Christian Growth and Spiritual Victory (Part 1)

Into second Peter chapter 1 keep your hands up there if you don't

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

have one and there's this is 4 parts here very very, very

important. I don't know if you, I guess you

would call it maybe a first step in the growth process of a

Christian, especially after you know Christ as your savior and

Alex back there. Once you know Christ as your

Savior and you're assured through the things that we've

talked about when it comes to the eternal security, those are

those are the foundational things.

Obviously you're never going to grow in your Christian life

until you know Christ as your savior and until you're sure

you're saved until you're baptized.

That's the first step of obedience after salvation.

And obviously, you know, understanding our our

relationship to the law, we talked about those already.

But then Christian growth and spiritual victory and really the

rest of everything that we're going to talk about could be

wrapped up in this. But there's some principles that

go along with this Christian growth and spiritual victory

that we're going to talk about. A lot of the things that help

bring that about are things that we're going to talk about in the

rest of the book. So this is this is really kind

of laying the foundation for the rest of what we're going to talk

about and, you know, putting those things into perspective

and everything else. Anybody else need a copy of

that? All right, let's read second

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

Peter chapter 1 and verse #5 the Bible says.

And beside this giving all diligence, add to your faith,

virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge, temperance,

and to temperance, patience and to patience, godliness and to

godliness, brotherly kindness, and 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, which I

think is an interesting thing here.

All of these things are kind of building on each other.

Step one, do this. Step 2.

Do this, add this, add this, add this.

And if you have all of those things, they are going to make

you so that you are a fruitful Christian.

Verse #9 But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot

see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old

sins. And so jumping into this, really

this Part 1 is the introduction into the, the Christian growth

and the spiritual victory. A lot of the principles that

we're going to talk about are in lessons 2-3 and four when it

comes to these things. But few issues in the Christian

life are more important than this.

Practically every new believer is puzzled about why he still

has a problem with indwelling sin and how it can, how can it

be handled. That's the question that we're

going to answer in these lessons.

So it's, it is, I think, I think I, I, I have talked to enough

Christians who are brand new Christians that get into this

and they say, you know, I want to know everything all at once.

And why am I still struggling with these things?

And why am I still struggling with sin?

Why, why didn't I just automatically get victory over

everything the minute I got saved and baptized?

And you know, am I, am I really saved because I still sin?

Is, is, is there a problem? Not necessarily all right now,

obviously we should be, we should be moving past those

things and we should be growing as a Christian.

But you're going to start off as a baby, right?

And, and what I see happened many times is, is new Christians

get frustrated and get discouraged because they think I

should be as spiritual as that person and whoever it happens to

be, I should be, I should be there already.

I'm a saved, I'm a Christian. I've gotten baptized.

I should be way farther along in my spiritual life than this.

And they get frustrated, they get discouraged and they quit.

You're a baby. You're a baby in Christ.

And could you imagine if a baby now, I don't know what kind of

thought process they have, but if you could imagine a baby or a

one year old looking at their parents and saying, what's the

point of even trying to be alive?

I want to be an adult. I see the meat that they're

eating and I want to have that meat.

I want to do all the things that they're doing.

Forget this is not even worth it.

I'm just, I'm checking out, right?

That would be, that would be crazy because you look at a baby

and you say you can't eat, you don't even have teeth.

How are you going to eat the meat, right?

You have to grow, you have to develop, you have to be able to

handle those things. And, and it isn't amazing that

I've never seen a baby do that, right, because they just

inherently know the process and they're, they're babies.

So they just, they just grow, right?

And, and as they develop and obviously who the parents are,

they're going to mature at different levels, right?

They're going to, they're going to be, they're, they're going to

grow up in different ways, right?

And what they become really depends on who their mentors

are, right? And I think that's the same

thing spiritually. But patience you have, it

requires patience. And, and, and so that's kind of

what we're talking about with some of these things tonight.

So two things here with the introduction #1 when a believer

comes to Christ, God regenerates him and gives him a holy nature,

but that old sin nature is still present.

And it's very obvious. I mean, you look at, you look at

Peter, you look at Paul. Paul said the good which I would

that I do not, the evil which I would not that I do, and the

evil which I would not. I mean, he's, he's back and

forth all right. Somebody called it lost in the

woods. And that's exactly what it is.

I would do this, but I can't and I wouldn't do that, but I do.

And I just I'm constantly fighting against this and I want

the victory in my spiritual life, right?

That's that's what it's all about.

So the old man that's why the New Testament everywhere

instructs believers to put away sin.

We're close. Let's go to first Peter chapter

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

2 verse #1 It's a command wherefore laying aside all

malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envies and evil

speakings and it continues as newborn babes.

