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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/norman-crawford/spiritual-growth/
I want to read, first of all, in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1 of 2 Thessalonians, verse 3. We are bound to give thanks, to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity that is the love of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth.
Look at 2 Peter, please, chapter 3 of 2 Peter, verse 18. 2 Peter 3 and verse 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I think this kind of growth is spiritual, of course, but there are two kinds of growth in each one of these two passages, these two verses.
In the first verse that we read, there is growth in faith and growth in love. In the second verse that we read, in 2 Peter 3 and 18, there is growth in grace and growth in knowledge. In our natural growth, we only grow in the early days of our life.
I was probably taller than I am now when I was 15, and if you ask me how I can say I was taller, well, I'm shrinking a little bit. But we usually stop growing at least at 18, although Mr. Russell MacLeod tells me he was still growing when he was 24, and I can believe that.
But spiritually, we never reach a place where we should stop growing. Our spiritual growth must go on. Graduation day isn't here in this world, so we're still learning and we're still growing day by day.
I've been looking at these different kinds of growth, and this is very simple, but it's something that has spoken to my own heart. Growth in faith. Very obviously, Satan has a very special target in our faith.
I often think of the words of the Lord Jesus to Peter, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. And as you know, what just precedes that is the fact Satan hath desired to have you. I'm afraid it's still true.
Satan does desire to have you, to have me. And is it still true then that the Lord Jesus prays for us? I love to think that that's true, and I believe it is. I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.
So, faith needs to grow, and I'm going to come back to that just in a moment, but please understand that faith is never alone. There is a tremendous movement just now in the so-called evangelical world that actually makes out that faith is the power, and faith is what controls events.
It isn't faith that controls anything. It is God, and our faith is in God and in His Word. Faith by itself is no more than the hyssop that applied the blood to the doors in the land of Egypt. The hyssop could save no one.
And faith, the Lord Jesus said, is so small that if we had faith as a grain of mustard seed, we could remove mountains. It isn't great faith. It's a great God. And so, our faith needs to grow, and that's part of the reason for reading these verses tonight.
That's just the first point, but I'm actually going to develop it as we look at the other verse. Now, what you actually have in 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 3 is growth in love. That's interesting. You notice the word abound?
Groweth exceedingly is what he says about the faith. When he's speaking about the love, he says that the love of each one of you toward one another aboundeth. He's commending them. Their love abounded.
That's interesting. Because in the world, Christian science, for instance, says you love a thing because it exists. That's an indiscriminate kind of love. That's a love that has no boundaries. That's a love that doesn't have containing banks to hold it in place.
And Hinduism, maybe you know this, but Hinduism actually is in perfect agreement with Christian science that you love everything. You love a thing because it exists. So in that idea, there is neither good nor evil.
Everything is equal. Look with me just for a moment at a verse that might help us. It's Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1 and verse 9. And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more.
But I think you know that when there's a flood, a flood of water I'm talking about, a natural flood, it actually carries destruction with it because it's out of control. So this love is not a love that's out of control.
It's not a love that, like the Hindu says, that loves everything. You notice what it says. This I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge. That's true knowledge that comes from God and in all judgment, in all discernment.
That has been called the control of love by two banks, if you will, like a river. A river that rages out of its banks is only destructive, but a river that remains within its channel can be a great blessing.
So this love is like a river and this river is controlled by, first of all, knowledge and then discernment. Now I want to look at that subject of knowledge with you and that's what I've been leading up to.
There are four kinds of growth in knowledge. We read in 2 Peter 3 and 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I take it that the grace is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the knowledge is the knowledge of his person, the knowledge of him.
This is a growth that must go on through all our Christian experience. So I've divided it up into four very, very plain things that are here in these scriptures. First of all, there's growth in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
Is there any believer anywhere that doesn't long for this, to know him better, to know more about him, to learn more of him? I love his invitation, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. And as I've often said, the preposition of me also means from me.
He's the example. He is the great pattern. He is the one who manifested grace perfectly so that he was the personification of grace, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if I grow in grace, it'll be because I'm a little bit more like him, manifesting some of the grace of his person, the grace of his words, the grace of his words, the grace of his lips, the grace of his steps.
Growing in grace is also the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I would love to think that I've learned a little more of him each day of my Christian experience. You see, that statement in 1 Peter 2, where we're told that we should as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that we might grow thereby, that's a favorite verse to give to a young Christian, and it is an excellent verse, and young Christians need it.
But actually, that verse is not referring to young Christians. That verse says, as newborn babes desire milk, so you ought to desire the sincere milk of the word. We should never lose that desire. We should never lose that appetite.
We should always be seeking to learn more of the Lord Jesus. The only place we can learn of him is in the word of God, as you know. So grow in grace, and then the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, the knowledge of him, is unlike any other knowledge in all this world.
The Bible actually tells us that knowledge puffs up. So any other kind of knowledge makes people worship their own intellect. This knowledge humbles us, brings us down to our knees in his presence to learn of him.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. But not only is it growth in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus that is taught so clearly in the New Testament, we are actually told that we should grow in our knowledge of the Father.
That's the first epistle of John, chapter 2, where growth is very obviously the subject. And you have young men and you have fathers and you have babes, actually, as well. But what is the secret of growth in strength?
What I've just read about is growth in grace. But what is the secret of growing in strength for God, spiritual strength? It's to learn God. I know dear Christians who may not have a very great knowledge of theology, who maybe could not teach the great doctrines of the New Testament as well as they would like, but they know God.
They know God in a most intimate way. They know God by daily experience. They know God by trial. They know God in the tragedy, perhaps, even of their experiences. They have come to know God. There's nothing compared to that.
