We're going to be in the book
of 2 Peter this hour. 2 Peter 3. Our text is found in the very
last verse, verse 18. Our subject this morning is one
that most convolute, most misconstrue. They pretend that they have a
righteousness in doing so, and it's not true. It's not true.
We know why this is the case. The scripture tells us that evil
men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived. They deceive themselves, don't
they? Our heart's deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked. And we would indeed deceive ourselves
all the way to hell if the Lord allowed us to. Here we have a exhortation by
Peter in 2 Peter 3.18. Let's read this together. But grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory
both now and forever. Amen. I've titled this message
Grow in Grace. Grow in Grace. And I know some
of you probably being in false religion at one time, this was
a verse they would use to light a fire underneath you to make
sure that you were living right or you were doing right or you
were doing more. They would often ask, what are
you doing for Jesus and things like that. Peter's saying, grow
in grace. And I want to know what that
means. And I hope if the Lord would be our helper, if the Lord
would cause it to be so, that we can walk away from this place
knowing what it means to grow in grace. When it comes to the Lord Jesus
Christ and his salvation, we believe that he is the alpha
and the omega. means he's the beginning and
the end. The alpha is the first letter
in the Greek alphabet. The omega is the last letter
in the Greek alphabet. It's the same as the A and the Z in our
alphabet. But we believe he is the beginning
and he is the end. Now in some way, shape, or form
in all false religion, either they omit God as the omega or
they omit God as the alpha, one of the two. Either he is the
first cause in salvation, in calling his people and electing
his people. And he is the cause of their
salvation and saving his people. And he is the end result of his
people by being the finisher. He finished it on the cross of
Calvary or he's not, it's that simple. Either he's the alpha
and omega or he's not. Now, In religion, I remember
very clearly that once you were saved, you were always saved.
In the religion I was in, the false religion, it was that,
okay, I've given my heart to Jesus. I've let him into my heart.
I've made him Lord. First of all, we can't make God
Lord over anything. He's Lord over everything. We
can't let God do anything, can we? But because I made that decision
in this false religion, I knew that I was saved because he's
the omega. He's the end of that. believe
that you can lose your salvation, therefore he's not the Omega.
But I believed he was not the Alpha. I had to be the first
cause. I had to do the first thing. So I believed he was the
Omega, but I didn't believe he was the Alpha. Some believe that
he's neither the Alpha or the Omega. My point is this, the
Lord is the Alpha, and the Lord is the Omega in salvation. And it's all of grace. It's all
of grace. Not by works of righteousness
which you have done, not by works of righteousness that we have
done, but according to his mercy. All by grace. For by grace are
you saved through faith, in that not of yourself. You're not the
Alpha, you're not the Omega. I'm not the Alpha, I'm not the
Omega of my salvation. No, the Lord Jesus Christ is.
It's all by grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, in that not of yourself. You didn't do it, he did it.
I didn't do it, he did it. It's the gift of God. It's his
gift. It's his gift unto his people.
