Being transformed - what is the believer's part?
Vern Peterman · Mar 20, 2011
What God Is Doing in Believers, No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492622947253

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, this being transformed, what is the believer's part, is this next topic here. And as we've been using 2 Corinthians 3, 17 and 18 as sort of the central passage, what's interesting is when you come to that point, the part of the passage that deals with our part is actually fairly brief. and I'll read it here, it's in bolded here, we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. That's our part in this being transformed. I will say that other scriptures have more to address in that and we will look at that, but that's for starters. Let's take a look at each part of that bolded portion of verse 18 that I just read. The first part we have there is, we all with unveiled face. My face is really unveiled. I have very little covering it even on top here.

But anyway, so the word pair we all, and it's interesting, it occurs in 1 Corinthians 8, 1, 10, 17, of course this passage here, and then a verse as we reference in Ephesians and James. In each case, the we all refers to believers. Now, when I was down in Texas, they did y'all, but I didn't hear wall or something. Wall. Do they have anything like that? No, the y'all thing is there, but not the we all equivalent. Yes? When I lived there one time, I called myself me all. Me all.

The patterns are really strange. What I thought was really interesting, though, is that when I was taking Greek, you know how they have plurals of different things, so you is you singular in the Greek and you plural. So the y'all thing just worked out great for studying Greek. I don't know that the Greeks had something quite like that, but it worked. Okay, here's 2 Corinthians 3, 12-16.

This is the passage right before where we've quoted, and I will read the whole thing. It's in the middle of page one. Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face. Why did he put the veil over his face?

So that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. See, at first it was, boy, Moses, you're a little bright there. Why don't you put this veil on? Because they didn't have sunglasses to You've got to reduce the glare. Put the veil on, that way you're not quite so bright. But after a while, it wasn't because Moses was bright, it was because the brightness was declining. Right?

So, verse 14, But their minds were hardened, for until this very day the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. What's the veil? What is that veil thing all about? Why is Paul talking about the veil here?

It's the law. Yeah. And there's an awful lot of Christians who don't get what this thing is all about. The veil is removed in Christ. What does that mean? It means that when you bring in the law, you're going backwards on something. rather than forwards. The veil is removed in Christ. Who removes the veil? God does. The veil is removed. God does it.

Yes? So is that the same word for the veil or curtain in the temple? No, different word. In symbolisms, I've heard that the cherubim that was embroidered on the veil represents the believer. Say that again? The cherubim that's embroidered on the veil represents the believer. Have you ever heard that?

No. You know, some people try to decide what each thing in the tabernacle represents. Oh, I see what you're talking about. You're talking about the veil in the, yeah, that's essentially the curtain. The curtain, right, right. I went over to the tabernacle. Right, okay, alright, okay. I was just trying to get context here. I forgot we had two veils. Yes, that's right.

Yeah, the curtain veil, or, you know, the curtain in the temple, we're talking something that's massively thick and heavy. That's not what Moses was wearing. I think there is an equivalent. They're not the same thing. It's not the same word. But there is an equivalent. In other words, what happened to that large curtain that was in the temple on the day that Christ was crucified?

It was torn. So the veil comes about because of what Christ does. It comes about as being torn because of what Christ does on the cross. As we turn to the Lord, the veil on the person is taken away. So there is some similarity there, but there is a difference too. Verse 15, But to this day, Whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over where? Over the heart. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. What we have there is actually a Hebrew poetry pattern because it is removed in Christ and the veil is taken away. Those are parallel.

So, those who still have the veil of the law, the sons of Israel and their minds and their heart, are the ones who are not in Christ. Even if a person was a believer and therefore saved in the Old Testament, they were not in Christ. See the distinction? That's one thing that is frequently confusing to Christians, is they don't get the distinction between believers in Israel and believers now. Who were the Old Testament, under Israel, believers baptized into? They were baptized into who? Moses, okay, we are baptized into Christ. They were therefore in Moses.

