Knowing and Growing – Growing - what is that process?
Vern Peterman · Jul 9, 2017
Knowing & Growing, No. 26
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492661551317

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

Well, we are moving on. We spent January, February, and March looking at different passages that talk about knowing the Lord. And we didn't exhaust those, by the way. And we also said we didn't touch on any of them in the Old Testament. So we stuck with New Testament passages, and particularly those passages applicable to the Church. We then went from being conformed, starting in April, being conformed, and then transformed, and now we're moving on to growing. Our pattern in each case, for conform, transform, growing, and we're not done with the list, is to first, what is it?

What does the Bible say it is? Secondly, what is God doing? And then thirdly, what's the believer's part? So that's the pattern that we'll carry out. That's what we have outlined here on the front of the handout for the month of July. So today is the 9th, we'll go 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th, proceeding with growing, starting with what's the process, what's God doing, and then what's the believer's part. Then we're going to put together conformed, transformed, and maturing. So we'll look at that. So in August, we'll be moving on to this kind of the same outline, only be looking at sanctified. Sanctified. So again, it will be, what is it? What's God's part? What's the believer's part?

Alright, so what we have is to grow, and there's a related word, mature. And so I guess one of the questions we could ask is, what's the difference between growing and maturing? Or is there a difference? Part of maturation is, if you're looking at a plant, a plant grows, but when it becomes mature, it produces fruit. So there's a growing, but the growing is actually approaching maturity. So when we use the words grow and mature, they're certainly related words, and in fact the Bible uses both of them. So to increase in one or more spiritual characteristics along with development, to progress spiritually toward attaining full growth and development is maturing. So the difference is nuance. They're certainly related words and sometimes we might use them interchangeably. So the difference is nuance, maturing. is aimed towards full growth and development.

Yes. So do we ever obtain maturity? Let's ask this question. That's a most outstanding and profound question, right? I don't know about that. Yeah, it's an excellent question because that's a very good point. Is there some point here on planet Earth when I say, well, I'm done, you know? Yeah, in other words, Carol votes no. There's never a point of order done, right? It's not on earth, I wouldn't think.

Yeah, and probably the best example we have is, here's the Apostle John. He's the Apostle who actually spent personal time with the Lord. In the book of Revelation, he actually sees the Lord again after 60 years. About 60 years. Later, he sees the Lord again. He even sees the Lord on the heavenly scene. Was John done? Here's a man who walked physically with the Lord. He was an apostle. He authored sacred scripture. He was not done.

And we're going to talk about that because that's an outstanding question, a very important one. As a matter of fact, one of the things that happens when you have someone who everybody looks up to, they'll either lead a cult group or they'll name a denomination after them, they will oftentimes be looked at as, this person has arrived. In Hinduism, They actually have that. This person has achieved moksha. In Buddhism, this person has achieved nirvana. So they get terms for having arrived. In Christianity, there isn't any such thing. You've arrived when you walk through heaven's gates. And so that's one of the many things that is distinct about Christianity. There is no place of arrival.

The Apostle Paul could not say, I've arrived. He continued, he says, as I was talking with Jim earlier, he says, I press on. And we all with open faiths be holding, including himself. He's still beholding, he's still, you know, He says, I've been crucified. It's no longer I who do the living. Christ does the living in me. He's still got things going on. He's not arrived and he's not there. It's not going to happen with any of us until we walk through heaven's gates. And I use that as a figure of speech.

I see the difference between growing and mature as somebody who is, well we're all growing, but somebody who is mature is knowledgeable enough and has enough wisdom to pass it along to others. Somebody who's not is just still young and growing. Okay, alright. So one thing is you're seeing maturity as an opportunity for ministry.

That's a key point. So within the church body, right? Yeah, Carol? The young children can minister to each other and lead each other to the Lord. It is possible. It can happen. I can testify to that. And still the children have a long way to go. Still can be used to the Lord.

So maturity provides spiritual opportunity, perhaps greater spiritual opportunity. It does not mean that being young and immature spiritually means that you don't have opportunity. So one of the things we're going to see here, what we'll come to see is spiritual growth and maturity have an internal component and an external component.

