Growing to Spiritual Maturity - Part II

Interesting with me running down the hall. That's all good. Well, this is going to be a follow-up message to the one I gave, I think it was a month ago. In my last message, I discussed how God consistently works in patterns. And one of the patterns is that all things God has made are intended to natural complement along the way to Mr. Conway's message. So, I always love it when that works. This growth process we see in a lot of things around us, right? We talked about how we see it in plants, we see it in animals, we see it in humans, we see it in the universe expanding.

We even see it in what God has prophesied will happen in the kingdom. And it says, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. So, a key difference we discussed is how physical growth tends to happen by default. But spiritual growth does not. It happens by choice.

And if we're wanting to grow spiritually. So, just like we talked about physical maturity, right?

Spiritual maturity occurs only when we choose to grow up and to live the way God says it's supposed to be done. So, it's in essence this daily choice that we have to make over and over as individuals. It doesn't happen by... Have you ever thought about just how chaotic life would be if people with critical responsibilities did not always strive for perfection in what they did?

There are certain areas of life that really bring that out. And classics is, what would you... Imagine what would happen if the medical profession considered 99.9% act. So, if that was to happen, if nurses considered 99.9% to be good enough, 12 babies in the U.S. every single day would be given to the wrong parents to take home. If 99.9% was considered good enough by cardiologists, well, 291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly each and every day. And if pharmacists were satisfied with 99.9% accuracy, 20,000 prescriptions would be filled incorrectly every day in this country. So, we look at those things and we'd say, well, mediocrity is not acceptable. It's going to cause damage to other people. We can't have that. Imagine a doctor who did a surge on you and left an instrument inside you by accident. And then his explanation was, I got most of it out. So, we look at those things and it makes us laugh because we don't accept mediocrity in a lot of areas of our life. So, why would we accept it when it comes to our spiritual life? But we do. We approach things differently sometimes. In my first message, I didn't have the time to go into the details about two areas primarily, what to watch out for and then how we grow spiritually. And that'll be things we'll discuss today. A key point that we discussed was how the human mind won't stay stagnant and it's always growing in some direction.

It won't stay stagnant. Something is always growing. And that knowledge leads us to a couple danger zones that I'll point out at the start. Things that we have to guard against. Because settling for growth of just any sort is not good enough. God is only interested in growing in the right ways and the ways he says we are supposed to. So, if you'll turn first to Matthew 13 and verse 15, then now we'll have it put on the screen for you too to make your life easy. In this verse, we're going to see Jesus quoting Isaiah. And what we see is that God is not interested in seeing the hearts that have grown dull because of losing a spiritual focus, losing a fire. Because that's one of the danger zones we're warned against. Matthew 13, 15 says, For the heart of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes have been closed. I'm sorry, their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears. Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. So, in essence, what we see here is people have grown in the wrong direction, in the wrong ways, and that's impacting them spiritually. Another verse you know that's very similar along the way would be Matthew 24, 12, which refers to when the iniquity abounds, what happens?

The hearts or the love of many will grow cold. A similar concept of what can happen along the way in our lives. We become cold. We become heartless, indifferent to spiritual things.

That's things we reflect on in this Passover time of year, things to be mindful of.

And what it what that does is that's settling for a different direction, a carnal way of thinking. And we're not to to get corrupted by what's around us, whether the lusts, whether the desires, whatever we can get caught up in, we're not to grow into a corrupt form of conduct. But what we see is a world that becomes more and more comfortable with compromise, with corrupt conduct. If you'll turn next to Galatians 6 and verse 9, we're going to go to another danger zone. What we do as humans, right, is we jump ditches. I just think that it's ironic.

We say, if we're not supposed to go this way, well, I'm going to go all the way I can the other direction. It's very natural, therefore, that we can move from having a heart that has grown dull to a heart that grows weary in doing the right thing. Galatians 6 and verse 9, And let us not grow weary while doing good. For in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

If we do not do spiritual right things because of the right motivations, even that can fatigue us. And we won't continue all the way to the end. And what we have a tendency to do, I think, as humans is we tend to treat our spiritual journeys as a sprint rather than realize that it's a lifelong marathon along the way. And it's a marathon that we can't do and achieve on our own. You know, as humans we naturally just want to want the good results of something we do to stick. We don't want to have to keep working at something. You just can't we do it once? Okay, I did it, I'm done. Never have to do it again. You probably all experienced worked out where you were just your muscles were gone. You were so tired and you said, I never want to work that hard again.

