Growing - what is the believer's part?

Okay, now we're on to this third part on the topic of growing for this month. So growing, what is the believer's part is what we have here. And the term that we kind of selected here just so that it's understood, growth towards spiritual maturity. set of words, which kind of puts the two words growing and maturity in the right context. We can start by recognizing all of what God has done so that we can grow towards spiritual maturity. So we explored that last week. What does the Bible say about what God has already done?

So faith, here is one of the things I say, faith or trust, And one way to look at the believer's part, and this is not just an optional perspective here, is that the believer's part in growth towards spiritual maturity is all summed up in faith, that is, trust in the biblically revealed facts. There's a tendency for people to use faith as just some sort of a generic religious term. We want particularly to steer away from that vague sense, but say this is trust and faith and confidence in God's Word as God has laid it out, and not just simply faith in some sort of a vague way. It's not a leap of faith, it's not faith in faith, it is faith in what God has specifically and deliberately revealed to us. So that's a critical perspective.

All of the believer's part in growth towards spiritual maturity takes place in the context of what God has done, is doing, and will do. So as we learn, know, and understand what God has done, is doing, and will do, and place our faith, that is our trust, in Him for those things, we grow towards spiritual maturity. One way to look at it is this.

All of you are sitting in a pew, except for a couple that are still getting seated. You're sitting in a pew. What have you done? You have put your faith, trust, and confidence in that pew. I don't see people standing in the aisle and sort of reluctantly looking at the pews. They put their faith, trust, and confidence in the pews.

Now beyond that, there's something all of us are doing here in this room, and that is, you know that it's, you know, something close to 10 feet between here and the next floor. Right? And so why is that? We've got a floor structure holding us up here. We're putting our trust, we're standing on, or sitting in, this floor. that's undergirding us all here. And so when we talk about putting our faith in the Lord, it is that kind of dependence. We are trusting in the Lord for what He has said and what He's laid out. So those things are key. Now, next paragraph. And Nancy said if I read this paragraph, we could dismiss the class.

I don't think we'll do that, but anyway, just to let you know. To the extent that we do not learn, know, and understand what God has done, is doing, and will do, that is, to the extent we are ignorant of those things, we cannot place our faith in Him for those things, and we will not grow. To the extent that we do not learn, know, and understand what God has done, is doing, and will do, we cannot place our faith in Him for those things, and we will not grow. To the extent that we learn, know, and understand, but do not place our faith in Him for those things, that is, self-dependence, we will not grow.

Thirdly, to the extent that we try to do and take credit for what God has done, I could say, has already done, or is God's to-do, which constitutes works and legalism. We take credit for what God has already done. We try to accomplish what God has already accomplished. That's works and legalism. We will not grow. Growth towards spiritual maturity only takes place when we see who we are in Christ and who He is in us and place our faith in Him accordingly. So we don't have just kind of faith. Faith.

One of the problems that Bruce and I encountered when I went to Uganda for the first time, it was his second trip, we went out to the village, and the fellow who was then taking the role of the pastor in the church had this idea that you just kind of claim things, and then that's placing faith in God.

We're going to trust God for this and trust God for that, not on the basis of what God revealed in Scripture, but just things He would arbitrarily claim. And we had to say, whoa, stop, wait a minute, because that's not faith in what God has revealed, that's faith in what some human being has just conjured up. It is not the same thing. It is faith only in what God has revealed and not otherwise. For human beings to go and just say, well, we're going to trust God for... That's presumption.

That's not faith in what God's revealed. That same pastor was telling the church that, oh, for New Year's we're going to have this and this and this kind of sound system and big setup and all that, and we're trusting God for it. And I said, you're not trusting God for it. You're presuming upon God. And that's not faith, it's sin. Which of course really wrinkled him.

Anyway, a hand went up here. I was just going to ask for a specific example and you just gave it. Yes, yeah. Yeah, that was one instance. Just simply claiming something and then saying we're going to trust God for it, that's not biblical faith. Biblical faith is placing our trust and confidence in what He has clearly revealed. That's biblical faith.

The next paragraph down, take it personally. Notice that God did not simply design an impersonal processor system. At times I will have, and I've talked to others who have had this happen to them, I'll have somebody come up and say, well, you've got to tell me what to do. And what they want is some kind of a recipe or a formula. Tell me what buttons to push so that I can make this Christian-like work, like it's some big piece of machinery. That's not the way it works. It's not the buttons that you push and the switches you flip and the knobs you turn. This isn't a machinery process.