Well, I hope to understand what Peter is encouraging us to do,
encouraging the beloved, as he said, those that obtained like
precious faith, it's found in verse one, and then he calls
it the beloved in chapter two, and throughout this whole letter
that he's writing, all three chapters, he refers to whom he's
writing to as the beloved, the elect, the Lord's people. What
does he mean grow in this grace? If we believe that salvation
is all of grace, that he's the alpha, that he's the omega, and
we do, What does it mean to grow in that grace? Well, I hope to
find the answer to this question this hour. And to do so, the
first question I have for us is what is grace? If we're gonna
grow in it, we have to know what it is exactly, right? What is
grace? What is grace? Grace is God's sovereign choice
to save his elect when you and I were otherwise unsavable. Grace
is God's sovereign choice to redeem a people when otherwise
we were unredeemable. Grace is God's sovereign choice
to love when you and I, when his people, his chosen people,
were unlovable by every standard. He chose to do it. He chose,
that's grace. That's what grace is. He chose
to redeem his bride when she was unredeemable. We couldn't
have done anything to redeem ourself. And that's what grace,
that's why grace is so sweet to the Lord's people. God committed
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, not when
we were doing a little better, not when we were trying a little
harder, not when we had cleaned up our life, when we were yet
sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. When we see ourself
as truly being the ungodly, not just part, but the ungodly, then
we'll say, amazing grace, how sweet the sound. that saved a
wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found, was blind, but now I see. The only way we can enjoy those
words is by being made a wretch, by being made vile, by being
shown what we are. That's what the Lord does is
he just reveals what's already there. Our righteousness is his
filthy rags. He just reveals that. We're vile. He just reveals that. The heart's
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. He just reveals
that by grace. Otherwise, we would never see
it. We would never see it. The Lord chooses to do so. Grace
is getting what we do not deserve. What do we deserve? Well, we
deserve eternal separation from God. We deserve punishment for
our sin. We deserve hell. We deserve hell. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He died for his people. Grace is getting what we do not
deserve. Now understand there's only now and always have been
just as there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, Lord has,
but one grace. He doesn't show a little bit
of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. He shows all grace in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We see that that's where grace
is found. There's only one source that grace is found and it's
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is not merely God's will
to save. Grace is God's act of saving. It's not just his will. It's
his act of doing so. He didn't just say, I'm going
to save you and then didn't do it. He did it. Call his name
Jesus for he shall save his people from their sin. He didn't try.
He successfully redeemed his people. It wasn't an attempt
like me and you attempt things. It was impossible for him to
fail. It was impossible for him to falter. Why? Because he's
God and he cannot lie. He shall save his people from
their sin. Why did he choose to do that? Grace, grace, for
by grace are you saved through faith in that not of yourself.
He chose to do that by his grace. It was all accomplished by the
Lord Jesus Christ once and for all for his people. Grace is the free unmerited favor
of God. It's only found in one place.
It's only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. The free unmerited, what
does unmerited mean? Unmerited means you didn't earn
it. You didn't merit it. I was reminded of the Boy Scouts
whenever I was studying this and how that you would get merit
badges. Maybe some of you are familiar and you would work really
hard. You'd have to tie so many knots. They'd give you a merit
badge, a not merit badge. Well, you don't have to earn
that anymore. I've earned that one. And some people, boy, they was really
dedicated. There was those who were abundantly,
they had merit badges everywhere. I didn't have very many merit
badges. I didn't want to put in the effort. But the point is, is this is
not something in salvation that you can earn. This is not something
that can be merited. You can tie all the knots in
the world. It's not gonna do any good before God. Everything that Christ Jesus
did merited salvation. Everything that Christ Jesus
did merited his people's salvation on the cross of Calvary. By his
blood alone, the scripture said, he purged our sin, by himself,
by his own blood. And what did he do after he had
done that? Well, he was resurrected, wasn't he? And he sat down on
the right hand of God. He finished the work given to
him. He merited it. It's not what we do, it's what
he has done, all by grace. Grace is what God has done to
save his elected sinners. Grace is what God has done. Not what I've done, and not what
you've done. That'll do one of two things.
That'll either make you happy because you're looking to Christ
as all your salvation. It'll either make me happy because
I'm looking to Christ as all my salvation, or it'll make me
angry because it just stripped me of all my righteousness. Christ
accomplished salvation for his people. He did it all. There's
nothing left to be done. He's not looking to you for one
thing. Everything required, the Father
provided in the Lord Jesus Christ, everything. Everything? Yes,
everything. Every eye dotted, every T cross,
perfection wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ and graciously bestowed
and all by grace alone bestowed to his people. You and I would never know that
we were sick unless it was for grace and only those that are
sick need a physician. You and I would have never known
we were blind except for grace revealing that we were blind
and only those that are blind need sight. You and I would have
never known we were dead except for grace saying be made alive
and then we see we've been made alive. Lord Jesus Christ did
it all. He did it all. He did it all
by grace. That's why Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and
nine is such good news to the Lord's people. I've quoted already,
for by grace are you saved through faith, not of yourself. You were
blind and didn't know it, but now you see. How? Grace. You
were dead and didn't know it. How are you alive? Grace. You
were sick, a leper from birth, from the top of your head to
the bottom of your feet, didn't know it. The Lord declared you clean,
perfectly righteous. How? Grace. Grace alone. If you can say with that, if
you can say with certainty, that's my hope. Grace is my only hope.
