would stop and just give
him the praise and the glory. Paul wrote, So We are to grow in grace and knowledge
and we see that it's God's work in us. It's not the work of the
flesh causing us to grow in grace and grow in knowledge, but it's
God's work. The flesh doesn't like that because
it's painful. We fall on our face and we see what we are and
we're brought to nothing in ourselves, but when the Lord does it, the
sweet thing is that he draws us to Christ more sweetly. We
hug up on Him who is our love and our Father and our Savior.
We hug up on Him and it's a blessed time in that fellowship with
the Lord when He draws you in that way, in His wisdom and His
glory and His power. We've all heard, think of Jacob.
Remember that story of Jacob where he's wrestling with the
Lord, and he's wrestling with them until daybreak. All night
long, he's wrestling with the Lord, and they're going at it,
and the Lord's letting them go at it with him, and in that daybreak,
the Lord was done with it, and he touched his hip socket, and
he put it out of whack. The Lord could have done that
right in the beginning. The Lord could have taken him down, but he let
him wrestle with him for a while, and he put his hip socket out,
and the Lord healed him, The beauty in that is that from that
day forward, that man never walked the same again. He was a different
man. The Lord had saved him and done
a work on him. And the flesh, yeah, the flesh
was weakened a bit, a lot, but he never walked the same. And
he was happy for it because now the God of his father, Abraham
and Isaac, was his God. sweet to think how the Lord brings
us low in ourselves, but He brings us into the family of God. And to this day, the Lord, when
Christ was speaking to those Sadducees, He said, He's the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And He's
not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. These
men are alive in Christ. And that's what we have, brethren,
in Christ. We have life in Him. He did this. This is His work that He's done
in His people. He's given you life and walk
and that light and that fellowship with Christ, knowing what He's
done for you. So, He's merciful. I'll just close with 1 Peter
5, 10 and 11. But the God of all grace, 1 Peter
5, 10 and 11. But the God of all grace, who
hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion
forever and ever. Amen. I pray the Lord will bless
them. That's what I want for me, and
that's what I want for you, my brethren, as well, that we grow
in his grace, that we grow down in humility, and that we grow
in love to Christ and love to our brethren. So let's pray.
Our gracious Lord, we thank You for Your grace, Lord, that in
spite of us, You are gracious to us for Christ's sake. Lord,
we thank You for exalting Him in our eyes. Lord, let it be
true. Let it reach the heart, Lord. Let it not just be a head knowledge,
Save us from outward self-righteous contentment and vain dead religion,
Lord, but touch our hearts, Lord. Reach in and touch us, Lord,
and deliver us from the dead works of this world and this
flesh. And bring us into the fold of Christ with your sheep.
Make us yours by adoption. Cover us with the blood of Christ.
cleanse us from our sins, and give us a heart, a living heart
formed of You, Lord, that loves You and pants for You and hungers
and thirsts for Your righteousness. Help us to grow in this grace,
Lord, keep us. Help us to grow in knowledge
and love for our Savior and for our brethren. We pray this in
Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Alright, we're going to take
the Lord's supper together. And so we'll have Scott and Levi,
if you guys would come, and Scott, if you would say a prayer and
then pass them out. Father, we're thankful again
for our time together. Lord, no place to come to meet
and fellowship and to hear the gospel. And Father, we ask that
you make us satisfied and thankful to be the dog that catches the
crumbs of grace. And Father, we just ask that
you watch over and care for us, watch over those that are ill
and those that have problems that we don't know about. And
Father, we ask that you give traveling mercies to everyone
who's away. And again, Lord, just please guide us and direct
us in Christ's name. These men are passing it out.
Don't feel any pressure to take, but if Christ is your hope, if
you're a sinner, then don't look for any goodness in you. Don't
wait until you're good and better. Take of the Lord, and He's merciful
to the sinner. But if you think of yourself
as anything, then don't take it, but look to the Lord. I'm going to turn to 1 Corinthians
11 and read from there. Paul writes to us in 1 Corinthians
11, verse 23, he said, For I received of the Lord that which also I
delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in
which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks,
he break it, and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is
broken for you, and this do in remembrance of me. And after
the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped,
saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood. This do ye, as often
as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat
this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he come." And what we're remembering, what we're confessing and taking
this is that we're sinners. We're nothing. There's no works
that we could do to make ourselves righteous and accepted with God.
We're confessing, Lord. You're everything. You're my
hope. You're my salvation. I need you, Lord. Help me, like
that Syrophoenician woman. Help me, Lord. Have mercy upon
me. And that's what we're confessing.
So, if that's your hope, then partake of this remembering the
Lord Jesus Christ and what He's done for you.