We are in Christ and As that little diagram we showed some weeks ago There is a parallel in the pattern of what takes place in the timing remember that 50 days There's a lot in parallel in the timing, but there's also great distinction and that distinction is very important And I would say most of Christendom, and notice I use that term Christendom, most of Christendom misses the distinction. Most do not understand the great distinction between Israel and the law and us, the church, under grace. Turning to the Lord and being in Christ removes and takes the veil away. So those who have turned to the Lord and are in Christ are the we all with unveiled face. That's them and their and Israel. With the veil. Us unveiled. No veil. Veil removed. Veil taken away. We all. That's us. We who are in Christ. We are believers of the body of Christ.

Last paragraph, it would seem then that those who appeal to the Law of Moses as applicable to believers are insisting on the veil and denying that they are in Christ and have turned to the Lord. While we could certainly draw other conclusions, one conclusion we could draw is that the person who has believed in Christ for salvation, though saved, remains veiled in mind and heart by subjecting themselves to the Law of Moses. and is cutting off the opportunity to be transformed and therefore is also quenching the Holy Spirit in his ministries involved in transforming the believer.

Isn't that interesting? We all with unveiled face are the ones being transformed, right? As we behold the glory of the Lord. What happens if you insist on the veil? That's not with unveiled face, right? If you insist on the veil, if you insist we are going to operate under law, we're going to keep our rules, if you insist upon that, you insist upon the veil, therefore you do not have unveiled face, it keeps you from beholding and therefore being transformed. Yes. So in a sense, in the millennial age, when the law is written on the hearts of the Jewish people, they are unveiled.

Well, I think something you have to look at is the difficulty that Moses and all those with him and after him had is they did not have the Holy Spirit indwelling them. And therefore, the law was a problem. The law became the stumbling block because they were not enabled to do it. And one of the things that becomes quite apparent in the New Testament as we read it God had to deal with the law, and in our case in the church, by having us die to it in order that we behold the Lord, in order that we be transformed. What's the problem with the law? Isn't the law good and righteous and holy?

Yeah, it is. We have no place to badmouth the law. The problem is not with the law, the problem is with who? with us. We are not up to it of ourselves. And that was the problem that all Israel had during the Old Testament times up into the time of the Gospels.

Yes? When Gene was teaching in the Christian school down in the springs, there was an Athean of Jews. Yes. And I couldn't believe how this young middle school kid was so under the law. Yeah. When you say Messianic Jews, it's interesting. I've met the spectrum. And you get everything from one who understands. Basically, they are those who are Jewish who recognize Christ as the Messiah. So far, so good.

The difficulty is if they say, OK, then that means I place myself under the law. That means they don't get it. Right? They don't get it. Because you have to come back to what did Messiah come to do? Messiah came not only to pay the price for my sins, but also that I would be identified with Him in His death and die to three things, sin nature, the law, and the world.

And that's what they don't recognize. They're still saved though, right? Still saved, but they're blind in terms of, okay, now that I'm saved, What else does that mean for the rest of my Christian life? And they think, well, I'm still going to do this law thing, not recognizing, hey, Christ died on the cross so that you don't do the law thing.

You've died in relationship to it. What's strange is that people will go and grab for the law, but if you tell them, hey, do you think you ought to really go grabbing for the sin nature in the world? They'll go, huh? They wouldn't be understanding what you're saying.

But the same thing happened in our relationship to the sin nature in the world as happened to our relationship with the law. Yes? And so today, you can do the same thing because if you focus on deeds first and not faith first, like it says in James, You first have faith and then the good works follow. So if you try to obtain your own righteousness, you're doing the same thing you did with the law.

It's impossible. The problem with the law is not the law. The problem is we're not up to it. If we suddenly say, oh yes I am. Then that's a problem. And so the same thing is with righteousness. We aren't up to that either. That's why it was given to us. Yeah. Kind of the World War II poster, you know, we can do it. Uh-oh. Not going to happen. And that's the problem. And so what you look at is Christ has done a different thing with the church than He has done with future Israel. For the church, he has made us died to the law and enabled us to live by Christ's life now.