These are the sincere milk of the word that you may grow

thereby. If so be you have tasted that

the Lord is gracious, right It's it's you have to have that

growth process, but you should be putting aside those things

that are keeping you from being who you should be as a new man

and putting off the old man. So the ongoing presence of sin

in the Christian life is everywhere taken for granted of

the New Testament epistles, meaning this all over the place

is I mean and 1st John is probably one of our best

examples, but all over the place in the New Testament.

It's taken for granted that you're going to sin.

So it tells you what to do when you have, right, It tells you

what to do and how to fight it. It tells you what to do to to

get it right and to get it clean and to have that fellowship back

with God and everything else right.

If, if we could, if we could arrive at sinless perfection,

then it would be very clear in the Bible that that's just what

we should do. And oh, if you sin, which you

shouldn't, but if you sin, this is what you do.

The rest of the Bible would be about living in sinless

perfection, right? But since there is no sinless

perfection, what we see in the Bible all over the place is in a

an ongoing presence of sin in the Christian life.

Now, it shouldn't be there and, and everything that we read

about it says about how to get rid of it and how to fight

against the old nature and all of those things.

But if sin were somehow eradicated, the epistles would

not everywhere address the need to deal with it.

If sin could somehow be eradicated, the New Testament

will explain how this could be accomplished.

And this experience would everywhere be offered as the

solution to the to the sin problem, right?

Give me a verse that says that you can live in sinless

perfection, right? You'd think there would be at

least one that says you can live sinlessly perfect before God if

that's what he intended for us to do.

Right? Now, there's some verses that

talk about holiness and talk about holy living, right?

But there's no verses that talk about living in sinless

perfection, right? He said.

And there's verses that talk about perfect, but that word

perfect in many cases is referring to mature, complete,

right? It doesn't mean that we're never

going to sin. So that's not what we find.

There's a spiritual war that goes on in the believer's life.

The flesh wars against the spirit.

The old man wars against the new man.

So when a believer comes to Christ, God regenerates him and

gives him a holy nature, but that old sin nature is still

present. Second thing, there is no one

secret or key to spiritual victory in the Christian life.

Now this is important. I'm going to jump off for a

little bit and talk about some things that go along with this.

I'm going to read this first paragraph and then we're going

to jump into a few things and look at this.

Perfectionist and higher life teachings focus on one key or

one secret by which the believer can enter into an abiding

experience of victory, blessing, near perfection.

Many keys, quote, UN quote, have been proposed, such as the

baptism of the Holy Spirit, a second blessing, the crucified

life, the abiding life, the resting life.

John Piper is one that talks about joy in God.

And let me let me just jump off and, and kind of let's let's go

to Romans chapter 6. Let's let's look at Romans

Romans 6 · chapter mention Romans 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6 because he gives the example here.

Louis Barry Shaffer said that Romans 6, one through 10 is the

foundation as well as the key to the possibility of a walk in the

spirit. And, and these things mean

different things to different people.

OK, It, it really depends on how you define these things and, and

what definitions you come up with that determine what you

mean by these things when you say them, right?

But maybe you've heard of the Kezik.

It looks like Kezwick, but it's pronounced Kezik.

The Kezik movement in the 1850s really through the, the 1870s.

I think 1875 was actually when they had the first Keswick

convention in England. And it actually is still

continuing today. They have done a convention in

Keswick, England every year since 1875.

But this this whole, you know, the, the higher life, the second

blessing, the those kind of things that, that that are

mentioned and there's a lot of different terms that people use

for it actually comes from a book that was written in 1858 by

William Boardman called the higher Christian life.

And really that's where the Keswick convention came from.

That was it was kind of birth out of that book.

And, and like I said, it continues today even.

But the main idea in this Kazikian theology, I guess is

what you would call it, is that, you know, the higher life

movement, the deeper Christian life movement, There's a lot of

things that it's called, but that the Christian should move

on from this initial conversion experience to experience what's

called a second work or a second blessing of God on his life.

It's called entire sanctification.

It's called the second touch. It's got a lot of different

terms for it depending on who's using it, but higher life, the

people who teach this higher life promote the idea that the

Christians who receive that blessing can from God can live

him more holy and in many cases a completely sinless life.

And so with the rise of this higher life movement, Christian

denomination started to form around this.

And one of them is the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

That's a that's a big one that came out of this deeper life,

higher life movement. Some of your Pentecostals, which

a lot of the Pentecostals feel like it doesn't go far enough.

And so a lot of the Pentecostals don't really accept that the

Nazarenes came out of that movement.

There were several other denominations that came out of

that, but it that, that Kazik movement actually came out of

what was known as the Wesleyan holiness movement.

And, and it made its, if you want to call it its debut, but

it really, it really came under the scene in the 1830s.

And of course, John Wesley and Charles Wesley were, were very

influential in that. And, and, but definitely by the

1830s it had started to pop up in different places.

But by the 1830s, it definitely had had made its entrance onto

the scene. And then this Keswick movement,

the deeper Life movement came about as a result of that.

