Growing in the Lord
If you’ve just become a follower of Jesus, I know that you’re excited. Why shouldn’t you be? All your sins have been forgiven. You have a fresh new start—a brand new life!
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (II Corinthians 5:17 KJV)
(If you have not yet become a Jesus follower, please see message #1: The Good News.)
Naturally, you’re eager to learn more about this new life. What does it mean? How did it happen? How is this amazing love that I feel even possible? What do I do now?
Baptism
The first thing that you should do in obedience to Jesus is to be baptized. Jesus said:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
Baptism is a symbol of your spiritual rebirth. It symbolizes the washing away of your sin as well as the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Likewise, when you were born again, you died to your old selfish ways and have risen to new life in Christ, a life of self-sacrifice and obedience to God.
Baptism is also a public proclamation to others that you are now changing course to follow Jesus. It’s great to invite your family and friends to attend and share in this momentous event. Often when others see how genuine and sincere new believers are, they want to learn more and as a result, they end up becoming believers too!
Relationship, Knowledge and Truth
Now for growth, first of all, think relationship. You have entered into a relationship with the living God. As in any new relationship, your love is directly related to your knowledge of the other person. When you’re in love, you want to learn all you can about them. As you learn more, your love grows stronger and stronger.
Also, when we were born of God’s spirit, the Bible teaches that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (II Peter 1:3). In other words, since God is now always present with you as the Holy Spirit, you always have everything you need to follow His way. However, you still need to learn how to utilize what you have received.
Think of it like this: You’ve never seen or heard of a smartphone before and you’ve just been given one. You fully own it along with all of its capabilities. You’re told it has an amazing plethora of functions far beyond that of just making phone calls. You’ve also been given a fairly thick manual. You may never learn all that it can do. Indeed, once you grasp the basics and peruse some of the thousands of apps available, the possible functions seem endless. However, once you're acclimated, you will learn as you go, step-by-step.
So don’t stress, it’s not something that happens overnight. Learning to follow Jesus and utilizing all the privileges, gifts and weapons you have as a child of God will be a life-long endeavor (Wait—weapons?! Yep). Be prepared to fully dedicate yourself to the process. Theologians refer to the process as ‘sanctification’. Most of us just call it ‘growing in the Lord’ and it’s absolutely vital for your faith. If you're not growing, it’s likely you're regressing or at least stagnant. God wants you to grow in your knowledge of Him and in your relationship with Him.
Now let's look at three sources of truth for your learning. It’s absolutely vital that you stay engaged in all three of these.
The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the one source that can never be taken from you. You can have everything else taken from you and be thrown naked into a prison cell but you will still have Jesus with you. He is present in your life as the Holy Spirit because you have been born of the Spirit.
Be faithful to spend time with God daily in prayer. Pray ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ (see Matthew 6:9-13). Some also call this prayer the ‘Our Father’ and perhaps more accurately, the ‘Model Prayer’. Think of each category of the prayer and all that you can pray that would fit into that category. For instance, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What can you pray for within your sphere of influence to bring God’s kingdom to earth? Who do you know that does not yet know Jesus? Pray for them and pray for boldness to proclaim the good news to them!
Sing praises to Him. God inhabits the praises of His people. Be attentive to hear anything that His Spirit is speaking to you. Be diligent but patient and discerning. It’s not likely you’ll have a miraculous revelation each day but you will hear from Him when you’re consistent. As you grow in your faith, you will treasure each time you hear His voice, whether it's a small encouragement for the day or a word from God that alters your destiny.
Jesus said:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)
Other Believers
Since the inception of the new testament church, believers living in community with one another has been vital.
Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)
When believers are gathered together, they encourage and pray for one another. As you are faithful to gather with your brothers and sisters in Christ, you will be directed by the Spirit through their words and prayers.
Read Acts 2:42-47 for a great description of how the early Christians gathered together for fellowship. The word ‘fellowship’ in verse 42 is translated from the Greek word ‘koinonia’. Whereas ‘fellowship’ to most of us means a friendly, cordial interaction, ‘koinonia’ is much deeper. It is more about a full sharing of life. Read the whole passage and you’ll notice that they gathered, ate together with glad and sincere hearts and even shared possessions. Add to that the common bond of a relationship with God in the power of the Holy Spirit and you have a unity that heretofore has never existed on the planet! Words on a page are inadequate to describe it. It must be experienced. That opportunity is now yours!
