Intro: From Jeff Hana; the TOP TEN WAYS TO TELL IF A CHURCH IS SPIRIT-FILLED
10) You have to assign numbers to people who want to share their testimony in worship
9) As the pastor closes the sermon, the chant of “We want more! We want more!” erupts.
8) The ushers have to empty the collection plates halfway through the offering because they are too full.
7) The choir and or congregation begins to sing and can’t stop.
6) Members begin buying new Bibles because they wore out their other ones.
5) There is an influx of people asking, “Is there something I can do?”
4) New classes and small group s have to be formed because so many people want to teach
3) People offer their seats to newcomers
2) New carpet has to be installed at the altar to handle the crowd
1) The congregation douses the pastor with a cooler of water at the end of the service
These are funny and maybe a little foolish. However we as the church we are called to be spirit filled, spirit led, spirit grown.
Have you ever been told that you are to grow, to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior but never told how to grow? Well this morning we will examine Seven significant signs of spiritual growth. First you must understand as we look at this second Peter passage the call to spiritual growth is not a suggestion.
Grow – Present imperative in the Greek. This is a command for ongoing passionate pursuit of Christ. Spiritual growth is given as a lifestyle not a seminar. As you saw on the video many excuses are given for lack of spiritual growth but none are acceptable. We are commanded to grow and keep on growing. What does it mean to grow in grace and intimate knowledge of Jesus?
Romans 8.29 “For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to Him – and all along he knew who would – should become like His Son,” Living Bible
Philippians 2:12b-13 Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. 13For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. It is God at work in you to grow you spiritually. However, that does not happen sitting on your spiritual sofa eating spiritual junk food! Cooperate with the energy God has placed in you.
The command to grow is an appeal to the will. It is not in sheer willpower that we grow spiritually but in bending our will to the will of God!
I. Radical transformation of your way of thinking
Romans 12.1,2 God gives us the new birth when we are born again of the Spirit but not a new brain. Why would Paul have to warn us to not be conformed or molded by the world’s way of thinking?
You actions will never change until your attitudes change. We are called and commanded to undergo transformation through God’s presence, power and promises in our life that will find demonstrations in character and conduct. The word transformed comes from a Greek word which gave us metamorphosis. When you hear this word you should think going from a caterpillar to a butterfly. This metamorphosis begins at the new birth and continues with a new brain (a new way of thinking).
You mindset will be determined on what you set your mind on.
Why is this so important? If there is not a reformation in your way of thinking any outward change will be superficial and short lived. How does this begin.
A) Set your mind on things above – Colossians 3:1-2 (read)
RP Van Yoder tells of an article in the San Francisco newspaper
It reported that a young man who once found a $5 bill on the street resolved that from that time on he would never lift his eyes while walking. The paper went on to say that over the years he accumulated, among other things, 29,516 buttons, 54,172 pins, 12 cents a bent back, and a miserly disposition. But he also lost something—the glory of sunlight, the radiance of the stars, the smiles of friends, and the freshness of blue skies.
I’m afraid that some Christians are like that man. While you may not walk around staring at the sidewalk, you are so engrossed with the things of this life that they give little attention to spiritual and eternal values. Perhaps you’ve gotten a taste of some fleeting pleasure offered by the world and you’ve been spending all your time pursuing it. But that is dangerous. When God’s children, who are “seated with Christ in the heavenlies,” give their affection and attention to a world that is passing away, we lose the upward look. Our perspective becomes distorted, and we fail to bask in heaven’s sunlight. Taken up with the baubles of this world, we become defeated, delinquent Christians. Buttons, pins, and pennies, but no treasures laid up in heaven.
The apostle Paul said, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven” (Col. 3:1-note). To live for the things of this world is to miss life’s best.
B) Set your mind on the things of the Spirit -- Romans 8.5
“Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.”
What does that mean? How do we do it? It really means seeking, focusing, directing our attention to the things of the Spirit. It not only requires a relationship with God to pray it requires discipline. I give up other things to pray and seek God. I give up hobbies and habits and in order to study my Bible. John 6.63 “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.” Setting our minds on the promises and principles of God will lead to a revolution in our thought life.
Isaiah 1.18 “Come let us reason together let’s talk and get our minds set right.
Realize that Satan battles for our minds
1) Accept that you have the capacity to think correctly (1 Cor 2.16 mind of Christ)
2) Sift your thoughts through God’s grid – His word and will for your life (2 Cor 10.5 captive)
3) Choose to reject dark and negative thoughts that do not glorify Christ in you.
II. Ravenous hunger for the word of God (1 Peter 2.2)
“as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.”
Spiritual growth requires spiritual food. This portion of 1 Peter speaks of a reality, the reality of the new birth. As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word. If you are not a child of God you will not desire deeply the word and will of God.
It also speaks of a revising of our desires. New birth brings new mindset, outlook, character, conduct, etc. The Bible clearly tells us that if we are in Christ we are a new creature. The old things pass away behold new things come.
What should we do then? It seems to me we need to assess our appetites. What in your life right now shows a deep longing for God’s Word?
Mark Twain is quoted, “Most people are bothered by those passages in the Bible which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always notice that passage in the scripture which trouble me the most are the ones I do understand.”
Some suggestions to help with your diet of God’s word
Memorize – This is one way we fill and set our minds on things above
Meditate – Understand the promises and presence of God in your life
Make use of -- Apply the truths you have learned
When Howard Rutledge’s plane was shot down over Vietnam, he parachuted into a village and was immediately attacked, stripped naked, and imprisoned. For the next seven years he endured brutal treatment. His food was little more than a bowl of rotting soup with a glob of pig fat – skin, hair, and all. Rats the size of cats and spiders as big as fists scurried around him. He was frequently cold, alone, and tortured. He was sometimes shackled in excruciating positions and left for days in his own waste with carnivorous insects boring through his oozing sores. How did he keep his sanity?
