Knowing and Growing - HHBC Ministries in Music (continued)

At the outset, we called this elective Knowing and Growing. And so in doing that, we spent the first three months talking about passages that have to do with our knowing the Lord. And so let's ask this question. Is it essential that a Believer in Christ, know the Lord. You're saying, yes, absolutely, and why is that? Well, there's a lot of fellowship involved, and unless you know Him, that fellowship isn't the same. When you begin to really know Him, then there's that intimate relationship that really, you know, it's the moment by moment talking with Him, knowing He's They're all the time. It's not just going to be medium or tiptoe down. So let's kind of get some clarity here.

Can an unbeliever know the Lord? No. They can know about the Lord, but not know the Lord. They can know about Him. How much can they know about Him? Just what's revealed. They can't know what the Holy Spirit reveals to believers. And there's a lot about who He is and how He operates that you don't understand unless you have the Holy Spirit with you as you read His word.

So when a person becomes a believer, do they know the Lord as much as they're ever going to? No. So an unbeliever really cannot know the Lord. Once we are believers, there is a certain knowing the Lord. You're not done knowing the Lord. What happens after a person first believes such that they know the Lord progressively greater?

How does that happen? You have to read and understand through the help of the Holy Spirit. It helps to go to Sunday school and get information you wouldn't have gathered by yourself on your own. So this is a really important thing you just brought up. You talk about going to Sunday school. Are there different ways in which we learn things? We talked about Sunday school.

What are some of the contexts in which we learn things? about, say, things from the Bible. Interaction with other believers. Alright, so even fellowship and interaction with other believers, okay? At Holly Hills, for example, we have midweek Bible studies that we offer, right?

So that's an opportunity for people to learn things. What if a person just said, well, I'm just going to study the Bible by myself and pray by myself and that's fine and I just don't need anything else? Is that? Narrowing their ability to learn. Well, they could go off and misinterpret something and go off and learn incorrectly things about God. How is it that they go about misinterpreting things? Misunderstanding what they're reading. And how does it help to be in fellowship with other believers? They can correct that misunderstanding. There's the opportunity at least for correction, right? I think there's rightly dividing the word of truth.

I think a lot of times new believers are stuck on the characters in the Old Testament, looking at them and how they should be good and all this, instead of looking at who God really is and how he interacts with people. And so they're going to grab some stories and maybe not learn a whole lot of it.

So one of the things that we talk about with knowing the Lord, knowing the Lord, is that something we do just individually? You're saying no. Well, we do it individually, but we also do it corporately. Right, so there is both the individual knowing the Lord, and there is also together. So one of the passages that we looked at that addresses our individual knowing the Lord and our connection with Him, here's John 15, Jesus says, I'm the vine, you're the branches, and certainly there are multiple branches, but we each individually, moment by moment, decide to abide in Christ, to remain in fellowship with him and dependence upon him, or not.

And by the way, why does Jesus need to have this word abide, which by the way is an imperative. Why does he need to have that in there? When you go by a vineyard, do you see branches having a tough time deciding whether or not to stay connected to the vine? Isn't it interesting? We never see that as a problem in a vineyard.

But with individual Christians, there is a moment-by-moment choice to be made. So we have the individual knowing the Lord and an individual reliance and fellowship with and dependence upon the Lord. And then we also have together knowing the Lord. So a central passage we looked at for that would be Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. And there it says he gave five gifted people as gifts to the church. Christ gave five gifted people. So it's apostles and prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers. To what end? To build up each individual.

Yeah, so what you have is a common message in Scripture of building up each individual, and a primary passage for that would be Colossians 1.28, where he says, every man, and that's Anthropos, so every person, right? Every man, three times.

So is there a special group at church that we're really into building up those and we don't care about the rest? No, so it's everyone and we also have in Ephesians that together, we're growing together in the Lord. So both of those are in parallel. And does God want us to pick which one we do? No, and so here's the reality is that scripture has each person individually knowing and growing, and we as a church body knowing and growing, right? So, alright, so there is that. What does the growth of the church body look like?

