Praying to Grow in Grace - Geoff Thomas

"But grow in the grace and knowledge

of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be glory both now and forever.

Amen."

2 Peter 3:18

Now, one of the great
goals of this conference

is expressed by Peter in these words,

that we grow in the grace and knowledge

of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Many benefits come from conference -

the renewal of friendships,

moments of inspiration from speakers,

and meeting someone special perhaps,

but unless we grow

from our time here -

grow in graciousness,

grow in our knowledge of the Savior,

then there will be major failure

in our gathering together.

Some of you know Don Whitney's

helpful little book: "Praying the Bible."

And we gather to pray this Scripture.

Lord, help me to grow in graciousness.

Lord, help me to grow in knowledge

of the Savior.

And who needs to pray that?

Well, the baby Christians here -

they need to pray it.

And then, the man who is the most holy

and most mature

and has followed the Lord for many years -

he needs to still pray this prayer.

So what are we asking

when we are asking that we may grow

in grace and in the knowledge

of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Well, firstly, we are asking for genuine,

progressive concern for
the needs of others.

The second commandment,

after to love God with all our hearts

is to love our neighbor as ourselves.

And that's the impact that we are to make

on one another.

A real concern for other people.

How is it with you?

Do we know where

the members of the congregation are?

Do we know where there are doubts?

Do we know where people
are close to giving up?

Do we know where the troubles

and the problems are?

And you'll say, well, the elders know.

Well, perhaps they do.

But perhaps with some people,

you know more.

I'm not talking about inquisitive prying

into the lives of other people,

but I'm speaking about a concern for them.

Do they have some fear?
Do they have some worry?

How can I help them?

So, that's going to be
our lives from now on.

We're going to be corns of wheat

that fall into the ground and die,

or we'll abide alone.

We're going to be concerned

that there be fruit in the lives of others

and fruit in our own lives.

The Savior, then, He didn't come

to be served,

but He came to serve.

So He calls us also

that we're better servants of one another;

more concerned;

more aware of the needs.

How is it with you?
How is it at meal times?

Do you look to see if everyone's
got what they want?

And you're concerned about them?

You just don't look at the
food in front of you?

The nicer seats - are you anxious

to help other people?

When you drive a car,

do you let other people cut in?

When there are family choices,

do you ask your wife:

what do you want to do?

Do you ask children

what their concerns are?

It's a very sad life

if it's just centered on you.

An egotistical life.

And so growing in grace,

growing in graciousness then

shows itself in a progressive concern

for the needs of others.

That's the first thing
that we're praying for.

And the second thing we are praying for

is that we are growing in knowledge

of the gospel, of the Christian faith,

and growing especially

in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A literal, mental grasp with our minds

of the teaching of Holy Scripture.

It may seem to you very elementary

and very basic.

But the first thing that
a believer puts on

is the girdle of truth.

And the first thing that he must attend to

in terms of spiritual knowledge

and spiritual growth is familiarity

with the truth;

with the teaching of Scripture;

with the system of Christian doctrine.

It's all very well for us to speak

of the perils of a dead orthodoxy,

and I guess it's a real peril.

There are people and their concern

is not interest in the great
foundational doctrines,

but they're interested in
the conundrum of theology.

And let's avoid that.

And there are other people

and they're only
interested in the doctrines

that have given rise to controversies

amongst Christians.

Doctrines that men fight about.

Doctrines that men disagree with.

Let's mortify that spirit too.

But we are bound as Christians

to make conscience of growing

in our grasp of Genesis, Exodus,

Leviticus, Numbers, and so on

to Revelation.

And to that life of Adam, and Noah,

and Abraham, and the Patriarchs,

and Moses,

and the deliverance from Egypt,

and then the time of the entry

and Joshua and Judges,

and Samuel,

and the rise of Saul,

and the rise of David,

and Solomon - the great division

that took place under him,

and then the destruction

of the Northern kingdom of Israel,

and then the temporary
Babylonian captivity

of Judah and their return,

and the coming of Christ

as promised.

So, we ought to know those things.

And know the letters.

And so when the Jehovah's Witness

comes to your house,

then you say,
"Do you know the Bible?"

"Yes."
"Well, what..." you say to him,

"What is the main theme

of the letter to the Romans?"