Some of the names that you might recognize here, Walter Palmer,

Phoebe Palmer, there was a lot of, there was a lot of women

preachers that that promoted this.

And you know, Hannah Whitehall Smith, maybe you'll recognize

her name. She's written books.

But she was, she was kind of preaching this idea, especially

because her husband, Robert, Robert Smith, he was one of the

ones that took this holiness message to England.

And that's kind of what, what ended up giving birth to this

Kazik movement. But he, he royally messed his

life up, let's just put it that way, and ended up out of the

ministry and everything else. But they were the ones that kind

of laid the foundation for that, that convention.

But what ended up happening is then is this Wesleyan Holiness

movement and the Keswick, the Kesik movement started to really

separate themselves during that time.

And the Wesleyan Holiness said we're not Kasich and Kasich said

we're not Wesleyan Holiness. And they had kind of a

difference there. But the Kasich movement actually

took on more of a Calvinistic tone to it.

And that's kind of the direction that they took.

But these are some names that you'll recognize when it comes

to the first generation, the ones who were there in the

1870s, eighties, 90s, maybe even early 1900s that were kind of

the leaders in this Kasich movement.

See if you recognize these names, FB Meyer, Handley Moole,

G Campbell, Morgan AT D Pearson, AJ Gordon, RA Tori, Andrew

Murray, Hudson Taylor, Jonathan Goforth.

Those are all guys that were part of that early, early

movement, you know, and you you could, you could call it a

revival. Theology is really what it is.

John Van Geldren is actually a big proponent of that Keswick

movement, the higher life theology today.

He's written several quite a bit of things.

I went down a deep rabbit hole with a lot of this stuff, but

the idea of the Kesic movement really has a lot of the idea of

total perfection type of living. And, and I think what it comes

down to is the people who espouse the kesic theology today

are really redefining what the terms are that came out of that

Kesic movement. I think initially the Kesic

movement was not a bad theology, but what came out of it was the

so, so all of these names of the guys that I mentioned you, you

know their names because they've written books and they were

instrumental in revivals and they were, you know, leaders in

a movement of really the fundamental Baptist movement.

They were, they were the ones that were kind of at the

beginning of all of this stuff. And so as it as it went on it,

it, it kind of took a turn and went in a different direction.

But the the idea of Kazik is basically that if you fully

surrender to God, you'll be able not to sin to the point where

you can live a sinless, perfect, sinlessly perfect life.

And there was some that were opponents of that, that Kazik

convention, that Kazik theology right when it came out.

And one of the most well known of all of them is probably JC

Rile wrote his own book on holiness.

The book was called Holiness Tremendous, Tremendous book, if

you ever get a chance to read it.

But he wrote this, he said it. This is in his book Holiness.

Because what what he was trying to do with this book on holiness

was to was to move it away from more of a Pentecostal,

Calvinistic idea and move it more toward sanctification,

which I think is what we find much more in the Bible, the idea

of sanctification. But we may take comfort about

our souls if we know anything of an inward fight and conflict, it

is the invariable companion of genuine Christian holiness.

Do we find in our heart of hearts a spiritual struggle?

Do we find anything of the flesh lusting against the spirit and

the spirit against the flesh so that we cannot do the things

that we would? Are we conscious of two

principles within us contending for the mastery?

Do we feel anything of war in our inward man?

Well, let us thank God for it. It's a good sign.

It is strongly probable evidence of the great work of

sanctification. Anything is better than apathy,

stagnation, deadness and indifference, which is what a

lot of the people that were anti Kazak convention, anti Kesic

theology accused them of was, was a lot of those things.

Apathy, stagnation, deadness, indifference and so on to a

certain extent. But I think what John van

Geldren does is present a historic version of Kesic, if

you will. He presents who they used to be.

If you say that you are in line with the Kesic theology today or

higher life or deeper life theology today, it means

something different than maybe it used to mean back then.

Whether Cloud mentioned some things that we're going to look

at really that really call this whole idea into question.

But I think the idea is good and the, you know, and it may be

considered revival theology by those that are looking at it

through different lenses, but the theology that came out of it

really is not all that biblical. And So what he's talking about

here is Romans 6 one through 10. Let's read it.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that

grace may abound? God forbid.

How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

Know you not that so many of us as we're baptized into Jesus

Christ, we're baptized into his death.

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death that like

as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.

Even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his

death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the

body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not

serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also

live with him, knowing that Christ being raised from the

dead, dieth no more death, hath no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he

liveth, he liveth unto God. So that's those, that's the

verses that Lewis Berry Shaffer, who he was not necessarily

associated too much with the Kezik movement, but with this,

with this higher life movement. He said that those verses are

the foundation as well as the key to the possibility of a walk

in the spirit. But the cloud is saying this,

while Romans 6, one through 10 is a very important passage.

