I debated a great deal in my mind what I ought to share at
the beginning of a new year. Do I share a lollypop message about living your
best life now and how great everything is? Do I share one of those sour
messages, about how bad everything is in the world, and how to stand? I almost
went that route. But I thought to
myself, what do my people need to hear? Well, they need to hear the word of
God. And it seems like right now we’re
in a season growth and change. We’re
starting the new year the right way by focusing on God and focusing in on
growth and breakthrough in our lives. So we’re looking at the topic of growth
and change in the word of God.
1.
Continued, Steady Growth
From the book of 2nd Peter 3:18 ESV, hear the word of the Lord,
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To
him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
The challenge is continued growth. It’s easy to get off
track, to start to kind of lose your fire, and settle into a routine that you
become bored with. But the word of God refreshes us saying, continue to grow.
And grow in something. Grow in Christ.
Grow in the grace that Christ provides.
He covers our mistakes, our sins, our foul-ups, where we have a safe
arena, in our daily lives to grow. And
it says grow in knowledge, of our Lord and savior Jesus. As we develop spiritually, our knowledge of
the world and the sins and the spiritual battles grows. We begin to get wise to
the tactics of the enemy we face.
2.
Moving into Maturity: Deepening our walk
with God
Again, Hebrews, chapter 5 verses 12-14 says this, “Therefore
let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not
laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward
God,”
This is very interesting, the writer of Hebrews tells us
that we should be caught in a repeating loop, of repentance from sin, and faith
towards God. Like where we’re constantly
having to start over because we’re always tripping ourselves up. It says instead go on into this state of
maturity. Where we’re soldiers for
christ, mature troopers, seasoned and constantly at work for the kingdom.
3.
Immerse yourself in Biblical Christianity
So we see God commanding us to this ethic of growth and
maturity. How do we do that? I think we get a clue to that from 1st
Timothy 4:15-16, which says ,”Practice these things, immerse yourself in them,
so that all may see your progress.” 16 Keep a
close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing
you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
This is the apostle Paul writing to his
apprentice Timothy. He tells Timothy to
practice these things, practice makes perfect.
That’s why we read our Bible everyday. That’s why we gather together for
life group, discipleship, and Sunday morning and Sunday evening. We need to hear this message over and over
until it becomes an active part of our minds.
There’s this word here “immerse.” Which pictures wading into water,
until youi’re completely in it. Immerse
yourself in the Christian message.
Listen to Christian podcasts. Listen to sermons on youtube. Read the
Bible. Read Christian books. Listen to Christian radio. Immerse yourself daily
in the Christian message. Keep a close watch on yourself 1st of all,
and 2ndly, on what your teaching. Why is
that? It’s easy to get off track in our
personal life, where we start to slip off into trouble. That’s why we hold each other
accountable. Secondly, on what we
teach. You see how many false teachers
are in the world, we’ve gotta make sure we’re teaching a pure gospel, with love
and truth.
4.
Train yourself in
Discernment: Understand Good and Evil
Hebrews 6:1 ESV “For though by this time you ought to be
teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the
oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk
is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food
is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by
constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
We’ve all heard this scripture many times I’m sure, but I
want to draw your attention to the final sentence here, solid food is for the
mature, which is about the training of discernment to distinguish good from
evil. Many Christians today are blind
and have no discernment. They can’t tell good from evil. And so we see more and more evil ideologies
manifesting themselves in the church.
Train yourself to discern good from evil in the world, in ideas, in
current events, and in teachings going around.
This isn’t as easy as you might think. But train yourself to discern, to
understand the times we are in.
5.
Suffering produces Endurance, which
produces character
From the book of Romans, Romans 5:2-6 ESV “Through him we
have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we
rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our
sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces
character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame,
because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who
has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ
died for the ungodly.”
That scripture speaks for itself. Amen.
6.
Love is central to growth
I want to share this one as well, because we have to
remember that growth should involve growth of our love, that our love bank,
that we pour out to others is always growing larger and larger, from Philippians
1:9 ESV “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with
knowledge and all discernment,” Notice how God adds knowledge and discernment
to the love though, he doesn’t want us to have that worldly love that is “just
be nice” and don’t make waves and don’t say anything that might convict
someone. It’s a sacrificial love built
on knowledge and discerning the times.
7.
Grow in the Spirit, not in the flesh
And as we consider growth, there is a trap we can fall into
and it’s articulated in the scriptures this way: Galatians 3:3 ESV “Are you so
foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the
flesh?” This is a great reminder. God’s
work in us has been by the Holy Spirit. But now are we going to jump in and
finish that work through the flesh? No. Don’t fall into that trap. Test and see what God is doing. Don’t try to
forage ahead in your own strength. Cooperate with what God is doing in your
growth and change.
8.
Self Examination is Key to Growth
But we do see in the scriptures, the important of
Spirit-filled self examination.
2 Corinthians 13:5-7a ESV says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether
you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about
yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the
test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to
God that you may not do wrong”
Test yourself, to see that you are in Christ Jesus. You can do this in prayer, ask God, to
testify in the Spirit with your spirit that you are indeed a child of God.
Examine your life, are you living rightly? Are you discerning the times? Are you
walking in love? Watch your own conduct carefully. The word of God says “Give
careful thought to your ways.”
So I hope we’re beginning to see the various parts of this
process of growth and change in Christ. We see the need for steady growth, the
goal being maturity, This takes deep immersion into biblical Christianity. This
also involves training yourself in discerning the times. We understand that
this growth process involves suffering, which produces positive growth in us.
We don’t lose sight of the fact that love is central to growth. We also
remember to grow in the Spirit, not by self effort. And as we continue toward
maturity, we grow through self examination.
So in conclusion today, I think this scripture from Ephesians 4:13-16
ESV really sums everything up well. It says, “Until we all attain to the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be
children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of
doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking
the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head,
into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint
with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body
grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
So finally we understand that our persona growth meshes into
the growth of the whole body of Christ worldwide, to maturity, that we’re
steady, firm, no longer tossed about. But instead we have love and truth
together. Growing up into Christ. You see this constant closeness of Christ,
where we’re literally growing up into Christ-likeness. And Jesus holds the
church, the body of Christ together, as we all work together to grow in
maturity, live free from sin, and share the gospel with the world.