For Israel in the future, as soon as seven years from now. For Israel in the future, they will be enabled to live out the law. And therefore, in Deuteronomy 28 that we went over a week or so ago, Here's all the blessings and here's all the curses. They won't have the curses because they will be enabled to obey and to know the law. By the way, no more rabbis. They will be enabled to know the law and obey the law and therefore automatically be blessed rather than cursed.

This is why, last part of the last paragraph on page one, this is why Paul writes repeatedly telling people that they're not under the law of Moses. The passage goes like this. It says, this is one reason why the Apostle Paul would write so strongly to the believers in Corinth and in Galatia and in Philippi about the law of Moses, as well as other places where churches were founded. He said again and again that we are not under the law of Moses, that we have died to the law, that we are not under a tutor, which is the law, that seeking to live under the law of Moses is a curse, Galatians, right? that the law is a ministry of death and condemnation, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and that the law veils the heart and mind, etc. We are under the reigning principle of grace. The next part here is beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

This is 2 Corinthians 3.18, the four words beholding as in a mirror. are translated from just one Greek word. This Greek word is the word for looking into a polished first-surface mirror. And Corinthian mirrors were famous.

We mentioned that the reason they had first-surface mirrors, in other words, they would have a piece of metal that they would polish, and they would even have a polishing cloth that they would oftentimes include with the mirror, or sometimes even attach it to the mirror. And the reason for the polishing cloth is because it was polished metal and they didn't have a way to keep it from getting, you know, tarnished and rusted. They would have you go and polish it up every time you used it. You had to go and polish the mirror.

That likely explains why both Paul's letters to the Corinthians, both of the letters, contained a reference to a mirror, and not even one other letter by him. So both of Paul's letters to the Corinthians speak of a mirror, and none of the rest of his letters speak of a mirror. It's because the Corinthians would say, yeah, we're famous for the mirrors, and so he knew they could relate to it.

So see also this picture on the left, I could include a number of others, but this is one of them, and it's fairly simple and easy to see. Jesus' half-brother James wrote, James 1, 22-24, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his face, excuse me, at his natural face in a mirror. For once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. So the three New Testament passages, one in 1st Corinthians, one in 2nd Corinthians, and this one in James, refer to God's written word, especially as evident here in the book of James. So who are we beholding in the mirror which is the word of God?

The glory is of the Lord. Now we should review a few critical points about glory. And we've said some of this before, but just to make sure it's clear to us, The glory of the Lord is the radiant essence of who God is. And Christ the Lord is deity and one person of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All glory is derived from God, even if the glory that we see is impressive from a human perspective.

Twice in the book of Revelation, the Apostle John mistakenly worships an angel. And in each case the angel says, uh-uh, don't do this. Why would John mistakenly worship the angel? Pardon? Because of the angel's apparent glory. There on the heavenly scene, John had a hard time discerning what's what. Here is this created being with glory so great that John's immediately drawn to begin to worship, even though that glory is shared glory, and the glory is originally of the Lord. But John there on the heavenly scene has a hard time knowing the difference.

Third bullet there, the glory that 2 Corinthians 3.18 speaks of is not a commodity, something that can be ordered by the pound or by volume or by wattage or gausses or ergs or any physical unit of measurement.

Those are all things out of physics. It is personal to the Lord. It's not a physical unit. It's personal to the Lord. There is no other source or alternative supply. Any other glory is glory that God has shared. And I think that's something to remember. Glory is not just some sort of a physical entity. It's not something that God has created.

It is the radiant essence of who He is. It's basic to who He is, and it's personal. It's personal. We have lights in the room, and if we hit a few switches, we'd have some more on. And it's nice to have the light, and it helps us see and all that. But these are all physical things, aren't they? The Lord's radiant essence doesn't come because of Excel or any other power company, right? The Lord's radiant essence is basic to who he is.

