Growing - what is God doing?
Vern Peterman · Apr 10, 2011
What God Is Doing in Believers, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926231116447

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

You know, there are a number of churches these days that when you talk about the Holy Spirit, the implication is they're looking for some kind of a manifestation or an impact or something of that sort. And I think, you know, one of the things that we particularly want to look for is for the Holy Spirit to guide and lead us through the truth.

Matter of fact, that's something we'll be looking at here later on in the passages that we have here. So we have, continuing in this series here, we started in January looking at what is the spiritual anatomy of a believer. We looked then in February at being conformed, and then in March last month looking at being transformed, and then this month we are looking at growing. And as is kind of the pattern, we do an introduction on each one of those words, and then the second week, this is the second week, we ask, what is God doing? In other words, what's God's part in that? And then the third week, which will be next week, we'll look at what is the believer's part in that?

What is the believer's part in being conformed, transformed, or in this case, growing? To grow and mature spiritually would not even be possible if God had not acted out of His mercy and grace to save us. Everything about each believer's position in Christ and eternal salvation is accomplished by God Himself. All we did is belief. We have several passages here we refer to.

One is 1 Corinthians 1.30, which starts out with, but by His doing you are in Christ Jesus. Did we get into Christ Jesus by some special effort? Were there mileage points on our credit card? How did we get into Christ Jesus? What's that? All we did was believe God did the placing of sin to Christ, right? It's all His accomplishment. It isn't something that gets tarnished or tweaked. It isn't something where we say, you know, I'm about 49.5%, maybe 49.6% in Christ, right? That's not the way it works. We are placed 100% in Christ by God's doing. That's God's accomplishment, right?

Ephesians 2, 4-9, and this one is really cool. But God, which is always a great way to start something here, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when you were dead in our transgressions, we were dead rather in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Who did that? God. God did it. It was all God's accomplishment. That's why I say, but God. The first three verses of that chapter describe our situation before we believed. And it was not a pretty picture. This passage here says, but God. Here's what God did, what God accomplished.

Verse 7, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace. The ages to come, is that like the next few days? No. This is rolling ages and ages and ages when we're well past anything in this life. Here, right? In the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. One of the things I like about this passage, rich in mercy, great love, riches of His grace, nothing about it is wimpy skimpy, right? It's all massive, huge, it's large, it's mega, right? So the surpassing, that's the overthrown, riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves. See, that is not of yourselves. It is not something that we pulled off and we accomplished. It's not finesse. It doesn't come out of the bank account. It's not bonus miles or any payback on the credit card, nothing that we did. It is the gift of God, not as a result of work so that no one may boast. It's not something we pulled off. Here's Titus 3, 5-7.

He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy. And when you see according to in the New Testament, you can put in there, if it helps you understand it better, you can put in there, consistent with. Consistent with. Consistent with His mercy. By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

Did He pour out the Holy Spirit upon us because we were just really, really good? Because we really made a valiant effort. And so he thought that was worthy of some kind of reward and remuneration, right? No, not so much. Yes. What does it mean when it says, which we have done in righteousness? Because usually when we do works, it's not stated as being righteous. Well, it says He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness. It's not because we did the right thing. See that? It's not because we did the right thing. It's not our works accomplishments that saved us. It is His accomplishments that saved us. So would that be kind of people who think that they're doing something good and they have a right attitude about it?

Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, I recall a survey, and it's probably, if you were to go around, you might get similar numbers. At the community college I went to, one of the people on the journalism staff there went around and asked a fair number of students, and somewhere around 90% of the students thought they were good enough to get to heaven. Uh-oh! Okay?

That's a problem. It is a problem from two different standpoints. What's the first problem? False. Yeah, good enough to get to heaven is not going to get anybody to heaven, right? So wrong basis. That's problem one. And then problem two, are they good enough? No. No, good isn't the issue. So there are two problems with that. The difficulty is that people think, well, I'm good enough. Or if I try hard enough, or I'm better than average, or any of those kinds of little statistical things, and it's all wrong. Are you good enough to get to heaven is real close to how far is it between your house. It doesn't compute, right? It's not going to happen.

