God's Word and Spiritual Growth

i want to read a short passage of scripture from 2 timothy chapter three this morning beginning at verse 14 second timothy chapter three and verse 14. paul writing to his son in the gospel says this let me preface it just one moment the verses ahead of that he talks about false doctrine he talks about people coming into the church that and into the church at that time that were deceitful and that had caused divisions and different things in that church and he said evil men and seducers are going to wax worse and worse all these things are going to happen then he turns to timothy and he says this but continue thou in other words timothy here's what i want you to do continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom you have heard them and that from a child that you've known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise into salvation through faith which is in christ jesus all scripture is given by inspiration of god it 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

the lessons this month so far we focused on spiritual growth our first lesson we focused on the importance of teaching and why we take time to learn the word of god and study how important it is to be taught and to hear the word of god last week we discussed being conformed into the image of god as it's revealed in jesus christ how we living and live our lives to become more and more like jesus and so today's lesson i want to examine how the word of god helps us to do just that how it is essential to spiritual growth how the word is essential to this conforming process of becoming like jesus indeed it is impossible to grow spiritually without the word of god we've got to have this this is our roadmap this is our instruction manual if you will this is how we know what is right and what is wrong in serving our lord god now here's the thing and i just want to hit on this at the start it is possible to develop a relationship with god that is based solely on experience you can have times of prayer and times in the spirit when god touches your life but we always must remember that it is the word that gives us the complete revelation of god and his purposes we believe you have to have both jesus said the father wants those who worship in spirit but also in truth and when we get away from truth and we just try to follow spirit the problem is sometimes wrong spirits wrong attitudes wrong ideas get mixed in with that and we can end up way off in left field so we have to be careful that we follow what the word of god has to say perhaps the greatest reason many have been led into false doctrine is they they focus strictly on that spiritual experience rather than what the word of god has to say so it is important that we hear the word of god i heard a very disturbing report some years ago i was listening to the radio on the way to work and they were talking about at that time katrina and the things that had happened and the terrible things that happened in new orleans and how many people were dispersed and different things that had happened there and the news report chronicled in this particular segment chronicled the displacement and relocation of many people who had practiced voodoo in the new orleans area and what really caught my attention was this the report said that many who were involved in this practice you would probably see attend a baptist or a pentecostal type churches in other words they were people who were in tuned with spiritual things but because they weren't really following the word of god they let other spirits come in there and i think we need to be very careful they enjoyed a religious experience but they were living according to carnal and even anti-christian principles now i know that's a very extreme example we could go to others the bible talks about a lot of false prophets that could actually prophesy and the spirit of the lord would move on on them but then they would also prophesy falsely and so we have to be careful the holy ghost is a wonderful life-changing experience but without the word to mature us and to govern us and to keep us we can easily become misguided and let us stray so we've got to have the word i chose this course this portion this passage of text today paul is instructing timothy concerning the importance of the word and i want to take just a little while here at the opening to to go through this passage a little bit and kind of dissect what he had to say the first thing he said but continue thou timothy in the things which you have learned the encouragement to timothy was to continue in the word continue in the things that he had learned the truth that he had learned that word translated continue has several different shades of meaning and i think they're all pertinent to the discussion today and the first one is this and very simply when you think of continuing in something it is to remain in something it is important that we remain in the truth that is revealed in the word of god don't look for another doctrine don't look to another religion don't see what you can add to it or that you can take from it in fact the bible is very emphatic that you don't do that but stay true to what the word has to say don't lose leave truth that you have learned for something else stay here in other words stay in the word of god paul wrote to philippians in 3 16 and he said it this way he said nevertheless where unto you have already attained in other words where you are in god what you have already got a hold of in his word he said walk by the same rule in other words don't change it don't go looking for something else if you've already attained and god has brought you to this point through his word and through his spirit keep walking in it remain in it don't walk out on apostolic truth continue in what you have changed attained the world is seeking for truth they look at all different kinds of ways and and when you find it don't trade it for a lie don't trade it for something else solomon in his wisdom said it this way buy the truth and sell it not remain in it don't get rid of it but there's another little nuance here in this word that you find in the original language not only should we remain in truth but another meaning of that word is literally to abide in truth in other words live in truth we've got to live in this truth and this truth must live in us amen living in