What about all the other passages about sanctification?

And I think it's a great question if there were, in fact,

let's turn over to Hebrews, sorry, Hebrews, Ephesians

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4. If there were such a key, the

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

New Testament epistles would present that key very clearly

and it would be presented as the one and only necessary element

in spiritual victory. And I think it's a great point

to make. If that was the only thing that

we had to do, then it would be everywhere.

This is the key. This is what you have to do to

walk in the Spirit. This is what you.

But there's a lot of different things that the Bible actually

talks about as far as walking in the Spirit.

And so I think it's important that we walk in the Spirit and

and as we go through the rest of this Christian growth and

spiritual victory, we're going to talk about that.

But there's no one key that's going to get us to that point.

All right. So instead though, he says we

see a multiplicity of things that are taught in the epistles

in regard to sanctification. The Apostolic Church has had

many problems which are addressed in the epistles for

our instruction and edification through the entire church age.

And there is no one key. And I think that's what it comes

down to. The higher life, the deeper

life, the Kazakh movement theology, whatever you want to

call it, whatever you want to call it, they have this one key

that you can reach this certain level.

And once you reach that certain level, you almost have the

ability to not sin. You have you've reached a higher

level, you've reached AI shouldn't say higher, a deeper

level that gets you to a point where you don't have to sin.

And, and again, obviously what the Bible says be holy, for I am

holy, we should be trying to be holy the way that Christ is.

But the Bible also makes it very clear that we are going to fight

the flesh. The flesh is never going to go

away. We're always going to have that

old sin nature there that we war against.

Paul made that very clear. Peter made that very clear.

James made that very clear and so did others.

But in the epistle to Ephesus, for example, Paul gave a lot of

instructions about spirituality. The first 3 chapters describe

the believers eternal and changing position in Christ,

which is we talked about that position and and standing

relationship and fellowship. We talked about all those

things. But this understanding is

absolutely necessary for true holiness and spiritual victory.

But chapters 4 through 6 move on to many other things.

There is walking worthy Ephesians chapter 4 and verse

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

one, walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called

submission to the ministry. And we could, we could take a

long time on all of these. I'm not going to do that.

But submission to the ministry of teaching and protection,

which of course refers to a sound church.

Verse 14. That we henceforth be no more

children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of

doctrine, by the sleight of sleight of men, and cunning

craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking

the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is

the head. Even Christ, from whom the whole

body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every

joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure

of every part, maketh increase of the body into the edifying of

itself in love. Putting off the old man, and

putting on the new man, in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

22, put off concerning the former conversation, the old

man. Verse 24 and that you put on the

new man, which after God has created in righteousness and

true holiness, there's walking in love.

Ephesians 52 walk in love as Christ also had loved us.

There's proving what is acceptable to the Lord in verse

#10 proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

He says there's having no fellowship with and reproving

the unfruitful works of darkness.

Verse 11 says exactly that, walking circumspectly in verse

15, not as fools, but as wise. There's redeeming the time in

verse #16 because the days are evil, being filled with the

Spirit. Verse 18, be not drunk with

wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.

There's singing psalms and hymns.

Verse 19, you go on to the next page.

There's giving thanks for all things.

Verse 20. There's walking in obedience and

holiness in the home. 22 through chapter 6, verse 4.

That's the whole way that God lays out the the order for

husbands, wives, children. There's doing the will of God

from the heart. Ephesians 66 just put on the

whole armor of God verse 10 through 18.

The same thing can be said about Christ teachings in the Gospels

and the teaching of other divinely inspired epistles.

For example, there's a biting in the vine.

John 15 is all about that vine in the branches.

Taking the yoke of Christ and learning of Him and serving Him.

Matthew 1128 through 30 should be reckoning oneself to be dead

unto sin and alive to God in Romans 611.

Yielding yourselves to God. Romans 613 through 16.

Mortifying the deeds of the body by the Spirit.

Romans 813. Presenting your body as a living

sacrifice. Romans 12/1.

Not being conformed to the world.

Verse 2. Renewing the mind, verse 2.

Exercising 1's spiritual gifts and service.

Romans 12/3 through 8. Setting one's affection on

things above Colossians 31 through 4:00.

There's a lot of things here. And so we find even more

elements of holiness and spiritual victory in the other

epistles. There's no one path of

sanctification, no one means a victory.

There are many, and all of them are important.

And that's the, that's the key here.

I say the key, there is no key. And that's what I, that's my

whole point is that there are so many different things that were,

that were given as ways to sanctification and how we work

out our sanctification and how we work out our, our spiritual

life. And so I, I made this point

already there in #3 but some of the things that we would

ordinarily include in this section on Christian growth and

spiritual victory, like prayer in the church, are dealt with in

their own separate sections. And that's what I mean this,

this whole thing is kind of setting the foundation for

everything that we do in our spiritual life.