The Word of God
Also notice that same passage begins with, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching…” We are very privileged to have the apostles’ teaching preserved in the Bible. In fact the apostles could not have imagined the mass global distribution it has now attained.
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. It comprises 66 books written by 40 or so authors over a span of about 1,500 years. Yet despite this incredible diversity and time span, it is miraculously one unified story that leads to Jesus.
Contemplate these different verses:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (II Timothy 2:15 KJV)
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. (II Timothy 3:16-17)
I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:11)
The Bible is 100% reliable as a guide and authority for following Jesus. Consider that in your personal time with God, it is entirely possible that you could be in error in discerning His voice, as could your brother or sister in a gathering. So then, anytime you hear something or are told something contrary to what the Bible teaches, it is wrong. The Bible is your guide and authority. You will not be able to recognize error unless you are well-grounded in your knowledge of scripture.
It only takes about 15 minutes per day to read the Bible in a year. Start with the Gospels, then the rest of the New Testament and then read the Old Testament.
Several messages could be written for each of these three sources of truth with supporting scriptures throughout the Bible. However, it’s much better for you to discover the endless treasures in the Word of God for yourself. There are gifted teachers within the church who will help you understand profound insights with brilliant illustrations. Listen to them! But how do you think they gain these insights? They spend time with God in diligent prayer and time meditating on the scriptures. You can do this too! Don’t miss out on the thrill of hearing directly from the living God! When it happens, don’t hold back. Speak up to share it with other believers. There will be others that will benefit from YOUR insight. Don’t deprive them.
The Iceberg
Now, let me show you an illustration that I believe can be a catalyst to accelerate your growth in the Lord. It’s helpful to be able to identify what knowledge will be most helpful to you. All of us have false beliefs (untruths). These lead to negative thoughts which lead to negative emotions. These negative emotions most always lead to selfish and destructive behaviors. These behaviors are what the Bible refers to as sin—disobedience to God.
Let's take a look:
The triangle represents an iceberg. Notice that destructive behavior (what the Bible calls sin) is at the top—‘the tip of the iceberg’ but the largest mass is out of sight underneath the surface. Many people have things in their life they know by their conscience is not right. However, they’ve been unable to change or stop. Even if you’re able to knock off the top of an iceberg, what happens? A new top eventually floats up above the surface. Notice that untruth is way down underneath. Before you will be able to change the negative behavior, you must first identify the untruth.
Now look at the left side of the iceberg. Notice that truth results in positive thoughts which produce positive emotions and result in constructive behavior. So you must replace your false belief by believing the truth before you can have success in turning from your destructive behavior to constructive behavior—obedience to God. The process of turning from one to the other is what the Bible calls repentance. We talked about an initial repentance essential to rebirth in message #1: The Good News. However, repentance is an ongoing, life-long process because we will never be perfect until we go to be with Jesus. Sometimes the process is difficult and painful but it is always good.
Jesus beautifully illustrates this principle in Matthew 5. In verse 27 He identifies the negative behavior: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’.” Then in verse 28, He zeroes in on the false belief: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
The person looking with lust must recognize that believing sex is a means for gratifying their own selfish desire for pleasure is false. They must discover the scriptural truth of what God really intended and designed sex for. Then they must be willing to repent and turn from their way to God’s way. When they do, they are set free to experience the genuine, beautiful treasure of sexual expression in the way that God designed it.
Always keep the iceberg illustration in mind. Save the image to your phone. Eventually you will become an expert at spotting false beliefs. You’ll not only recognize them in your own life but as you learn the truths of God’s Word, you’ll even start spotting false beliefs being communicated through all kinds of media. Replacing your own false beliefs with God’s truths and quickly recognizing and rejecting lies that the enemy tries to sell you, will accelerate the growth of your relationship with Jesus who is your spiritual life.
Beloved, you no longer need to fantasize with sci-fi, action or continuously climactic superhero films. You are now in the REAL epic struggle between good and evil but it’s happening in the spiritual realm. It will be an adventure—often self-sacrificial, sometimes painful and possibly even dangerous but always rich, meaningful and rewarding. As a warrior in the army of God with Jesus as our commander, rest assured that you are solidly on the side of good.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (II Corinthians 10:4-5)
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, (I Peter 3:15)
Keep in mind that the purpose of your growth is not for you alone. You will most certainly benefit in many, many ways by growing closer to God and turning from destructive false beliefs. However, God’s main goal in bringing you to spiritual maturity is to equip you for His mission, to make you a capable soldier in His army. There is a war raging all around us. You’ll learn more about that in the next message.