Now, what does that mean? What is internal are the spiritual nutrients taken in and absorbed, the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and the spiritual growth and development of the believer. What is external are the inputs from the Word of God and the inputs from and interactions with the body of Christ and the circumstances of life. The Lord works all things together for good. using both external circumstances, physical circumstances, using his word, which is initially external to us, using all those external things and internal things. And by that I mean things on the spiritual side. God uses both.

So being spiritually conformed is an analog that is comparable to physically conforming a material to a desired design, form, or shape. In this, the end goal is conformity to the image of Christ, being spiritually transformed. So we're putting these three terms together, right?

Conformed, transformed, growing, maturing. Being spiritually transformed is an analogue, that is, it has a comparison to the biological transformation process, with the end goal being that the believer is transformed into the image of Christ. Growth and maturity are spiritual analogues, points of comparison, with the process of growth and maturity in a human being from birth to adulthood. One of the reasons why not just the Apostle Paul, but Peter, talks about growth and maturity is because it has points of comparison to a child growing and maturing.

We have, as of Monday, a 17-year-old son, grandson, 17-year-old grandson. So he is maturing. I was just looking this last week at pictures of him when his dad was holding his hand. He's this little toddler, right? And he's is maturing in various regards. And as a matter of fact, if we don't see a child maturing, we kind of get concerned, right? We look at that.

So what Paul does in Peter, as well, uses this idea of growth and maturity that we observe, you know, even among children, grandchildren, etc. Maybe nieces, nephews. So we observe that and he says, okay, there's something going on in the spiritual realm that's comparable. So these are the points there. What we'll find is that being conformed and being transformed together express the same spiritual processes as growing and maturing. So this is not a separate process, this is a different set of words and process to being conformed and being transformed. We'll find that the same process described as growing and maturing will offer some deeper insights and fresh perspectives on what God intended us to better understand what He is doing in the life of the believers. Alright, so let's look here. So, growing, growing, gone. How do we title this here?

So, one component of healthy physical growing is getting taller over time. in the right proportions and the gaining of healthy mass. What happens if a person is substantially behind or substantially ahead of the rest of those his age? Does that get our attention? and talking about compared to their peers of the same age, right? And what you will notice is that there are physical things, right?

So that's one measure. Say, wow, this person is a lot shorter. What's going on here? Or even this person is awfully tall. There have been people who have exceeded seven feet by the time they're age 21. And that is even a bit of a concern, right? So, yeah, just compared to their peers, so that's physically. Have you known someone who seems to be way ahead of their age in some talent or skill?

And you'd say that person is advanced. One of the ways they tend to do things in terms of physical measurement, intellectual development, things like that, is they'll put it in percentiles. like a lot of these scoring systems in the schools and education and whatnot. They'll have, well, this person is in the 90th percentile or that kind of thing. This person is in the 50th, which means they're right in the middle, right?

So we'll tend to have both physical things, height, weight, body mass index, Those kinds of things will say, okay, with respect to the peers, they're, you know, this compared to the others. And then there will be other things, too, in terms of athletic development, in terms of particular skills. You ever hear about someone who's just a genius musically at some young age? Just rather astounding. So all those are the kinds of things where we would say, well, this person is way ahead of where most people are at. So these physical components of growth can be compared to the spiritual aspects of growth in the believer.

So let's take a look at, here are some examples in Acts 9.22. So we'll be looking at this in our study of Acts here shortly.

So Acts 9.22.

But Saul, later called Paul, Acts 13.9, kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ, that is, the Messiah.

So he said he was increasing in strength. Here's this guy out to kill the Christians, and shortly thereafter, what do you see him doing? He's increasing in strength, spiritually, in the opposite direction from what he was doing. First he wants to kill the Christians, now he is one. As people say for emphasis, now I am one, now he is one.

So here's Colossians 1, 9-12, And for this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Strengthen with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." So, increasing in the knowledge of God. It's another way of expressing growing or development.