That's just a very natural human way to go about things.

Well, that doesn't work spiritually. We can't approach things in that way. We can't want to coast. Because if you think about the analogy of coasting, that means for it to continue you have to go downhill and downhill is going to lead us to Satan's way. So it's very easy to forget where our true spiritual strength comes from. It comes from God's power and His Holy Spirit working in us. And it works in us to do what our personal strengths and our personal resolve can't.

That's where the strength comes from. Remember, we need to be remade into God's nature. That's the summary of our calling. Not about refining who we are already, but being remade into God's nature, into His likeness. And when we lose sight of that, we can slip into the danger zones of many ways. We can turn to the danger zones of serving in church and outside until exhaustion, because we're trying to do it on our own. Or we're not being filled enough by God, who is our true source of strength to keep giving. And I'm sure you've seen people get burned out along the way, because they lose the clarity of where growth truly comes from. So failing in either of these danger zones can lead to types of growth which are like cancerous cells to a Christian. They tear apart a Christian from the inside. They cause their death, and we don't want to go there. So as we evaluate ourselves, I encourage you, ask yourselves, have I really capitalized on the assistance that God has made available to me? To you? Are you capitalizing on that enough? When it comes to our walk with God, how well are we doing with that? Important parts to think about. Have we been only dabbling at being a Christian by just letting things slide? You know, just enough. Or are we trying to live as a Christian based on our own strengths? Either those are danger zones. And they're areas we need to be very mindful of. So remember, we're talking today about living our lifetime filled with the kind of spiritual growth that reflects what? It reflects the spirit of a converted mind. What we heard in the message before, it means we're representing and we're resembling our Creator. And we'll talk about that more. So when you think about that, when you reflect on yourself, because that's what this message is about, how good is good enough for you growing spiritually?

How good is good enough for you? What is our goal in this Christian life? Because God wants us, through His Spirit, to be the best believers we can be for the glory of God. You know, you could fill your own personal area. What makes you feel good that you probably put more of a priority to it?

And as we exert... or are we, maybe, is the better way of questioning it. Are we exerting that same effort to grow in Christ-likeness?

That's... we're constantly learning and growing. And it's interesting, right, to think that we often see the value in growing physically. We will go and we can take seminars and we can take extra classes and we can get degrees. We can read books. But oftentimes, when it comes to our spiritual growth, we're kind of... why is that? You'll turn to Hebrews 5 verses 11 through 14. Hebrews 5, 11 verse 14. Christians in the Bible are externally rebuked if they do not grow. We reviewed several scriptures on that last time. And in this situation, the writer of Hebrew, again, bring you about the new high priest, Jesus. And then he starts to address the maturity of believers. And he's calling out some seasoned believers. And he says, starting in verse 11, of whom we had much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. Christians are naive. They can and they will fall for almost anything. And it's not because they're dumb. It's because they're immature.

And they don't catch nuances of several things. Well, these believers being written to were being called spiritual infants in the things of God. And sure, they were possibly old. They may have been Christians for decades, right? But what's being described here is that their spiritual formation was still at like stage one. There was no maturity. And in verse 12, which we read, and verse 13, which we'll read next, the writer of Hebrews is starting to point out that they can only digest milk, not solid food. Verse 13, for everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. So these folks were still digesting the elementary principles of faith, in a sense, like babies who can only digest milk. And you know, think about the analogy, what if you get a little baby and you give him this juicy steak? He's gonna starve. He can't chew it.

It's... God wants to give us very rich steak spiritually, but we have to be ready. We have to be able to digest it. And in verse 13, there's this change of expression that starts taking place concerning milk. The change is the issue of living only on milk. You catch that nuance.