Verse 7, "...so that being justified by His grace." Justified because I worked really hard. Justified because I paid all my bills on time. Justified because most of the people aren't mad at me. Right? No, none of those, right? Justified by His grace. Period. we would be made heirs according to, consistent with, the hope of eternal life. Are we made heirs because we earned it? You punched the time clock? No! Justified by His grace we would be made heirs. By His grace. That's how.

So God accomplished everything about our salvation and our position in Christ when we first believed. It is all God's doing that we're in Christ and have the new man, the new nature, and a new history. What do I mean by new history? Our new position, our new history in Christ. Okay, and what's our new history in Christ?

We're all those things that happened to us quickly. Righteous. Pardon? Righteous. Well, let's think about what in what way do we now share a history in Christ that we didn't have before we believed. We died with Christ and then what next? We were buried with Him. We were raised, ascended and seated. Those five things are part of a history that we didn't have before we believed. The history we had before was in Adam. The history we have now is in Christ.

You know, if you ever go to counseling, in the secular realm, what they want to know, they want to figure out, you know, which one of your parents do we blame, or both of them, right? What did they do, what didn't they do, and all that, right? And they want to know your history and your background here on planet Earth. That's what happens if you go to the typical secular counseling, and some unenlightened Christian counselors as well.

What this is saying is we have a new history, and for the most part, it isn't what happened to me and what did I do and what didn't I do and what was done to me and what wasn't done to me, but it's really a matter of catching up to the history that we have in Christ. That's what's going to make a difference. Otherwise, it's who do I blame? get out the pad because you must need some medication. There is no real answer apart from the new history that we have in Christ.

Hal, one of the latter times when he was in the hospital, he was rooming in the hospital with a fellow who was a professor of psychology from the University of New Mexico. And Hal said to this professor, you've got a lot of things figured out, don't you? You've got everything figured out about how things happen. The guy said, yep, we do. But Hal said, you don't have any answers, do you? No, we don't. Isn't that interesting? Here are answers. That's what's really cool.

It's our new history in Christ. And so what we have to do is not sit there and dig up what Adam did, But to catch up with our new history, yeah. When you're talking about new history, you're talking about here on earth, you're not talking about after we die. I'm talking about death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding. That's our new history. That we live it here, not after we die.

Right. In other words, the answers right now, not just when we walk through heaven's gates, the answers right now come from our new history. Yeah. But it's also that the clock starts ticking on the spiritual side of that graph, right? What do you mean by that? Well, originally you had that graph where you had the You know, the material side of the person you had, the spiritual side of the person. Yes, yes, okay. Physical and spiritual side. The spiritual side is not there for an unbeliever. For an unbeliever, it's like a void. It's empty.

So the clock starts ticking on that side as soon as you are saved. As soon as you are saved, now you've got something going on. So that's history, right? You're beginning a history in Christ. Now as a believer, I have a new history. And here's the interesting thing. As a believer here on this planet, what am I doing but catching up to the new history? Catching up to what God has already accomplished. And what's wild is He accomplished it 2,000 years ago. Right? When did Christ die on the cross? About 2,000 years ago, right? Approximately. And He identified you with Christ in his death which took place 2,000 years ago.

He knowing in advance that you would believe. Because the unbeliever doesn't get this. Right? This is amazing stuff. This is a God who does know the future. So today we're going to examine what God has done and is doing to bring about spiritual growth in us and to bring us to maturity. Do we see that? The ultimate standard of the characteristics of maturity and the direction towards which we are to be growing is Jesus Christ the Lord. That's the message here.

Now, the first thing we see, the main bolded heading on the bottom of page one, God works through circumstances. God works through circumstances, even the really hard ones, to bring about growth and maturity in the believer. God is sovereign and even when human beings make choices to think and act contrary to God's moral and spiritual will, God's purposes will not be thwarted.