And so all everything that we're going to talk about in the rest

of the book is all spiritual growth, Christian growth and

spiritual victory. But here's some important

things, important truths about Christian growth.

And I think some of these are key to what we're talking about

when it comes to the no one, no one thing that's going to get us

to that, that spot that we're trying to reach when it comes to

the, you know, the, the second blessing or second baptism or,

or any of those other terms that you want to use.

But let's go to second Peter chapter one, second Peter

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1. And we'll, we'll end up

beginning in verse #3 we already read some of these verses, but

we're going to break these down South number one.

And and we have, I don't know, 10 or 12 things here.

Christian growth flows from God's abundant salvation.

And I think this first point here is probably the the key to

everything that we're talking about in, I wouldn't say

refuting the deeper life theology, but the problem with

with that. And second Peter chapter 1 and

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

verse #3 according as his divine power hath given unto us all

things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the

knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue at

salvation. The believer has everything that

he needs to grow and to be fruitful.

All he has to do is use it. He doesn't need a second

blessing. He doesn't need a second

baptism. He doesn't need a second touch.

He doesn't need any of those other things that the Keswick

Convention focused on and, and almost rallied around, I guess

you could say. And, and, and look, I, I think

there was some good things that came out of that Kazik

convention. I think there was some, there

was some revivals that took place.

But as that, as that move further and further away from

those initial conventions, if you want to call it that, but

the initial meetings, this theology kind of took on a life

of its own. I have a book on my shelf right

now called The Authentic Kazik Voice, authentic Kesic voices,

something like that. It's all messages that have been

preached at the, at this kesic convention.

And some of them are very, very good messages.

And, and, and some of them are by, by men that we easily

recognize because we've been reading their books and, and you

know, and quoting them for years.

But this idea, and whether it, whether that was the idea or

whether these ideas came out of it, the second blessing, the

second baptism, the second touch, all of those things are

at the very least branches off of what came out of that.

We don't need that. We have that already.

We have everything we need. We got everything we need at

salvation. So the second thing then is when

it comes to this important truth about our Christian growth,

Christian growth is a process of adding to our faith.

Verse #5 and besides this, giving all diligence, add to

your faith. And he says virtue, knowledge,

temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity, all

of those things. So at salvation, the child of

God has only one thing, and that's faith.

The Christian life is the process of adding all of those

things as you grow and as you mature and as you develop in

your walk with Christ, right? This is, it's very obvious that

all of these things are things that, OK, you have faith, right?

All right, now add virtue to your faith.

All right, now add knowledge to that virtue.

All right, now add temperance to that knowledge.

All right, now add patience to that temperance and godliness to

that patience, and brotherly kindness to that godliness and

charity to that brotherly kindness.

Those are all things that are, it's a growth process, right?

It's like what we're saying here is a baby is born and he starts

to grow and he gets to be about 3 years old and then all of a

sudden magically overnight he gets a takes a growth pill and

now he's an adult and he can do everything that he needs to do

as an adult. It doesn't happen that way,

right? And the same thing is true about

us in our spiritual life. It's not you don't get saved and

you start to grow and start to grow and start to grow and all

the sudden you get a second blessing and now you are a

sinlessly perfect Christian who lives in absolute holiness

before God. See what I'm saying?

It's a, it's a growth process. All of it is a process and it

takes time. And it's, it's, it's a

development that that comes to us as we continue to mature in

our Christian, in our Christian walk #3 then Christian growth is

never instantaneous. It doesn't come overnight by any

process whatsoever. We have Galatians 5, Ephesians

5, first John one. Those are all things that talk

about walking in our in our relationship with Christ.

But the believer doesn't suddenly have an overflowing cup

of perfection and virtue, patience and charity.

And there's nothing that can place him into such experience.

Growth is a gradual thing. You don't you don't see a bit.

You don't, you can't see a baby grow on a daily basis.

And Christian growth is described as walking with Christ

as we mentioned in those verses. It's step by step, day by day

thing. The Christian life is, is not a

leap or a flight. It's a walk, right?

And for for a kid, all right, this happens often.

He sees himself in the mirror every single day.

And he looks at himself and he's like, man, I'm short, I'm

skinny. I'm not growing at all, right?

And then grandma comes around after she hasn't seen him for a

while and she says, wow, you're getting so big, right?

Look how tall you are. Look how look how big your

muscles are getting, right? He can't see it because he's

seeing himself every single day, right?

But somebody looking at it from the outside that hasn't seen you

in a while can, can see that It's kind of the same thing with

it with, with your spiritual growth, right?

It's slow and you may look at it and you say, am I even, am I

even getting anywhere in my Christian life?

But somebody that hasn't seen you for a couple years and comes

back and says, wow, there's a big difference in who you are

now versus who you used to be, right?

And that's, that's what that growth process is.

It's, it's not something that happens instantaneously.

