You Must Keep Growing! Part 1

Philippians chapter three. Philippians chapter three this morning. Still growing. I hope so. I was earlier this week praying and looking for passage and and a subject.

We finished with our study in the book of Mark and I just felt led to this passage in this particular message this morning. It is kind of looking forward to revival services in in November and and I hope you're praying about that. If we're going to see revival revival comes an answer to prayer. Revival comes to Christians who want it. Doesn't come to Christians who don't want it.

It doesn't come with an evangelist. It doesn't come with a week of meetings. It comes in answer to earnest prayer. It comes in response to God's children who see the need of having revival in their own lives so that they can be the bright and shining light that God wants them to be for his glory. Not revival in our neighbor's life or revival in our friends, revival in the person in front of us or behind us but in revival in our own life.

It is so vitally necessary that we grasp this most important concept from scripture that we still need to be growing in the Lord and that change is a vital aspect of the Christian life. If we stop changing then we begin dying so to speak. Our testimony falters. Our our joy and peace begins to fade. And our testimony weakens.

We must continue to change, to become more like Jesus. We must continue to grow. Now, when I look at people in the scripture and some of these like the one who wrote the words we'll read in a moment. Yes, they are inspired by the Holy Spirit but they were penned through the person and the experiences of the apostle Paul and as apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Philippi. He is expressing his heart and hoping that his heart will catch with their heart as the Lord speaks through him and his experiences and his life and his passion.

That they would catch that same passion. To know the Lord more, to continue to grow in the faith. Look if you would in Philippians chapter three verse 12. Philippians three verse 12, not as though I had already attained either we're already perfect but I follow after. If that I may apprehend for that which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity today to look into your word.

Lord, I pray as we begin the study this morning that you will use it to make us more like you, to challenge us in our in our service, in our walk, to convict us of sin. A sin of complacency Lord, to burden us. For the lost around us. To make us more like Jesus. Lord, do a mighty work that only you can do today.

Honor your word that might not return void. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. We're going to look at two points. We we might get to both of em this morning.

We might not. First point is this, we must recognize the need for growth. We must recognize the need for growth in our lives. And point number two is this, we must recognize the source of our growth. Let's look back at the first one.

We must recognize the need for growth. Now, again, apostle Paul, I think of giants in the faith, okay? Those who endure great persecution, endure great hardship, were people of faith in the scripture, one of the first people that pops into my mind is who? Do you think? The apostle Paul, okay?

The apostle Paul traveled from city to city, from country to country, from Middle East across Europe in a day when most of the traveling was done on foot. Okay? He traveled literally thousands of miles on foot by ship. On three occasions he was shipwrecked as he traveled on ship. Many occasions, he was without food.

On many occasions, he was in danger of robbers and thieves. As he came to the cities, he preached the word of God. There was almost always a resistance that arose. Often times from his own people, the Jews. They'd run him out of town.

They would bring him before the judge. They'd have him thrown in prison. He was beaten. He was in prison. He one time he was stoned and left for dead.

What a man of faith because each time he got back up and he he moved on. What an example. The apostle Paul is to us. But the apostle Paul wants the people at Philippi to understand this. That he's writing here.

He says in verse 12, not as though I had already attained either were already perfect but I follow after. Paul says, I haven't arrived. I I haven't finished. I am not by any means perfect but he said I continue to what? To follow after.

I continue to pursue the Lord Jesus Christ. I continue to pursue being conformed to his image. I continue to pursue the knowledge of my savior. I continue to pursue the ministry that he has given to me. He said, I haven't attained.

I haven't reached my goal. I'm not perfect. I still am deficient. I must continue to what? I must continue to pursue.

I will continue to pursue to grow because it is necessary that I grow. And as Paul recognized his need for growth, we need to recognize our need for growth. And I think among many Christians today that is not truly recognized as it should be. Because if it were we would welcome change. We would be more open to repentance than we are.

Look if you would and well, you can just look up on the screen. Second Peter three second Peter three eighteen. It says there, I'm going turn in my Bible to it but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.

This was the concluding words of Peter as he wrote this letter, second Peter. He wanted them to remember this verse as it's the last words he said, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The people to whom he wrote, the Christians to whom he wrote as the Christians to whom Paul wrote, he wanted to remind them before he signed off the letter that they still needed to what? They still needed to grow. They needed to grow.