Here's the checklist. This is God's Word, but it is personal. It is personally inspired by Him. And so it is a personal relationship. That's the key point here. Christians are not to look at their relationship with the Lord. They're not to look at God's Word as just data. They're not to look at the Christian life as simply a machine with gotta figure out the right buttons and switches and knobs to turn. Because that's not what it is. It's the wrong thing.

An example I will give from time to time is, Nancy wants me to have a relationship with her. If I come up and say, OK, I've got this long checklist. Nancy needs seven kisses and they've got to be 2.5 seconds in duration minimum. And I go, OK, time it. Ah, that one was short. I've got to redo this one. That's not going to be satisfying to her, right?

No, that's certainly an imperfect analogy, but the Lord wants us to have relationship with Him and to fellowship personally with Him. Not just simply say, okay, I read the Bible for 15 minutes, checked, and on to the next thing. It's relationship, it's personal. It's personal on our part and it's personal on God's part. Growth towards spiritual maturity is not an impersonal system or machine process. It's about the personal relationship we have with Him by grace and the gracious fellowship we have because of the relationship. See, once you believe your relationship with God is never again at issue, the fellowship is what's in question.

See the difference there? I could say, for example, Randy is my son, and no matter what I do or he does, he's still my son and I'm still his dad. But it's possible that I could do something that could offend Randy greatly and disrupt the fellowship even though the relationship won't change. See that?

The Lord has already, if you're a believer, the Lord has already established that you have a relationship with Him. So it is the fellowship that he is calling us to, not to go in and out of relationship. That doesn't change. Now, bottom part, God's written word. God's written word, the Bible. So we have God's living word, Christ, and God's written word, the Bible. Was inspired and preserved so that the believer might learn, know, and understand.

But it's not just about data. My hard drive has a lot of Christian stuff on it. Gigabytes. My hard drive is not going to heaven. My hard drive has a lot of things that say in Christ, but it's not in Christ. It is believers who are in Christ, not just about data. Books and hard drives and other media can store data, but by itself there is no spiritual benefit. It just sits there. And even students can receive and analyze and output data, but that's not ultimately what God's written word is for. God's written word was personally inspired so as to be spiritually profitable and an essential instrument of growth towards spiritual maturity for every believer.

2 Timothy 2.15, a quote is there at the bottom of the page, on page 1.

Be diligent, and that's an imperative, okay? Be diligent. The King James has studied, which is interesting. It probably means a lot of the same thing. However, the word study a few centuries back meant be diligent, right? So be diligent, which is an imperative to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed of accurately handling the Word of Truth.

I'd like us to shift our focus to the slides up at the front here. Here is this same verse, and this accurately handling comes from a Greek word. I don't ordinarily like to get us all lost in Greeky-geeky stuff, but the Greek word there is one word, ortho-tomao, and it's not an ortho-tomato, okay? It's an ortho-tomao, And it's a Greek word that is translated here, accurately handling, the King James has rightly dividing.

It had a well understood meaning to those like Paul the tent maker and Timothy, who very likely assisted Paul in that trade, both of them having walked many miles of Roman road. Let's start with the Roman road part. Roman engineers, and this was a Roman era transit, that you see there in the picture, Roman engineers would design and lay out roads so that those roads were cut according to the lines and grades that the engineers had designed. So to cut it straight doesn't necessarily mean that everything is linearly straight, but it means to cut it right along the designed grade and orientation. So cut it correctly. That is the use of the word for the Roman engineers and those who constructed it.

Here is how the Romans would make their roadways. They would cut down three feet into the ground, assuming that there was three feet to cut. If you got down the rock, well, And that's not the case. But three feet down, then they would go from a foundation there of large stones and sand, and then pebbles and gravel, and on the top, large paving stones. That would be their pattern for miles and miles and miles.

And interestingly, the ones who did all the work were the Roman soldiers. They actually didn't have a separate road crew. The Roman soldiers themselves built the roads. So the Roman soldiers built roads all the way from southern Britain, all the way down into Egypt and North Africa and throughout the eastern Mediterranean.