truth is a lot different than knowing truth it's not the same thing you could know a lot of things and not live in those things you know i've told this testimony before but for the sake of you that i haven't heard it or haven't been here my dad was introduced to pentecost in a tent revival back in the early 30s and revival was set up across close to where they lived and he said i want to go to it well once he got there he decided he didn't want to go to it now my grandma did she got the holy ghost and she lived for god the rest of her life my dad just really didn't want to do that however he knew what the truth was and he would go to conferences he would go to camp meetings he'd say we're going out and hear the word of god tonight and he'd go out and oh they got the big boys coming in he wanted to go hear this preacher and he wanted to hear that one and he would listen to them and he would tell people and i'd heard him say you ought to go to that pentecostal church down there they got so they've got what you need but he never lived for god and would say dad you want to go no i don't do that i'm not going to serve god god real mad brother-in-law talking what why why do you know and just very upset i can remember seeing him in church he'd go on a sunday night and conviction would grip his heart and he'd get so aggravated that soon as they stood up and he'd walk out and go sit in the car until we got done with with prayer time but he still came back he knew the truth but he didn't abide in the truth and it wasn't until his mid to late 70s he finally decided to make things right and i was able to baptize him in jesus name god filled him with the holy ghost amen hang around truth long enough it'll do that to you amen if you don't know the word of god why don't you live in it today you can start today and let that word of god live in you another meaning the last one we'll look at today that word means to of continue means to be held or to be kept not only abide in it not only live in it but let the word hold you let the word keep you you see sometimes we have to hold on to the truth ourselves sometimes you just got to grip on what got to get a grip on what the word of god has to say but i'm thankful other times the word will hold you we have to hold on to truth under temptation when the enemy comes when things come upon us when things come into our life that tempt us you better get into the word of god you better look at it salma said it this way in 11 he said thy word have i hid in my heart that i might not sin against thee so what he was saying is when i'm tempted and when sin approaches and things happen and opportunities come that i know aren't right the word of god is what i turned to he said and i've hid it in my heart he said i hold on to the word that i don't sin that's holding on to the word when tempted but when we go through dark trials and other things in our life and i'm not talking about temptations of sin i'm talking about other things that come against us sometimes we just need the word to hold us the same psalmist in 119 and 50 said this

this is my comfort in my affliction so when i'm going through these troubles and trials and things like that that that afflict me he said thy word hath quickened me that word quickened literally means to make alive and the new king james version says for your word has given me life sometimes you got to hold the word and sometimes aren't you thankful the word just holds you aren't you thankful it's there when you're going through things and you say i don't know what else to do and the word of god just comes to you and it's there is the comfort and the strength when trials have flicked us it's the word that will bring life to our situation i'm talking about god's word and spiritual growth today how it can help us abide in the word keep the word and the word will keep you paul goes on and talks to timothy and again in our text in verse 14 he said you continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of now i'm not going to go a whole lot into the learned part of it that's kind of what we talked about of why we need teaching but he said here's this you have been assured of it that word means to make firm or to be firmly persuaded hopefully in bible class you're going to learn the word i hope that's what we do in here that's our intention but more importantly i hope you become fully persuaded that this is truth and i hope you become fully persuaded to walk in the things that we learn speaking of abraham paul wrote this he said he staggered not at the promise of god through unbelief now he heard the word god gave him promises and said here's what i'm going to do for you abraham but it took a firm commitment it took being firmly persuaded it says this of abraham he was strong in faith giving glory to god and being fully persuaded that what god had promised he was also able to perform abraham heard the promises from god he was persuaded of it he was strong in his faith and he said you know what god is going to see me through and he walked in those promises we need to be fully persuaded in this word of god maybe this will help somebody let me just this isn't in my notes but there's something that god has just quickened to my mind i don't think i ever really doubted the word of god but i think there were times in my life when i questioned is this what there is is it everything and so i made a commitment back when i was about 19 years old to read through the bible and many of you have done that i know and some of you do it regularly on a yearly basis there's programs you can do but but i read through it and the one thing that really stuck out to me was that as i read through the bible particularly old testament i would run across scriptures and i started highlighting him where it made promises of what was going to happen and i looked in it and i got all the way through and i looked at peter and he said this we have a sure word of prophecy and i thought that's it i could look at the word of god and look at the old testament and look at all the promises that were made that pointed toward jesus and all the things that were said in the old testament and you could see them hundreds and even thousands of years laters being fulfilled in the word of god and it struck me something i already knew but this is truth there's no other book that will do that for you that you can go into and