And it's important because only babies, or I guess you could say very sick adults, are the only people you will find who live solely on milk. One characteristic of spiritual maturity then is laid out in verse 14. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

So this is an indication of their spiritual growth. If you were to see a 35 or 40 year old who only drank milk, you would look at them a little shocked, right? You would be questioning the situation. And the fact is, these Hebrews who should be mature were not mature. Solid food is for the mature, and those, as the verse says, whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil. And so by this time, the readers really should have been displaying things in their judgment, in their thought process, in their actions that they didn't. They should be avoiding foolish choices, which they weren't. And that's what showed it. It's by how you act, it's how you represent the fruits that bear, as was mentioned in the message before.

How long have you been a Christian? A lot of years by looking around the room. So, how deep is your knowledge of God and His Word? And if it's lacking, why?

We need to realize that lack of spiritual maturity can be our downfall. We were talking about food earlier, and it fits very closely. Okay, so how do we grow spiritually? I got a kick out of, after my earlier message, some people said, so you're going to tell us how to get good godly fertilizer to grow. That concept just made my head go sideways. You laugh and you go ick at the same time. But I will tell you the first thing, which is hopefully obvious. There is no one or two magic ingredients of spiritual fertilizer to answer this question, right?

Because you could look and you could say everything that the Bible commands is an example of what could help us grow. You could start with the Ten Commandments. We've had messages, we have many messages, going through each of them and talking about them. That would be very, very accurate. Every command in the Bible, we could flip that around. We could look at everything the Bible says not to do. And that will also tell us how to grow, right?

We could go down the path and say, well, you should pray, you should study, you should fast. We learned about meditation a few weeks ago. Those would all be very valid lessons. So basically, I could tell you, just look at your Bible and do everything it's in there, and that's how you grow. So I'm not going to be so granular as to give you the magic bullet. Instead, what I'm going to do is focus on sharing some key principles, some perspectives to guide and bring success to our spiritual growth.

If you'll turn to 2 Timothy 1 verses 6 through 7. 2 Timothy 1, 6 through 7. A key perspective I hope you're gaining is that the core spiritual growth is about what we prioritize daily in our lives and in our minds, because life is this rehearsal for the future.

And if you look at a pro athlete of any sport, they're exercising, they're training hard even in the off season. It takes discipline to train both our minds and our bodies. So what is ruling and taking priority in your life? The first point to spiritual growth is we need to stir up the gift of God's Holy Spirit. We need God's Spirit to actively reign in our hearts.

2 Timothy 1 and verse 6. Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but notice of power and of love and of a sound mind. So the Holy Spirit is likened to a fire. There's so many analogies. The Bible is full of analogies, but it's likened to a fire that we're stirring up. And physical fire consumes itself, right, and then burns itself out. To sustain a fire, you have to kindle it. Keep it going. That takes action.

The Bible is full of these areas that it's not a one and done. It takes action. It takes growth. And not just throwing any type of fuel on a fire is going to guarantee it'll grow. Some of it will just snuff it out, right? So the same analogy is true spiritually. Stirring up the Holy Spirit helps us think as God does. For example, having sound mindedness is one of the things that verse ends with, is where spiritual growth takes place. When a person is sound minded spiritually, they reflect the spiritual growth, the fruits of a converted mind, right?

And if we're sound minded, then we will not be spouting out radical, biblical, and consistent commentary, which you hear people go off in these little twigs that think that they're getting closer to God, but they're sowing division. We're not going to be advocating for things that don't represent the lifestyle that Christ did. You know, a classic example of someone says the Bible has done away, they're missing the concept that Jesus said, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. He said He's the Lord of the Sabbath.

We're not worshiping the day, rather we're worshiping the God who gave us the Sabbath for the purpose and in the way He said for us to.

Maturity. Maturity of thought and mind. And the Holy Spirit is what helps us to love God, to love Christ, to love our neighbor. It's a key that we have to make sure we're focusing on. Okay, let's move on to another principle. And in this one, for this and the next one, I'm going to steal concepts from a message that Steve Myers gave. It was only loosely linked to this, but it was back in 2017. And a principle that he described in that one is called the power of zoom. The power of zoom, everybody here, most likely, has experienced the power of there was a camera that could take a picture of your spiritual growth. What would it look like? And maybe more importantly, if you were to hold two pictures up, one of you today and one of you from a year ago, would you see a difference satisfied with the growth and change that you've seen?