They built enough roads to go around the planet twice if they were all end-to-end. That is a lot of road to build with hard work. No backhoes, no dump trucks, all Handwork, hard work. Oh yes, they had some carts and things like that from time to time. But still, a lot of hard work for those Roman soldiers. Many of those roads are still in use today.

In some cases, all that's been done is to put paving over the top of it to smooth it out. In a few cases, the stones developed chariot wheel ruts. because the Romans would go across them, and so just going over the top with a layer of pavement would be all that was necessary to make it a little easier to drive on at 65 miles an hour.

So, here is another use of that word ortho to male, which is one that Paul himself, as well as Achille and Priscilla, would be very accustomed to, and Timothy having walked those very same roads. Timothy was from Galatia, where two of the five major cities were Roman colonies. Therefore, the Roman soldiers who built these roads would come right out of those cities.

So, through ortho temeo, straight cut, would be to cut the fabric straight along the pattern lines, so that when you put the pieces together and sew them together, there's no gaps and no flaps. So that you get a tent when it's all done that is assembled correctly. Not a bunch of loose cloth and not something that's barely connected.

So here are two words that Paul and Timothy would have very well understood and used regularly. And here he uses it with Timothy when he says, you need to handle, to cut straight, cut correctly, the Word of God. When we look at the Word of God, to put it together so that like the tent, there's no gaps and no flaps. Nothing that's just left over, hanging over. Everything is cut correctly. We need to look at the Word of God that way. If we understand it correctly, the Word of God will make uniform sense because it's all inspired by one author. Okay? So here's other instances of the tent making. Okay. Let's move on. Page two.

Sure. a change of the before believing? I think what you look at is right now the Lord has revealed truth to us. There are people who do various things to distort, not cut straight, the Word of God even right now. So the person who is distorting the Word of God is being shameful. And so what's his answer is to be diligent to rightly divide. And so the first part there is diligence. And there are those who will either by negligence sloppily handle the Word of God, and it is an unnecessary shame that they bring upon themselves. And so what he's talking about, I mean, this is something that starts even now in their relationship with the Lord, in their relationship with others. Lack of diligence and lack of understanding, I need to rightly divide the Word of God, is a shame even now.

Second Timothy 3.16 and 17. All Scripture is inspired by God. Literally, God breathed. and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man, and this is Anthropos, not just Andros, which would be only the males, so that the person of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

How many of you really like feeling inadequate? I mean, you know, do you really enjoy that, being inadequate? Not so much, right? And so, guess where the adequacy comes from? The adequacy is, one instrument of adequacy is the Word of God, the preparation that comes for the circumstances of life.

1 Peter 2.2, like newborn babes long for, that is an imperative, long for, calling for an act of the will, the pure milk of the Word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation."

Is it possible to be a believer and from that point forward never have an involvement with the Word of God? How could it be? The Holy Spirit would not give you the peace to be on the law. It is a sad circumstance for a believer to have this resource which is necessary for adequacy and to have it laid aside, right? It is inconsistent with who you are. We need this.

Just like if you had some parents who took their infant to the doctor and said, I have no idea what's wrong. Our baby just isn't growing at all. And the doctor says, well, what are you feeding him? And they say, feeding him? That would be a problem, wouldn't it? So there's a food necessary for growth, and that's what the middle of page two lays out here.

Yes. But that eliminates things like battlefield salvations, deathbed salvations, things of that nature, because a person may not have been accustomed to studying the word or even having the word available. As long as they profess the faith, due to someone else being there Yeah, let's put it this way. What is necessary, and we're going to be covering this again in the main service, what is necessary for a person to believe to be saved?

Confess and believe in your heart. Ultimately, what Paul lays it out here is, do you believe that Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again? Christ the Son of God, did he die for your sins? Do you believe that he was buried and rose again? That's the ultimate content to be believed, right? So then a person is saved. His pleading, Paul's pleading to Timothy to be diligent to rightly divide the Word of God and telling him that this is the preparation. That's the follow-on to salvation.

It's the only thing that makes sense, just like if you have an infant, you don't expect growth or you don't feed it. Right? You don't feed the infant, you will not have growth. And so, it doesn't call into question the salvation, but it's the only thing that makes sense once that person is born again. Essentially, it doesn't matter how old they are.

My grandmother was in her late 80s, on my dad's side. In her late 80s, she became a believer about three weeks before she died. So here she is in her late 80s and she became a spiritual infant. And so, in her instance, even at that late 80s, what does she need? Milk.