Now, let's ask this kind of possibly troubling question. Is it possible to either stagnate or go backwards, spiritually speaking? Can a person stagnate or go backwards, spiritually speaking? Definitely stagnate. Especially since you said a lot of this has to do with a person's will. Very good. Yes, so one of the things we've been pointing out earlier is the soul is composed of mind, emotions and will, right? And so people will either by failure to exercise the will, negligence, perhaps out of ignorance, or people will actually make a decision to do something willfully that is contrary to their spiritual growth. Could happen. Some examples out of scripture, can you think of some examples where people have stagnated, stayed immature, that kind of thing. Can you think of that?

Here's Ananias and Sapphira, where certainly they should have had better insight than they did, and they thought, well, I'm going to impress people, even though God knows the truth, right? I'm going to impress people, and so that was certainly an example recently enacted.

Here's Judas, although there's a difference with Judas. Was Judas ever a believer? So he never got there, but certainly he stagnated and retrogressed before he even got to the place of belief actually. Even though, both by his behavior on the outside and by Christ's treatment of him, nobody could tell the difference. Let's take an example.

1 Corinthians 3, beginning part of that passage, the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that they are fleshly. Alright, and here's some more. Here's the Galatians. The Galatian believers were as much as two years older than the Lord. He says, you have fallen from grace. Who has bewitched you? That's the question he asked. Here are the believers that are the target audience for the letter to the Hebrews.

He tells them in chapter 5, you have become dull of hearing. Now, he writes it in such a way, you have become dull of hearing. Does that say anything about were they initially dull of hearing? It implies that initially that they are not, but you have become dull of hearing, says that they initially heard and it's like they turned it down.

So they actually retrogress, and that's one reason why several different cycles of warning in the book of Hebrews. He doesn't say they're hopeless, he actually says in chapter 5, we hope for better things for you. So they weren't hopeless, but they actually had retrogressed.

So here, let's go on, in the middle of page 2, 1 Peter 2, 1-3, Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for, that's an imperative by the way, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. By it you may grow. How do you grow? The Word of God is a key and essential element of spiritual growth.

Can you just set aside and say, I'm going to grow other ways? That's not going to be good. It would be like, okay, here's Vern, he's 5'7", been 5'7 for decades now, on his right side. But his growth was stunted at age 10 on his left side. How would that work? Not so good, right? So this growth needs to be something that is balanced and consistent, right?

That you may grow with respect to salvation. Now, so let's ask this question. Does he mean are you getting more saved? No, so that you may grow with respect to the salvation you already have. Ah, this is key, right? The salvation you already have. This is what we call the 33 things or the unfathomable riches of Christ. We sometimes offer that as a supplement. These are all the things that are true of our position. You're growing with respect to those things that are already true. One of the ways I kind of paraphrase that is we're always in a place of catching up to what God's already done.

So that's what he means here by growing with respect to salvation. If, and it's assumed to be true, you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. 2 Peter 1.4-8 For by these he has granted us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, in your moral excellence knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love. For if, better as, These qualities are yours and are increasing. They render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. These qualities are yours and are increasing. The last one on that page, 2 Peter 3, 17 and 18, one that we are very fond of looking at, You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men, and fall away from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. So, here's what's interesting.

This word for grow in 2 Peter 3.18 is the same word as grow. in 1st Peter 2.2.

The imperative in 1st Peter 2.2 is long for, that's imperative.

The imperative in 2nd Peter 3.18 is grow. Same word, different form. It is an imperative. You must grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, that's an imperative. What do you do with imperatives?

It's a command, okay? So is Peter wanting you to be legal? Can you carry this out with the law? Does the law help? So here's something very interesting. It's an imperative. You must do it. It's a command. If you carry it out legally, you'll mess it up. So that's something for a believer to get in his mind. There are actually a great many commands. By the way, Peter? He doesn't use imperatives very often, but he does here. He finishes off 2 Peter, his last letter that we have, he finishes it off with this command, but will.

And it's a grace grow. It is a grace motivated grow, not a you better do it. Well, isn't legalism more focused on blessings, like earthly blessings, like in the Old Testament? And so this kind of command is more, like you say, grace-filled. It doesn't really have to do with... it's a different kind of blessing you're going to get. Yeah, it's a different kind of blessing. There's also a completely different motivation. In the law, what motivates you?