Interesting perspective. Are you satisfied with the amount of growth you're making?

Someone once said, a baby is a digestive apparatus with a loud noise at one end and no responsibility on the other. That's... Are you still a babe in Christ, or are you engaged in a process that's moving you toward maturity? Are you taking responsibility for your spiritual growth along the way? Our spiritual role models throughout the Bible, they exhibited this concept of zoom, right? They powerfully focus on God's Word, on His will, on His way. So it's a very simplified concept, but it's key to our growth is to maintaining a power of zoom and avoiding expanding our vision to other things that distract us. So this power of zoom concept is focusing exactly where you want to go toward and on where you need to be. So again, I guess turn into a question. What do you... God has got to be our primary focus, and we talked at the beginning about danger zones, and those can be things that distract us, distract our primary focus. Our primary focus shouldn't be our career, our jobs, our recreation, or even our family. And again, I stress this is not what we zoom in on, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to have their place and to focus on them. What is your priority? What is your number one priority? Because all of those are not all of them. Most of them, probably all of them, are important to God. God says we should be striving to be the best we can be. We should care about family, but if we let any of those stop God being our most important focus, we aren't zooming in with the right lens. We're putting a filter in front of it to justify what we want most. And Satan's glad to give you a whole lot of filters, like we find on cameras to do all sorts of weird things to the view and say, look, that looks better, doesn't it? A, B, A, B. And that B part that Satan puts in front of us is going to appeal to our human nature. That's just pretty much how it tends to work. If you'll turn to Galatians 2 in verse 20, Galatians 2 in verse 20. You know, big picture of Christianity, right? If Christ is not risen, our faith is futile, because our hopes for any and everything that happens outside of this lifetime are useless, right? We're still in our sins. So the power of Zoom focuses us on the fact that we have to change to live forgiven by Christ and to live in a new way. This is one of those humbling verses that's just powerfully written. But Galatians 2 in verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me. So we shouldn't be living by that old person, right? That old way, those old lusts, the sinful nature, that's not the things that should guide our life along the way.

Rather, it's Christ living his life in and through us. And the only way that it's possible to live a spiritual life now is by faith in the Son of God. That's the only way we can achieve this and be all that God wants us to be over the course of our lifetime. And that leaves us celebrating how great our God is, as opposed to how hard we could sacrifice and struggle and do it on our own.

That's never what God intended. We'll turn now to Ephesians 4 in verse 15.

God has given us the means to grow in the ways of Jesus Christ, and he's committed to help us with that. When we commit ourselves to obey, to follow the model example of Jesus Christ and his way, he will make the amazing things possible that we can't do on our own.

Ephesians 4 and verse 5. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. You know, a lot of different areas we can go on this verse, but focusing on our use of words, speaking the truth, focusing on our words and our attitude behind them helps us grow in all things into Christ's image. To know who and what Jesus was, what made him tick, how he operated and living his life, that can help us with our own daily decisions, with our own challenges.

How do we do when we look and then we say, okay, what would Christ have probably done when faced with that? And when the God the Father looks at each and every one of us, he should see that we're demonstrating, that we're becoming that stamped image of Jesus Christ. And he would see it by the decisions we make, by the words we say, are we saying things that reflect that? You read a lot in the Bible about this oneness of God in Christ, right? And Christ talked about it a lot of times, but that same oneness is intended for us, so he sees Christ to us like they could see the Father through Christ. There should be that transparency, and that happens when we're spiritually growing.

He's looking to see if we are spiritually growing in spirit and in truth, and if so, we will have that oneness. Turn to 2 Peter 1 and verse 8. 2 Peter 1 and verse 8.