And that's a good question to ask him

because he won't know.

He'll know his stuff,

but he won't know a question
as important as that.

"Well, Ephesians is shorter," you say,

"six chapters - tell me,

what is the main teaching of Ephesians?"

And then he'll get a bit frustrated

and angry with you.

"Well now, come back and let me know."

Because you're driving him to the Word.

Aren't you? To read the Word.

And that is the only
chance of him changing.

And so I'm saying to you

we have to soak ourselves

in the Word;

marinate ourselves in the Word of God,

because if we're going to ask then

a Jehovah's Witness to tell us

what the main theme of Romans is,

we better know it ourselves.

We better know it ourselves.

So, we ought to know
about the Person of Christ.

His deity, His humanity,

His incarnation,

His states as pre-existent,

humiliated, exalted;

His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King.

We ought to know the great doctrines

of God's sovereignty,

of justification by grace through faith,

of adoption,

of union with Christ,

of sanctification.

These teachings are not
simply for theologians,

but they are the stuff
of believing meditation.

They are the stuff of doxology.

The great hymns are about those themes.

And if we're to be growing Christians,

we are to be growing intellectually.

We are to be growing theologically.

We are to grow in our grasp of it,

and we are to grow

in the emotional impact that they make

upon our lives.

That the Word of God lives in us.

Because the Psalms begin by a man -

his delight was in the law of the Lord,

and in that law,

he meditated day and night.

Thirdly, if we are praying this prayer

that we might grow in graciousness,

in grace, we are praying that we might

progress in conscientiousness.

That is, in responsiveness

and obedience to our own consciences.

Because God has placed that monitor

in our minds,

and it reproves us when we do wrong,

and it encourages us when we do right.

How is it with your
conscience and you tonight?

How are things between you

and that monitor, that voice of God?

You know, there are many consciences,

and in Thomas Boston's words,

they are too persnickety.

They condemn what God's
Word doesn't condemn.

We must educate that conscience.

Does the Bible condemn blood transfusions,

for example?

And there are other consciences

and they let anything pass.

They let pass what God's Word condemns.

They are less sensitive
than they should be.

They are much too broad,

much too open.

So, we must always bring our conscience

under the light of the Word of God.

You know the Puritan illustration then

of the sundial.

And the sundial will work

if it's at the right angle

and in regards to the light of the sun.

But on a bright moonlight night,

you can go out to your garden,

and you can look at a sundial.

And there will be a shadow -

a moon shadow.

And it will give you the
totally wrong reading,

because it's not a moondial,

it's a sundial.

And so there is the conscience

of the cannibal.

And there the conscience

of the abortionist.

And they are not living in accord

with what the Word of God

who created the conscience gives to us.

Now, let's supposed that you have

an enlightened conscience.

Let's suppose that you have the full light

of God's Word on your conscience then.

Are you carefully obeying it

when you are emotionally disinclined?

When you're lying on the floor

in despondency and sulking

and unhappy because your worst fears

have been realized?

When you're in the depth of depression

and self-pity,

and there's a duty that
you have to attend to -

it's a duty, it's very unpleasant;

it's very demanding.

Do you do what your conscience tells you

that you should do?

Do you have the maturity
to stand on your emotions

and reject them in the face

of their reluctance and aversion

to attend what God commands us?

There's no greater peril
in the Christian life

than to make our emotions the touchstone

of our duties.

And time and again, we
have to pick ourselves up

off the floor of discouragement and say,

I have a duty,

and I know this is right,

and I'm going to do it.

Or again, let me ask you,

are you conscientious about small things?

Because there most of all

Christians are tested.

We don't have huge sacrifices to make,

but every day, there are

many little duties that you
know have to be done.

And we have to pay careful attention

to matters of detail,

because our Lord, He commends people

who are faithful in little things.

And so often we are losing the battle

in little things.

It might seem to you

not a big issue to be in prayer meeting

on a Wednesday night there.

It might not seem a big issue

to be in Sunday nights at church.

It's a small thing.

It might seem just a little thing

to ignore writing a letter to someone

to say thanks for your kindness to me.

Certain things.

But we must make conscience then

if we are going to grow in graciousness

our conscience - we respect it.

Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

And then fourthly, we must

make progress in victory
over besetting sins.

