One day we looked at the doctrine of progressive sanctification. That is, just how do we grow? What does the Bible say? What is the doctrine of growth and change, biblically speaking? Tonight, for about the next 30 minutes, we're gonna take that doctrine and we're gonna apply it. So we're gonna move it from thinking abstractly to hopefully trying to think concretely about the process of biblical change. How would you go about actually using what we talked about on Sunday? So two primary passages are gonna be 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, and Ephesians 4, 22 through 24. We're not going to start out there immediately, but that's kind of where we'll park it for the process. A few things I think that has to be just good reminders for us when we're thinking about growing and changing. Number one, when we think about the position for change, The position for change. Really what we're asking when we talk about that or what we're saying when we talk about that is there's really only one kind of person who can grow and change biblically, and that is an individual who is in Christ. There is no growth and change, biblically speaking, for unbelievers, for someone who's unregenerate, for someone who is outside of Christ. It's 2 Corinthians 5. This will be a passage you know well. It's a verse that's quoted often. 2 Corinthians 5. In verse 17, Paul says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature or a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. So it's only when an individual has become a new creation in Christ that they even possess the capacity to grow in sanctification, to grow in biblical change. Because really what we're going to be looking at, we spent I think close to six months of last year in Galatians 5, looking at the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit and what it means to walk in the Spirit and to walk in the flesh and so forth and so on. If you are not a new creation in Christ, then you are in the flesh, period. There is no capacity for growth. You can rearrange the flesh, but that's not growth that is pleasing to God. That's not really growth, period. So position for change is those who have been made new in Christ. Secondly, the power to change, the power to change is that comes through and really only through the Holy Spirit. The power, whenever I'm meaning that, I'm talking about the ability, but also the motivation. Change is hard. Not only is it hard to change, but it's hard to get motivated to change. There are some things that you know about you tonight that you know have needed to change for a long time, and the reason they haven't is because of the motivation, lack of motivation. It's the Spirit of God that has the power. Let me say it this way, just to make sure we're clear. Only the Spirit of God has the power to convict the heart and motivate a sinner to change. Now, the Spirit uses the word. The Spirit can use an individual who's ministering that word. But we mentioned this last, we mentioned this on Sunday. I don't care how skillful you are with the word. Jesus Christ himself ministered the word to people and it fell flat. And he wasn't unsuccessful in that. But the point of it was is that if even Christ could minister the word and it have really no effect, we're not going to be able to do anything with it unless the Spirit's working on the other end. So, John 16, 7-8, Jesus tells His disciples He's going to send the Comforter and He will reprove the world of sin. That is, He will convict the world of sin. Or, Ephesians 3, 14-16, where Paul says, "'For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.'" You see Paul's prayer? His prayer is that you would be strengthened with my, how? By His Spirit in the inner man. It's the Holy Spirit of God that brings conviction. It's the Holy Spirit of God that gives spiritual strength or strength to you in your inner man. And Galatians 5.16 makes it clear that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So we must walk in the power of the spirit, but we cannot manufacture the power of the spirit. OK, the power has to be there. Or we're helpless. We don't have the ability. So the power to change is through the spirit of God. Now the goal of change, and this is where we'll begin to start getting to. more of a practical understanding here. We have to know these other things. But the goal of change, why would you change? Why would you go through the hassle? Why can't people just get over it if they don't like something about you? Why would we ever decide to change? Well, in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 9, you've heard me quote this a lot. Paul makes the statement that he makes it his aim to please Christ. I make it my aim to please Him, is what Paul says. Why would we go through the hassle of changing? Well, Paul also says, in First Corinthians that whether we eat or whether we drink, we should do all to the glory of God. Whose glory were we created for? God's glory. Whose pleasure were we created for? Well, God's pleasure. So why would we go through the hassle? What is the goal of growth and change? Well, ultimately, the goal is that we would please Him, that our lives would bring Him glory. How would we do something like that? How do you grow in such a way that is pleasing God, bringing God