It's personal. It's personal glory, not just wattage. Fourth bullet, in the same way that glory is not a commodity, beholding the glory of the Lord is not an impersonal process. Sometimes people will come up and say, well, can you give me the three steps to doing this and that? I said, wait a minute, this isn't cookbook. You're talking about a person. Beholding the glory of the Lord is a personal thing. It is not just simply a process.

Just, I give the example, Nancy would not like it if I were to come up with a checklist and say, okay, Nancy needs 14 kisses a day, minimum two seconds each, you know. and got the specifications down and she needs to have four and a half hugs, you know, and those have to be distributed about every two to three hours. No, that wouldn't work for Nancy, would it?

Go there and okay, all right, got the checklist and sitting there with a stopwatch. Okay, good. All right. Is that going to work? No, that's not the way relationships work. Sometimes, you know, Christians will be told, you know, you need to spend this many minutes in prayer and this many minutes in Bible study and all that, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but we've got to be careful that we don't end up making this like the checklist Like I gave the example with Nancy. The Lord doesn't want us having a relationship with Him like that any more than Nancy wants me to have a relationship with her that's based on checklists and specifications.

It's personal. It's personal. We who have turned to the Lord and believed in Him have, by God's doing, an eternally permanent relationship with Christ the Lord, and that is personal. That is personal. Now, progressing from permanent relationship, which is our position, to ongoing fellowship with Christ, our condition is by the written word of God. by the written Word of God.

So our relationship to the Word of God is intended to be personal. It's one of the great hazards of seminary. Boy, you can get degrees piled on top of degrees and fill up binders full of dissertations and the whole thing and miss the point. All the extra letters in front of your name and after your name don't do anything for real spirituality.

So our relationship to the Word of God is intended to be personal. It is not that we behold or worship the book, but the Lord Jesus Christ who is revealed in the book. See the difference there? We don't bow to the book. Alright. Beholding the Lord through His Word. This is top of page three. There's a paragraph here that I'd like us to ponder. Let me read it at the very top.

The Holy Spirit has brought us the written Word of God. The Holy Spirit has brought us in our hearts to the written Word of God. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in the written Word of God. and in the Spirit's multiple ministry to us in our hearts. As we behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living Word of God through the written Word of God, the Spirit does the work of transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ. In parallel with our being transformed, God also works all things together in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm to the end that we are conformed to the image of Christ. And it's kind of summarizing, this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the way that it works.

Is there going to be a testament? No, but there's a song on it. I see the Lord seated on the throne, exalted, and I'm seated there as He shares His glory. And I'll be conformed, and I'll be transformed, and I will be changed to His glory. So what's noteworthy here, second paragraph here, is that while we have a part in this process of being transformed, there is no urging or commanding that is by an imperative, that we behold the Lord through the written word of God. That's interesting. We don't see that right in this verse.

So does this mean that God does this for us or through us so that we are the passive recipient? Does God just kind of make us behold the Lord? Or that the beholding happens automatically? The answer, no. The word for beholding is not written in the passive voice, and there are plenty of other passages that indicate that our beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through his written word is an active process that we are to carry out as an act of will.

Let's take a look at some of these other passages, but as we do so, you must be warned that Our doing so will raise other questions, some of which we'll have to answer later on. These passages focus upon our approach to the Word of God or upon looking upon Christ. So let's take a look here. I kind of give several different passages with some comment.

When Paul writes, most often he will urge or use an imperative. He will say, I urge you to do this. I entreat you. I exhort you. Or he will simply give an imperative, you must do this, you must not do that. Once in a while, Paul will write something that he intends for them all to do as an action in progress.