It doesn't come overnight. It's a slow step by step, day by

day thing. The Christian life is not a

Libra flight. It's a walk.

So letter D then #4 Christian growth requires all diligence.

Second Peter chapter 1 on in verse #5 I don't think that's

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

the right verse. But and beside this giving all,

Oh yeah, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue and

virtue knowledge. So the half hearted Christian is

not going to grow. He's going to remain a babe and

will continue to cause trouble in the church and do more to

hinder God's work than to help us.

And Revelation chapter 3, verse 15 and 16, the Bible talks about

Revelation 3:15

that lukewarmness. I would rather you are cold or

hot, but because you're lukewarm, I want to spew you out

of my mouth is what he says. And, and again, so for, for, for

all of us. It's not just for new

Christians, but if we're going to grow in our Christian walk,

we have to do it intentionally, right?

You hear stories sadly, all the time.

And I, I just read 1 the other day that, that they arrested

some parents because they, they found a body in a House of a, of

a 7 year old that was like 28 lbs, seven years old, 28 lbs so

malnourished. And, and they did an autopsy on

the body. And this is, is sad.

They found 1 blueberry in the stomach.

That was it. Why do you think the girl it was

a, it was a little girl that they found.

Why do you think she was only £28 and not growing?

And said when they when they first found the body they

thought it was a three or four year old.

Turned out the girl was 7. Nothing to her because she's not

being fed, right? She's not she's not doing

anything for nourishment and, and, and, and, and blame that on

the parents. But at the same time, you know,

Christian growth is the same thing.

It requires diligence. You have to be fed on purpose.

You have to eat right, which all I'm saved.

I'm on my way to heaven. I'm baptized.

I, I now I can just live my life the way that I want to.

I don't have to spend time in God's word.

You're going to get malnourished.

I have to be at church. You're going to get

malnourished, right. You need the things that are

going to feed your spiritual walk because it's a slow growth

process. I can promise you this, the

people that are not reading their Bible, the people that are

not faithful to church, I can promise you that you're eating

way more than you're in your Bible, right?

How important you find that to be to your to your physical

nourishment. But then all of a sudden

spiritual nourishment doesn't matter and you think that you're

going to continue to grow and you walk with Christ.

It's not going to happen. Feed that, that, that spiritual

growth #5 Christian growth is an individual path and process

verse #5 Add all those things. We already read all those,

right? It's put on Christ.

Those verses describe Christ. He's all of those things.

He's virtue, he's knowledge, he's temperance, he's patience,

he's godliness, He's brotherly kindness.

He's charity. So the goal of the Christian

life is to reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of

Christ, right? That's our goal number #7

Christian growth requires patience.

I already talked about this, but it says, and to knowledge

temperance and to temperance patience.

That's because one of the most important things in the

Christian life is to have patience.

It's essential for growth because it's a process.

And there was a lot of trials and a lot of obstacles and a lot

of enemies. And you just have to keep on

keeping on. Keep walking with the Lord, keep

surrendering to Him, keep trusting Him, keep praying, keep

studying your Bible, keep going to church, keep obeying Him.

And all the things I've preached the message, I don't know, it's

probably a few years ago now, but what to do when you get into

a spiritual rut? And that wasn't the title.

I don't remember exactly what the title of the message was,

but what do you do when you get in a spiritual rut?

How do you get out of it? We've all been there before

where you just don't feel like doing anything spiritually

right? You don't feel like reading your

Bible, you don't feel like praying.

How do you get out of that rut? You just have to start doing it

right And you start reading your Bible again, God starts to speak

to you. He starts to move on your heart

and it starts to become precious again.

You, you just start praying, All right?

How do you get out of that? You just have to do it.

And sometimes when you feel like you're not growing, when you

feel like you're stuck in a rut, when you feel like nothing is

moving, I, I, I'm not growing in my Christian life.

What's wrong? Sometimes you have to just keep

doing those things. You have to have patience,

right? You have to have patience.

The next point. Letter H Christian growth

guarantees fruitfulness. Verse 8.

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. Every believer can have good

fruit and blessing in this present life if he's willing to

be diligent and seeking to grow in Christ.

Verse #9 is our next point. If the believer is not growing,

he's going backwards. And I've said this many, many,

many times, if you are not going forward, you are going

backwards. You cannot stay in the same

place. It's, it's, it's and use the

example. If you're, if you're traveling

up a river in a canoe and you stop, guess what's going to

happen? You're going backwards.

Oh man, I'm going backwards, pedal forward, right.

And then you stop again. And what happens?

You start going backward. You cannot stay in one spot

spiritually. You're either going forward for

Christ or you're going backward. And so the question then is

where are you in your in your spiritual walk?

Are you closer to God today than you ever have been?

Because if you're not, if there's been a time when you've

been closer to God, then you are going backwards and you need to

start paddling upstream again a little bit, right?