The grace that's found in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you can
say that with certainty, that that's your only hope, grow in
that. How do I grow in that? How do
I grow? We're talking about growing in
grace. You don't grow by working. Grow by resting. It's contrary
to the flesh. Everything about the flesh, if
I'm going to get stronger, I must exercise, physical exercise.
I must go to the gym, lift weights, do cardio, whatever else, in
order to get stronger, right? It has nothing to do with salvation.
It's the opposite. Growing in grace is resting your
hope in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
That's growing in grace. Growing is down. Growing is not
up. Growing is down. Growing is the way up is down.
What do I mean by that? Well, a tree does not a tree
grow both down and up and you and I must decrease and he must
increase. That's what John said. You and
I grow down more and more. We're rooted in this glorious
gospel by grace alone. He roots us more and more. And
the farther down we go, the farther up the tree grows and bears fruit
unto Him. We don't see it. He sees it.
He sees everything that Christ provided. He sees the fruit of
the Lord Jesus Christ in His people. It's true, we grow down,
we decrease, and he increases. That's the point, isn't it? We
see less of ourself. That's growing in grace. Seeing
less of yourself, me seeing less of myself, and seeing more and
more and more in him, that's growth. That doesn't make a lot
of sense to the flesh, does it? Matter of fact, it's contrary.
It's opposite. Polar opposite to what the flesh
thinks. Well, if I'm gonna grow, I have
to do. No, that's not growing in grace. That's working. Rest
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is how the Lord's people
grow. We rest looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.
We rest looking to him. Growing in grace means that you
never look to yourself for anything God requires. Don't look to yourself
for anything God requires. Look to what God provided. He's
only pleased with what he provided. He provided the Lord Jesus Christ,
he provided the precious blood of the lamb for his people. Grow
in that, look to Christ, rest in that, that's growing. Growing
in grace means that you esteem God and loathe yourself. Now the flesh loves itself, that's
not growing in grace though. Loving self is not, can a man
serve two masters the scripture says? No, no. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
that's growing in grace. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Growing in grace means no glory
for the flesh at all. All glory and honor and praise
to the lamb that was slain. Seeing that more and more, brethren,
that's growing in grace. And it takes grace to grow in
grace, doesn't it? It's not something we decide.
It takes grace to grow in grace. The Lord has to enable us to
grow in Christ. We can't even choose to do that.
He does that. How does he do that? He makes
us over and over again have no confidence in this flesh. Growing in grace is painful to
the flesh. The flesh hates it because it
hurts. It's the trials that we endure, the afflictions, and
at the very end, every single time, we cry out, Lord, save
me, and he brings us back. That's growing in grace. We don't
cry, Lord, save me, to obligate God. We cry, Lord, save me, by
his grace. He enables us to do that. He
causes us to do that. Do we see that? That's what growing
in grace is. It's coming to an understanding
over and over as I am a worm. I'm a worm, I'm no man, I'm a
sinner. Learning that over and over and over, that's growing
in grace. And also believing that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You believe that,
don't you? That's growing in grace. Paul
said, I'm the chief, I'm the chief of sinners. Have mercy
on me, the sinner, that's growing in grace. Someone asked one time,
what does growing in grace look like to me? What does the Christian
walk look like? And I said like a bunch of dead
dog sinners around the table of the master begging for a crumb.