Pull out your Bibles. You might even do like I just did and pull one out of the few racks. So Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. So it says, Ephesians 4, 11-16, And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and be carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." So, when you look at a passage like this, what does growth look like in the church body? Well, we grow individually and we all grow together. It's a maturing process. It's a maturing process. So we are intended to grow individually and we're intended to grow together. So it isn't a matter of pick one.

So does God intend people to be kind of Lone Ranger Christians? By the way, it's getting to be generationally, it's like Lone Ranger, what's that? But does God intend believers to be Lone Ranger Christians? I'm just going to go out and just kind of hang out by myself.

Those people tend not to grow very much, or they grow in the wrong direction. Yeah, so what can happen is people can get all into, I'm just going to grow all by myself. and lose God's intent here, and then you get other people, it's all about the church, and they don't, they're kind of lost in terms of their individual spiritual growth. And God intends both, right? Both of them are what God has in mind. One of the comparisons I could see, and these days you can do phenomenal things with Photoshop, you'll see somebody who has a who's well built and in really good shape and good muscular anatomy on one side and on the other side they're kind of skinny as a rail and hardly developed, right?

And so this kind of lopsided thing is something that can happen with people where on the one hand are individually pursuing the spiritual growth thing, but on the other hand, their connection to the church body isn't there. And as we look at this description that he has here, What is the direction of growth in verse 12, 12 and 13 that's described? What is the growth like?

The unity of the faith. What does that look like? What is the unity of the faith? All believe the same thing. The truth about God. So the unity of the faith, so what's the faith? It's what he has done, knowing what he has done and is doing. Okay, so knowing what he's done and what he's doing. Where does the term the faith start in the New Testament? And Acts chapter 6 is where it begins.

And what you see is the faith, which is something that is growing through the New Testament period, the faith is the set of teachings of the apostles. The set of teachings of the apostles. So we see the faith continuing to be used as a phrase throughout the New Testament on into the last books. Here's the book of Jude, verse 3, I urge that you contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

So if there's the unity of the faith, That is, ultimately, this is a whole set of the Apostles' teachings. And how many different Christian denominations are there? The last count, and this was several years back, over 30,000 get called as Christian denominations. And that includes, of course, a lot of cults and groups of different sizes. Why do we have all those different groups? How does that match up with the unity of the faith?

It doesn't, right? It truly doesn't. It truly doesn't. The world looks at faith as a religion, any religion. A man of faith would be, he can believe anything, just that he believes something. And I think it has caused a lot of confusion, even amongst believers sometimes. What faith are you? Well, I'm a Protestant. That's how it's come out. Yeah, what faith are you is often times which denomination are you in or these days even what religion are you in?

Right. The Dalai Lama is a man of faith. Pardon? The Dalai Lama is a man of faith. And so we've got all that. And let's ask this question. If a person is an atheist, are they a man of faith or a woman of faith? Yes. They are too. It takes faith to believe. Everybody has faith.

You can't live life without it. It takes much more faith, I think, to believe there isn't a God than that there is. How is it that we can say that an atheist has faith? What's the difference between the atheist and what we teach here? The difference of night and day. One is truth. So one is what is the content of the faith? What's the content? And the other question is where do you put it? Where do you put it?

And so what he describes here the reason the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers are given is so there is growth towards the unity of the faith. So is it possible, is it possible to have unity of belief in terms of content? Well, it's like those five guys. are mentioning a little bit different aspect of the same thing. Yeah, ultimately they need to be saying the same thing, don't they?

The message comes out loud and clear in 1 Corinthians 1.10, because the Corinthians was a church where they weren't all saying the same thing, right? So, yes? The object of the faith is who, not a I. So this is key, and that is that the ultimate object of our faith, the truth, is not simply, here's a set of doctrines, here's what we hold to be truth, but it is focused on Christ.