My parents have been hit by drunk drivers at least three times in their lives that I can recall. The first time it was before I was even born. The last time it was a head-on. And when my dad was holding one of the passengers from the other car in his arms when the guy died.

These are awful experiences and there's no question about it. But did that happen outside of God's sovereignty? Was this some thing God just went, oops? No. No, even those things that are indeed awful. And we are free to say, you know, what happened there was really ugly.

We're free to say that. But at the same time, we can also see that God makes good of those circumstances. God's purposes in these things, even if the things are awful in themselves, and even if they result from people making horrible, unspiritual, ungodly choices, God is still going to use those circumstances. He is managing, this is Ephesians 1, 9 and 10, He is managing all history to be summed up in Christ.

We look around and we say, the world is a mess. I don't want to turn on the news because I don't want to know what's happening. It's just crazy stuff. Crazy things going on. Our politicians did what? They didn't do what? And you read about You know, after the turmoil they had in Egypt, and the people wanted a change, guess what? They don't like the change, and so now they've got some more turmoil.

Our world is a crazy nutso place. Lots of really loony things go on. But in the midst of all that, God is managing, He is administering all of history to be summed up in Christ. And we are no exception to that. He works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Last line there, and turning on to Ephesians 1.11. So while people will make their choices and be free to do so, God will make everything from supposed acts of nature to acts of mankind and failures of mankind to act, a planned part of our growth and maturity. People can be profoundly irresponsible. And God's work through those circumstances to mature you will not be thwarted.

One of the things I do from time to time, sometimes I have more opportunity than others, I get on atheist websites a fair amount. And I'll interact with them, I'll chat with them. Sometimes I have my own over the years, sometimes I'll personally talk with them. I was emailing back and forth with Al, and I had some atheists misinform me about something here recently. But, you know, they can say what they want to say. They can do what they want to do. They cannot thwart God's purposes.

I had a class one time in Eastern religions. The instructor You know how they do in college, only the first few classes they take roll. And after he was doing roll the last time, but we had enough class, he said, you're a Christian, aren't you? I said, yeah. He said, stand up. I stood up. Whack! Across my face. Right in the middle of the class, right in front of everybody.

Can he thwart God's will? Can he thwart God's process in that? Is he a godly man? Not even close. By the way, it turns out that that guy's son became a believer. So the thing is, God's will is not going to be thwarted. God's purposes are not going to be thwarted.

Even if what other people do is just terrible. Just really awful. He is fully able to bring about good outcome of all things in our lives, even those that are unpleasant or painful or truly bad. And we can feel free to say what's bad is bad. That doesn't conflict with the idea that God works things for good, right? Here is James 1, 2 through 4, and this is what we call expanded and explained. That is, we put in additional words to bring out the meaning of the text and to bring out the meaning in the context. Here's how it goes.

You must esteem it ultimate joy, my Israelite brethren in Christ. Why do I say Israelite? Because he initially addressed it to those of the twelve tribes scattered abroad. when you encounter, if you encounter? No. When you encounter various fiery tests with a view to approval.

What's an ultimate joy, by the way? What would you think would be examples of ultimate joy? What kind of events do you say, boy, that's just the best? Somebody gets the lottery, they get that. That's an ultimate joy. What else? Seeing someone accept their Savior. Seeing someone accept their Savior, become a believer, yes. And what else might be called an ultimate joy? Grandbabies. Grandbabies, yes. I've got seven of them. So all these things might be called ultimate joys.

We may come up with some other ones and that's fine. Look at what he says to consider an ultimate joy. And by the way, is it optional? He doesn't write it as an option. He says you must, you must esteem it ultimate joy when you encounter various fiery tests with a view to approval. What does God have in mind when you go through these fiery tests?