Right? Yes? You know, it is hard to claim that the Holy Spirit wouldn't bind me to God's Word to grow. Yeah. But, you know, I know Sarah Mullen and my extended family. I know they never pick up. Let's ask this question. What is the ministry of the Holy Spirit with respect to the Word? to lead you into Godliness and righteousness through the Word of God. He is going to lead you to the Word, and he is going to use the content of the Word of God in your heart and life.

The believer says, no, I'm not going there. It doesn't mean that they're not saved. It doesn't mean they don't have the Holy Spirit. But they may in fact be grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit regularly in order to live out that lifestyle. And it will have consequences.

It's just like the infant, there is no growth. And an infant that's not growing because of a lack of food is a very unhealthy infant. person become a believer and not read the Word of God? And the answer was yes. But they can't grow in their faith in that way.

And I think that's where the answer to the question in the back there just kind of took us off on a different track of growth, which is the same thing we need. We need the Word of God in order to grow. That's the bottom line. It's the only thing that makes sense is we need the Word of God in order to grow. And those who are studying and reading and teaching others the Word of God need to teach it truly and not with distortion. Yes. And that's why the concept of born again is such a great analogy because when you're saved, you become a child.

But as you progress through your life and as you study the Word, You don't work towards salvation anymore, you work towards the maturity that is in salvation. You don't work towards your salvation, you work out your salvation. See the difference there? So it is a working out of the salvation that you have, not a working towards or working for. Catching up to who you are is really a big thing.

What happens is this person believes and all of a sudden they're in Christ, they're a child of God, they're a part of God's flock. All these things suddenly become true, but believers are born with spiritual amnesia. They don't automatically know these things. How are they ever going to know them? How do we know that these things are true? Fellowship in the Word. We learn from the Word of God that these things are true.

One of the things that the chart in the middle of page 2 makes clear is that there is a ripe food for different levels of maturity and the main distinctions there are milk and then meat or solid food for the more mature. So you see, scripture lays out rather consistently those four different levels of spiritual maturity. The first two calling for spiritual milk, and the second two calling for meat or solid food. The food appropriate to feed spiritual growth at each stage.

Bottom of the page there, page two, I have a title there, Through and Through, and we're not talking about bullet holes. We're talking about our course as we encounter various trials. We talked about the Word of God is a necessary ingredient for believers to grow, and now we're looking at another aspect, a necessary ingredient also for believers to grow. We're talking here about the various trials. The natural human inclination when encountering trials is often to just look for the exit. To look for the exit. How do I get out of this?

The written word of God makes clear that our approach to the trials is what makes the difference in whether we come through the trials as approved and having grown, which is what God intends, or whether we bypass the outcome God intends with some other resultant outcome. God intends that we go through the trial for as long as He has prescribed it, and that's what we see at the top of page 3. The trial is God's prescription for the believer. God says, you need this.

Go get this prescription filled and take the full course. What happens if you begin to take antibiotics and stop partway through? You build up a resistance. Pardon? You build up a resistance. You build up a resistance. How does that happen? How does that happen? Yeah. Well, if you don't completely kill the bug, then it just gets stronger. Yeah, what you've done is select out the stronger portion of the bugs and then given those a chance to develop. and you end up with a more resistant population of bacteria. And so not taking the full course is a problem.

And so that's why we have here, the trial is God's prescription for the believer and we are intended to take the full course of the medicine as prescribed. Take it all the way through. James 1, 2-8 and 12-16 It goes like this, and we essentially have it in four headings. The approach to trials, character under the trial, and intended earth-time outcome. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. By the way, that word various, the Greek word behind that is the word where we get our word polka, it's in polka dots. Rejoice when you encounter various trials, little ones, big ones, long ones, short ones, different magnitudes and sizes and durations, different kinds. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect results so that you may be perfect and complete, that word there means mature, lacking in nothing.

God intends to use the trial productively. And that's why looking, just looking, where's the nearest exit? How do I get out of this thing? Is not what God's looking for. God will have his own way and time to have that ended. In some cases it might end when you go home to see the Lord. But God will have his way and time for how that ends. So then, the insight for what I need wisdom is, it starts in verse 5, but if any of you lacks wisdom, which by the way, the Greek, whenever you see if, ask the question, what kind of if is it? Because the Greek has built into the grammar, is this assumed to be true? Is it probably true? Is it probably not true? In this case, the Greek says it's assumed to be true.