So it is ultimately a who, not simply, here's the data. So my hard drive has all sorts of good biblical information on it. Is my hard drive saved? No, it has all sorts of really good content on it, but it's not saved. And it's because the faith isn't just a matter of data and getting the right data.

It's focused on a person and on a relationship. So this is key. One of the distinctions that we made early on was that made a distinction between relationship and fellowship. This also is a key point in our knowing. So what's the difference between relationship and fellowship? Well, a relationship can be contingentious or not or whatever. And it can be hot or cold or warm and so on. But, what's the other word? I want to say relationship, but was it really a different word? The one I haven't talked about? We talked about relationship and fellowship. Okay, fellowship is the other word.

Fellowship indicates more of a unity. We share the same beliefs, feelings, things like that. Points of origin, or destiny, or what have you. So let's put it this way. Do I have a relationship with Christ that comes and goes? You're saying the answer is no, and why not? It's a permanent relationship, just like a father and son. My sons have gone. So that's permanent. That's fixed.

The relationship can come and go. Or the fellowship can come and go. The relationship can. The relationship speaks of where I am in the scheme of things, but the fellowship talks about how I interact with God. And that can change from day to day, moment to moment.

One of the words we would use is relationship relates to position. Once we have established a relationship with the Lord, which is belief in the Gospel, then we eternally have that relationship with Him. And it relates to who we are in Christ and who I am. in Him and who we are together. Each of us has individually and we together have relationship with the Lord.

Just thinking about how critical it is. At one time we had a relationship with the world. But we died to that relationship. Now our relationship is in a new creation. Not just a change in the old one. It's brand new so the relationship has completely changed. And that's one thing that new believers I don't understand, because it's not taught. So we have relationship with the Lord.

So let's ask this question. Is Christ our brother? Yes. Alright, and where do we get that? We're adopted into his family. Permanently. Jesus said after he rose, he said to Mary, Mary Magdalene, go tell my brothers. That's the first time he called them brothers. Before that it was slaves or servants, and friends. But after he rose, he said, go tell my brothers I'll meet him in the gallows.

Interesting distinction, huh? Yeah. So we have a relationship. The brother is the fact that he is our brother. And you could pick passages out of Romans and Hebrews that make that point. Are there any other things that describe our relationship with Christ? He's my Savior. How about if a person's an unbeliever? Is Christ their Savior? No, He's a potential Savior. Yeah, He has made everyone potentially savable, right? But He's not the Savior of those who don't believe yet. So then, is there anything else that we can say about our relationship with Christ?

It sustains us. We're joint heirs. We're joint heirs. In other words, if you look at it, what we're going to be studying in the elective, I'll be teaching anyway, is our unfathomable riches. We'll be going through a year of everything true of our relationship with Christ. So, then that's our relationship, which is everything true of our position. Where are we blessed with every spiritual blessing? Because of our relationship we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Pardon? We were co-crucified. We were co-crucified, okay. Co-buried, co-prisoned. And is anything going to mess that up? No. Nothing will mess it up, okay. No deal. Yep. Nothing will mess that up. So, if nothing will mess that up, then that has to do with our relationship, and our relationship with the Lord can't be messed up. But that's when we talk then about fellowship. Jesus says, abide in me and I in you. Does he just say, you guys are abiding all the time?

No. Why not? Yeah, it so happens at the moment that they hadn't a clue what he was talking about. Because that very evening they were talking about which one of them was the greatest. So this wasn't something that they would get right away, right? Well, every time they were not in Jesus' presence, they weren't abiding, basically. Because the Holy Spirit wasn't in them yet.

So he talks about, you know, abide in me and I in you, and that is something that believers have a moment-by-moment choice about. Fellowship. That's fellowship. And so one of the things we talked about earlier is that there are different ways of expressing what's essentially the same thing, is abiding in Christ Does that have any relationship to walking in the Spirit? It's sort of the same. Yes, those two things are different ways of expressing the same thing. If I am abiding in Christ, then I am fruitful. But who is responsible for the fruitfulness? Yeah, this is God's job to be responsible for the fruitfulness. My place is abiding. And He's responsible for the fruitfulness.