Remember, we only receive the Father by receiving the Son. So, mirroring the Son becomes this very important aspect of us growing to spiritual maturity. 2 Peter 1 and verse 8. For if these things... So, we don't need to go back, but you can see just some of the verses before. This is this progression of spiritual traits described in verse 5 through 7, which talks about add your faith virtue to your virtue, knowledge, all the way up to love. That's what is being referenced here. So, if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, again, notice they must be abounding. That means there's this continual growth pattern that's occurring. And if this is happening to us, we will be neither barren nor unfruitful in our knowledge of Christ or how we are supposed to live like Him. If you'll turn to Matthew 11 and verse 28. Matthew 11 and verse 28.

So, oftentimes the Bible shows growth requires work. Growth requires labor. But the requirements of growth doesn't mean it has to feel heavy along the way.

Heaviness comes when we feel we're carrying the load by ourselves or we're carrying more than we can sustain, right? That's when we notice that. Matthew 11 and verse 28 says, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden. So, again, there's no question here that labor is involved in living life. We're told it like so many other verses along the way.

And sometimes we may feel heavy laden. Many people here have a lot of problems and challenges.

You know, we think about what Susie has been facing this last week. There's a lot of challenges with health going on. Christ is where we need to go to find resolution when we know when we're dealing with sin, right? But also, these verses show you regarding spiritual growth. Whenever we face things, we know where to go as our source. And to you, any of you, with whatever each of us is facing, right? Because we're all facing something. Christ says, and I will give you rest.

That's a beautiful phrase. Growth only comes when we get closer to Jesus Christ, because then he will be there to help us. So God has the ability to execute in our lives this inner peace that we cannot generate for ourselves. He will keep a person in perfect spiritual peace if their mind stays on him. Power of zoom. Is that where you focus consistently? And again, this is not like Mr. Ackerman mentions on a regular basis, this is not a health and wellness gospel. You know, where obedience guarantees success in easier times. That's not what the Bible teaches at all. But rather, when we focus our minds on what really matters, there is this renewed resurgence of spiritual growth that we see in our lives. That's what is being referenced. And hopefully, as you see the connections as we're growing closer and closer to the Passover, I really hope that God helps all of us to really embrace these words with deeper feeling, with deeper understanding, appreciation of all that God is, ups them from looking in other directions. And what horse trainers and handlers have found is you can modify a horse's behavior by limiting their vision.

If they can't see left and right and behind, well, they're going to focus on the goal.

It's a natural way that we get, but then squirrel, you know, our natural tendency is to still go and look in other directions and be distracted. A natural complement to that is this area of having spiritual blinders. And I think we can see the physical examples of that very natural, physical success that people have when they set goals, when they establish boundaries. And we also see people who try to justify not succeeding by blaming things on their past, by saying, oh, I just dealt a bad piece of cards. But I'd argue if you look back through life, you can end its obstacles and weren't limited by their past. We are not perpetually flawed. We are not limited by our backgrounds and our upbringings. We all have the chance to get past those. And a lot of times what happens is blinders are used. People focus in a different direction. That's no longer going to be my crutch. And in our sense spiritually, I would say we should consider God's standard in our life as the right kind of blinders to guide to alter our behavior. Think of God's standards.

That's, again, a very broad way of bringing in all those commands. And I can't go one by one as we think our way through what it takes for spiritual growth. But when we rely on God's spirit and we live by God's standards, it should change the way we feel. It should change the way we act. It should help us modify when and what we do when we start approaching something that would not be what God wants us to do because we're like, oh, I'm going down the wrong path here. That is not the standard I should be living according to. That's not what I'm committing to. And when we work in that way, then God's Word will start working as blinders. You know, as you do your studies, start seeing where God's Word can help you be blinders to help you focus on what should you be looking toward and how then can we use God's Spirit to guide us along the way, focusing on these everlasting goals, these everlasting promises that matter most. Turn over to 1 John 2, verse 15 through 17. 1 John 2, 15 through 17. So in these next verses, John reminds us... let me for the helpers back there, change this one to the New Living Translation because I'm going to read this from the New Living verse so that way I'll make her a little easier because she has to search on both of them. But in these next verses, you're going to see John kind of reminding us of the kind of spiritual blinders we need to wear to help guide us.