There's nothing else in this world that can begin to equal it, to know the Father. And therefore, you're strong, young men, because you have known Him that is from the beginning. There's a third kind of growth in knowledge in the New Testament.
It is growth in the knowledge of good and evil. You find that in Hebrews chapter 5, and there were people there that were babes. Actually, they were perpetual babes. It's a very good idea to be a perpetual babe, but they did not grow.
They did not develop. They were still babes when they should have been adults, when they should have been full grown. So their failure was that they failed to be able to discern good and evil. Their discernment failed them.
I don't think there ever has been a time when it was so necessary to be able to discern good and evil as today. In our world, there's a constant mixture, and Satan has done that. Satan has always, I was going to say he has made a profession out of mixing, mixing good and evil, mixing everything up so that nothing is distinct and clear.
No wonder our dear boys and girls growing up in the education system today sometimes come home and ask their parents, what is right? What is wrong? Because in our world, there is nothing absolutely right or absolutely wrong, but when we turn to the Word of God, we find that the Word of God will give us discernment to judge between good and evil, to accept that which is good.
That's actually what the verse in Philippians 1 and 9 and 10 is teaching, that we must discern that which is good and seek that which is good for the glory of God and our own blessing. There's a fourth kind of growth, and this really sums up all the rest.
It is growth in the knowledge of the Word of God. Now maybe you've followed me a little bit, and maybe better than I have said it, there is growth in grace, the grace of the Lord Jesus, the knowledge of Him.
There is growth in spiritual strength, that's the knowledge of the Father. There's growth in discernment, that's the knowledge of good and evil. There is the growth in truth, that is the knowledge of the Word of God.
Why do we fail to grow? Have you ever thought about this? What causes failure in growth? Can you think of the natural realm just for a moment? Think of a plant. I shouldn't even be trying to speak about plants because I certainly don't have a green sun, and usually when I try to nurse a plant, it dies on me.
But I do know the theory of it, at least. For instance, if you put a plant in temperature that is too cold for it, it's deadly. It will not survive. Dear Christians, we can't afford to get cold in the heart.
We can't afford to let our love and devotion to the Lord Jesus become cold. It's deadly. It's deadly to testimony. We need to be very careful that we keep warm in our spirit. Insufficient water, of course, although my wife always tells me that I kill plants by giving them too much, and that might well be.
But dryness, of course, is deadly to a natural plant. I would have to say that dryness in our spirits is withering, and it's very obvious when we are dried up. Insufficient food. Plants must be fed, and we as believers, if we are going to grow and continue to grow, there has to be a constant feeding on the Word of God.
I can't afford to let a day go by without the Word of God in my heart, in my life, on my lips, in my reading. That's an absolute necessity. It doesn't mean I'll be lost if I don't read the Word of God.
It does mean, however, that I'll become weak, weak spiritually, just as a plant would get weak if it doesn't have nourishment. What about living care? What about neglect? Plants will die for lack of care.
Thank God for the care that believers have for one another, for young Christians, for older believers who have passed that time in life when they can be as active as they would like. I talked to Mr. McLeod today, the dear man, it's difficult when a person comes to that place in life where they feel that they're no longer of any use.
We need to have tender sympathy and care for them. The old need it, the young need it. I feel very badly in this, to comfort those who need the comfort of the Word of God. And then there are weeds that choke the natural growth.
Are there weeds that choke spiritual growth? There's nothing more difficult for a plant than to have more competition than it can outgrow. In our lives, as believers, there are competing fleshly appetites that would take away our appetite for the Word of God.
There's time spent in what we call fun and pleasure when really we are neglecting God's Word and prayer. We need to be so careful. If we are going to continue to grow, there are spiritual diseases that hinder growth, and we need to be so careful that we don't allow those spiritual diseases to actually hinder us.
They are given to us in four different ways in the New Testament. There is slowness of heart. That's a disease, isn't it? I got a bit of a shock about three weeks ago in the hospital when they told me what my heart rate was, about half of what it should have been.
That isn't very encouraging to have a slow heart. Our brother Smith has a pacer to make his heart run at the right rate. What about spiritual slowness of heart? Slow to respond to the Word of God, slow to respond to the love of the Lord Jesus, slow to respond to the wonders of Calvary.
May God help us that we might not have slowness of heart, because certainly slowness of heart will cause us to falter in our growth. There is, of course, the great problem of failing ears. That's a problem, spiritually.
Who turn away their ears from the truth, and they are turned on to fables. That's the language, of course, of 2 Timothy 4. So our ears must be open. Be not silent to me, Lord. That verse often comes to my mind.
Be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent unto me, I become like those who go down into the pit. We must hear God's voice. And then, of course, there is feeble sight. Cannot see afar off. One thing I notice about dear believers, they look far beyond the present.
And the greater the tragedy of the present, the greater the sight of the future. If you look in the history of Israel, you'll discover that in the times of their darkest experiences, the great promises of the prophets were the greatest.
So that it was really out of the tears of Israel that the hope of the coming Savior was so bright and clear. That's still true. We look beyond the present, beyond the circumstances of time. We need to be able to see afar off.
And then finally, 2 Peter 1, I've been quoting from 2 Peter, I didn't tell you this, but in 2 Peter 1, verse 9, you have forgetful minds. Hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. So faltering hearts, failing ears, feeble sight, and forgetful minds are diseases that hinder spiritual growth.
Let me leave you with the verse, I maybe didn't explain it very well, but grow in grace. I read that verse for many years as if that was a statement in itself, grow in grace. And then grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Actually, if you look at it very carefully, you'll discover that the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is the total statement. It is the grace of Christ. It is the knowledge of that blessed person that causes us to grow.