What is He looking for? Growth. He's looking for growth, yes, but what is his view, what does he want to do in the midst of that? Christ-likeness and conformance. Yeah, you're right about that, but what else? See where you turn. He wants to see where you turn, but what does he want to do? It's a view to approval.

In other words, when he puts the test there, he isn't saying, boy, I just can't wait until Vernon gets all messed up. That's not God's intent. What he is doing when he puts the test there, It's done with a view to approval. He's not sitting there just kind of rubbing his hands together and saying, boy, I just can't wait to see Vern get all turned around and messed up and tripped up and confused and bothered. No. It's done with a view to approval. That is exactly what he intends.

Knowing that, who's knowing that? Who knows that? We do. We do, right? Certainly the Lord does, but He wants us to know it, knowing that the fiery testing with the view to approval of your faith produces endurance. It's productive. The tendency for human beings is to say, this is a horrible waste of time. Let's get on the prayer chain and ask that we just get out of this thing. Right? That's our tendency. Where's the exit? How do I jump out of this thing and pull the ripcord and bail out?

And what this is saying instead is God has a productive reason for bringing this into our lives. He wants the event that people are just you know, wanting to figure out how do I jump out of this thing, he wants the event to have a spiritually productive outcome. And he has the motivation, the intention, to look for his ability to approve in the midst of that. It's not something that happens right away either. I mean, sometimes it takes years. to come to that point. It's not instant, is it? No. We're a society, we like instant. So he teaches real patience. No, this is endurance, this is bearing under.

This is one of those things where, you know, some years ago they had a guy who wrote books like The Three Minute Manager or something, you know, or The One Minute Manager, and everything was like, are you all done in a few minutes or a minute or something? No, this is the kind of stuff that it takes time. So does this go back to, I like charts as you can tell, Hal's picture with the switch, where you have the choice in the will to switch back and forth. Yes, but that's next week.

Because this is God's part, not our part. But you're on to something real critical there. In other words, in the midst of this, God has something that He intends to do. And yes, we do have a part, and that's next week. But that's what He's looking for. It's the approval of your faith, right? Yeah.

He is not doing it with the idea that, oh, I just love to see Vern squirm. And when Vern just flames out, that's just so wonderful. That's not what God's doing. God is putting this thing in our path. because he wants us in the midst of this to have this be spiritually productive and he wants to approve us. I can't wait to see Vern flame out and see how he burns out. So then under law, it was blessing and curses. So in other words, as you were more obedient, you got blessings from God and usually they were of earthly nature, like land and prosperity. At least you're a little more in context.

Instead of next week, this is the next paragraph. Let's finish up, let's finish up James 1 here. Okay. You must choose to have endurance. Patience through and under the circumstances have its maturity producing results so that you may be spiritually mature and complete, lacking in nothing that God intends to bring about in your life. Okay? Let it go all the way. Pedal to the metal. Okay?

People sometimes will ask, and this especially comes up when we're talking to younger people, you know, can I go all the way? Well, God says go all the way, but he's not talking about physical intimacy. This is going all the way to what God intends to complete. The next paragraph, the one Stan is referring to.

Now, while many have thought that James was very Jewish and legal in his perspective, we must point out that based on Deuteronomy 28 and related passages, the Jews thought that any earthly trial in a person's life was the result of God's curse upon the person for violating the law of Moses.

Do you see that? The Jewish perspective is, if you've got problems, because you're not obeying the law and God's cursing you. That's the Jewish perspective. And it comes from Deuteronomy 28. It said that's what the Jew would have thought and he should have.

Here is James, a Jew, why is he saying rejoice when you encounter various trials? It's the time of grace. Yeah, because we are not under the law. We are not under the law, but under grace. And so here is James, raised Jewish. He's the elder in Jerusalem where they've got the temple and the priests. all the Sadducees and Pharisees and everybody who's as legal as they can get. And what does he do? He comes out immediately after saying, Hi, I'm James, and he says, Rejoice when you encounter various trials, instead of thinking, God's cursed me.