Verse 9, He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see

afar off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

All right, so a believer cannot stand still spiritually.

He can't say I'm satisfied with where I am, so I'll just stay at

this place in my Christian life. We have to keep pressing on to

higher ground or we're going to backslide.

I'm pressing on the upward way. New heights, I'm gaining every

day, right? We sing that song.

But are you really, Are you really gaining new heights every

day? Only if you're going forward on

purpose. That's the only way that's going

to happen. And again, then a letter J

backsliding makes the believer nearsighted and forgetful, and

it says that very plainly. He that lack of these things is

blind, cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was

purged from his old sins, becomes filled with the cares

and the lusts of this world so that he that he does not think

about eternity. His eyes are on man rather than

on Christ. He forgets the important things

and focuses on the unimportant things.

Backsliding is a sad and unfruitful condition.

And, and I'll tell you that's what happens with a lot of these

people who think they're going to experience that second

blessing and all the sudden life is just going to be so easy to,

to live this sinlessly perfect life.

And I can't remember. I think, I think it was actually

in this one year discipleship that Brother Cloud used an

example of a, of another Christian that, that, I mean,

it's been dead for a long time, but that we read often.

And he, and he used that exact example.

He decided, he determined that he was going to go out in the

woods and he was, he was going to get in the word and he was

going to be there until he got the second blessing.

So he goes out in the woods and he was there for three or four

days and he finally feel got what he felt like was the second

blessing. And he came back and he said,

I'm going to live this sinlessly perfect life.

And it was only a matter of a few days before he found himself

tempted and falling to sin again.

And he gave up. He says it's not worth it.

I, I got the second blessing and I'm still struggling with it,

right. And then he realized, no, it's

not the second blessing. It's a battle that I'm going to

have to face every single day of my life.

And he came to that realization before he finally quit

altogether. But that's one of the, that's

one of the difficulties and one of the one of the one of the

downsides of this, this sinless perfection theology.

You're never going to get to that sinless perfection.

You're never going to have that, that, that life where you're not

able to sin or able not to sin would be the way that they say

it, right? You're never going to get to

that point. So so many people that think

they are either are lying to themselves or they get

discouraged and they quit all together.

Letter K then Christians, Christian growth does not save,

but it does prove your salvation.

Verse #10 where for the rather brethren, give diligence to make

your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you

shall never fall. What is the election talking

about right there is that is that Calvinism.

Make sure that you're one of the elect.

No, the election that he's talking about, there's your

relationship with God. Make sure that your relationship

with God, make sure that you're calling.

Is it? Give diligence to those things,

right? Peter's challenge is the same as

Paul's challenge in Second Timothy 219, as James is in

James 217 and 18. Those who profess Christ but

don't live for him have no biblical basis to say that

they're saved. And again, we don't, we don't,

we don't, we don't do good works in order to be saved, right?

We don't do good works in order to stay saved, but we do good

works and we live for the Lord because we are saved.

And that's one way that you prove it, right?

Somebody who claims to be saved and nothing changes about their

life. Nothing is different about you

after you're saved. And you in fact, many times go

the opposite direction. And yet they still want to claim

that they're saved. That's that's not evidence of

salvation. There will be evidence of some

of some. Therefore, if any man be in

Christ, he is what a new creature finish the verse.

Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become

new, right. That's what you see as the

evidence in somebody's life who genuinely accepts Christ as

their savior. And yet most people want to say,

oh, I prayed a prayer. I don't have to change my life.

I'm under grace now. No, there ought to be something

different about you. And you ought to want to have

something different about you. The the idea and, and I've heard

it said many times, what if I told you that you could keep

living your life exactly the same way that you're living your

life and still go to heaven? Would you want that?

Well, who wouldn't, right? OK, pray this prayer.

And they pray the prayer. All right?

God promised that if you confess with your mouth Lord Jesus and

believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead,

you're saved. Go live your life however you

want to. That's not salvation.

It's not salvation. There is no change.

There is no repentance whatsoever in that.

There's no desire to live for the Lord.

That's not salvation. Those who are saved have that

desire. Christian growth doesn't save

us, but it does prove that you are saved.

And the last point there, then, underneath this introduction, is

that Christian growth does not produce salvation, it produces

rewards. Verse #11 For so an entrance

shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting

Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Peter's not saying that by growing we're going to make it

into heaven. He's saying that by growing and

serving, we're going to lay up treasures in heaven.

And same thing with first Timothy 6.

That's that's Paul's. I am not ready to be offered a

time of my departure is at hand. Therefore, henceforth there's

laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord,

the righteous judge shall give me at that day.

And not to me only, but also to them that unto them also that

love his appearing right. That's what it is.

It doesn't, I don't, I don't gain entrance into heaven

because of the way that I live, but I can certainly earn

rewards, right. I can certainly lay up treasures

in heaven because of the way that I live my life.