How many of you like to study rocks up close forcefully? So here's Stephen, they applied the law even though it wasn't applicable. They applied the law to him, what happened? He ended up having to study rocks up close, right? He actually kept his eyes on the Lord through the midst of it.

But that's what the law says. Here, take a look at these rocks and look fast as they're coming at you. So that's what the law does and it says you do this or else. And you do it, and that's it. You pull it off, and we'll see if God's impressed. And we'll see if the rest of us are impressed. The focus is on who?

You. Yeah. How am I doing? Right? If I'm supposed to produce the fruit of the Spirit, I go, uh, it works really hard. Let's see if I'm producing anything. Right? But instead, what this is, grow, and it's grace-motivated, It's grace-motivated, not law-motivated. I'm not doing it because, boy, otherwise, you know, it's bad for me. Yeah, Wayne?

That word grace ought to be a clue to where that growth is coming from. Yes. This is grace growth. There is our part. Otherwise, he wouldn't have it as an imperative. What is my part? Why does it say grow as an imperative? Is it possible to write in Greek, you must be grown? Yes. So you can have a passive imperative, you must be grown.

That's not what this is. So what it says is, I have as an act of will, that's a part of the soul, remember we looked at previous weeks here, including last week, as a part of the soul, there's an act of will on my part, But that doesn't mean I'm the one who pulls this off. So when we talk about growing, this is key to what's the believer's part. I have an act of will to carry out with respect to everything God's doing. Yes. So long it's more external and visual, where grace would be more internal and not seen. You bring up a very good question.

Is long, which is the imperative in 1 Peter 2.2, is long for, when you think of it, the pure milk of the word. So let's look at a baby. Is the baby want the milk? Yeah, the baby wants the milk, right? But something's different. Does the baby make a decision to want the milk?

No. So there's something different here. And there's actually an act of will for us to long for, which is an internal motivation. So that's something different. And that's one thing to recognize is in the Bible there are analogies, but like all analogies there's not an exact equal. Here's Jesus, I'm the vine, you're the branches. Do branches need an imperative, abide in me? No, they don't. But Jesus gives an imperative, abide in me. Why? It's because here's the analogy Just understand what I'm telling you, don't press the analogy to some ridiculous point here. Understand what I'm telling you, the same thing here.

Long for the pure milk of the word, but you have a decision to make. To long for the pure milk of the word, but by it you make growth. And not only that, is it a once for all decision, or is it an ongoing decision? It's ongoing, correct. It's an ongoing decision.

Long for the pure milk of the word now. Long for the pure milk of the word tomorrow morning. Long for the pure milk of the word next month. But I can't make that decision for next month now. I am moment by moment making that decision to long for the pure milk of the word.

And it's grace-motivated. And, there's one other thing, for everything that we're asked to do, it is already true of our position. For everything we're asked to do, it's already true of our position. That's why we talk about position and condition, and we'll lay out, here's your position. God does not ask us to do anything that He has not already provided for in our position.

So now, page 3. Increasing in the spiritual realm is also conveyed in passages in Paul's writings that contain a figure of speech in the form from noun to noun, such as we saw in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 2 14-16 Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him in every place for we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to the one an aroma from death to death to the other an aroma from life to life Life to life, death to death, those are both figures of speech for increasing. 2 Corinthians 3, 17 and 18 has the same thing. Now the Lord is the Spirit, same figure of speech. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. being transformed, so it's a process, into the same image from glory to glory, increasing from one level to the next.

You would call that growth. The same idea is communicated with words like excel still more or about still abound still more and more. I think that might be a typo there. I'll check that. Still more and more, though, is the term. So while in the physical realm there's a typical pattern of growth, maturity, and decline, God's intent for the believer is that once we believe, we will continue to grow spiritually until the day he takes us home. So my grandfather would tell me when he was well on in years that, he says, for the believer it's like a funnel.