I used a dog as an analogy. The first hour I'll use my dog
again. She's a puppy and she's. She's learned one thing. She's
not learned a whole lot, but she's learned one thing in particular
that whenever I eat, it tastes good if she can have some. And
so she sits at my feet and she'll look around the corner and she
knows not to come whenever I'm eating because it's kind of a
house rule. You know, dogs are not around
the table we're eating. They don't need to be jumping
on us or jumping on the table. We're trying to teach them manners.
You think that deters that dog from doing what a dog does? No.
That dog will come around. She'll really get testy sometime
when we're not looking. I'll walk away for a second.
We had the turkey on the smoker over Thanksgiving, and the dog
jumped up and had that turkey leg this close to her mouth,
ready to grab it and run. And I stopped her right at the
last second. She's a dog. That's what she's going to do.
What does growing in grace look like? It looks like a bunch of
dogs coming to the master's table, knowing that that's where their
life-giving sustenance is, begging for a crumb to fall. Lord, if
I can just have a crumb. If I can just have a crumb from
your table, I'll be satisfied. Lord, I'll grow. If you'll give
me the necessary sustenance to grow, I'll grow. I want to grow
in Christ Jesus, don't you? Lord, give me the grace to do
so. That's what the believer's life
looks like. That's what growing in grace
looks like, is just begging, begging for one more crumb, begging
for one more drop of the fountain of living water. Yesterday's manna doesn't do,
does it? No, it gets worms in it. Scripture gave us that analogy
of the children of Israel going through the wilderness, and they
would get the manna, and they would put it up for that day,
and it was only good for that day, except the day before the Sabbath,
they could gleam double. And that was a picture of not
working on the Sabbath. The Lord let that be good enough for the
Sabbath. They were able to eat that. But any other day, the
next day, that manna would not be good, would it? It would not
sustain. It would have worms in it. It
would be rotten. Now the word of God will not return void and
certainly it never is rotten. But you and I know as believers
we've got to have another piece of manna today. I've got to have
Christ right now. I've got to have Christ right
now and right now. That's growing in grace. That's
growing in grace. That's what it means to grow
in grace. Look to Christ right now as all your salvation before
God. Feast on the lamb that was slain.
Come to his table begging for his bread. The Lord is our example in prayer,
and he tells us just that. Give us this day our daily bread. Sure, he's talking about physical,
but there's a greater need that we have more than just physical
bread, isn't it? We need spiritual bread. Lord,
give us this day. Give me your bread right now.
Give me another morsel, another morsel of your sweetness, lest
we die. Paul said it this way. That being
babes in Christ ye desire the sincere milk of the word that
you may grow thereby. What's the sincere milk of the
word? What's the sincere milk? That's
how we grow. What's the sincere milk of the word? The simplicity
that Christ is all. That's the sincere milk of the
word. That's also the meat, truthfully. We never grow past that Christ
is all. Now we can come to a better understanding to some degree,
I suppose, of knowledge, meaning that we need him more now than
we needed him yesterday. That's what I'm trying to say.
I see him more now than I saw him yesterday. I need to see
more of him, more of him and less of me. Is that not true?
I've got to see more of him. I must decrease and he must increase.
Lord, give us this milk that we may grow in the simplicity John, we'll be looking at John
next week, 1 John, he says, my little children, I write unto
you. We never, if we ever see ourself
as being a mature believer, we are not mature believer. The
believer that is the most maturest is the one that will tell you,
the one that's grown in grace the most is the one that'll tell
you I am a dead dog sinner needing a savior the most. I need Christ
the most. I am the chief. I'm not among
the chief. I am the chief. That's what grace
teaches us. That's growing in grace. The good news is, as John says,
I read into you little children because your sins are forgiven. Well, there's rest in that, isn't
there? That's growing. If you can rest in that, that's
growing in grace. Growing in grace is seeing more
and more of his goodness and mercy standing in all of him,
more and more of his goodness, and less and less of your goodness.