They they needed desperately not to stagnate, to become complacent, to think they had arrived. They needed to grow. We all need to grow. We recognize our our children need to grow. Even Jesus grew.

Did he not? And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. We recognize our children need to grow physically. They need to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and though most of us here this morning have stopped growing physically at least this direction. We still need to be growing in favor with God and man.

We still desperately need to grow spiritually. Is that not one of the reasons you're here this morning? We're here to worship the Lord who gave us life in Jesus Christ, our savior. But I hope you're here also. Because you recognize that you and I, like Paul, we still need to be growing in favor with God and man.

We still need to be growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. That's how he put it at the end of Peter. In grace and in knowledge, in the grace of Christ by which we are saved and empowered to live daily to his glory. Child of God, the grace by which you were saved is just the beginning. Just the beginning of the undeserved favor and work which God desires to do in and through your life.

Yes, by grace we are saved. By God's grace, we grow. By God's grace, we live and serve and God isn't done with you yet. The Bible says, he will continue to perform that good work until you stand before him someday. He isn't done with you yet.

You need to still be growing in the grace of Jesus Christ. In his spiritual grace, in your relationship with God. Do not short circuit the process of God's grace and transforming power in your life by complacency. You will not grow and we're going to look at this later on. We will not grow by yourself.

We can only grow spiritually in the power of Jesus Christ. But are you partnering with him? Are you inviting growth and change? Or have we decided, well, I've grown enough. I'm I'm tired.

I've done this for a while. I'm better than them and I'm better than them. Well, watch out. Once you start saying, I'm what? I'm better because you're not better.

You have a better what? We have a better savior. Than some. Our savior is best but be careful Complacency is the enemy of the Christian. That's why Peter signs his letter off.

Continue to grow in grace. Don't short circuit God's grace and transforming power by complacency. Notice the writer of Hebrews passion to continue steadfastly in the race that set before us. Wherefeen, wherefore seen also we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us and let us run with patience.

The race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of God the father. Can't you hear the passion in the writer of Hebrews? Let us lay aside what?

Every weight. Let us cast aside every sin and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus who's already run the race. It's going to help us to run the race too. But you're not going to win the race.

Sitting on the sideline. You're not going to run the race weighted down with all sorts of personal ambitions and unconfessed sin that are contrary to the work of God. You're not going to win the race. If you just kind of piddling on down the pike, you know, well, get there when I get there. You know, We need to be running the race with passion.

We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus as Paul did and the prize that awaits us at the right hand of the father and Jesus Christ, our savior and let's let's cast aside those weights and sins. Let's see the need to change to repent, to confess, to pick up our cross and follow him. We must recognize our need to change, to grow in the grace of Christ, to grow in the knowledge of Christ, it says here. The knowledge by which we get to know him and his will better every day. The knowledge of Christ by which we get to know him and his will better every day.

One cannot grow in the grace of God without growing in the knowledge of God. That is the knowledge of who he is, of what he has done for us, and what his will for you is. You can't grow in grace without growing in knowledge. Where is the knowledge found? Well, the knowledge is found right here.

The Holy Spirit takes the knowledge. It is the sword of the spirit, helps to apply it, and guide us in our in our race, in our path, in our life for Jesus Christ. You can't grow in the grace of Christ if you're not growing in the knowledge of Christ. By knowledge, we don't mean institutional knowledge. There's too many Christians out there that have a lot of institutional knowledge.

When I was a kid I went to, I grew up in church. I went to Christian school. I had a pretty good memory for facts and I enjoyed learning facts about the bible and, we would we would sometimes in youth group play, bible trivia and they had trivia questions and I sometimes could could wow my teacher with trivial facts that I knew about the scripture. Well, that's all fine and dandy. But it's not about the trivial facts.

But It's about getting to know a person not just learning a bunch of information. This book that we hold in our hands is an instruction manual from God himself. This book that we hold in our hands is a love letter from God. You get to know him by reading the letter that he sent to you. When I got letters in the mail when I was in college, I dropped everything to read the letters especially the ones that came from my wife from the other side of campus.

Okay? Because I wanted to get to know her and know what she thought of me. Hopefully, it was good. It's not just institutional knowledge but it is a personal and intimate knowledge that we must grow in day by day if we are to mature as children of God in the in his grace and in our faith. A personal and intimate knowledge.