If you lack wisdom, and you do, Let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. He must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." In verse 12 there, the heading is, the positive path conveyed in the intended heavenly reward. Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial for once he has been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

One of the things that's interesting is scripture in the New Testament epistles is exceedingly consistent. There is a set of teachings about crowns in the Bible and they're on here on this table. And you also have it as an insert or an inset in the middle of page 3.

And so just to quickly go over them, you have a victor's crown, 1 Corinthians 9.25.

The church founder's crown is 1 Thessalonians 2.19-20.

A rapture lover's crown, 2 Timothy 4.8.

The elder's crown for service, 1 Peter 5.2-4.

And this trial crown is mentioned in the book of James and in Revelation 2.10.

Both of those places, here it is, two different authors writing decades apart make reference to a crown for trials. That's one of the things that tells me this is from inspired scripture, not just something that they cooked up with individually. There's two authors very likely writing from different parts of the Roman Empire, decades apart. By decades, I mean something like half a century apart. And what do they do? Both of them make reference to this trial crown.

Yes. And it's also interesting that James is more legalistic than definitely John, who was very grace-filled, so they're very different people. Actually, on that, James being legalistic... He had a tendency to look that way. Well, yeah. I would say that he is often looked upon that way. What he writes is often written very sharply. However, let's ask this question. In the Jewish way of understanding things, if you went through a difficult time, is that a blessing or a curse? A curse. But what does he say in this passage is a blessing? The trial.

So very interesting, what James writes, people are often inclined to think, boy, this guy is legalistic and very Jewish and all that. What he writes is completely upside down. from the usual Jewish teaching, that if you're having a good time and everything's smooth, that you're blessed, and if you're having a bad time, that you're cursed. He turns it all on its head. Here is a Jew writing substantially to Jews and saying, you're blessed if you go through these trials, not cursed. Yes?

Which also makes it to me seemed more appropriate that he was the half-brother of Jesus because that's exactly what Jesus did. He was teaching the Jews grace from the standpoint of having been under law. I mean, that's a difficult thing to do. They didn't understand it. How do you look at it if you're not feeling like you're under a trial? You're blessed and you're blessed? Here's I think an important thing to look at.

We can be going through difficulties for one of two reasons. We can be going through difficulties because it is the Lord's prescribed trial, right? We can also be going through difficulties because the Lord is disciplining us. Both of those can happen.

On the outside it might look like the same thing. The difference is not in what it appears to be, but rather what's going on inside and what is the Lord trying to do. So the difference between a trial and discipline might be something hard for people to see on the outside. But in fact, inside and on the spiritual side of the equation, There is a big distinction between the two, even though on the outside it looks the same, or may appear to be the same.

What's God wanting to do with discipline? Is it the same thing as the trial? What's God wanting to do with discipline? Form and shape the believer into the image of Christ. Well, there is certainly, the Lord is wanting to carry out that aspect, but let's say discipline is going to be an instance where the believer is off the track.

Yes, it's to change behavior or to come to recognition that. what you're doing is inappropriate, just like disciplining a child. You have to tell the child that what they're doing is inappropriate or it's not for their own good. Like you discipline if they were going to touch a hot stove. Why touch the hot stove and burn your hand if you can show them that they're going to burn their hand?

Yeah, and they can learn before doing it. The discipline is, one way to look at it is the way Paul does in Galatians chapter 6 verse 1. for that believer who has fallen off the path. He ought to be walking on the path of fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with other believers, but for that believer who is off the path, Paul writes, you who are spiritual, that is, those who are walking by means of the Spirit, Galatians 5.16, you who are responsive to the Holy Spirit are to restore, this word restore is the same one used in the Gospels for mending the nets, you are to restore that believer back to a walk with fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with other believers. If that person is unresponsive to that or has not had the opportunity for that, the Lord Himself may well step in and bring about discipline in that believer's life.

Discipline can be something inside us And discipline can be something outside us. The Holy Spirit can be telling us from the inside, without anything bad happening on the outside, this isn't good. This isn't good. And so the Holy Spirit can discipline us from the inside. But it may also be circumstantial discipline. Everything from things going on with our body to things out in the outside world that will also discipline us and they're intended to get our attention to put us back on the path of walking with the Lord.