In his book, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Rutledge gives a powerful testimony as to the importance of Scripture memory. Some excerpts follow:
“Now the sights and sounds and smells of death were all around me. My hunger for spiritual food soon outdid my hunger for a steak. Now I wanted to know about that part of me that will never die. Now I wanted to talk about God and Christ and the church. But in Heartbreak solitary confinement there was no pastor, no Sunday-school teacher, no Bible, no hymnbook, no community of believers to guide and sustain me. I had completely neglected the spiritual dimension of my life. It took prison to show me how empty life is without God, an so I had to go back in my memory to those Sunday-school days in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If I couldn’t have a Bible and hymnbook, I would try to rebuild them in my mind.
“Remember we weren’t playing games. The enemy knew that the best way to break a man’s resistance was to crush his spirit in a lonely cell. In other words, some of our POW’s after solitary confinement lay down in a fetal position and died. All this talk of Scripture and songs of worship may seem boring to some, but it was the way we conquered our enemy and overcame the power of death around us.”
How did Jesus overcome the Devil? It is written? Do you know what God has said about what you are facing? Then you are setting yourself up for defeat and stunting your spiritual growth and dependence on God. Revelation 12 .11 “They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony.” His word is our weapon against falsehood and our food for growth.
III. Readiness to accept responsibility
One of the sure signs of spiritual stagnation is the ability to makes excuses. The opposite of responsibility is making excuses. Jesus said the chief character trait of a steward is that they be found faithful. We all are given stewardship of the grace that God has given us. One fruit of the spirit is faith which means faithfulness or dependability. Are you a person that accepts the responsibility given to you as a servant of God?
Do you make excuses for immaturity? Do we make excuses for unfaithfulness, unkindness, lack of self-control, lack of compassion, disobedience, laziness, etc?
Someone once wisely said, “Bad men excuses their faults, good men abandon them.”
So if we truly take responsibility that means no excuses.
IV. Recognition of the need for repentance
Repentance is not merely acknowledging wrongdoing or promising to do better. Repentance means we turn from sin toward the sovereign of the universe. This is a redirecting of our life energies. Simply it is saying no to sin and yes to God.
Acts 26.20 Paul teaches “you should repent and turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.
There is an ongoing turning to God. Repentance is not a one-time decision it is a life time direction.
V. Relinquishing of your rights
Adrian Rogers, “If you teach people about their rights you will have a revolution, if you teach them about their responsibilities a revival.”
During a heated debate at a church’s board meeting, one of the overheated deacons rose to his feet and with clenched fists declared, “I have my rights!”
Quickly and sensitively, one of the older men replied, “You don’t mean that. If we had rights we would all be in hell.”
Jesus taught us to give up our rights. Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, forgive 70 times seven.
VI. Reaching out to others in service
Ephesians 2.10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Mark 10.35-45 (read)
A willingness to serve Him with the spiritual gifts He has given you and not just your talents. An example, of this is the apostle Paul who never claimed to be a great speaker. Yet God empowered him to become the greatest preacher, other than Jesus Christ, of all time.
A willingness to serve the Lord in His power and not your own strength. Many times you may refuse to do certain things that God is urging you to do because you don’t “feel” adequate. These are the very times God wants us to follow through because it is His adequacy through us that achieves the God-given goal.
We can do nothing without Him. Learning to abide in Him will lead us to places we would not go on our own. It will also lead to growth. (Example of coming to Carlisle)
VII. Righteous desire and passion for the presence of God
True passion for God requires an ongoing investment in things of eternal value. It also requires a true conviction and desire to know and experience God’s love above and beyond all the world has to offer. Paul wrote of the priceless value of intimate knowledge of Jesus in Philippians 3:7-8 (read)
How do I know if I’m hungering and thirsting for righteousness?
1. You will have an increasing desire to know Jesus more intimately
2. You will have a desire to obey God that overpowers you need to fulfill personal desires.
3. You will have a growing passion to for Christ, this is what drives us to worship and love Him.
4. You will grow in your loving acceptances of God’s plan for your life.
There is a false idea that godly passion is something you learn or achieve through some form of study. The truth is there is no one formula for gaining a passion for God. Why? It is something God places and cultivates in us. He places a desire to know him in all people. However we must respond to the desire.
How do we respond and cultivate this? First begin with prayer. A humble heart devoted to God in prayer is the place to begin. David was said to be a man after God’s heart. What we see in his life is a great dependence on God in prayer as evidenced in the Psalms and a wild abandon in worship.
It is through prayer we open our hearts to God. It Is also where we find Him waiting to satisfy every need we have. Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants (desires) You, O God.”
Spiritual growth begins in His presence. If your schedule is to tight, ask Him to help you find a time and place to be alone. God takes advantage of whatever time we spend with Him to grow us and teach us principles from His heart.
What do you find when you seek Him? The passion of God’s heart is to love and care for you for all eternity.
Conclusion: If you’re not growing is it possible you’re not alive? Is it possible you need to be born again?
We are given a command to keep on growing. God’s purpose for us is to be made like Jesus.
Calvin Miller in The Taste of Joy; rightly says
Christ is not a happiness capsule; he is the way to the Father. But the way to the Father is not a carnival ride in which we sit and do nothing while we are whisked through various spiritual sensations.
