Grow In Scripture Knowledge (part 1)

In your Christian life, you and I have to be willing to be taken through the process and to respond to the process, and that process happens as we are in Christ.

Scripture also teaches that we are secured in Christ.

Remember those verses four and five?

He says, you're kept by his power.

I mean you're reserved until heaven.

Can I tell you we do not keep ourselves saved?

Christ keeps us saved.

Christ keeps us saved.

Peter talks about that in chapter 2, verses 24 and 25.

In verse 24, he tells us that salvation is an eternal work.

That was performed before the foundation of the world, and it was accomplished by Christ on the cross.

Can I give you this little memory tool when you think about salvation?

Salvation is spelled D-O-N-E, not D-O-I-N-G.

Salvation is done, not doing.

It is done because Jesus on the cross said, it is finished.

He completed the work of salvation on our behalf.

And when we put our faith and trust in Him, we receive that finished work.

When we say, I've got to do something to keep myself safe, we're saying that this is doing.

I am actively contributing to my salvation.

That salvation is not yet complete.

1 Peter 2.25 reminds us that we are in the fold of God.

That we've been returned to the bishop and shepherd of our souls.

That Christ is our shepherd.

That language of Peter reminds me of what Peter would have heard from Jesus back in John chapter 10 when he says, I'm the good shepherd.

John 10 · chapter mention

And I come to seek my sheep, and I provide for my sheep, and I protect my sheep.

And my sheep hear my voice, and they know me, and I know them.

And then he goes on to say this: they are in my hand, and no one can pluck them out.

And he says, if that's not strong enough for you, not only are they in my hand, but they are in the Father's hand, and nobody can pluck them out of the Father's hand.

I and my Father are one.

That's how secure you are in Christ.

You are not holding on to Him.

He is holding on to you.

And may I say this?

Because I've heard this, I've had this conversation, and people say, well, I believe you can, I don't believe anybody could take my salvation from me, Pastor, but I believe I could forfeit my salvation.

Well, let's just back up a minute to what Jesus said.

If you can forfeit your salvation, then that means you can pry yourself out of the hands of God.

Who in this room thinks that they are so strong that they can break the grip of God on their life?

God help us for believing that fallacy of the devil.

This summer we went on a little vacation to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, and Cooper and I did some zip lining.

Melissa decided to set that activity out.

And on this zip lining tour, there were five zip lines of various lengths across the Red River Gorge.

And the longest, it was actually the longest zip line in Kentucky.

One stretch was 2,000 feet long, right?

On this little cable stretch from one side of the gorge to the other side of the gorge, and it was 300 feet from the bottom.

So certain death, right?

I can't fly, I don't float, certain death.

And so they go through all the safety protocols and they put you in the harness and all that stuff, and you get on to uh the uh the zip line, and there's little handles on it.

Anybody of y'all ever zipped line?

Our zip line had these little handles on it.

Not much.

They were like burnt nuggets, is what the guide said.

And so when I first got on, I held on to those little burnt nuggets for dear life.

But at some point I realized I was secured in the harness.

And so on the longest zip line in Kentucky, I went hands free.

And I made it to the other side because it wasn't about me holding on to the zip line.

And you know there's some Christians that need to learn that about Jesus.

It's not you holding on to Jesus that keeps you saved, it's Jesus holding on to you that's going to get you to the other side.

Scripture teaches that we are to be submitted to Christ.

Peter talks about that submission in verse 5.

Submission to Christ, I would say, is the natural descendant of faith in Christ.

That is, if you really believe in Jesus, as the Bible presents him as the only Savior, as the Lord and Savior, then you're naturally going to submit to him because you've acknowledged that he's the Lord.

He's God in the flesh.

And so submission is a natural descendant of faith.

It is one of those changes that takes place at salvation.

There's multiple things that happen when we get saved.

We get forgiven, we get justified, we get transferred, we get adopted, we get an inheritance, we get secured, we get in dwell.

Like there's a number of things that happen the very moment that you get saved that you're not realizing is happening.

And submission is one of those changes.

God changes our proud and stubborn heart to a soft, tender, and humble heart.

Think about it this way: Rebellion is the posture of sin.

And submission is the posture of salvation.

Think about body language, right?

You can read it.

I went to a uh timeshare sale one time.

Me and Melissa were trying to have a cheap vacation.

And uh and so you had to sign up for this timeshare.

And uh I wasn't a buyer, I knew I wasn't a buyer.

And so I I wasn't mean, right?

I don't go around cussing people and stuff, but I I can look pretty mean, I guess.

And so when that guy, this poor guy, was doing his best to sell me a timeshare, the entire time I kept my sunglasses on, like Paul Tuttle from Orange County Choppers, with my arms crossed and my brow furrowed, my posture was sending a message.

I won't be sold.

You know your posture to Jesus should not be like this.

It ought to be a posture of submission, shouldn't it?