On the outside it may look the same as the believer who is in fact continuing to walk by faith and going through the trial. Superficially anyway. But it's important for believers, and this is the answer to your question, it's important for believers to discern, is this discipline because I've been off the path, or is this a trial that the Lord has put in my life, not because I'm walking out of fellowship, but because He wants to grow me through the process. See the difference there? It's not externally evident always what, you know, is it discipline or is it the Lord's intentional trial. The difference is spiritual, not physical.

Yes. But it doesn't have to be either or, does it? I mean, they can be happening concurrently. You could be under a trial, and in the process of being under the trial, you may have a discipline for another aspect of your life. I mean, that's why it's so hard to discern, because they don't necessarily happen separately. Let's take a look at this.

At any moment, am I walking in the Spirit, or am I walking in the flesh? At any moment. You're doing one or the other, and the reason I say this is, this is Galatians 5.16. Walk in the Spirit, and you will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. So this is not like a rheostat where, you know, what level do you want the lights at? It's either on or off. You've got one or the other. So if you walk in the Spirit, you will not satisfy the desires of the flesh.

So there is a walking in the Spirit, and in those instances, if the Lord brings a trial in your life while you're walking in the Spirit and staying faithful with Him, then it is going to be a growth trial. If, on the other hand, A person is walking and abiding in the flesh. If the sin nature is given control, then what's going to happen, the Lord is going to bring discipline in that believer's life to put them back on a path. Now, talking about your situation, it is possible for a believer, let's say a trial comes along, and I'm going into the trial and trusting in the Lord, and all of a sudden in the midst of this, I start getting all wrinkled and put my dependence upon myself in the middle of it, then guess what happens?

That may in fact turn out to be discipline because of my not remaining in fellowship with the Lord through the trial. So yes, the Lord can make the switch there. It's not a mixture at any one time, but it can switch from one to the other. Right. So you're saying they both have specific purposes. Yes. So you can have both of those purposes happening in your life basically at the same time. The purpose of a trial is to grow you and mature you. The purpose of discipline is to get you back on the path. Right. What I would say is those don't happen simultaneously, although the trial may find the believer switching from one mode of dependence to the other.

So at least at any one moment, we take Galatians 5.16 as saying, I can't walk 40% in the spirit and 60% in the flesh at any one instant. However, through the course of the trial, I may go back and forth. Yes. I guess my question was a little different. Okay. We spent all this time talking and that wasn't your question. Alright. What if you're walking in the Spirit? What's that?

Is that just like rest and patience and peace? Patience and peace and rest is the outcome. The fruit of the Spirit, in Galatians 5 again, the fruit of the Spirit, that's the outcome from walking in the Spirit. But walking in the Spirit is fellowship and dependence upon the Lord. The outcome from that is rest and peace. As Paul lists it, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. Those are the outcomes. What will happen is you will have those things that Paul lists there, love, joy, peace, patience, in spite of the circumstances.

One of the instances where it comes up to me is, I recall, I was on a flight from Palm Springs to San Francisco, and it was in the middle of very stormy weather. It was one of those, it was an airline, but it was a prop-driven plane, one of the smaller planes. And as we were going, you know, between Palm Springs and San Francisco, the weather was horrific. And the plane was tossing and jumping and dropping, and most of the people on the plane were screaming. It was that bad. And I was sitting next to this gal that I had met at the conference that I was at, and we had previously been talking about things at the conference, you know, engineering stuff.

And she turned and looked at me and said, why aren't you screaming? If there's every reason to be screaming and yelling and throwing hands up in the air and all that, why aren't you screaming? Well, you know, whatever happens here, the Lord's out of control. So this is the Lord, not me.

And it also works then, you know, like they just win the lottery, or you just have your grandbabies. when things happen, then it's also not like screaming, you know, panicking, like, oh my gosh, I just don't know what to do, or oh my gosh, I have new grandbabies, or whatever.

It's also the opposite, too. Yeah. Well, then when the difficult, excuse me, when things come along that are looked upon as a blessing in our realm here on Earth, then does that suddenly drive me to something fleshly? Or do I actually have a spiritual viewpoint on this? I'm not sure. Myself, I never bought a lottery ticket, so I can't help you with that. But, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just for information, I didn't win the lotto. Okay.