glory? Well, 2 Peter 3, this is a good highlight verse as far as how are we supposed to think about this. 2 Peter 3. In verse 18, Peter says, But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. How would we live a life pleasing to God? Well, we mentioned this last week. I'm sorry, on Sunday. The command here, the imperative here in 2 Peter 3, verse 18 starts out this way, but grow in grace. God expects us to be growing. Growth is not a preference. It's not in God's economy. It's not optional from the standpoint of what does God want me to do? God wants you to be growing in grace. How do we do something like that? Well, he says, grow in grace and knowledge. That little Greek word and could also be translated even. So it's a parallel type statement. Grow in grace, even the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. How are you going to grow? How am I going to grow? How am I going to know what I need to grow into? The answer is, through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There's a couple of things we ought to understand that to mean as far as that knowledge goes. There are things for us to learn. And that's kind of a basic understanding. There are things for you and I to learn. We need to grow in our knowledge. But this is also an experiential type knowledge. So growing in grace doesn't mean accumulating a bunch of knowledge that you can use to win the Bible Bowl next week. Growing in grace means that you're accumulating knowledge that then informs your walk with Jesus Christ. Salvation is a relationship between Almighty God and a saved sinner. And it's a relationship that we grow in through knowledge, both experiential knowledge and then obviously through the knowledge that has been given to us. Again, going one step further, thinking practically about the process. What is the process? What are we talking about when we get to the nuts and bolts of growth? Well, I thought this was helpful. Jay Adams says that our habits, that is our walk, you know, we were in Galatians 5, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. You go to Ephesians, you're supposed to walk worthy. You're supposed to walk in love. You're supposed to walk circumspectly. The word walk just means lifestyle or manner of life or just life habits. It's the way that you live your life, arrange your life. So, J. Adams says this, our habits or our walk are the immediate cause of much of the sin in our lives. And he uses the word cause as sort of an acronym, or acrostic, sorry, not an acronym, an acrostic. And he says that this is because our habits are, if you think about cause, C-A-U-S-E, our habits are number one, comfortable. I mean, they're habitual. You don't even think about them. You do a whole lot that you don't think about, and really praise God for it. If God were to erase your capacity for habit overnight, you'd never make it in the morning. It'd take you forever. You'd have to relearn how to squeeze your toothpaste on your toothbrush and not get it on your elbow. Have to figure out how to get that thing in your mouth and not in your nose. You'd have to do a lot. You'd have to figure out how to tie your shoes again. You'd fumble around trying to get your keys in the ignition, the thing you don't even think about anymore. So habit's a good thing, but the reality is we formed a ton of habits in the flesh. And they are comfortable. You don't have to think about them. Secondly, not only are they comfortable, but they're automatic. They're automatic. You ever had somebody say, why are you looking at me that way? And you say, looking at you what way? Or somebody says, it's not what you're saying, it's how you're saying it. I'm not saying it anyway. It's the way I always look. It's the way I always sound. Those fleshly habits, right? They're comfortable. They're automatic. They're unconscious. Again, you're not thinking about them. You've been doing them for so long. Number four, they are skillfully done. Skillfully done. I mean, it really is. I mean, if you think about what you can do habitually, you know, there are things that you're good at, there are things that I'm good at, and the things that we're good at, we really formed habits around those things. We don't think much about them. You've seen people who are fantastic at doing things, but they're horrible at teaching people how to do those things. It's because they hadn't thought about them in a long, long, long time. They've just done them. And then number five, they're entrenched. They're entrenched. So, these are really what we're after. These are the things that we're battling. Sinful habits, our walk. So, growing and changing biblically consists of walking in the spirit rather than walking in the flesh, or we could say it this way, consists of replacing the habits derived from the flesh with habits derived from the spirit. Okay, so growing and changing, practically speaking, consists of replacing the habits that you formed in the flesh with habits that are derived from the spirit. All right, now we'll go to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. And we're doing really just a flyover this evening. It's Wednesday night. We're going to do our best to keep it at 30 minutes. We're in that ballpark, so we're doing a flyover of these things. A lot that could be said, 2 