Matter of fact, it's being dissolved, if you will, or being brought
to a resolve of having no goodness whatsoever. Zero goodness outside
of Christ. That's what growing in grace
looks like. Having no confidence in the flesh. We have a brother
in the scripture, Jonah. You know the account. He took
matters into his own hand. He fled from God. He said, I'm
not going to go down to Nineveh and preach to them. I'm going
to go to Tarshish, to Joppa. I'm going to flee into this ship,
go down to the sides of it, fall asleep. And what did the Lord
do? The Lord said, you're going to do what I tell you to do.
And he did. He didn't have a choice in the matter, did he? Send a
tempestuous wind, send a storm upon the boat. They had to cast
Jonah overboard, and they did. And Jonah found himself in the
belly of a well for three days and three nights. And what did
Jonah say? You want to know what growing
in grace looks like? It looks like this, Jonah said, out of
the belly of hell have I cried. Out of the belly of hell have
I cried, knowing I'm deservant as a sinner of going to hell.
Out of the belly of hell I cried. In confessing this, salvation
is of the Lord. See, if Jonah would have never
fled from the presence of the Lord, if he'd have never went
down to the ship that he got on, he would have never had been
made to have the confession, salvation is of the Lord. It means it's by him, it's for
him, it's through him. Salvation is of the Lord. Do
you believe that? That's growing in grace. He's
made you believe that. He's growing you in grace to
draw that same confession over and over and over. Growing in grace is just begging
for grace and mercy more and more. More and more and more
dependent on him. We think of growing, I think
of my children having being infants and the dependency that infants
have from their mother and father and the needs, babies can't hardly
do anything but cry and use the bathroom and eat, I mean, sleep,
that's it. As they grow, though, things
change, don't they? They become more independent. They start
walking. And when they start, well, they
get into stuff, you know, different things like that, but then they
grow up a little bit more. They learn no and yes and what's right and
what's wrong more and more. And eventually, and I'm at the
threshold of this right now, they become an adult. And then they
get married, they leave the house, whatever, they've grown up. They've
grown up. That's not what growing in grace
looks like. You don't become more independent more and more.
You don't learn to do more and more in this salvation. No, no.
You become more dependent of the Lord Jesus Christ. You become
more needful of what he has done. That's growing in grace. Becoming
more dependent of him. That's what growing in grace
is. Becoming more dependent of Him. No, it's not I've taken
my first step and I'm growing. No, my hope is built on nothing
less but Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's growing in grace. More
dependent of Him. Growing in grace is believing
and trusting in His love. towards me, not my love towards
him. His faithfulness, not examining myself for my faithfulness, I
have none outside of him. It's not examining self for righteousness,
it's looking to Christ our righteousness. Growing in grace is believing
it is finished more and more and more. It is finished and
just resting. Believing his truth rather than
believing the lie. How needy we are of his precious
blood. How more and more needy we become.
The more we see ourself as sinners, the more needy we become of His
goodness and grace toward His people. Growing in grace is believing
this, where sin doth abound, grace did much more abound. What
did he mean whenever he said those words? He's not talking
about the sin that's in the world today. And yes, that is true. Where the sin of this world abounds,
the grace of God does much more abound. He's talking about this
sin right here. We're sin abound. How sinful are you? Well, by
God's grace, he makes us believe we are utterly sinful. Utterly
sinful. That means completely, completely
consumed with it. Sin is what we are. It's not
only what we do, it's what we are. And the good news of the
gospel is where sin doth abound, grace did much more abound. You
mean as bad as I am, grace did much more abound? Yes. Yes, for
those in the Lord Jesus Christ, given to him of his father, redeemed
by the son, and regenerated by the spirit, they have this assurance
where your sin doth abound, God's grace did much more abound. You
haven't prevented God from saving you. You can't. You can't prevent
God from keeping you. No, it's grace. He does it all
by his grace. We can't stop his grace. Isn't
that good news? Believing that more and more
is growing in grace. We just see more and more of
our ugly and more and more of his beauty. Now, unless God reveals, unless
our Lord reveals what growing in grace means, unless he makes
it effectual to our heart, unless he reveals it truly, You and
I will draw the natural conclusion of what growing of grace is or
what most believe in false religion it is. I'm getting better. Most
will tell you that's what growing in grace is. We've had I've had
interactions with people since being the pastor here and they
were talking to me about how much better they are now than
they were 14 years ago. That's not growing in grace.