And so all of these things are the introduction.

If you want to go on to Part 2, you'll see exactly what I'm

talking about. I'm not going to get into Part 2

tonight at all, but Christian growth and spiritual victory,

Part 2. This is the all those things

that we're talking about as an introduction.

What is, what is spiritual growth?

Abiding in Christ, putting off the old man and putting on the

new. Confessing sin, pressing toward

the mark and devouring the Word, protecting the Word, separation

from the world, separation from false teachers, being filled

with the Spirit, establishing godly habits, keeping your eyes

on Christ, abiding in Christ. Those are all things that are

part of the victorious Christian life.

And those are all things that, as I mentioned, kind of came out

of that Kezik theology that ended up getting clouded because

these things are things that are principles in the Christian

life. But they've they've taken out a

life of their own and made people think that you can reach

this sinless perfection, or you can reach this level that's

higher than everybody else's level where you have the ability

not to sin. But we're constantly going to

face the old man. We're constantly going to face

that old nature. And our job as Christians is to

continually be growing and continually be moving forward so

that we have less and less of the giving in to the old man and

more and more of the giving in to the new man and who Christ

intended for us to be, right? But Christian growth is a

process and it requires patience and it requires diligence and

all of those other things that the Bible mentioned there in

Second Peter. So we're going to get into the

rest of those. Hopefully next week we'll see

what happens with the weather. We have every intention of doing

that next week, unless the roads are still so bad you can't get

through or the parking lot is, because that's always a

possibility, too. You know, once we get 6/12/18

inches of snow and they start running by with these plows,

they don't care about our lot and they throw it all up in here

and then it freezes and it's like, it's like trying to move

boulders and you just can't, you know?

So anyway, we'll see. We'll see.

Maybe we'll get Daniel and some of these guys out there to start

moving them. Yeah.

Andrew Jackson. Alex.

Who else? Brother Gary.

No, I'm scared. Trey.

Yeah. So.

Yeah. Paul.

Paul. So Brother Ryan.

Yeah, exactly. So we'll see.

We'll see what happens. We'll, we'll keep you up to

date. But like I said, I, I I don't

think there's any chance that we're going to have church on

Sunday. I'm not canceling it yet because

I still, I still know how wrong these people are.

And, you know, I I don't trust them at all.

And I'm proving it because we haven't canceled it yet.

But yeah, it's exactly right. I'd, I'd take it.

I would take that I saw, I mean, there's a lot of churches that

canceled on Monday and I was like, how do you know, you don't

have any idea Monday by Sunday they could be, you know, it

could be 70 and sunny around here.

But anyway, let's pray. And then what we, what we're

going to do is, is 2 things #1 the few guys that normally help

put away the baptismal, if you can do that, we're going to meet

real quick with brother Kevin up here in the front for everybody

that's on the ACT team. And just kind of go over that

incident that happened there in Minnesota.

It was not handled correctly, I don't believe, by the church

where Don Lemon and his whole group came in there.

Not that Don Lemon is going to show up here, but it doesn't

mean that somebody else couldn't trying to to show up in protest

and everything else. How do you handle that?

Those are the kind of things that we've been talking about in

some of our act meetings. And it's not a specific act

meeting necessarily, but we just want to go over a couple things

and just make sure that if we do have something like that, how do

we handle it? All right.

Our our main thing for, for us is leave the doors locked.

They ain't coming in if the doors are locked, you know, So

that's why it's important all of the everybody, OK, whether

you're on the ACT team or not, if you go out and you come back

in, make sure the doors locked behind you once the service is

started already and everything else.

One of the things that we're going to do too, and we're not

going to do it tonight, but but here fairly soon is we're going

to go over some things with everybody for what happens if we

have like an active shooter situation, you know, most of the

people that that are former members are not going to come in

shooting the place up, but we are right off the highway.

We're right off of 64. We're right off 288, we're right

off 295. This is one of the first

churches that you come to when you get off the highway.

And if they're just looking for a church, this is a target.

So what do you do when something like that happens?

Our first line of defense, we have all the cameras out there

and everything else. And so we'll see people coming

in the driveway and we leave the doors locked until we know who

it is, right? There's a there's a lot of that

stuff too that, that that is preventative.

But what happens if somebody is dead set on it and they blast a

shotgun through the glass door and get in here?

What do you do after that? Right?

You know, we don't need 25 people standing up and cross

firing and everything else. So what do you do?

That's what we're going to talk about.

All right, so be be ready for that.

That'll be coming soon. But everybody that's part of the

ACT team, if you concealed carry or if you've been through some

of the the training and been out and and done your shooting and

all that kind of stuff, then we will have a meeting down here

afterwards. Just just quickly.

All right, let's pray. And then I want to give you a

quick update on the building as well.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

Thank you for an opportunity. We have to be here tonight,

President.