That's what I think is going on here in 2 Corinthians 3, 17 and 18. Then there are those passages where he and the other authors of scripture simply use an imperative and or make the action in the active voice. Here's an example. Philippians 4, 8, and 9.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, and there's something interesting here, after that first is, all the other is's are inserted. They're not in the original language. Whatever is true, whatever honorable, whatever right, whatever pure, whatever lovely, whatever of good repute, if there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, dwell.

And this word for dwell is actually the same word used in Romans 6.11 for reckon or consider. Isn't it interesting? Dwell, it's an active imperative. It implies an active will. You must actively dwell. on these things. The things that you have learned active and received active and heard active and seen active in me, practice. It's an active imperative.

Imply an act of the will, these things, and the God of peace will be with you. Yes. Okay, so according to your diagram, to help me understand this anyway, the will is part of the body and also part of the spirit. Yes. So if this is an act of the will, is it those two, the body and spirit, working together in consort in accomplishing this? Do you get Stan's question? You're looking back at a previous diagram that we've used in earlier weeks. Because if you're saying you have the spiritual senses and the spirit and all the rest, so you also have a spiritual aspect of the will, right? Right.

And to think about it, There is a willing that is simply on the physical side. An unbeliever will will to do things. But for the believer, there is also a willing to do or not do something that is on the spiritual side. And God is wanting a spiritual response. There may be circumstances where both a physical side and spiritual side willing is there. It's a struggle, isn't it? Yeah. And let me give you a for instance. If someone says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then you will be saved, okay?

There may in fact be some gray matter there, but the principal part of the willing has to be on the spiritual side, right? This isn't just some physical process that takes place. On the other hand, there are things that do involve the physical side for a Christian.

If, for example, I am told to love my wife, and that comes out of scripture, then there is a spiritual side decision to be made, but it better show on the outside too, right? You know, I don't say, Nancy, Nancy, I kind of love you hypothetically. You know, just sort of theoretically, you know, I mean, you have to take my word for it. You know, I don't say that, right? It needs to show on the outside. to reflect the spiritual reality.

So there are circumstances where, as Christians, we may have both a physical and a spiritual willing that are definitely both involved. So it would seem logical to me, if you could use the word logical, that as you become more and more transformed into the image of Christ, then the spiritual aspect of the will will become more predominant in your life than the physical part, right? Does that make sense? Yeah. In other words, you are called to do spiritual willing. That's what scripture is asking you to do. And Paul even guards and warns against just our on our own trying to just do the willing.

And that's why Paul would say the milk and the meat analogy, right? Because they were immature. In fact, their spiritual aspect of will was not growing like it should, so they had to be fed milk instead of meat. Some Christians will get the idea that over time that our will needs to be diminished, or Lord has to break my will. That's not biblical teaching.

What the Bible does say is that we always, whether it's something at the very beginning as a young believer or even over time, there is always an exercise of the will. So it is not maturity to have your will broken. It is not maturity to have your will diminished. The willing is something that is required of believers all the way along. And so that willing is in the context of spiritual maturity, which we'll talk about here in a couple months. Okay. Let's look at the rest of this.

In verse 9, the things that you have heard, have learned, active, and received, active, and heard, and seen in me, practice, active imperative, implying an act of the will, these things, and the God of peace will be with you. Isn't it interesting that as Paul talks about people learning and receiving, things that they've heard and seen, even those are active. We can have a tendency, especially if you go in for a surgery, you want the doctor to doctor you. And we can have a tendency, as we step into the context of church, that we want the church to church us or the pastor to pastor us, right?

And we just kind of sit there and let him do what he's going to do. And that's not what he says here. All the learning and receiving and hearing and seeing is all active. Every single word there is active voice. And the practice is an act of the will, it's an active voice thing.