know that this is a sure word of prophecy get in the word stagger not at the promises of god verse 15 talks about timothy from a child knowing the holy scriptures that lesson could go back with our first one where we talked about christian education and the importance of it how it's important that we learn and that we teach and we do those things verse 16 paul goes on and says this all scripture is given by inspiration of god it's profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness perhaps another lesson will work look at why the word of god is truth and we'll go and talk about the inspiration of the word of god and i'm sure at some point we will cover that but this lesson is focusing on god's word and impacting spiritual growth so to that end let's look at the second half of this verse and paul lists four ways that the word will profit us now we may not always think it's profitable but it is and we'll get to that as we go through it first he said the word is profitable for doctrine now the word doctrine simply means from teaching your teaching the word doctrine word is good it is profitable in for teaching our first lesson a couple weeks ago we learned about the importance of teaching and i said it then our textbook in this class has been and always will be first on foremost the word of god the bible our teaching must always reflect the principles of scripture because that's what it's there for for us to be taught we could get up we could teach a self-help program we could talk about current events we could discuss others opinion we could stutter study other books but the thing that will profit us most is a study of the scripture nothing else we could read nothing else we can say will help us more in our spiritual quest than looking into the word of god so if we're going to teach we're going to teach the word right if we're going to grow it must be through sound doctrine through sound teaching and that comes from the word of god and then the second thing that paul said is profitable is probably the thing that we don't like this one in the next one but he said it is profitable for reproof the greek word there implies conviction it implies when the word of god goes forth and it touches something in our heart that we don't really we're not comfortable with when it touches us and says you need to change and you need this different in your life and you need to let this happen the writer of hebrews in 4 12 said it this way the word of god and he likens it to a sword he said it is quick and it is powerful and it is sharper than any two-edged sword it will pierce even to the dividing of sunder of soul and spirit of joints and mar marrow it is the discerner of the thoughts and the intense of the heart you ever have the word do that you were thinking one thing in the word of god really said well really here's what's going on you're trying to you're trying to justify a wrong action or you're trying to do this and you know you shouldn't be living this way or that happen the word in other words it will touch us where we live it will cut through every facade it will expose hypocrisy it will convict us of sin it will pierce through every wicked thought and every misguided intention and yet here's the important thing we must and we need to let the word do its work we're not going to make it without the word no it's not comfortable when the word touches our vulnerabilities when it gets down in there and and touches us in that hidden place that we don't want anyone else to know but we know it is profitable us to feel that reproof from the word of god you know it is better to let the word convict us now than to face this word in judgment at the end of the age because the bible says we will be judged by the word of god well i'd rather let that happen right now in another verse of scripture paul wrote it this way he the bible says it this way it says fall on the rock and be broken or the rock will fall on you and you'll be crushed what are you saying there is let the word impact you now yeah sometimes it'll break some things in our lives and tear some things up and reorder it and we don't like it it's not comfortable but one of these days if we don't let the word do it it's going to come down on us in judgment bible tells us that so it is profitable for re proof the third thing he says it is also profitable for correction so to convict or to reprove and not provide a remedy would force us to live with condemnation if all we did was say you know what bless god this is sin and you better straighten it out and we just left it at that and let the word cut to the heart of what's going on in the sin you know we go out of here feeling pretty miserable wouldn't we i'm thankful there is a remedy i'm thankful there is an answer and we don't have to live in condemnation the same word that will cut to the heart of our sin is the same word that will provide correction i'm thankful when man sinned god didn't say okay you've sinned you've lost curse you you didn't do what i told you to do and turn around that would be reproof and turn around and walk away but instead he said wait a minute i've got a plan to correct that i've got a messiah i've got a savior who's going to come and give his life to cover your sins amen and so i'm thankful we don't have to live in condemnation jesus said this god sent not his son in the world to condemn the world but that we might be saved so yes there is a reproof there is a conviction when the word of god goes forth but it doesn't stop there it said but here's the remedy you can be forgiven that sin can be wiped away you can go down in baptism in jesus name and the bible says you bury the old man with his sinful deeds and you come up a new creature in christ jesus now every journey every time we go there will always be some course corrections that we have to make in this journey called life especially so all of us will make mistakes all of us will fail all of us make things that happen in our lives but the word will not only point out those mistakes but they will correct them and put us back on the right path aren't you thankful for the word of god amen that can be help us to grow spiritually by reproving us and then correcting what is wrong but then he goes on to say it is also profitable for instruction in righteousness maybe you've not done anything wrong necessarily but you need to know what to do that is right it's our guidebook it will show us how to live it will teach us how to be christ-like it will teach us how to love god and not only love god but to love our neighbor it will instruct us in right living it will help us draw closer to god once again the psalmist helps us here