And that's a great reality
in the Christian life.

There's just some sin that you know

it's a problem for you, isn't it?

And you know you're not going to grow

unless you deal with that particular sin.

It's perfectly possible to be normal

in every part of the Christian life

in your emotions and your affections

and will and so on.

Everything seems to be in order

except at one point.

You're in the grip of one temptation.

You are dominated by one lust.

You are entangled in the meshes

of one particular sin.

And you see it in the world around you.

It's called monomania.

One man - in 99 out of
100 areas of his life

he's straight down the line.

But there's one area of his life

where he's walked,

and he's grasped by one sin.

And when you say,

well, it may be a mysterious thing

that I'm not growing as I should be

as a Christian.

Is it so mysterious?

Is the reason why I'm not growing

as I should be because my spiritual life

is diseased in one area.

Unless it's dealt with,

it's going to - just like a bug,

a virus is just in one part of you

and it affects the rest of you.

You're weak and listless and so on.

You must deal with that besetting sin.

Worldliness, prayerlessness,

irritability, impatience,

aggressiveness, what have you...

So, those are four,

and then one more point

in which when we are praying for

growing in grace,

we are praying that we should grow

in evangelistic earnestness.

Now, you know, when you
first knew the Lord,

you see it in the young convert -

it's lovely to see - how bold he is.

You tremble at times

because he'll blurt out things

that you might have
said rather more sweetly.

But he just sees the world's need

and he sees Christ as a great Savior.

And he speaks a word

in and out of season.

And the mature amongst us, we smile

and we may sneer even,

because much of it was immature.

The witness was unwise and indiscreet

and ineffectual.

But that does not justify that fact

that many Christians as they grow older,

they grow more reticent and quieter

and share their faith less and less.

The vision of the world's
lostness just disappears.

And that's a maturity that our churches

need to do without.

It's expected sometimes -

it's only the young people

who go out on missions and work

and go to Mexico for a week and so on.

And they haven't the equipment;

they haven't the wisdom.

They're great helpers, but
they're not great leaders.

So, as we've been coming now,

we've been Christians many years.

How is it with you

and your evangelistic concern?

Are you prepared to get involved

in every true evangelistic cause?

Are you prepared to support it

and pray and give and cooperate?

I know there's a lot of
misplaced evangelism.

I can give statistics for
evangelistic failure,

and you know all that.

And that won't help us at all.

We must stand back

from simply criticizing.

And we have to be involved in every form

of biblical evangelism.

We have to do that.

And it's a sad thing for any Christian

if that vision is gone.

So, I'm saying, those
are the sorts of things

we are praying for when we hear

the exhortation - the
last words of Peter -

but grow in grace;

grow in graciousness.

And we're talking about making

progress in being
concerned for other people.

And growing in our knowledge of the Bible

and what the Bible teaches.

And growing in conscientiousness.

And growing in victory
over besetting sins.

And growing in evangelistic earnestness.

And then, very briefly, as a postscript.

How is this to be achieved?

How are we as Christians going to grow?

And the first answer is

that it must be a priority in our lives.

These are Peter's last words, aren't they?

Think of the life he lived.

He preached at Pentecost

and 3,000 were converted.

Do you think he would sort of float along

in the glow of that for
the rest of his life?

But he doesn't. He's here and there,

and he's going to Cornelius' household,

and he's traveling and he's
speaking everywhere.

And his last words to people are:

grow now; grow in the grace

and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the greatest thing in our lives.

There's nothing more important for us.

What's more important than this?

In the midst of all the other engagements

and preoccupations and concerns,

a Christian's relationship with God

controls his life.

It's what his life is built around.

And his greatest longing is to be more fit

for the Master's use.

This one thing I do - one thing,

the apostle says,

a single eye Jesus speaks about.

I look at my own life and I wonder

as the years have gone by,

have I changed that scale of values

and my sense of priorities?

I know it's easy to react against

extreme religionism.

A person just talks about religion

and isn't interested in anything else.

That's unbiblical too,

because in the Bible,

they talk about all
that's in God's creation.

But there's a far greater peril

than that sort of extreme.

And that's a reduction

of religious aspiration;

of religious vision;

of a relegation of my
relationship to Christ

to not be the first thing

and the greatest thing in my life.

And at times I think it's happened to me.