That's growing in self-righteousness. It is. That's growing in self-righteousness. It's saying, I'm getting better.
John didn't say, I'm gonna get better and he must increase.
John said, I must decrease and he must increase. Meaning he's
gonna have to abase me because God resisted the proud, but giveth
grace to the humble. Those who humble, who are humbled
by the Lord. He exalts in due time. No, we're
not getting better. Most use the term, and I don't
know if I've mentioned this very much, but I wanted to make sure
I elaborated on this this morning, particularly because we're talking
about the subject, but it's used in false religion as progressive
sanctification. Have you ever heard of that?
Progressive sanctification. Now, sanctification means holiness,
set aside, set apart, consecrated unto the Lord, holy. That's what
sanctified is. Progressive Sanctification means
that you're getting better, plain and simple. It's not true. You
will not find that in God's word, that is a lie. That is a lie
devised in order to give man some hope in themselves, some
self-righteousness about themselves, something to look to other than
the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is not growing in grace. Now,
I wanna show us the truth of that. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 10. Hold your place here, we're gonna
come right back. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14. I just wanna read this one verse,
Hebrews 10, 14. For by one offering, he hath,
past tense, perfected forever them that are sanctified. Let's read that again. That's
pretty clear to me. Is it you? That's past tense. He's perfected them that are
not going to be. not might be them that are sanctified. See, everything God requires,
he must provide. And he provided our sanctification
in the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. You're already
sanctified. If you're his, washing the blood
means just that you have been made the very righteousness of
God in him. That's my hope. Coming to a knowledge
of that over and over again, believing that more and more
is growing in grace. Is growing in grace. No, we're
not progressively being sanctified. That's not the work of the spirit
over time. No, we're once sanctified. The Lord did that. The Lord did
that. And he gets all the glory. Paul
said, oh wretched man that I am. Not that I was. Oh wretched man
that I am right now. Not that I was. Paul wasn't getting
better. He started out by saying he's
not worthy to be counted as one of the brethren. First of all,
he said, I'm the least of the brethren. First time he said
it. The second time he said, I'm not worthy to be accounted as one
of the brethren. What was his final conclusion toward the end of
his letters? I'm the chief of sinners. I'm
the chief of sinners was his final conclusion. Does that sound
like progressive sanctification to you? No, no, but it does sound
like growing in grace, doesn't it? It sure does. That's what
growing in grace is, seeing less of yourself and more of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And how does he do that? By his
glorious gospel. He grows his people. He causes
us to desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow
thereby. He fixes our eyes upon Christ Jesus alone and causes
us just to rest our hope in him. See, the Lord left nothing to
be done. Nothing to be done. Those who believe they're getting
better are not growing in grace, but those who are the Lord's,
those who are the Lord's, he causes his people to rest, to
rest in his finished work, and that is growing in grace, resting
over and over. See, we only beg for mercy if
God makes us mercy beggars, and the only sinners that the Lord
saves is mercy beggars. We only beg for mercy if we've
been made mercy beggars, and God only saves mercy-begging
sinners. Do you believe that? That's growing
in grace. Lord, make me a mercy beggar.