in psalm 119 105. he said thy word it's a lamp unto my feet and it is a light that is unto my path and we'll talk about that path here in a little bit but as a child must be taught and reproved and corrected that's okay but then you also have to give instruction and you have to lead and guide and say here's the right way here's how we walk here's how we live so must the born-again christian we've got to go on living and following the word of god so that we can grow in grace and in the word and knowledge of our lord and savior jesus christ then paul gives the reason for his admonishment in to timothy and he says this that the man of god that's you timothy that's you and i here that we may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works now we understand that word perfect in our language that means there's no anything right everything is exactly as it should be and then we look at ourselves and say well i'm not perfect just forgiven right but the word doesn't necessarily mean that here it literally means in this context in this particular word that word perfect means fitted for a purpose that the word of god might be that you that the man of god might be perfect furnished and all good in other words that he may be fitted for the purpose that god has called us for that's what the word of god will help us do it will help us find our place in the body of christ we talked about in that in the first lesson how the bible says we are all fitly framed together god has placed us in his body where he wants us well he's saying the same thing here this word of god will help you find your place in the body of christ in the church where god wants us to be it will help you to be fitted for that purpose and then he will furnish or he will build or he will he will build around you with through his word that's that spiritual growth build you up into the things that you need to be in living for god the word of god is given so we can fit into god's plan for our lives and that we can grow in him now i want to give some prerequisites for walking in truth and i want to be careful here but i want to be biblical there are three things that we must do to walk in truth first off and we hinted at it earlier jesus said father seeks those that worship in spirit and in truth so the spirit is necessary to walk in truth the holy ghost the holy spirit however you want to call the spirit of jesus christ living in our hearts is necessary to walk in truth now i know that might seem harsh but the bible makes it very clear that we really can't walk in truth apart from the spirit it is very possible to know the letter of the word you can memorize it you can study it years ago in a church i attended years ago a man walked in one night on a wednesday night he had a white robe on and he stood up and he said he was the apostle paul and he began to quote scripture and he went on and on until we finally had to say okay let's let's do things decently in order and and we'll move on he knew more scripture than i ever knew but there was something missing there first off i don't believe he was the apostle paul the bible doesn't talk about talks about elijah coming back in revelation preaching in the street never mentions paul but you see it takes that spirit to bring the word alive it's not enough just to know it all up here you got to have the spirit leading you that's why paul wrote to the corinthians he said at this in corinthians 2 and 9 through 14 as it is written your eye hath not seen your ear hasn't heard neither has it entered into the heart of man now he's talking here about earthly men the things which god hath prepared for them that love him but god reveals it to him through god hath revealed them unto us by his spirit so when the spirit of god comes into your life and then you look at the word of god suddenly things that you've maybe memorized or heard all your life suddenly begin to make a whole lot more sense because the spirit begins to lead you and it said god hath revealed them to us because the spirit searches all things yea the deep things of god he said for what man knows the things of a man save the spirit of the man that is in him that's true i can't know what any of you are thinking right now some of you may be thinking about lunch some of you may be thinking you know this ends here in a few minutes and i can hear something else i don't know what you're thinking you can be smiling shaking your head yes and be thinking about something completely different it's just what we deal with right no man knows even so he goes on to say the things of god knows no man but the spirit of god so you really can't know the things of god in the fullness now you can know some things but to really know what the scripture is saying you need that spirit in your life and so paul goes on and said now we have received not the spirit of the world but we have received the spirit of god and here's why that we might know the things that are freely given to us by god so if you really want to know get in the word but get full of the spirit jesus said concerning the holy ghost he said how about how be it he when the spirit of truth is come here's what he's going to do he's going to guide you into all truth now that does not mean you're going to get the spirit and it's going to lead you off this direction he's going to guide you into this truth and help you understand how to live for him to be sure just because you receive the spirit doesn't just all of a sudden make you a fountain of truth i know everything about i know what is true no you've got to prayfully study the word of god and let god open your understanding we're talking about god's word and spiritual growth if you want to be what god wants you to be get full of his spirit and get into his word that's the