Ever meet anybody that's mad at God? Have you ever met anybody that's mad at God? Yeah. Maybe you've been there yourself, right? Yeah, and often it's a failure to understand what is this talking about here. It's because we expect God to pull off something that God says, that's not what we're all about. That's not what life is about. We want God to clear out any rocks in our path, and make everything smooth so that our life is just one smooth highway to heaven with no off-ramps all the way to the day we meet the Lord.

Right? And James says, not a chance. Right? Not a chance. James, writing from a perspective of grace, turns that perspective, the idea that if you're under bad circumstances, you must be cursed by God. In two ways. Here's the first bullet. The Christian must come to a perspective of seeing the trials as God's test of the believer with a view to approval by God. The trials are not the result of God cursing you from disobedience. The trials are because God wants the trials to be productive. Radical difference. It's to be productive as a test to the believer's life with a view to approval.

It is not a curse from God. James, friend in the faith, Paul said that those who are in Christ are blessed unconditionally. So this isn't an issue of blessings and curses at all. Not an issue of blessings and curses at all. Are you blessed? Is that an issue? Yes, you're blessed.

Ephesians 1.3, you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Not an issue. Blessings and curses are not the issue.

While the Israelites came to view bad circumstances as curses from God for disobedience, which is the expression of a character flaw, James is calling for believers to see the trial as God's intentional test with a view to approval that has a beneficial character outcome.

See that? Under the Jewish measure, it's, boy, you must have a serious character flaw, and therefore God's cursed you. And it's because of that underlying character flaw you violated the law. Under grace, God is changing your character for the better. He is bringing about the difficulty, not because you're cursed, not because of a character flaw, but to grow you in your character.

Very different perspective on things, isn't it? Let's look at 1 Peter 1, 3-9, which begins at the bottom of that page there. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice even though there's no more ibuprofen in the bottle. No. Even though now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials. Whoever heard the various trials word before?

So that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In ancient times what they would do is they would take they would take the ore or the natural form metal, it might be in a nugget form or something of that sort, and they would heat up this ladle or bowl, kettle, full of the ore that was to be purified.

And as they would heat it up, the impurities would come to the surface, called the dross. And then they would do what with the impurities? They'd either strike it off or ladle it out. And you know how they knew that they'd gotten rid of the impurities? They could see their image in it. Yeah. The person who was doing the refining, when the impurities were all cleaned off, could see his image on the surface of the molten metal. Is that what the Lord's doing? Exactly, right? Exactly.

Peter doesn't say that the trials are just bad things that happen, that we just have to grit our teeth and just get through them. Rather, Peter places the trials in an eternal context with words and phrases like living hope, the revelation of Jesus Christ, and you love Him and believe in Him. Our trials are about our relationship with Christ and our fellowship with Him.

Like James, Peter also sees these trials as a fiery testing with a view to approval. See, Peter and James are on the same page here, aren't they? James and Peter choose some similar words. Peter particularly makes a comparison of the believers' trials with a metallurgical refining process intended to prove out the valuable content of the ore or metal nuggets. Does the Lord prize you? Yes. He's not talking about just some dumb rocks. He's talking about coming out with something of value. He's bringing that out. What's of value in you? Character. Character. And who's character? Christ. It's Christ's character, yes.

God looks at that and says, that's valuable. And that's worth it. And so the trials are the intentional process of God, not something where God just goes, whoops, I tried, I just couldn't pull it off. It's not that. It's God's intentional trial in our lives to bring out visibly the character of Christ. Yes.

It's interesting because if James was the half-brother of Christ, which I guess there's some question about that. I would say that's a good assessment. Okay, so he was an unbelieving half-brother of Christ until he saw him resurrected. That's what the evidence points to.