And what Satan's legions trying to do is to use distractions, distractions of the world, distractions of our desires or our own challenges to steal our life from us. And so, as he got near the end of his life, you can see he's kind of pleading with other Christians. And that's why I'm going to read this from two different translations that are much more personal in that sense so you can feel the emotion of it. So I'm going to read this first, as you'll see here, from the New Living Translation, 1 John 2, 15 through 17. And then I'm going to read from the message, which is like a transliteration. So, 1 John 2 and verse 15, Do not love the world, nor the things it offers you. For when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasures, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. Let me read this now from the message translation.

Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world, wanting your own ways, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important, has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from them. The world and all it's wanting, wanting, wanting, is on the way out. But whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. Sometimes things like that, you could almost hear like a father talking to a son, because it's expressed with the emotions in those states. We can't wait until the point of Satan's attack to put on spiritual blinders. It's too late.

We can't just then start saying, oh, I got to live by God's standards, because we're going to fall prey. If we wait, we're going to lose our temper. We're going to act out of envy. We're going to be sucked into whatever the temptations are, the pride or whatever else along the way.

We need to be working constantly on having God's standards set in place in our mind, and guiding and limiting what our path of options are. So we're choosing from the right options before a challenge or a temptation comes our way. How are you and I doing with that?

You know, I think that's why the Passover comes up every year, so we can look and say, yep, still a lot of room to grow. What standards do you have in place already? And does your standards say, be holy for the Lord our God is holy? What standards are already in place? And what temptations maybe take power over those standards from time to time? So with that one, I encourage you to just think those over in your life. Think about, you can go whichever angle of areas that the Bible talks about as commands, but it makes you look differently and personalize them. Are you looking for what the Lord requires? You know, living justly. What am I living justly? Loving, mercy, walking humbly, you know, whatever. There's all sorts of ways you can go down your own rabbit hole of self-reflection. But say, where do I need to put spiritual blinders to hope? Turn next to 2 Peter 3 verse 17 through 18. 2 Peter 3, 17 through 18. I think there's one Bible verse, or yeah, basically one verse, that probably if I was to quiz people on spiritual growth, it would be mentioned. So, as a result, and we'll, you know, this one I'm going to read from the New King James, but would be where people focus on with growth. So, you know, shame on me if I don't talk about this as one of the ways the Bible says on how we are to grow. So, what we're about to read again contextually is toward the last things that Peter wrote at the end of a long life of trying to encourage others in the ways that he was taught how to, you know, live in a Christ-like way.

And in the verses that are leading up to this, he was encouraging believers that they're called to live a new life, one motivated by God's revelations for the future. He assured them that God has everything under control. And then he finally gets to this thought that starts with this warning not to get sidetracked by people wrestling with the different interpretation of God's word. Verse 37. I'm sorry, verse 17. You, therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware. In other words, I'm warning you in advance, lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away by the errors or with the errors of the wicked, but grow. And literally, that means keep on growing. So here again, we see spiritual growth is necessary. Physical growth happens by default. Spiritual growth is different. It requires choice, daily choices. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. So, famous verse. That's one of my dad's favorite verses. In 2nd Peter 3, 18, Peter says that believers or disciples have this two-part growth process, right? The first thing is believers must grow in grace. So we've talked about grace at various times. God is the giver of grace. It relates to special favor. It is a gift we receive from Him. One concept I saw written that I found thought-provoking was it said, when we're baptized, we achieve a new birth, which is our spiritual beginning. Growing in God's grace is our becoming. So baptism, our beginning, growing in God's grace is our becoming. This does not mean we're more saved, right? But that's what we're being measured against. Next believers are told they must grow in knowledge. And notice it's not just any kind of knowledge, it's the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Knowing the person of Christ is not the same as knowing books. It's like being given family recipe, great family recipe, but you never cook it.

That's just a piece of paper at that point. We need to act on what we are given. And we're to crave spiritual food so that we can grow in the fullness of our salvation. Mr. Conway mentioned something to children. You know, you've heard a baby cry for food, right? And when they really want food, they're very, very loud crying for food. Well, do you cry out to God to be nourished by His knowledge so that you can grow? I certainly don't cry out like a kid who's adamant to get the attention of their parent. I mean, that's a shrill, you know, but he could cry out with more passion along the way at times. There's no, well, there's no limits of what a child's feeling, right? They let you know, especially the younger they are. You know if they're happy, you know if they're not happy. There's no filter. If you'll turn to Philippians 2 verses 12 through 13.