The funnel gets bigger as we get older. Physically, are we declining? Yes. Here Nancy and I are in our mid-60s and we're trying to fight this decline thing that keeps going on. But in the end, our spiritual relationship with the Lord is like the funnel that gets bigger as you go along. And it may very well be that that's why our physical being goes in decline to cause us to focus more on what is increasing, and that is spiritual growth and maturity. So that's why this section is labeled growing, growing, gone. Spiritual decline is certainly possible while living on the earth and may even be common among some.

Here the Apostle Paul categorizes a whole group, you're fleshly. It's that common. A whole bunch of you are generally fleshly, with some rare exceptions. the believers that are the target audience for the book of Hebrews. You are, as a generalization, becoming dull of hearing.

So God may use those times ultimately to teach us some valuable lessons, but it is not what God has in mind for us as his plan, intent, and design for spiritual growth. As we've said before, the aspect of the believer that is to be growing and changing and developing is that continuing person. And one of the points we've made is that the term that the Apostle Paul uses for that continuing person in the believer, three times, we put it in last week's handout, is the inner man. The inner man, three times the Apostle Paul uses that term. That's the continuing person in the believer.

And then the new man, the new nature, who we are, present tense, in Christ, and our new history, what's our new history? The new history of the believer, which is what? We're in Christ, and what does that new history include? We're in Christ in what?

His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Christ fed 4,000 Jews on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee. He got in with his disciples on the boat. They crossed the Sea of Galilee and they went to Magdala, called the region of Dalmanutha.

And so that happened. And we can look at, here's the place where he fed them. We can look at where he crossed. We have archaeologically one of those boats of that kind. There were 230 of them, we happen to know. that were using the Sea of Galilee at that time, he was in one of them. He arrived at Magdala.

As amazing as that all was, and we can say this is an historical event, we know the place he started, we know the place he ended, we know what he did before that, we know what he did after that, it's all in a historical event, where you and I identified with his feeding the 4,000, crossing the Sea of Galilee, and ending up at Magdala.

We were not. That's not a part of our new history. It's a part of His history, but we were only identified with Christ in those five things. That is our new history. We did not have that true of us until we were saved. So our new history, those things aren't changing. I'm not changing my identification with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding. That's not changing. all of who I am in Christ.

We can do a study of here are all the things that are true of me from the moment I believe. And I can say that that's true of Nancy. I can say it's true of me. Every believer here in this room, every single one of us, we can say that's true. Those things aren't changing. But this is the inner man, the spiritual part of the believer that is changing. That's what we call the continuing person, continuing on from before you were a believer to the time now that you're a believer. One of the questions that Jim had earlier was, is that the soul of the person? I would say yes. So, in reality, the continuing person of the believer is growing so as to catch up with the new man, the new nature, who we are in Christ, and our new history, the things that don't change or vary.

So how does growing relate to maturing? Very important. It's a wonderful thing that's a part of this world. So to this point we've been relating mostly to the words grow, growing, and growth, but how does growing relate to maturity? Maturing and growing are certainly similar in related words, but maturing relates to moving towards the end goal of character and capability.

God's Word teaches both concepts along with using other terms that convey the same thing as we've noted above here. One of the important things to look at in Bible study is synonyms. What's saying the same thing in different words? We'll see that God's Word compares spiritual maturity with the ages and stages of physical maturity.

As we will see, growing and maturing have certain spiritual inputs that promote and provide for the growth and fit the level of maturity, as well as a corresponding character, an outward expression of that character. When a person's outward expression is behind of or behind what that person's outward expression ought to be, we say that person is immature or mature for that person's age and stage. The same can be true spiritually.

So, when I think of it, I can think back to when Randy was a little guy. He first started walking, and it seemed like almost instantly he went to running. Right? He just very quickly went from kind of stumbling along walking to running. Zoom! He's zooming around the house. Now that he can walk, he just turns to running.

And so you say, well, that's rather advanced. Right? If, however, Randy was not walking by age 10, We would long before age 10 get rather concerned, wouldn't we? Say, what's going on here? How come Randy isn't walking? And the cause for that may be evident. Oh, it's because he's got this, you know, condition in his legs. Or it may be something that's less obvious. You need some investigation. So if someone is not physically up to a certain point by a certain age we can actually get concerned. And we'll even recognize that someone is advanced for the age.

