{"id":1277,"date":"2020-09-13T21:02:11","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T20:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2020-09-13T21:02:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T20:02:12","slug":"growing-up-into-christ-2-peter-13-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1277","title":{"rendered":"Growing Up Into Christ 2 Peter 1:3-9"},"content":{"rendered":"

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Even over many years that dreaded question sticks in our memories from childhood, and still makes us cringe. Asked by some elderly relative, we would give some polite answer about engine drivers or air hostesses, while inside we were fuming because we knew we already were grown up!
\nThere is this myth that there is a time in life which all youngsters long for, at which children turn overnight into “grown-ups” and thereafter are treated by everybody else as adults. In fact, the whole idea of being “grown up” is really rather misleading and suspect. It carries the dangerous implication that there could come a time in our experience when we stop growing, when we don’t need to grow any more because we’ve “arrived” already and we can’t grow any further. Even when we stop growing taller in our late teens many of us continue growing around the waistline, whether we like it or not! But hopefully we all keep growing as people too, maturing in our understanding and our personalities as long as we live.
\nThey say you’re never too old to learn. Schools today talk about \u201cthe continuing learning journey\u201d and \u201clifelong learning.\u201d The success of the Open University and the popularity of Evening Classes and University of the Third Age show that many people want and are able to keep on learning throughout their lives. Many take up new hobbies and develop new skills later in life. My dad first started playing golf when he retired, and kept playing for 25 years! At a dinner party one day a young graduate asked her white-haired neighbour what his job was. \u201cI devote myself to the study of physics.\u201d \u201cYou mean you are still a student at your age?\u201d she said scornfully. \u201cI finished my degree a year ago!\u201d The woman was duly embarrassed when she discovered that the man\u2019s name was Albert Einstein.
\nSurely we will want to keep on growing and developing as people throughout our lives. It was Cardinal Newman who said “Growth is the only evidence of life”. This is true in our Christian life too. We can sometimes be content to stand still in our faith. We can sometimes become too comfortable, and feel that we have already arrived where God wants us to be. But surely there is always more about God to discover, more riches in the Bible to explore, more depths in prayer to enjoy. Maturity of Christian character does not develop overnight either. Our minds can keep on developing, and so too can our characters. Patience, endurance, thankfulness and cheerfulness are just a few of the qualities in which we can keep on growing, and most of us need to. None of us ever achieve the perfection Christ sets us as an example, in love and humility and obedience. We will never \u201carrive\u201d! There are so many ways in which we all need to keep on growing.
\nWhen Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reported asked him: \u201cYou are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practise six hours a day?\u201d And Mr. Casals answered, \u201cBecause I think I\u2019m making progress.\u201d Our aim as Christians should be to keep on making progress every day of our lives.
\nThis morning let me introduce you to a idea for to help us grow as Christians, which I call \u201cTHE NEXT STEP\u201d.
\nLet me say at the start that THE NEXT STEP is not about what you can do for God, but what God will do for you. This is not about extra responsibilities to burden you with \u2013 but rather extra opportunities for God to bless you! THE NEXT STEP is not so much a challenge as an invitation! An invitation to move on with Christ, to grow in your discipleship as we were thinking about last Sunday.
\nWe are all different. We have different gifts, different needs. We are all at different stages in the Christian life. So how do you want to grow in your Christian life in the days ahead? What is the right next step for you? The right next step will be different for each one of us. I can think of at least SEVEN areas, any one of which might be the area where you might be wanting to grow as a Christian.<\/p>\n

1 GROWING IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
\n?\tDo you want to know God better?
\n?\tDo you wish your prayer and worship could be more real?<\/p>\n

God certainly wants us to get to know Him better and better and love him more and more.
\nWe saw in Ephesians 1: 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
\nKnowing God better!
\nKnowing more of the hope to which He has called us
\nKnowing and experiencing more of the riches of his glorious inheritance
\nKnowing and experiencing more of his incomparably great power for us who believe!
\nTHE NEXT STEP is designed to help you know God better.<\/p>\n

2 GROWING IN OUR KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
\n?\tDo you want to understand the Bible better?
\n?\tAre you searching for answers to deep questions?<\/p>\n

In his lifetime Jesus was a Rabbi, a teacher. His followers were called disciples, which means learners. Disciples are learners. This is why the first Christians devoted themselves to learning from the apostles as they taught about Jesus. Growth is an essential part of life as individual Christians and as a Church. To grow in our faith we all need to keep on learning.
\nThe Early Church devoted itself to the Apostles’ teaching and that comes to us in the words of the New Testament. So as Christians more than anything else we need to learn from Scripture. We need to learn about God and His love for us and his grace towards us. We need to learn from Jesus the Son of God as He revealed God to us by His words and His actions. We need to learn about the Holy Spirit of God, the Helper, God living inside us.
\nThen the Bible also reveals to us the things that are pleasing to God . So we need to learn how to serve God and become more like Him in love and Holiness. There is so much we can learn \u2013 a lifetime of learning !!!
\nThe NEXT STEP is designed to help you grow in your understanding<\/p>\n

3 GROWING IN OUR WITNESS AND SERVICE
\n?\tAre you looking for a new way to serve God in the church or in the community?
\n?\tDo you long to share your faith more effectively with others?<\/p>\n

The more mature we are in our faith, the more useful we can be in serving God and the more our Christian witness should have an impact on the lives of people around us.
\nTHE NEXT STEP is designed to help you witness and to serve God more effectively.<\/p>\n