Galatians, basically what that passage is saying is that you're either led by the Spirit or you're led by the law, as I see it. So let's just say that we are led by the Spirit. We've confessed, we've got our salvation, so now God is trying to put us on the narrow road. And so we come from the broad road, and so through discipline and through trials, He's leading us to the narrow road, correct? leading us to the narrow road.

Well, obviously when you come to salvation you have Right. I mean, you are not focused as far as your spiritual life. You mean when I get saved, the problems don't all go away? No. Oh, okay. All right. And so he's narrowing the road, so to speak. Okay.

Yeah, you know, what happens is as we go along, as we go along, I mean, some people are, and unfortunately, Christians sometimes sell salvation this way. Oh, when you become a believer, everything is just a smooth highway to heaven and no bumps, no off-ramps, you know. And boy, that's really a bad thing to sell people on, you know. Someone becomes a believer and the next morning they go out and they got four flats on their car and they say, that's not what I signed up for. Guess what? That's exactly what you signed up for, right? But you bring up a good point.

What's the whole theme of Galatians? Look guys, you're not under the law, don't go there. And part of his point is, when we're talking about walking in the Spirit, the law has no help with this. The law doesn't do anything to help you walk in fellowship with the Lord. In fact, quite the contrary is his theme there.

Yes? Can I go back to the internal discipline of the Holy Spirit, and there's this moment before an instance of disobedience or trial begins when the Holy Spirit puts upon your heart, keep your focus here, keep your mind set on being washed by the Spirit, and you make a decision mentally to not listen to the counsel of the Spirit, you go into flesh mode. Could it be said that it's not so much worrying about what happens, whether good or bad, or trial outside of you, as much as what is actually whatever it is, x, y, and z problem, then there's a grieving process. And when you're grieving the Holy Spirit, I mean, that discipline is super intense.

It could be the smallest of things. Outwardly, you could look on that person and say, why are you so sullen? What's going on over here? You could say, well, I feel guilty. And it's not that the Lord's taken us through a shameful process, but there's a grieving process where there's a sadness. And you have to walk in that. And the longer you walk in that sadness of the Spirit, being disciplined by that grieving part of the Lord.

And so, in some ways, I don't know, in my mind I'm thinking, trial, big, little, small, what is the Spirit? What's my attitude towards the Spirit right now in my life? And you know instantly, and we know right now, are we being disciplined or not by the attitudes of ourselves towards the Lord? And so these outwardly listen to them and forget to just sense, you know, what's the Spirit doing in my heart? Is He drawing me back to Him because I've been, you know, rogue? Or is He encouraging me through it in a way of growth?

You know what I mean? I think the outwardly trials get so much attention that we sometimes forget the Spirit's ministry in our own... and we all know where we stand in the spiritual sense. How do we know what the Holy Spirit is saying? How do we know with certainty what the Holy Spirit is saying? Ultimately, it's what context does Scripture put this in? I've heard an instance, here's this couple, they're not married, they're about to have physical intimacy, and so they're praying that the Lord will bless it.

Right? Not going to happen, right? And so they're like, OK, I want to do this and then have the Lord's peace and blessing. That doesn't happen that way. It's not going to work out. But unenlightened by the Word of God, it's possible for someone to try to put that together and get that confused. It is possible for us to get all sorts of spiritual disorientation if we don't have the Word of God to give us a frame of reference and give us, so to speak, true north.

A number of you probably have heard of the instance of pilots, they're trained in the more advanced training to learn to fly by their instruments, not by how it feels like, you know, I feel like I'm turning this way or I feel like I'm going down or up. Don't trust those. What do the instruments say? And by the same analogy here, the Word of God is what gives us the spiritual orientation. Our own subjective sensation may be a clue, but we don't ultimately want to let that be the decision maker.

In the same way, you know, on the car you've got the term is idiot lights or gauges telling different things. Do we want to just shut those off and put tape over them? No. Do we want to hardwire all those things to the car so that as soon as the oil light comes on, the car turns sharp to the right? No. You don't want to hardwire things. such that the feelings and hunches and things like that that we get are all of a sudden calling the shots. We want to look at the instruments to ultimately determine what to do. The gauges and lights on the panel are telling us, you better check things out and better look at things. But it's a time to go to the Word of God for guidance, not to let these things go around by hunches. It doesn't work.