Here's 2 Timothy 2.15, Be diligent, there is an active imperative, imply an act of the will, to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. There is a diligence on my part to come to the word of God. and an act of will. It's not simply a, you know, oh, I read the passage, I'm done. No. There is a diligence in drawing out and understanding the Word of God. Let's look at the last page. Here's Hebrews 12, 1-3.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside active every encumbrance in the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run active with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing active our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider a middle imperative that is the we do the action with a result coming back on us, imply an act of the will, him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." What we find is scripture, as we look at the Word of God, does not have a sort of a passive view in mind for the Christian, but an active view. And what we also find is our looking to the Lord and beholding Him is something that is spoken of, as in this passage, in an active sense.

Yes? So it's almost every active here is a faith factor, if you wanted to say that. Yeah. Faith is not just some walking along in this sort of drifting, wispy faith world, you know, where everything's cloudy and foggy and the lights are kind of turned up, it's softened. Faith is seeing the truth clearly and walking in it. Walking in it. Yes? So, the time frame of this is probably years and years and years, right? Of what? Of being active in this. Continuously.

We can certainly make the analogy, little kids, the walking stuff, I mean, if the baby is walking around in the hospital room on the day that the baby is born, that's a little shocking, right? It takes a little bit. But on the other hand, it should be possible for that kid in something around a year to actually start walking. Are they really good at it yet? No, probably not. There will be a few stumbles. So walking is indeed a learning process.

But nonetheless here, let's look at this Hebrews 12 passage. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 has this pattern. Verse 1 and the very start of verse 2 is our race. Let us run Active with endurance the race that is set before us see we have a race. Is it a sprint? No But we're in a race and then what is verse 2 do it hands off the race to Jesus verse 2 is his race Fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross Despising the shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God Our race is race See that? Verse 1 is our race. Verse 2 is His race. Let us run with just a sprint. Hey, it'll be over in less than 10 seconds, right? No. Let us run with endurance. It's an ongoing long-term race. Not a quickie.

I think this is what you're saying, but if you're fixing your eyes on Jesus, the reason you're doing that is because he was the perfecter of faith. And so when we run this race, we do it through faith. is Jesus. Because he ran his race in the perfect way.

And so that's our example. Even though we can't accomplish that on our own, just like trying to do the law on our own, you can't do that. So you're doing it through faith and through his example. Yeah. And we may fail and we may, you know, stop and walk once in a while, but we're still supposed to stay in the race, just like he did.

Well, it's a stay in the race, one. And the other thing is, if you fall down, what do you do? Get up. You get up and get back in the race, right? If you have a stumble along the way, that doesn't stop your, you know, part in the race. Get back up and get going. Because it never says that you have to come in first. Here is what is interesting. We're all called to, you know, this race. What's fascinating is that the races in those days, I mean, we give prizes for all the second and third and fifth and everything else. In those days, it's like you won or you lost.

And, you know, what's interesting is the person who won would be given a crown. A Stephanos crown, and he would be given a white stone, which was the invitation to the victor's banquet. And what you see is promised to believers in the New Testament, even into the beginning chapters of Revelation, a crown for each one. For each Christian has the possibility of one or more crowns, and a white stone, an invitation to the victor's banquet.

So it's not like, okay, Stan gets the crown and the white stone, the rest of us just get beaten up, right? It's not like that. Every believer has the opportunity in front of them to have a crown and the white stone. Everyone. And we each have our own race, so in other words, it's not necessarily that you're going to win the race, because everyone's got their race. Their own race, yeah. Yeah, their own race. Run with endurance.

1 Peter 2, 1 and 3. And Peter is interesting in that where Paul would very occasionally describe something he wanted done as an action in progress, Peter most often did. And Peter rarely used imperatives, except in these two passages that I have quoted here. 1 Peter 2, 1 through 3.

Therefore, putting aside all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all slander, like newborn babes long for, here is an active imperative, implying an act of the will, the pure milk of the Word." So am I supposed to wait? Man, Lord, I'd really like it if you'd give me a desire to read the Word. I've kind of got to wait for it. Guess what? Longing for is actually an act of the will. That's the way Peter's written it. And Peter was not inclined to write imperatives. But that's what's given here.

