Have you ever wondered how a person grows spiritually? What is it that must take place if they are to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ? Find out in this teaching.
Teaching Notes:
How To Grow Spiritually
1 Peter 2:1-3
Intro:
1. God’s purpose for every Christian is that they would grow spiritually. All of us should be continually growing as believers. God wants us to advance and make progress in our Christian lives. If we stop growing, we will start backsliding; if we stop advancing, we will start retreating.
2 Peter 3:18: “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 4:15-16: “but speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ.”
Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born of many brethren.”
2. It is God Himself who Causes the Growth.
Colossians 2:18-19: “…and not holding fast to the head, from which the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
1 Corinthians 3:6-7: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.”
3. If God has purposed for me to grow spiritually, and if He is the One who actually causes the growth, is there anything I can do to promote my spiritual growth? Yes! A thousand times Yes! That’s what this study is all about. My desire for each one of you is for you to GROW in Christ! I desire to see you progressing in the knowledge of God, advancing in holiness, in love for Christ and one another, in humility, in self-denial, in powerful ministry, in deep repentance, in greater faith, in faithful service! If you will listen carefully, and apply what you hear practically, you can see much greater spiritual growth in your own life. Peter gives us 3 basic principles to obey if we would grow spiritually.
1. Feed On The Word Of God:
A. Therefore: consider what comes afterwards all the way to LONG as in parentheses. Read that way, Peter is saying, “Therefore, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.” What is the “therefore” there for? This “word” gives us new life (1:23). It endures forever (25). It will never fail. Therefore, long for it, because the same Word that gives life and will never fail, will also cause you to grow in this new life! If it is so powerful that it can produce life, it can be trusted to increase life!
B. Long: word means “(earnestly) desire, (greatly) long (after), lust; crave. It’s a strong word.
C. Like Newborn Babies: this is how we are to long for the word – like a baby craves milk. A newborn is occupied with 2 basic things: sleeping and eating. If he’s not sleeping he’s eating, or he cries until someone feeds him. It appears that he lives for milk. He’s got to have it, and will scream until he gets it. He acts as if his life depends on it, and it does! This is instinctive to them. They must have milk continually. And milk alone is enough – they don’t need anything else. Peter is telling us the same should be true in our lives. We should long for the Word and feel we must have it. There should be a spiritual instinct within us that tells us that we must hear God’s Voice. We must understand that the health of our spiritual life depends on it. And we should be restless and miserable when we are not in the Word!
Jeremiah 15:16: “Thy words were found and I ate them, and Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.”
Job 23:12: “I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.”
Does this describe you? “Long for the word” is a command from God Himself.
D. Pure milk: pure means “unadulterated; uncontaminated; unmixed.” Sometimes mothers put sugar into milk bottles, but this results in impure milk. We are to long for God’s Word – pure and uncontaminated with the world’s philosophies and ideologies. God’s word is pure from human deceit and error. It’s all we need. Don’t long for novels, TV, messages in movies or music. They are all contaminated with error.
2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
Principles:
1. A Hungry Christian is a Healthy Christian: a baby without an appetite is sick – something is wrong! If we have no appetite for the Word, either we are very sick or we are dead. How keen is your appetite? This is a reflection of your spiritual health. If you have little or no appetite for the Word, either you have not been born again or you are very sick spiritually.
2. The Word Is Not an End in Itself: why are we to long for it? Not to amass greater knowledge for the sake of greater knowledge. Not just to know the Bible. Rather it is so we will grow in respect to salvation. We can’t just decide we will grow spiritually today. But we can decide we will feed on God’s Word today. We don’t cause our own growth – God does. But we do make the decision to feed on the Word, by which God will cause our growth. I have written in the front of my Bible: “A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t!”
3. Commit Yourself to a Regular, Disciplined Intake of God’s Word: regular = daily. Disciplined = when you feel like it and when you don’t. How? By gathering with the saints on Sundays and Wednesdays to hear the Word expounded. By spending time in the Word on your own each day to hear from God. To listen to sermons on radio, Ipod, or TV.
2. Forsake That Which Is Displeasing To God:
A. Putting aside: what are we to do with sin? Put aside. This verb is used of “stripping away garments.” Acts 7:58 – “laid aside their robes.” If you were to look in the mirror and see stains all over your clothes, you wouldn’t then go out in public dressed like that. You would strip off those clothes, and put clean ones on. You would be embarrassed to be seen looking like that. We too need to strip off the sins in our lives.
B. All: how much malice, deceit and slander are we to forsake? All! There is no room for exceptions. I’ll deal with this area of malice or slander, but not with this area. No! We must be ruthless when dealing with sin. Must not be like Saul who spared Agag. God commanded him to utterly destroy all the enemy. Rom.8:13.
C. Therefore: there is another possible reason Peter begins with “Therefore.” Because you are to fervently love the brethren from the heart, you must put aside all these sins which are incompatible with love for the brethren.
Malice: ill-will toward the brethren; an eagerness to injure your neighbor.
Guile: it originally meant “a bait for fish.” It came to mean “any cunning device for deceiving.” Deceit, craftiness, trickery. Guile speaks of someone who deceives and hurts for personal gain.
Hypocrisy: someone who pretends to be something they are not. An actor. We are called to “unhypocritical love” (1:22).
Envy: this is the spirit that wants what others have and despises them for having it.
Slander: backbiting, evil-speakings. It is usually done when the other person is not present.
Principles:
1. Sin Will Destroy Your Appetite for God’s Word: if you are feeding on sin, you won’t have a desire to feed on God’s Word. “Either the Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.” Sometimes children have no appetite for dinner, because they’ve been eating candy bars all day. Unrepentant sin is a major hindrance to spiritual growth. James 1:21. The only soil God’s Word grows in is the heart of humility, purged from the weeds of sin. They must be plucked up and thrown out to make place for the Word.
2. Unforsaken Sin Will Keep You From Growing Spiritually: if you really want to grow spiritually, you will have to deal with sin in your life. There is no way around it. Sin has to go, or your growth will be stifled.
3. Focus On The Goodness Of God:
A. If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord: this is a quote from Psalm 34:8. Our taste is given as an incentive to come back for more. There are 2 reasons people eat: 1) because their body grows weak and sickly without it, and will eventually die. It needs food to survive. 2) Because food tastes good. It is pleasant and enjoyable. All who have been born again have tasted that the Lord is kind. There is not a child of God in the universe who has not tasted the kindness of the Lord. He saw our great need – our sin, guilt, wretchedness, cut off from God, dead in sin. He had compassion on us. Eph.2:4. Took pity on us. He met our need. He sent His Son to die for us, bear our punishment of sin, set us free from the condemnation and guilt we had incurred. Titus 3:4-5. His love is so sweet and good – we want to experience more of it. It’s kind of like Lay’s Potatoe Chips – no one can eat just one. What we have tasted of the Lord should whet our appetites for more.
B. If: this is an invitation to self-examination. If there is no longing in our hearts for God’s Word, it may be that we have never really tasted (experienced) the Lord’s kindness. Maybe we’ve heard of it, read of it, seen it in others, but never tasted it for ourselves. If we have tasted it, we would long for more.
Principles:
1) All the Experience of God’s Kindness Motivate You To Come Back for More! Have you experienced His kindness in saving you, teaching you, providing for you, ministering to you, healing you? Wasn’t it good? Then come back for more! The only way to come back for more is to come back through His Word. How do we experience more and more of God’s kindness? Through His Word. If we want to grow, allow God’s goodness to be the incentive to long for more of the Word, to get more of God!
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