The whole going by hunches thing is a favorite of the Charismatics. Benny Hinn told two ladies that Nancy and I knew in Carson City, you're going to be healed of your breast cancer. Both those ladies are now home with the Lord. And Benny Hinn's hunch was wrong. It was wrong.

So the feelings and hunches that we get are to tell us to go, let's find out what True North is here. What is our orientation? We need to go to the Word of God and look at the frame of reference that we've got from the Word of God. And it may be, in fact, the Holy Spirit communicating something, but that by itself is not the ultimate text. So the Holy Spirit may in fact be speaking to us. We need to ultimately go to what the Holy Spirit inspired to determine what is right and what's true. which is the Word of God. Yes.

And exactly what he's talking about, that's the last part of Romans 7 before you get to Romans 8, which is the struggle that Paul had. And what comes out of that is the personhood, or the continuing person. So this is the war that's going on inside of our heart. This is heart cleaning. It's kind of like, it's not house cleaning, but it's heart cleaning. And we have a choice to either listen to ourselves or listen to God.

It is one of the most critical things that should draw believers to the Word of God, and that is the unbeliever, interestingly enough, the unbeliever may have all sorts of agitations and whatnot, but the unbeliever has one nature driving everything they do. What's that nature? The sin nature, right?

There is no conflict. Suddenly, once that person becomes a believer, what's taking place? You all of a sudden have this tug of war in there, and so there is the possibility that the believer may have, in fact, more struggle as a believer than they had as an unbeliever. Why? It's because you've got the sin nature saying, hey, remember me? You know, we were old buds, right? And you say, boy, that voice sounds familiar. Well, yeah, it does.

It's not a good one. And so, in fact, a believer may, in fact, find themselves in greater struggle than they had as an unbeliever. And it's because of the back and forth tug. Now, Scripture has an answer for it, but it's important to recognize that being a believer isn't suddenly the smooth, you know, unfluttered unruffled path all the way to the gates of heaven.

Okay, I think we're starting to run out of time here. Let's take a look at the last part here, in case you need directions. The direction toward which our involvement with God's Word and the perseverance under trials is headed is growth in the person of Jesus Christ. Peter put it this way, even when he knew that his very last days were ahead of him.

Your 2 Peter 1, 2 and 3, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Where's grace and peace? In the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

Your position. Who you are. Are you lacking anything in your position? No. Everything. You've been blessed in every way spiritually in heavenly places in Christ and you've been granted everything pertaining to life and godliness. In your position there is no lack. Through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

What is the key to accessing everything that is in your position? What's the key? Finding out about it and accepting it. And is it just data? Do I just download it onto my hard drive and I'm covered? Personal relationship. It's knowing. Notice the beginning, it's knowledge of God, knowledge of Him. That's the key to accessing your position. It is in relationship and it is in fellowship with Him that we have access to all of what we have in our position.

Are you blessed in the heavenly places just about 50%, maybe 49.67%? No. You're blessed in the heavenly places in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Peter basically just said the same thing in 2 Peter 1, 2-3. You have every single spiritual blessing in Christ, absolutely, totally, completely, nothing short, nothing missing, nothing left to be done.

Our access to that is entirely through a knowledge of Him. It's personal, not just data. I can get an A-plus on my seminary and Bible college test, and that still doesn't do it. Why? It's not just data, it's Him. It's personal. Take it personally. 2 Peter 3.18, but grow, and here's an imperative, there is a deciding to grow, there is a choice to be made, but grow, an imperative, calling for an act of the will, in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's where growth is. A knowledge of Him. That's the access to this phenomenal position in which there is absolutely nothing lacking.

You won't get there by getting A's and A pluses in Bible college and for the final exam that's right after this service. That won't do it. You won't get there by that. It's not data. It's not being really sharp and getting it all memorized. It's personal knowledge of Him. That's what this is about. That's the access to this position that we have in Christ. It's knowledge of Him. And before they break down the doors, let's pray. Okay? Alright.

Lord, we do thank You for what You've revealed. We thank You. We can have a personal, intensive knowledge of You. And that is precisely what you have in mind. That is what your heart and mind intended for us. We thank you for that awesome privilege. What an amazing thing. We who were destined without your intervening, we who are destined for the flames, instead have present and future fellowship with you. How awesome. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.