And Peter was chastened by Christ. So both of these come up with the same conclusion. Here's Peter and James. Both these guys have been brought up Jews in the land of the Lord, but they each went through a period of time of James of outright unbelief, of Peter of denial. And yet here they come and boy, it's amazing how much they agree. It's amazing how the message that they have to deliver is in sync between one and the other. Let's look at this section in the middle of page 3. It's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has had and continues to have several ministries that are an essential part of the believer's spiritual growth and maturity.

These include, and we have four bullets here, one, bringing the Word of God to us. This is the inspiration and preservation of God's Word as special revelation to us. So we get some references there in John and 2 Timothy. Second one, bringing us to the Word of God, bringing the message of the Word of God to the heart of the believer. So it isn't just, okay, here's the inspired Word of God, do something with it. It is, and we even pray about it here this morning, we pray for the Holy Spirit to take the message that He has inspired and preserved and brought about to us, now to bring it into our hearts so that we understand it. Here's something real interesting.

Here's the Word of God that starts in the spiritual realm. Isn't that where it begins? The Word of God starts in the spiritual realm, comes into the physical realm, and where does God take it? Back into the spiritual realm in your hearts. Very interesting, isn't it? God starts in the spiritual realm, brings it into the physical realm, and He does it all the way. Not just some of it. He does it all the way to bring it back into the spiritual realm to impact you. That's what God does with His Word.

The third one, using the Word of God mightily in our hearts and lives. The sword of the Spirit. The sword of the Spirit is what we're talking about here. The sword which the Spirit wields. It is the Spirit's working with the Word of God in us deeply.

And Hebrews 4.12 brings that point home, that the Word of God is not intended to just kind of sit there and park in our gray matter. so that we can pass the Bible college and seminary tests.

It is intended to impact us deeply like nothing else can. Fourth bullet, directing believers to focus upon and behold Christ who is revealed in the written word of God. That's the ultimate thing. I mean, there's historical information in the Bible and there's geographical information, but that's all just data, right? In the end, the Word of God is to direct us to Christ and to cause us to behold Him. It is the instrument by which we behold the Lord Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's why in Colossians 3.16 it says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you wimply. No, richly, right? Dwell in you richly. It is the rich indwelling of the Word of God. Now, that dwelling in you richly, what is he pointing at here? Let the Word of God, let the message of Christ make its home in your hearts. Do you see that?

Make its home in your heart. Now think about when you make your home, what do you do to your home? Clean it. Is that just something you take care of down at the title company? How do you make it your own place? Personalize it. You personalize it. And which person would characterize our heart? We personalize it and ultimately it's personalized by Christ, right? And you brought up something, Stan.

There's a cleaning process, an ongoing cleaning process that takes place, and we may say that's a part of our making at our own place, or at least we sure hope so. What else? Building it stronger. Building it stronger, maybe this is the things you look at and you say, oh, I need to fix this, or I need to reinforce that, or yeah, something of that sort.

Spend a lot of time in it. You can spend time in it, right? It isn't just a place you come and just park, but you actually spend some time there. It's a place where you have relationships. When you start thinking of this dwelling in you richly, and start looking at it from that standpoint, all these comparisons that we have to what we do in a home start to make a lot of sense.

But spiritually, what is scripture referred to? Milk and meat, right? Scripture is called milk and meat. Okay. It's for this reason that the same Peter who wrote about trials in the passages quoted above, writes this about the Holy Spirit-inspired Word of God and spiritual growth.

First, Peter 2.2. Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. Do you get more saved? Is that what he means? Stronger faith. Mature faith. You are already totally and completely saved. That's not going to change. But you grow based on everything that God did when you were saved. Right?

As we put it before, we are always catching up to what God has already accomplished. That's what growth is really all about, isn't it? catching up to what God has already accomplished. But in Romans it says from faith to faith. And Paul also uses the word established. And established means becoming stronger or more firm. It's almost like concrete. That's right. How firm is your salvation? Is it a little itchy? Shaky? How firm is your salvation? It's complete. It's solid. It's done. God did not leave anything out. It is certain. Absolutely.