Some of you may have seen a film entitled Fireproof. In the film Fireproof, there is a man who's whose marriage is falling apart. He doesn't doesn't know the Lord at the time and his marriage is falling apart. He has a friend who is a fellow fireman who is a Christian and the fellow of fireman that is a Christian is counseling, giving him some advice which he is kind of resistant to at the moment and that fellow is telling him, you know, I he he had had a rough spot in his marriage and he said we went to counseling and he said my counselor said something like this, being married is sort of like going to college on your wife. You need to learn more about her every day.

You need to be constantly learning her better if your marriage is going to grow what? Stronger. He said, you start out by getting your high school degree and then you move on to your college bachelor's degree and you gotta move on to your master's degree and you move on to your PHD and you just keep growing in the knowledge of the person to whom you're married. Continue to get to know them what? Better.

And if you ever stop trying to get to know them better, then, your relationship's going to grow what? It's going to grow cold. Now, that's probably good advice for married couples but that's even better advice for Christians in our relationship with who? Relationship with God. Don't ever stop learning God.

Don't ever be satisfied. With your personal and intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ. Don't ever be satisfied with your knowledge of scripture. Don't be ever be satisfied with how well you know him. Get to know him what?

Get to know him better. Continue to work on that. As we continue to grow in the knowledge of Christ, we will continue to grow in the grace of Christ as we get, we draw closer. We draw closer to him. We are commanded to keep on growing and not to get complacent or satisfied either in our knowledge or in our relationship or service for Christ.

We must not, we cannot take our Lord and our fellowship with him for granted. Yeah. If you take your relationship with someone else on this earth for granted, it's going to come back to haunt you. We must not make the same mistake with our Lord. We must not take Him for granted.

We must recognize the need to continue to grow in the knowledge and the grace of Jesus Christ. It is a lifelong process. God is changing me. Praise the Lord into the image of Jesus Christ. Romans eight twenty nine.

For by whom he did, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. Why did God save you? He didn't save you just to take you to heaven. He saved you to change you to the image of Jesus Christ. He's the only one that can do that.

We were created in the image of God. That image was marred by sin. God wants to recreate that image in you. You know him as savior. It's a process it takes a lifetime we need to continue Look if you would in second Peter chapter one.

Second Peter one. We were in second Peter three a moment ago. Second Peter one earlier in the book. Second Peter one verse five. And beside this, he writes, giving all diligence.

What does that mean? Well, it means it takes work. It takes effort. Okay. Beside this giving all diligence add to your faith, faith by which you were saved virtue.

And to virtue knowledge. And to knowledge temperance or self control. To temperance patience. To patience godliness. To godliness brotherly kindness.

To brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know what that sounds like to you but that sounds like to me like a process. A process that is what? On going.

You were saved and you became a child of God. You were given eternal life, justified in heaven when you trusted Jesus Christ as your savior. Amen? Amen. You became a child of God.

That was a moment in time when you were saved. By the way, if you haven't had that moment in time when you were saved, when you came to Christ and received his offer of salvation, then the Bible says, you are still in your sins. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he does not believe the name of the only begotten son of God. There must be a time when you were converted, when you were saved, when you were born again through faith in Christ but you became a child of God. Now, what do children need to do?

Children need to grow. What or how do they grow? They add to their knowledge. They add to their virtue. They add to their attitudes that they they learn to mature, to handle areas of life, to grow, and they need to keep growing and so do we.

We need to continue to grow as children of God that we might serve him better, that we might bring greater glory to his name. God saved you to change you into the image of his son. Are we living every day with that recognition? And willingness to change and grow or do we think we are better than the apostle Paul and that we have arrived? I hope not.

God saved you to change you into the image of his son, a lifelong process. God saved us to bear fruit in our life which brings glory to him. What does a tree do when it bears fruit? It bears fruit this year. In the spring or in Florida you never know.

You know orange trees bear fruit in the middle of the winter and and strawberries in February and well, it's a little bit mixed up in Florida but you get the idea. It bears fruit. You pick the fruit and the next year, what happens? It bears fruit again. It is a recurring process.

It's a recurring result. It doesn't happen just once. It happens year after year after year after year and as the tree grows and the tree gets bigger and bigger, it ought to produce more and more what? Fruit. Fruit.