So as God's Spirit works within us, we become more and more like Him. We reflect His nature.

I'm going to go ahead, actually, and read this next one from the New Living Translation. Philippians 2, 12 says, Dear friends, you were always so careful to follow my instructions when I was with you, and now that I'm away, you must be even more careful to put into action God's saving works in your lives. Obang God with deep reverence and fear, for God is working in you, but giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him.

He is working in us. Where are you now when it comes to obeying God with deep reverence, with fear?

Where do you want to be? You can imagine in a work session training people, but it's true. Where are you now and where do you want to be? The Bible is this great source of knowledge, but the book does this no good if we don't put it to use. It doesn't do us any good to say, oh, I love God if we aren't living His way. The proof of our beliefs in the truth is in how we live the words we read, right? In how we actually exemplify these principles. Do we put them to use in our life? Do we act upon them? Do we utilize the gifts that God has given to us? Turn to Matthew 25, 31 through 46. Matthew 25, 31 through 46. Very well known parable along the way. See, we're all challenged to spiritually grow up. We're not to be distracted by Satan's deceptions, by his way of thinking. And some examples of his way of thinking that we've all felt at different times is say, what can I do? Right? I don't have any useful skills. I'm not smart enough. I'm too young. I am too old. I have a disability. I don't have enough time. Isn't there someone else for the job? Those are all distractions to growth that I would argue that Satan puts in front of us.

I want to challenge you to grow in God's grace and in his knowledge and to mirror his nature.

Define one area of your spiritual life in which you want to seek growth. And if you can't, and if you can't come up with one, ask the person next to you what you should grow in.

You'll probably come up with your own and not ask. But evaluate yourself along those lines and then change something in your routine. Work with the end in mind. Matthew 25 in verse 31, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as his sheep divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in? Or naked and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. Then he will also say to those on the left hand, Apart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not take me in. Naked, and you did not clothe me, sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty? Interestingly, that's the same question. Or a stranger, or naked, or sick in prison, and did not minister to you. Then he answered them, saying, Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And those will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life. The concept is, if God's Spirit is working in us, we will bear fruits, more than words, but through doing the deeds of Christianity. Well, we heard in the first message. We will be growing, and our spiritual growth will show in what we do for each other. We will focus on connecting with other humans, because we recognize them as future members of his family. Our actions will be extending his mercy, his nature, to help them. We all work together best as members of God's family when you use our strengths and togetherness. Think about that, too, as you're reflecting. What are the areas that we could be more together for? Or you could be more together with one person in the congregation. Build those bridges. Reach out. Encourage somebody who's not here, who is ill. Exemplify the spiritual fruits of growth, the spirit that you're growing in. And pray to God about what fruits you can bring to the service of others, and he will show you. In conclusion, turn to Revelation 19, verse 7-9.

Revelation 19, 7-9. There is an intellectual simplicity to understanding what God wants us to do. Hard part is doing it, right? There's this magnetism of the world that pulls powerfully, and it drives us toward growth in the wrong things. And we're always growing in something.

It pulls us to growing in the wrong things. Our biggest priority should be towards spiritually growing and preparing to be part of a very, very special wedding. Revelation 19, verse 7. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready. That is the fruit of spiritual growth being described there.

And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Are you displaying your growth through what you do? Then he said to me, write, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God. See, God expects to see his bride ready. God knows that we can be there. He is preparing us, and readiness means we show fruits of spiritual growth.

If not, then we can have our salvation taken from us. If you remember, I ended the last message with this analogy of a camera and asked you how much you have grown in the last year.

As followers of the risen Christ, we're expected to grow in our daily walk.

Being mature means that we're attaining this future stature, the image of Christ, as was mentioned.

The hallmark of that is that something happens in our heart. Something happens in how we act. And for that to happen, we all need to work on growing spiritually.