And so we're not doing anything to tweak that or improve it or catch up to it. What we're trying to do is to go from that salvation that He's already accomplished and to grow into it. That's where we're headed. That's what the salvation is he's talking about. So growing in respect to salvation doesn't mean we get a little more saved every day. It means that we're growing in terms of catching up with the accomplishment that's already completely done and is absolutely certain. So Peter's comparison of the believer to newborn babes brings us to another important point here. The content of the Word of God is fitting for various ages and stages of spiritual maturity.

When someone comes up and says, what do I need to do to be saved? What you do is you make sure you go through the first five books of the Bible with them, right? Is that what you do? Make sure you read up, you know, right there. Make sure they stay up, because they've got to listen to Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

That's what you do with someone in order to introduce them to Christ, right? Not so much. Why? Because that's something that is inspired, right? It is all beneficial and intended by God to be productive. But there is something needed at each point. At the start, they need the gospel. From there, they need milk, because they are babes. And then they need meat. There's a sequence to it, isn't there?

So in the same way here for spiritual growth, let's take a look at page 4. Here's 1 Corinthians 3, 1-3, and then below that is Hebrews 5, 11-14. Here's what's interesting. Both of these passages talk about, you know, you should be ready for meat, but I've got to give you milk because you're not. Both of them are interesting that way. But both of them also talk about milk and meat in the passage.

Let's take a look at them. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly, for since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and are you not walking like mere men?

Hebrews 5.11-14, concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. What do you see happening in both of these passages? What's going on spiritually with the believers? Yeah, it's like by now you really should be ready for more solid food, but it's quite apparent you're not.

You still, in both of these, you still need the milk. Think of it this way. I've got, you know, seven grandkids and, you know, it's been interesting to watch each of the kids grow up. The youngest is about nine months or something like that now. There is a place at which you say, you know, if this kid is not able to take solid food, something's wrong. We better probably call the pediatrician or something, right? We would get concerned if at a certain age and stage, we're not seeing the evidences of, you know, the food appropriate to the age, not seeing the evidences of behavior that fits that age and stage, right? And we get concerned when they're not there.

Both of these passages express that in the spiritual realm. By now, you ought to be ready for this, but you're not. When we put them together, you have in the middle of page four, kind of a progressive table that moves to the right there, there is a food fitting for each level of maturity. And you notice the first two levels, newborn to infant, And we have several passages that are referenced there. The appropriate food is milk, right? And then meat and solid food is the next stage. That's what is the normal progression. Now let's ask the question, what do very young believers need to learn about? What's milk fitting to very young believers?

Baptism. Okay. And why do you say baptism? Because that's one of the first steps. It's elementary. Okay. And in the early church, anyway, we have a tendency to sometimes have baptisms get way delayed. In the early church, it was like, as soon as you become a believer, we're going to get you baptized, right? So that was the tendency there.

And so first thing, when you are being baptized, since that happens right away, you need to learn what that means. Right? What just happened to you? What else would be milk? Assurance of salvation. Why is that an important piece of milk? Because that's where you start. Because that's where you start.

What happens to a believer who is not assured of their salvation? In other words, what happens if they're not assured of their salvation? If they don't understand what God's Word says about that, they're going to think, well, it depends on me. And boy, is that messed up.

And if it depends upon me, what had I better get doing? I'd better get working to make sure I stay safe, right? Boy, before long, I'm spending all this time, I can't grow because I'm spending all this time trying to stay safe. Wow. I think also the mechanics of salvation, if you don't know that Christ did the work, that messes a lot of things up. Yeah. What's one of the things we started off with here?

By God's doing, you're in Christ Jesus, right? God is the one who put you in Christ Jesus. You didn't work to get there. You don't work to stay there. One of the things we pointed out in the Q&A class over a year ago is interesting. There are all these passages that say you have been baptized into Christ. You are in Christ Jesus. And even being baptized into Christ says that it was done to you, not you did it. You're baptized into Christ. You are in Christ. You are seated with Him, together with. All these things are saying that God accomplished it.