4 GROWING IN THE IMAGE OF CHRIST
\n?\tAre there aspects of Christian character you wish you could grow in?<\/p>\n

Colossians 1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might
\nAS OUR BIBLE READING SAID
\n2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
\nThere is a question which Africa Inland Mission ask folk who are applying to work with them as missionaries. \u201cOver the last year, in what ways have you become more like Christ? More holy? More loving?\u201d A challenging question!
\nTHE NEXT STEP is designed to help you become more like Christ.<\/p>\n

5 GROWING BY DEEPER FELLOWSHIP
\n?\tDo you wish you had closer Christian friendships?<\/p>\n

Growing close to God implies growing closer to each other.
\n\u201cWe must grow up in every way to Christ, who is the head. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.\u201d (Ephesians 4:15-16)
\nThis isn\u2019t about more meetings! It\u2019s about deeper friendships!! We need those friendships at a human level \u2013 for our social and emotional wellbeing. And we need those friendships to help us grow as Christians!
\nThere are so many things which we need to learn as Christians but where being taught is only the beginning. Like prayer for instance. Or witnessing. Or holy living. Or trusting God. Or loving each other. Or leading worship or preaching or teaching in Family Church. The first disciples learned these kinds of things from Jesus. But they didn\u2019t just learn them from Jesus’s public sermons, or even from their private countless discussions. A Rabbi’s disciples learned by being with their Teacher, by watching the example of his life as much as by listening to his words. So according to Mark 3:14 the apostles were 12 men chosen by Jesus first and foremost “to be with him”. “To be with him” and to learn from his example. We need more of that kind of discipleship in church life. Learning from older and more mature Christians, our elders in the faith, learning the things that are “better caught than taught”. We need to be discipled! We need Christian friends to not only to support us and encourage us but also to teach us and to inspire us by their example.
\nTHE NEXT STEP is designed to help us become better friends!<\/p>\n

6 GROWING IN VICTORY
\n?\tDo you just wish you had more strength to live your day to day life?
\n?\tDo you long for more joy, peace or victory in your Christian life?<\/p>\n

2 Thess 1:3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. 4 Therefore, among God\u2019s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
\nTHE NEXT STEP is designed to help us experience greater victory in our Christian lives!<\/p>\n

7 GROWING IN PASSION
\nThere is a difference between being a believer and being an enthusiast!
\nWe need PASSION! What kinds of things are YOU passionate about? At times I’ve been passionate about playing sport. I’ve been passionate about science. I’ve been passionate about playing music. I’ve been passionate about computers. I still am passionate about my wonderful family. But what can we do to make sure that above all these important and precious and worthwhile things and people, God is our greatest passion? I quoted this thought to you last week. “If one-tenth of what you Christians believe is true, you ought to be ten times as excited as you are.”
\nNever be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. (Rom 12:11)
\nLast week I also quoted some words of my favourite devotional author AWTozer. “There seems to be a chilling fear of holy enthusiasm among the people of God. We try to tell how happy we are\u2014but we remain so well-controlled that there are very few waves of glory experienced in our midst.”
\nLet me quote some more bits from Tozer’s book THE PURSUIT OF GOD which is a powerful antidote if we are lacking spiritual appetite, if we have become complacent in our walk with God.
\n“The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.”
\n“I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. “Do you want to see God’s glory. Do you want to hunger for him again. Pray that God will awaken your hunger for him.\u201d
\nTHE NEXT STEP is designed to help us to become more passionate for God \u2013 to make us enthusiasts!
\nGrowing in our relationship with God
\nGrowing in knowledge and understanding
\nGrowing in witness and service
\nGrowing in the image of Christ
\nGrowing by deeper fellowship
\nGrowing in victory
\nGrowing in passion
\nANY OF THESE might be an area where you might want to grow in your Christian life!
\nIn an episode of the Peanuts cartoon strip, Snoopy was sitting droopy-eyed at the entrance of his kennel. He sighed deeply. “Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. There’s such little hope for advancement.” In the Christian life there is ALWAYS hope for advancement!
\nPhil 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, 14 I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
\nLet me say again – THE NEXT STEP is not about what you can do for God, but what God will do for you. This is not about extra responsibilities to burden you \u2013 but extra opportunities for God to bless you! THE NEXT STEP is not meant to be a challenge. It is an invitation!
\nThat next step will be different for each one of us! But WHAT IS THE RIGHT NEXT STEP FOR YOU as a goal to aim at in the weeks and months ahead?
\nOver the next couple of weeks we will be unwrapping different ways in which we can move on with God. Next week I will share with you, \u201cTen Ways God Wants to Bless You.\u201d But you can begin from today of course, by setting aside time to spend with God in prayer and reading your Bible, maybe every day. By reading one of the devotional books which I will send out by email and post on Facebook. By getting together and praying with a Christian friend, even if you can only do that on Zoom or on the phone. And last week we started posting videos of our Sunday evening sermons in the North Springfield Baptist Church Facebook Group. If you can\u2019t make evening Zoom Church now you can catch up on what we talked about there! And all the videos from our Morning of Prayer are also on Facebook if you missed that or want to watch them again.
\nThere is a monument high in the Alps built in honor of a faithful guide who perished while ascending a peak to rescue a stranded tourist. Inscribed on that memorial stone are three words: HE DIED CLIMBING. Right up to the end of life Christians should have the same kind of attitude. We have never arrived. We are still climbing.
\n\u201cA journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven aspects of Growing Up Into Christ
\nGrowing in our relationship with God
\nGrowing in knowledge and understanding
\nGrowing in witness and service
\nGrowing in the image of Christ
\nGrowing by deeper fellowship
\nGrowing in victory
\nGrowing in passion
\nAre you ready and willing to take THE NEXT STEP God has planned for you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Even over many years that dreaded question sticks in our memories from childhood, and…<\/span><\/p>\n

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