I talk about walking in the Spirit. What is the result of walking in the Spirit? Irreducible. So what is it talked about later in Galatians 5? The fruit of the Spirit, right? So it's interesting. Fruitfulness, again, is this walking in the Spirit is really talking about, it's using different words to express the same thing. Abiding in Christ, walking in the Spirit. By the way, that chapter, we went through it. So here's walking in the Spirit, and that's an individual walking. Later on in that chapter, it talks about walking right towards the end of the chapter, but it's a walking together. Walking together. And what are some other expressions for walking in the Spirit and abiding in Christ?

Are those the only expressions for this fellowship aspect? How about fellowship? How about the word fellowship itself? We were called into fellowship with His Son. By the way, that was the Corinthians that he wrote that to. We were called into fellowship with His Son. So, if we're called into fellowship with His Son, it is at the end of the different descriptions of fellowship and abiding and walking in the Spirit.

Is there anything else? So it's possible that we were called, but not responsive. So how about another expression filled with the Spirit? Is there anything in the New Testament that talks about us, you and I, being filled with the Spirit? If you can be filled with the Spirit, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. I don't think you can not be filled, it's whether you use it or not, whether you're open to it.

Well, okay, so he has, in Ephesians 5.18, he does say, be filled with the Spirit, it's an imperative. So it's not a statement. How is that different from the Spirit indwelling us? Does the Spirit indwell us all the time? Does the spirit indwell each and every single believer 100%? Yes. So how is that different from the indwelling?

There's a quenching of the spirit. Ah, okay. There are two kind of negative statements with respect to the spirit, and one is a quenching and the other is a grieving. Is there a difference between those two? I don't know. Grieving might cause quenching. Okay, so let's think about this. Can you grieve or quench the Holy Spirit as you are walking in the Spirit?

No. No, those are inconsistent. And why do we say those are inconsistent? Well, that happens when you turn around. He never turns around, but we can turn around. Okay. The other way. So being filled is the same as abiding? Being filled would be the same as abiding. So what we find is as we go through the New Testament, the same thing has different descriptions, different ways of describing it. So abiding in Christ is also having fellowship with Him. Abiding in Christ is also walking in the Spirit.

Being filled with the Spirit, that's Ephesians 5.18, it actually has five different outcomes that he describes there. And this is speaking to one another and giving thanks and those kinds of things, and from there he goes into submission relationships in the body of Christ. and in families and things of that sort. But those are things that are outcomes from what? From being filled with the Spirit, which is an imperative, which also means that it's possible for a Christian, though indwelt by the Holy Spirit, not to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now what is filled with the Holy Spirit? Why is that different from being indwelt? Is the Holy Spirit a fluid?

I think Hal mentioned it's not a glug, glug, glug, now you're half full or glug, glug, glug. No, it isn't that. Yes, so this being filled with the Spirit is a parallel statement of walking in the Spirit, of abiding in Christ. So these are all different aspects of the same thing. It is not a statement of position you are filled with the Spirit. You're certainly indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and there's no percentages or grayscales in that.

But, so, if I'm talking about, if I am not abiding in Christ, if I, as a believer, am not abiding in Christ, if I, as a believer, am not fellowshipping with Christ, fellowshiping with the Son, if I am not walking in the Spirit, then that opens the door I could be grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit. So let's talk about what those are. So what is the difference between grieving and quenching? Quenching is like when you put fire out with water. It's totally not visible anywhere. Okay. It's kind of like you're putting in the side. Yeah. So you're going to put the Holy Spirit aside, you're quenching Him. Grieving Him is when you really offend Him, I would think. So let's think about this.