There is no passage that says, make sure you stay seated in the heavenlies. Because it's a long fall if you fall out of the heavenlies, right? There is no such passage. By God's doing, you're in Christ Jesus, is not followed up with, make sure you don't slip out of it. or him, right? There isn't any such passage. It doesn't exist. You were baptized into Christ. How do you get unbaptized into Christ? There isn't any such passage, right? There isn't any place to tell you how you could do it.

But what Scripture is emphatic about is that you now have this shared history with Christ that we had on the first page. You died with Him. You're buried with Him, you were raised with Him, ascended and seated with Him, and none of those are threatened to be or warned about being reversed. Right? God pulls it off. Yes. Just for information, those are listed in Hebrews 6, as you know. Yes. Okay. Right. For information.

Now, what about solid food? Let's ask the question, what we're doing in this class here, in this elective, is this milk or solid food? This is pretty solid food. As a matter of fact, what I find is interesting is that at least some of what we've been talking about, what I'm hearing back from people is, I haven't heard this taught anywhere. It's real interesting. But yeah, this is solid food. This is more meaty stuff.

You know, one of the things we probably ought to do with these electives, because we give people usually a choice of three, over the years we've had as many as five electives at once, is give people, you know, which one of these is this? Where's our milk class and where's our meat class, right? Because it does make a difference. When each of our three kids were born, we didn't bring them into the entry hall of the house and say, look, this is your new home. We've got a bathroom upstairs and downstairs. The towels are in the closet. You've got a bedroom up here. You can get the new fresh sheets over here. And come about 6 o'clock here, we'll put a nice big T-bone in front of you.

Is that what we do? No, we don't do that. Why? It's not appropriate to the age and stage. And spiritual food is the same way. We need to have an age and stage understanding so that people are not being overwhelmed as the same as giving a newborn infant a nice T-bone and a baked potato. Either my ears are buzzing or we're about out of time, I think. Right? It rang. It rang. How are we doing? Okay.

The last thing we've got, 2 Peter 3, 17 and 18, bottom of page 4. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the air of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. Does that mean losing your salvation? No. That's not the same. Falling from your own steadfastness is not you lost your salvation.

It says, but grow, that sounds like but God, right? But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What do we need to grow in? To grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what would that exclude? If you're going to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, what would that mean that you wouldn't grow in? You wouldn't grow in the flesh, right. You wouldn't grow in self, law.

In other words, it's possible for people to head off wrong directions, isn't it? What this spells out, and this is Peter's last written words from anything we have. He spells out, this is the place and the way and the person in whom our growth is to take place, not the flesh, not the law, not the world, okay? Not self. No, it's in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is where the growth is to take place. Or Paul would say boasting. Pardon? Paul would say boasting. Yeah.

I'm not growing in something that's basically fruitless or worse. Growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is productive. And by the way, that grow is an imperative. How do I do that? Do I go, okay, now I've grown. How do I grow? If there's an imperative, it means I need to do something. How do I grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Eat the proper food.

First Peter 2.2 says that long for the pure milk of the Word that by it you may grow. Same word. Body may grow. So the growing means going back to the Word.

And not just because we just pack our data. My hard drive knows a lot about God's Word. But it is not growing spiritually. Because it's just data. It's just bits and bytes. This is a growth in the person of Jesus Christ. That's what are looking at God's Word as intended to do. Growing in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's about Him. It's about relationship. It's personal. So do take it personally. Do take it personally. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the depth in it. We thank You for the substance, for the spiritual nutrition that is there. And thank You for the insight, too, that the difficulties You bring into our lives most certainly intended to be productive. And we thank you as we turn to the next part of this next week, that you have revealed our part in it. Oh, we don't originate anything. You're the one who originates it all. But we thank you for making it clear what our part is to be. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.