first requirement the second thing is we have to be a people of christian character now i'm not talking about works and try to earn your way in but here's what i am saying not only we must speak the truth but we've got to start living by the principles of the word of god it's never enough to just know truth you've got to live it out in shoe leather jesus said this in matthew 7 24 he said these therefore whosoever hears the things i'm saying and you do them i'll liken them into a wise man. james took up this same theme in james 1 22. he said but be doers of the word and not just a hearer and here's what he said happens because if you're just a hearer and you're not doing the word he said you're deceiving your own self i'm okay i know the word of god am i living the word of god so we have to develop that christian character let it work and the spirit will help us do that right gifts of the spirit that not to get the fruit of the spirit the love and the joy and the peace and long suffering and gentleness meekness kind all those things we develop because the spirit is working us and we're walking in his word and then the third thing you've got to love this truth love it let it consume you because i believe to the same degree we love truth we're going to hate falsehood paul said it this way abhor well that's a bad word isn't it that's just to hate it with everything you got abhor that which is evil now he's not saying a poor people he's saying sin he's saying things that are wrong abhor that which is evil but then he says cleave hold on to the things that are good even more to the point he speaks of a danger of not loving the truth to the thessalonians he said they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved and because they didn't love the truth it said god god sent them a delusion to believe a lie pugnant word say that if you don't believe those who don't believe he goes on to say they are damned and the those that do believe the truth will be saved so the prerequisite to letting us get into the word be born again get full of the holy ghost do the word live it out and then love it with everything you have when we walk in truth read that verse earlier from psalm 119 105 thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path we need to learn to walk in the truth of the word of god you know this thing is a road map but it's a different kind of road map a lot of times we look at life and we want to know where am i going to be in 5 years 10 years 20 years where am i going to be at the end of my life lay it out for me god let me know from day one to the last day so that when i go through life i know exactly where i'm headed and god says i don't do it that way i'm gonna reveal it to you today and the next step is the next step that's why he said thy word is a lamp unto my feet and the light into my path pastor brad preached a couple weeks ago and brought some flashlights in here telling us how much he liked flashlights the brighter the better you know why we like bright ones because you can see the end of the road you know what we get a lot of times with the word of god it's a little pin light and you're walking through the woods and it says it's a light to my feet i can see the next step but i really can't see what's three feet off in the dark and i don't always like that i'm not comfortable with that i want the floodlight that you can see the whole area and god said no that's not the way my word works but you know what it will do it will keep us every step of the way but you got to get in it every step of the way that's why we encourage read it every day find some time take time out we're talking about god's word and growing in the spirit you're walking this is a spiritual walk it's not a sprint to the finish line hurry up first one there wins no he that endures to the end the bible says the same shall be saved and you've got to do it with that just a little bit of light that i see but i get it and he will guide your steps he will guide them every day and here's the important thing it is a lamp and delight into my path but this is a spiritual walk and here's the important thing you never stand still we can never stop we have to keep going forward we often use the word backsliding and we talk about well that's when you just walk away from god really when you just quit going forward you're backsliding when you take one step back in other words if tomorrow i'm not just a little further than where i was yesterday i'm really backsliding so this walk with god is a progression and it's not about who's the farthest ahead it's about who's still moving the right direction because we're all going to come in here and we're going to be at different levels and there's going to be some that are way almost to the finish line there's going to be some of us that are just starting off and you're still in the starting blocks just keep going the right way and the word of god will help us to do that and so we have to walk in the word of god

we have to walk in truth in fact john wrote it this way in third john he said i have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth so that's the first thing you have to do you have to work walk in truth the second thing is not only walk in truth but you've got to walk in love this isn't just about me it isn't just about saying i'm living for god and i'm giving and i really don't care about anything else because john said this whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of god perfected and hereby this is how we know that we are in him he said there's a direct correlation there between me living in the word and walking after god and me loving someone else there again he uses that word perfect he said the love of god is perfect here it's a different word it means completeness god's love is made complete in those that keep his word james even goes a bit further in describing what it means he said don't be hearers only or doers but be doers of the word and not here's only that verse that we read earlier he said and if you were a doer of the work you're blessed in your deed we can read the word and listen to the word preach we can memorize it if we don't obey it it's a known effect but if we do it we will also love others to talk of loving everyone as god loves means nothing if we don't live it out you've got to live it out and then the third thing is you must walk in obedience i believe there's a progression there we begin walking in truth ultimately that's what repentance entails so when we turn around and say i'm no longer going to work after my own walk after my own ways i'm going to seek god's ways and we're going to turn and head towards him that's what repentance is and as we follow him we