That's right. That's what God expects of us. That's what God wants to do in us. He wants to produce more and more and more fruit. He wants to continue to change us and help us to grow that we might produce fruit.

It says in the verse with last verse we just read in Peter, it says, for if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. Continue to grow, we will be fruitful. If we stop growing, we'll stop being what? Fruitful. It's that simple.

John fifteen sixteen, you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever you ask of the father in my name, he may give it you. Jesus said to his disciples, I have chosen you, called you, sent you out, commissioned you, that you might grow, and that you might produce fruit to the glory of God. That you might become more like Jesus. That others may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven. That others might come to know Christ as savior.

That your ministries might grow. That you might produce the fruit of the spirit. We've been studying in Sunday school. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. God wants us to bear fruit.

Bearing fruit requires what? It requires growth. It requires change. It requires a willingness and an acknowledgement on the part of the child of God that we need to grow and change. Oh, how far I still have to grow.

My ministry has to grow. Our church needs to grow. Oh, how much we need to grow? To grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Too many Christians seem to be get to get satisfied and stagnant in their maturing process as a Christian, they stop growing.

What is that? It's disobedience. It's shortsightedness on their part which has a devastating effect on their life and the life of others around them. If you stop growing, it's not going to just affect you. It's going to affect your family.

It's going to affect others. Look what it would have done with Paul. If Paul would have said, okay, I'm done. I'm done growing. I've attained.

When God wasn't done with him yet. The day will come in second Timothy when Paul says, I've reached the end of my path. God's going to take me home. I have finished my course. I've kept the faith.

That time was not yet. The time will come when God will take us home and our race will be finished but if you're here, that time is what? The time is not yet. That time is not yet. In order to produce more fruit, a tree must continue to grow.

A tree that is no longer growing is a tree that is dying. You ever notice that? A tree that is no longer growing is a tree that is dying. As long as the tree is living, the tree will continue to grow. It will continue to grow.

It will continue to to to produce new leaves. It will continue to produce new sprouts. It will grow just a little more. It will it will make when I was a kid, my my we heated our house with wood and we had a big stove in the basement of our house and we spent several Saturdays in the fall and in the winter out in the woods cutting down trees and one of the things I enjoyed doing as a kid was counting the rings inside the what? Tree to see how old the tree was, okay?

As long as that tree was alive, it would grow another what? We grow another ring. It did it every year. If it ever quit growing, that meant it was what? That when it was dying.

As Christians, we are continued to serve and grow in our relationship and love with our God. We must continue to see the need for change, the need for growth. Or else we will stagnate and we won't produce fruit. We need to be like the tree in Psalm one. That is planted by the rivers of water that giveth forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. That is the tree that we need to be. How did it become, how does one become that tree in the previous verse? By meditating day and night on what? On the word of God.

On the word of God. Hearing it, heeding it, growing in it That we might be a tree to the glory of God. A tree to be praised for the fruit and the testimony of its leaves. But that will only happen if we recognize our need to grow and change. Else, we will become like the tree that Jesus cursed.

Remember that fig tree? He came to the fig tree and the fig tree had no what? No fruit And he cursed it. We don't want to be that tree. We want to be the tree of someone.

In order to do so, we must keep growing. I have point number two but it's new. So, we're going to end with point number one this morning and Lord willing, we're going to get to point number two tonight and we'll put Thessalonians off till next week. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord for Jesus Christ, our savior.

Thank you Lord that you even grew as a young man. Lord, you left an example for us. Lord, I pray that we would pick up the passion of Paul in Philippians chapter three and we would recognize our need to grow. To to to take our eyes off the past, to put our eyes on Jesus Christ in the future, to run the race with patience that is set before us and not to become play complacent in our relationship and our growth as a Christian. To welcome change, the change that comes as the Holy Spirit takes the sword of the spirit and works in our lives and not to resist change.

Lord, I'm afraid sometimes we do. Sometimes, we we have an attitude that we can't change and that's a lie from Satan. We can and we must and we will. As we broke nearer and closer to you. Lord, give us a heart for change.

And give us revival in our lives and in our church, we pray. And if there be one here this morning that's never received Jesus Christ as savior, I pray Lord today that they would recognize their need and your love and they would come even as we give this hymn of invitation this morning that they might be saved. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.