So that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. so that by it you may grow." The Word of God, so that by it you may grow. The Word of God is the agent of spiritual growth. We're going to talk more about that in months to come here, too. 2 Peter 3, 17 and 18, You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard, which is an imperative, implying an act of the will, so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men, and fall from your own steadfastness, that is, get tripped up in the race, right? But verse 18, but grow, and by the way, this grow is an imperative, implying an act of the will, grow, I could put it this way, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

See that? He says you must grow, and if somebody, you know, if you ever go up to a plant and say grow, Keep growing! Come on! Lazy plant! Is that what we say to plants? No. Because the plant doesn't have an act of will to decide to grow or not. Why could Peter write to these people and say, you as an act of will must grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? How could he say such a thing? Is it like us speaking to the plant and saying, grow! Why is it different? They can choose not to grow. And how do we choose to grow or not grow? By the will. And what do we will? Do we just say, I'm going to grow! What do we do? What needs to happen in order for us to grow?

What did he say in 1 Peter 2? What was that by it you may grow? By what? By the Word. You must long for the pure milk of the Word that by it you may grow. So that's the reason he can tell us to grow as an act of will at the very last verse of 2 Peter. But grow. without having told us how, in 1 Peter, the last verse of 2 Peter would be of ultimate frustration. Grow! How am I supposed to grow? Especially as an act of will. Guess what? It has to do with the Word of God. You're going to grow by means of the Word of God. That's what 1 Peter 2, 1-3 tells us.

Yes. But it also says that you're supposed to put aside. So it also says that you're supposed to put aside all malice, and when it talks about the race in Hebrews, it says that you're supposed to give up all sin that entangles us, right? Is that an act of will too? Yeah, let's think about that. Why do I put aside the things that entangle? Why do I put aside the malice and all that? Why is that a problem? Why do I need to put those aside? It keeps you from running.

Essentially, the bottom line is, our fellowship with the Lord is through His Word. As I said before, and I always caution, don't get me wrong, God doesn't care about sin, ultimately. God's not obsessed with sin. He just wants it out of the way because He is obsessed with fellowship with you. He wants to fellowship with you, and that's the only reason the sin matters.

He says, I just want it out of the way. Because it's a problem. It's in the way. We've got to get it out of the way, and then we can have fellowship. And that's why both the Hebrews passage, and this passage here, as Peter writes, talk about the stuff you've got to get out of the way.

It's like trying to grow a plant in bad soil. It just doesn't grow well because it's not being nourished, it's not being transformed, it's not being... Jesus can't do his work as long as you... Here I've got really good soil, and I've got the right moisture content, I've got the seeds in it, and I've put a six foot square piece of plate steel over the top. What's going to happen? Nothing, right? It can't grow. Why? The limiting factor is that piece of plate steel over the top of it. It can't let light through. It can't let air through. It won't let anything grow through it.

That's what sin does. That's what sin is. It's not that God is sitting there watching us saying, boy, I can't wait until Vern sins because boy, I'm going to sting him bad. That's not God's perspective. God says, I just want the sin out of the way because I created you for fellowship with Me. And that's what I want. So let's just get this stuff out of the way. Get it off to the side so that it's not in the way and we can fellowship. He says, I want to fellowship with you all the time.

Yeah. So, Christ died for sin now and took care of sin. Yes. Let's talk about that because you bring up a good point. There are two different issues with sin. One, Christ died for sin, first of all, in order that we would be able to have relationship.

The relationship is permanent. The relationship won't change. If I as a Christian sin, does that suddenly make me no longer a child of God? No. The relationship is there. What is at issue for us as Christians is not relationship, but fellowship. And let me ask you this, has God made a way to deal with the sins that get in the way of fellowship?