And it's happened to other people.

That things that should be primary

have become secondary in my priorities.

And I think as I look at my old church,

and at evangelicalism as I meet it,

I see slackness and sloppiness

coming into so many areas of church life.

For to me, to live is Christ.

That's what he says, isn't it?

If our chief end in life is not that,

we are facing the most appalling

and unhappy futures.

And then secondly,

it must be a priority -

secondly, our religious lives

are not going to take care of themselves.

We can't simply expect our soul

to nourish and fend for itself;

to provide for itself.

You have to see for it.

I have all the weight of
an apostle's command

to say you have to grow.

You have to make sure you are growing,

and that applies to every form of life.

We're concerned for our plants.

We give our key to our neighbor

and we say I'm going to Florida now

for two weeks, can you feed the plants?

When I'm away, we're concerned

about the bushes and the flowers.

We're concerned about our animals -

how they'll be fed.

And our minds

and our intellects -

what stuff we are feeding our minds with.

They won't look after themselves.

And so our souls -

our souls won't look after themselves.

We have to feed our souls,

as a program of provision for them.

Peter speaks in the 17th verse

about being led away

with the error of the wicked,

and we all know people
who've been led away

because they didn't look after

their own souls.

There are people -

and Paul tells Timothy about them -

they have a form of godliness.

And they go to church and so on.

But it's just a form.

It's formalistic.

That's it.

There's nothing under it.

Nothing beneath it at all.

So, let's be so careful about this.

You know, not to prove

I'm not a Puritan.

Not to prove to people

that I'm not narrow-minded;

that I believe in Christian liberty

and the freedom of conscience.

To show people I know about politics

and I can speak about all these things.

I wonder if some of the energy

that we pour into that,

can be poured into

my relationship with Jesus Christ.

And that I'm growing.

I'm growing in the knowledge of Him.

My Savior.

And that I'm feeding my soul.

So, how do we do this?

Well, it must be a priority in our lives.

And then, we must be aware

that we've got a duty to feed our souls;

that they won't look after themselves.

And then Peter tells us
in this 14th verse:

"To make every effort

to be diligent..." he says.

Be diligent.

And in what direction?

Well, you've got to seek
food for your souls.

You've got to get away to a conference.

Travel a long distance to be here.

Drive 15 hours.

Drive through the night.

Drive just to be here.

And search for things
that can nourish you

and build up your knowledge

and your graciousness;

that you don't want to be unfruitful

and static,

but there's a dynamism,

and a maturing,

and a beauty, and a fragrance,

and a loveliness about your life.

You're seeking for truths
that will do that.

That will produce love,

and joy, and peace,

and longsuffering, and gentleness,

and goodness, and faithfulness,

and meekness, and self-control.

You've got to fall in love with the Bible.

You've got to search it.

You've got to ransack it.

You've got to sit under the
best ministry you can

on a Sunday.

You've got to read the best books.

You've got to sit and listen

to older Christians as they talk together

and they reminisce about how God

has dealt with them over the years,

and learn from them

the mysterious influence

that one Christian can have over another.

You seek good fellowship

with other Christians.

And you hunger for truth -

you want the Word of God to come

not in word only,

but power and the Holy Spirit

and much assurance.

Fall with love.

Meditating upon Scripture.

Praying Scripture.

So, you read a verse like this:

"But grow in the grace and knowledge

of our Lord and Savior..."

And you say, "Lord, me too.

I want to grow.

I want to grow.

This week, I've got a special time here;

special privileges.

Help me to grow

in the grace and knowledge of my Savior

Jesus Christ."

Because your souls
won't grow without food.

And there's no food for the soul

like the Word of God.

There's no place to be better

than before the face of Jesus Christ.

You need that.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father,

we've heard these searching exhortations,

and so now we just roll
them out before Thee,

and oh, we wish we were much stronger,

and maturer, and wiser, and more loving,

and more patient, and gentle,

and longsuffering.

Oh, we wish there was more purity

and love for what is good and holy.

Oh Lord, give us a nudge.

Give us a little push -

a big push as we go.

Speak to us.

Humble us.

Encourage us in the
Christian life this week.

That as a result of being
in the conference,

we'll grow in the grace

and knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ

to whom be glory forever and ever,

Amen.