That's what it does. That's the response that faith
does as it looks to Christ, causes us to cry out more and more,
forsaking ourself, forsaking our work, cleaving unto Him,
clinging unto Him as all of our righteousness, as all of our
hope, as all of our sanctification. Now, back to our text in closing. The only way we beg for grace is when it's revealed what we
are. When you see what you are, you'll beg for grace, you'll
beg for mercy. When I see what I am, I'll beg for grace and
I'll beg for mercy. You know people talk all the
time about knowing themselves, you need to know yourself, you
need to rediscover yourself and different things like that. You
ever heard things like that before? Only the Lord's people really
know themselves. Isn't that right? Only the Lord's
people really know we're sinners. We're ugly. We're desperately
wicked. I need a substitute. Only the
Lord's people know that. We really know that. What is
our confession? Christ is all. Christ, I've got
to have His righteousness. I have none. I've got to have
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no hope
outside of it. He's beautiful. He's wonderful.
He's marvelous. God to have him. The Lord reveals
that more and more, doesn't he? That's growing in grace. Let's
read this again. 2 Peter 3.18, but grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him
be glory both now and forever. Amen. Last thing I want to bring
to our attention is the word knowledge. He said grow in grace
and in the knowledge. of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
many would say that growing in grace means that you grow more
in doctrine. That's not true. You can know
sound doctrine. You can know the five points
of Calvinism and still go to hell. You can know a lot about
the Bible and the doctrines of grace and still go to hell. You must know a person, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he must be the one that introduces himself
by saying, live. live. How is that done? All by
grace. Growing in the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ is the same thing I've said for the last
40 minutes to us. It's seeing him more and more
and seeing less of ourself more and more. It's clinging unto
him more and more and releasing, letting go of ourself, our self-righteousness
more and more. He strips us of that, don't he?
That's growing in grace and in the knowledge What is the knowledge
that the Seraphim woman had when the Lord looked at her? He said,
I didn't come, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
She was a Gentile approaching the Lord for mercy. He said,
I've not come, but for that lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And she said, the words I mentioned earlier, truth, Lord, truth,
Lord, whenever he said, it's not meat to take the children's
bread and cast it under dogs. She said, truth, Lord, I am a
dog. But the dogs desire the crumbs that fall from the master's
table. That's growing in grace. Lord, whatever you say is truth.
I've come to that knowledge. You've brought me to that knowledge.
Whatever you say is truth, and whatever I say is false. Whatever
I say is, I'm the lie, and you're truth, and you are grace. I'm
false and full of sin. That's growing in grace and in
the knowledge, coming to that understanding over and over.
He does that. He's not talking about growing
anything physically. He's talking about spiritual
things and everything required spiritually the Lord provides.
He provided in his son for his people. Coming to the knowledge of a
doctrine of grace is not salvation. No more than knowing that there's
a law makes you a sinner. Just because you can see the
law doesn't mean that you've been made a sinner. Being made
a sinner means that you know you kept not one of those laws
ever. Ever. Grace teaches us we're guilty
of breaking every law. And grace reveals that we've
been pardoned by the blood alone. That's what growing in grace
is. This is the knowledge that we grow in, brethren. Christ
is all. Christ is all. And we just learn
that over and over until one day the glory that shall be revealed
in us will come to pass. It's already in us now. It's
already in us now. In the meantime, He causes us
to be more dependent, and more dependent, and more dependent.
And you're older ones, you know what I'm talking about. You become
more dependent. Every day it seems like the Lord just causes
us to become more dependent of Him. That's growing in grace.
We're being abased and He's being exalted. Paul said this, I have determined
to know nothing among you save one thing, Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. That's the only thing the believer
wants to know. I'm determined. diligently seeking after the
Lord. Can you say you're diligently seeking after the Lord? Not as
I ought. But the glorious news is not that he's requiring me
to do something in and of myself to seek after him. He says, seek
you my face and we diligently seek after him. Everything he
requires, he provides. He grows his people, truly grows
his people in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us pray. Father calls us to grow more
and more unto you. See less of ourself and more
of you. Thank you for your precious words. In Christ's name we ask
all these things, amen. Let's turn to number 224.