Yes. So the reality is God has made a provision for both. Both involve an act of the will on our part to believe. In order for me to be saved, I've got to do what? Believe. In order for me to deal with the sin issue, is there a cookbook I've got to go buy or can I get something off the internet that kind of gives a list of things to do in order to deal with the sin issue in my life? Probably, yeah. The reality is God has done it, and He has revealed in Scripture what it is.

Let's take it for instance, Romans 6.11. You have died with Christ, been buried with Him, and been raised with Him. So what does He do?

Romans 6.11, He says, reckoned, or it's actually a Roman accounting term. It's added up. Look, calculate this out. Figure it out.

You have died with Christ. You've been buried. You've been raised. The sin, you're dead to it. Okay? You're dead to it. God has done something not just about the sin that disturbs my relationship with Him, but He's also done something about the sin that disturbs my fellowship with God.

Both. Fixing our eyes on Jesus. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, yep. And fixing our eyes on ourself and what we're doing is not the answer, is it? Yeah. And it's not necessarily sin, it's just things of this earth that can do the same thing. Yeah, anything that just distracts us enough so that we're not you know, looking at what's going on.

I can remember running track, you know, and every, you know, they'd have a grandstand on one side of the track and you're running around doing laps, you know. But, you know, if I said, oh, look, there's my dad. Hi, Dad. Oh, man, my cousin's here. Hi, how you doing?

Everybody's running past me. Is that going to work? No. We can get real distracted in this race. And yet take our focus off of the forward progress. And the forward progress comes by keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus. The crowd will wave and roar and everything else. That's not what's going to get us there. Yes? So connect the dots. He died for sin, for relationship.

So then John 1.9 is the provision for sin, for fellowship, right? Yes.

That having been said, I think John 1.9 has to be understood carefully and correctly. They're not pressing their nose yet, so I can continue.

First John 1.9, if we confess our sins, a lot of Christians really get into this confessing thing like they're on a treadmill and just can't get off. All that confessing means doesn't mean we sit down and go through the list. It means we agree with God. Homologia. It means we say the same thing as God does about sin.

The example that I give is Nancy and I, when we were in an apartment building, it was a nice 12-story apartment building, on each floor had a place where you could just open up a door and dump the trash. When it was time to take the trash out, and I would typically try to do that, as a courtesy to Nancy, and I would take the trash and I'd go down the hall and I'd take it and dump it, right? Nancy and I, when it's time to take the trash out, we don't take it and dump it on the table and say, hey, remember these eggshells?

Yeah, that's yesterday's breakfast, you know? And this little can of beans, that was good. Last night's chili, you know? And we don't go over and fondle the trash, okay? And talk about it and discuss it. All that happens is Nancy and I both agree, this is trash, right? Ready to go out? Yep. Down the tubes.

So it isn't a matter of obsessing over the list and getting down to, oh my God, talk about this and that. We agree with God, this is trash. Now let's get on with fellowship. I don't fellowship with God over my sins. I agree that it's trash. See that? So, yes, the answer to your question is yes, but it's not by obsessing on the process of, you know, the trash assessment. Right?

But it's moving on to fellowship. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Why? So we can get on with the fellowship that counts. This trash? Yep, down the tube. Okay, on with fellowship. That's what it's about. Not getting stuck in the process of assessing the trash and remembering it and fondling it and looking at it with misty eyes. No, we don't do that with the trash. And we don't do that with sin either. We call it what God does. It's sin.

That's it. That's enough time on the trash. Okay, now we are getting noses starting to press against the windows. And I get this sort of back and forth walk by Brian. Then I know I'm pushing it. So, okay. Time for us to pray. Lord, we thank you that as we look at this, although, yeah, we've had words and we've had paragraphs and we've had verses and we've had paper. and ink on the paper and all that.

This is really all about relationship. It's about fellowship with you. And we pray, Lord, that we would see that and understand it, that our hearts would be drawn to it, and not just to it, Lord, but to you. And we thank you, Lord, for the awesome and wondrous relationship and fellowship that you intend with us forever. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.