The Holy Spirit equated them to this fire. As a matter of fact, the physical illustration of that would be, remember they were supposed to have a fire going at the temple, how often? All the time they were to have a fire going and they were not to let it die out. But how do you keep the fire going under the law? You've got to have somebody keep doing it, right? You've got to keep that part of the law, and that's one of the things, keep the fire going in the temple. So by the way, if you don't have a temple, what does that mean? That's one of the many laws that you're forced to break because you don't have a temple, right? So you can't keep the fire going at the temple because you don't have one. Now, so that was the illustration In the Christian's life, is it our job to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit going?

I don't think so. The Spirit indwells us. So here's the Spirit indwelling us. Is there a command to keep the fire going? I don't think so. There isn't a command to keep the fire going. Be filled with the Spirit. But there is, don't quench the spirit, which is don't put the fire out. So this is interesting. So unlike the law where you've got to keep the fire going, here in the New Testament what you find is the Holy Spirit does fine keeping the fire going. Just don't put them out. Don't put the fire out.

So here's what that, now let's compare before we conclude what that is. So that's quenching the Holy Spirit. So that's one negative admonition, don't quench. The other, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. What does that look like? What would grieve the Holy Spirit? Anything that would offend Him. Carrying out something that is offensive, why can anything be offensive and grievous to the Holy Spirit?

Sin, right? So here's, think about this, here's walk in the Spirit and you will not do what? Fulfill the desires of the flesh. So there's this 100% or that 100%? 100% walk in the Spirit or 100% fulfill the desires of the flesh. Is the Holy Spirit going to be grieved over that? Yes.

So what's happening, grieving is sin that is contrary to the Holy Spirit's holy nature. Quenching is the work that the Holy Spirit wants to do through you that gets stifled. So one is grieving, is committing and living in sin that is lack of dependence upon the Lord, and the quenching is this is what the Holy Spirit desires to do through you, and you say, huh, I'm not going there. It's usually self that gets in the way there.

Yes, exactly. I'm going to rely on myself. I'm going to do my own thing. I am really drawn to do this, and I don't care what you say. So I'm going to go off and head in this direction, which is certainly not independence upon and fellowship with the Lord. And so that will grieve the Lord. If the Lord says, yeah, but I wanted to do this and this and this through you and accomplish these things through you, and you say, uh-uh, not happening.

So these are related in terms of being opposition, but they may have different nuances. So, anyway, are we done? We're almost done with time, but are we done with the different things that are kind of synonyms or different aspects of the same thing? Probably not.

How about beholding the Lord? Beholding the Lord, which we would point to 2 Corinthians 3.18. We all, with unveiled face, that is not veiled by the law, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. So here is a beholding of the Lord, that is that another way of expressing I'm abiding in Christ? Is that another way of expressing walking in the Spirit?

Yeah, it certainly is. And so what we find is that the New Testament has a number of different terms for different ways of looking at essentially the same thing. Set your mind on things above? Set your mind on things above is another, this is a way of setting your mind there that is ongoing fellowship. This is ongoing beholding the Lord. And then there are other words besides just the word beholding. Here's Stephen. Pardon? Worship. Worship is another, right?

Because when I'm worshiping the Lord, that is another aspect of my fellowship with Him. In all thy ways acknowledge Him. So if you look at it, the Scriptures have a number of different ways of expressing what is the same thing. And we as believers, all those things are in fact choices. All those things are things we're called to moment by moment.

But we're not forced to it. God doesn't say, okay, now that you're a Christian, you're in robot mode, right? And you will do this because you're programmed, right? But instead, God is glorified as we choose not just to believe in Him, for salvation, but He is glorified as we choose to walk in fellowship and dependence upon Him.

We've run out of time. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord. As we've looked at this knowing and growing over the course of the year, we just thank You for what You've revealed. Thank You for this abiding, this fellowship, this beholding, this walking And you provided for it all, Lord, and so we look to you to teach us in the days ahead and in the year to come. And speaking of coming, we pray that you would come quickly. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.