What's the youngest, for example, you've heard of an infant walking? Pardon? Yeah, that's about what I've seen as well. It's about nine months would be an unusual age to start walking, but not, you know, impossible or not, you know, you know, there's something wrong, but it's just that we would say that person is advanced, right? If you're not walking by, say, one and a half to two, and you might start to get concerned. Is it time to get concerned if they're not walking at 12 months? Not necessarily.

That's something where we would say there's a typical range, we would say is normal. Aside from that, we'd say there's something not quite right here. Spiritually speaking, What would you say are some things that would indicate maturity? And not having achieved maturity, but maturing. What would you say are things, spiritually speaking, that would indicate maturity? The way you act on both of them. Okay. We would put it in terms of behavior, right? That would be One way to summarize it, let's take some for instances.

Here's the Apostle Paul, he writes to the Corinthians, he tells them at the beginning of chapter 3, you guys are fleshly. That would indicate a lack of maturity. So what are some of the indicators that the Corinthians are fleshly, that they are spiritually immature? What do you think of when you think of the Corinthians in terms of the problems that they have indicating that they are spiritually mature? Emotional. Can you think of some specifics from the book of 1 Corinthians?

What happens, for example, they have the Lord's Table. Is everything hunky-dory with their Lord's Table experience? We have the Lord's Table here about once a month, right? And as far as I know, I don't know of people getting sick and dying, but that was happening then because of the extreme spiritual immaturity being expressed.

Another problem in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. He just gets through saying the first nine verses, Hi I'm Paul and here's what the Lord says about you and I thank the Lord for this and that. He gets into 1 Corinthians 1.10 and he talks about you guys need to say the same thing and all agree.

And then he goes immediately into, instead you guys are following this guy and that one and you've got different groups and so everybody's trying to build up their own personal empire by getting people to follow them and which group am I with? Wow, you guys don't get it. What's the problem? There is spiritual immaturity among them showing in division among the body and following a man. following the man.

Yeah, it was all, I need to build up my spiritual empire. And I really don't care about you. If you're not part of building my spiritual empire, then we're going to have problems. Yeah, it's all about me, right? It's all about me. So what you have there is multiple instances. He says in chapter 6, you guys are suing one another.

This is an evidence of spiritual immaturity. That should not be taking place. He says in chapter 5, he says you got one guy who is sleeping with his mother-in-law and you call that a good thing. This is not even the unbelievers think it's a good thing. You guys are extremely spiritually immature. So he gives examples throughout the book of here's what your immaturity looks like. Here's what it means that you're a fleshly. So we can see different instances even within scripture. This is what spiritual immaturity looks like. And these are the problems with different churches and different believers that you see.

Yeah, Wayne? I think the big one about the Hebrews is all about going back to the law. Yeah. Here these guys are going back to the temple rituals and this is very spiritually immature, right? They've in fact retrogressed. They've gone backwards. We're thinking of going back to the law. Man, which you guys don't get. Which you guys don't understand. So he is there dealing with that. Do the apostles ever deal with people relying upon the law? Repeatedly. Spiritual immaturity is reliance upon the law. If you continue to rely upon the law, you continue to be spiritually immature.

And so what we have is most of Christendom incorporates some aspect of law keeping. You know that among those who call themselves Christians, there's about three or four different structures of what the Ten Commandments means. The Catholics have it different from the Reform guys, and they're different from the Orthodox guys, by that I mean Greek and Russian and all that. So they're all different, arguing about how the law is structured. Who cares? Who cares? If I get the structure right, does that help anything else? No, it probably doesn't. It means you don't get it. So, we've run plum out of time and we better pray.

Thank you Lord for your word. Thank you for what you make clear for this wonderful word of word picture. that shows a way in which you are changing us. It's a process that you have for us, one that you intend for each one of us until the day we go home. And we thank you for that. We thank you for your immense love shown to us and that you care about each individual one of us completely and fully and personally. Thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.