Because Jesus isn't trying to make an opportunity out of you.

Jesus loves you more than anybody else in this world ever loved you.

He did more for you than anybody else ever did for you.

And he wants you to reciprocate his love.

And so when we submit ourselves to the Lord, it's actually an acknowledgement of his lordship.

And I would tell you this submission, it's the secret sauce that makes your Christian life sweet.

You say, I'm saved, but man, I don't know.

It feels like there's tension in my life.

Check your posture.

If you're in resistance to what the Lord has commanded you to do, then there's gonna be friction.

And by the way, those commands are not all easy, are they?

I mean, sometimes he commands us to do some things we don't want to do, like forgive somebody.

And if I don't submit to my Lord in that matter, I'm gonna create friction in my relationship.

But I'm telling you, when you surrender to the Lord, when you submit to the Lord, it brings a sweetness into your life that you couldn't get anywhere else.

Peter also tells us that Scripture teaches suffering for Christ.

In chapter 1, verse 7, he writes about the trial of our faith that every believer will experience.

It's a trial like as by fire.

As a matter of fact, if you go on and read chapter 4, you'll find that he elaborates a lot about suffering for Christ.

I mean, it's nearly a guarantee that if you are following Jesus, then you are going to experience some trials and tribulation.

That there will be some suffering.

Because the fact is, when we chose to follow Jesus, it put us in opposition to the devil and it put us at odds with the world, and we're going to experience resistance as we try to follow Jesus in this world.

Young people, if you try to follow Jesus, you're going to find that your culture puts up a resistance to that.

And listen, when you grow up, it's not going to go away.

Your coworkers, your peers, if you're trying to follow Jesus and they are not, you're going to experience these trials of faith.

Scripture alerts us to this fact in advance so that we're not overwhelmed when it happens.

To be honest with you, I can't hardly find a person in Scripture who followed the Lord who didn't experience suffering.

How about you?

Abraham suffered.

Joseph suffered.

Moses suffered.

Job really suffered.

Jeremiah suffered.

Paul suffered.

Peter suffered.

Suffering is part of following Christ.

And the reality is there's much growth that can only come through suffering.

There's much growth that only comes through adversity.

The expression of fire there is interesting.

It reminds me of that forging process that to harden the steel, the temperature has to be heated by fire in order to harden that blade to keep it from bending.

And you know the same thing happens for you and I.

God will allow us to go through the fire of suffering because it produces something that Peter said is much more valuable than gold.

And then, lastly, we need to know that Scripture teaches the second coming of Christ.

Peter mentioned it in verses 7 through 9.

The glory, the appearing of the Lord and Savior that we're waiting for, and we have joy and we have hope because we know that he is coming back.

You know, before Jesus left, he promised he was coming back.

In John 14, he said, Let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me.

In my father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

That's a promise from Jesus.

That's a promise that Jesus made that he is coming back.

Let me hit you with some numbers.

Did you know that the prophecies of Jesus' second coming outnumber the prophecies of his first coming by eight to one?

Did Jesus come the first time?

Then it's eight times more likely that he's coming back the second time.

As a matter of fact, a conservative estimate is that there are 1,800 references in the Bible to the second coming of Christ.

On average, in the New Testament, the second coming of Christ is mentioned every 30 verses.

And out of that, 21 times, the promise comes directly from the lips of Jesus Himself.

I'm coming back for you.

Which tells us that this is a bedrock doctrine of the Bible.

And we need to know about it.

If I'm going to have scripture knowledge, if I'm going to know what Peter was writing about, if I'm going to grow as a Christian, I need to know that Jesus is coming back.

Not because I hope so.

Not because I'm weary from this world.

Not because I have some sort of idyllic dream about a utopia called heaven, but because the Bible said Jesus is coming back.

And when I believe what the Bible says about Jesus' return, it will help me to strive to be faithful.

It will help me to persevere through the sufferings.

And it'll give me hope when I experience the heaviness of life.

No wonder Paul wrote it this way to Titus.

He said, looking for that blessed hope.

And the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But may I remind you that we wouldn't know any of this without the Bible.

Therefore, let us commit to grow in our scripture knowledge.

See, I want to grow.

I want to grow.

I want to grow spiritually.

It starts here.

Grow in your scripture knowledge so that we can be faithful followers of Christ until He returns.

And so I would just ask you, let's just use it as a checklist.

What Peter hit, his main subjects.

What do you know about salvation?

What do you know about sanctification?

What do you know about eternal security in Christ?

What do you know about submission to the Lord?

What do you know about suffering?

And what do you know about the second coming?

I'm not I'm not talking about having a quiz.

I'm not talking about giving you a test to write it down.

I'm talking about have you have you plumbed the depths of those precious truths that God has written for you?

God penned an entire book because He wants you to know Him.

And we too often don't avail ourselves to what is provided for us.

And I would close with this final statement the more you know, the more you'll grow.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you, God, for the possibility of growth.