express our love for him by loving those around us john said it this way if you say i love god and you hate your brother you're a liar that loves not his brother who you can see look around you if you don't love them he asked the question how can you love god whom you can't see and this command we have from him that he who loves god loves his brother so we walk in love and finally as we grow in that grace we realize the true love of god must be balanced with a love of righteousness i think this is important there are those who think of god only as love and they fail to comprehend he is also a god who will judge unrighteousness paul contrasts god's love and his righteousness in 11 romans 11 22. he said behold therefore there is a goodness of god and we like to talk about that but he also said there's a severity this is kind of like what we talked about earlier in the rock that you must fall upon he said upon them which fell there was a severity but unto you there is goodness if you continue in his goodness continue to walk in obedience in other words he said otherwise you will be cut off walking in obedience means obeying god's commandments so we we like to say well we need to love one another yes we do that is important we need to walk in love but then john says it this way here's what love is that we walk after his commandments that's a second john 1 6. so what is love yes it's loving one another but how did we have to walk after his commandment walk in it jesus said plainly in john 14 and 15 if you love me keep my commandments keep my commandments obeying the word of god obeying the commandments of god goes hand in hand with loving god by this john said in 5 20 or 5 and 2 by this we know that we love the children of god when we love god and keep his commandments for this is the love of god keeping those commandments so we walk in truth we walk in obedience we walk in love and we follow after him said a couple weeks ago doesn't do us any good if we don't just apply it to our lives just to know the word of god so i want to give us a little bit of application today first off get into the word i encourage you i admonish you get into the word if you're going to follow after the word you've got to know what the word of god has to say the familiar charge in timothy 2 2 timothy 2 15 was this study to show thyself approved unto god be a workman that needs not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth first peter 3 15 but sanctify the lord god in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks of the reason to hope that is within you in other words get in the word paul in colossians 3 16 let the word of christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom get in the word of god and then the verse we read earlier psalm 119 11 says that thy word have i hid in my heart if we will saturate our lives with the word of god it will direct our path get in the word you don't have a bible come see us we'll give you one it's okay right pastor brett i knew it would be we'll give you one we want everyone to have this word find time to study it we've even got some helps where you can read it through in a year yeah it's it's almost into january that's okay start then and go to into next january it doesn't matter just get in the word of god so that's the first thing the second thing is

we need to grow up i haven't heard that in a long time maybe some of you had i probably was 25 30 years old before i realized that you know there's some people never grow up but we need to grow up in jesus right but speaking the truth paul writes in ephesians 4 15 speaking the truth in love we may grow up into him in all things which is the head even christ yes we ask god to forgive our sins turn around change our mind but the important thing is to keep walking and to keep growing to keep letting god work in our lives and as we mature here's how we know when we're mature and you know when a child is wrong and when he's young and when a christian is immature we're constantly asking well is this okay can i do this can i not do that is it all right if we go here what about that is it is this right or is this a sin should i be able to do this at some point as you get into the word of god and as we mature we will look at bible principles and we'll say you know what there may not be a rule here but i'm just not comfortable doing that because the word of god is convicting me and we begin to apply those principles to our life that is growing up then christianity is no longer a list of do's and don'ts and thou shouts and thou shalt not but it's loving god and falling after him and finally keep the word of god there are great promises to those who grow in the word book of revelation lists several churches in the church of philadelphia the last one that has lis listed the church that was the only one that had no nothing against them he said i know your works and i have set before thee an open door and here's why for thou has little strength but you've kept my word and you have not denied my name then he goes on to say a little bit later down there he said because you have kept the word of my patience i will also keep you from the hour of temptation keep the word of god ultimately that is the end game of spiritual growth allow the word to grow us into the image of jesus christ until the day we see him get in the word and let it grow you

i'll close with the passage we read last week talking about the image of god first john 1 or 3 three behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of god therefore the world doesn't know us because it knew him not beloved now are we the sons of god and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and every man that hath this hope in himself purifyeth himself even as he is pure how do we purify ourselves by walking in the light and in the power of this word amen aren't you thankful for it amen

let's stand just lift a hand and give god thanks for his word lord we're so thankful lord for the word of god and what it can do in a life hallelujah what it means to walk in the truth hallelujah to follow after you help us god to take it not just as another lesson but something we will take to heart god and apply it in our lives in jesus name thank you lord thank you lord hallelujah hallelujah thank you lord we're going to take a break for a few minutes as others join us and looking forward to what god is