Timothy 3. The passage is verses 16 and 17. Again, another one of those familiar passages where Paul says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, it's useful for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. What is it that the scripture is useful to do? Well, if we start with the end, the scriptures are useful to bring the man of God to a place of maturity to where he is, or she, is thoroughly furnished unto all good works. That is, thoroughly equipped unto all good works. So, if we're thinking about growing and changing, this is really what we're talking about. Maturity. Being equipped, knowing what to do. We have four things that Scripture is useful for, We could make a four-step process here. Number one, the Bible, Scripture, it's God-breathed. So we believe in the inspiration of Scripture. If you want to know what God has to say, He's already said it. It's right here. We also believe in the authority of Scripture. That is, if God has said it, then we are bound, if we call ourselves Christians, we are bound to obey it. It's not optional. So the scriptures are good for four things. Number one, teaching. Teaching. If you're going to grow and change, you're going to have to learn. There is no growing, there is no changing outside of learning. And we talked about that for a minute out of 2 Peter 3. And this isn't just simply accumulating a bunch of information. It's learning what the Bible has to say about all kinds of things. You need to know what the Bible has to say about God. You need to know what the Bible has to say about you. You need to know what the Bible has to say about your motives. You need to know what the Bible has to say about your actions. You need to know what the Bible has to say about your responsibilities that God has called you to fulfill. You need to know what the Bible has to say about a lot of things. And, you know, you find someone who says, well, you know, Ever since I graduated, I just haven't been much on learning. You're not going to grow. Some folks say, you know, I'm just not much of a reader. I can understand that, but I got bad news for you. God wrote a book, not a movie. OK, so if you're going to grow, you're going to have to learn how to read. You know what I mean when I say that you're going to have to put some work in to reading. We need to learn. We need to learn. Secondly, he says the scripture is useful. That is, it should be used for these things. Reproof. Again, that just means conviction. What that means is if you and I want to grow, not only do we need to be learning, but as we're learning, our sin needs to be exposed. That's how conviction takes place. The Spirit of God convicts us as the Word of God is applied to our own lives, our own hearts and our own lives. So now the difficulty here is it's so easy to be defensive, isn't it? Defensive people do not grow. People who are unwilling to accept conviction We're going to get to that in just a second. Those kinds of folks don't grow. I mean, if I'm bulletproof when it comes to conviction, then I have no need to grow. I'm as mature as I need to be, or at least I'm as mature as I'm going to be. So, brothers and sisters, we do believe that Christ saved sinners. and we do believe that we're going to be in an ongoing battle with the flesh until the day that we die. And we do believe, just like Paul in Romans 7, verse 21, that when we would do good, sin is present with us. And so if all those things are the case, then it ought to make sense that if we're in the Word of God on a regular basis, then our sin is going to be exposed. That's a prerequisite if you're going to grow. Third, correction. Correction. After you've learned, after your sin has been exposed, we need to know what we need to stop doing and what we need to start doing. The word for correction really just means to pick up that which has been knocked down, as far as just like a literal definition from the Greek word. So God doesn't leave us moaning and groaning and crying over a particular sin. He convicts us, and then He corrects us. He picks us up. and we learn what it is that we need to stop doing, what it is we need to start doing. And then the last one is disciplined training in righteousness. Disciplined training in righteousness. Once we've been corrected, then that correction needs to turn into disciplined, habitual practice in our life. So if we think about that, try to think about that practically, we could just think about it this way. Let's just say that we got to our first point here. We need to learn, which means we need to be reading. And someone says, man, I was convicted about that because I have not been reading. I'm going to get up in the morning and read. And you do. You get up in the morning and read. Have you fixed the problem yet? Not yet. Because you need to get up the next morning and read. And the next morning, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. So, once the correction has happened, we still need this discipline, training, and righteousness. You know, you've been there before. your eyes are open to something, maybe you're convicted about something, or you finally get some clarity on something, and you're so excited. You get up that first morning, and I'm just making up a time. You do it right that first time, and you're so excited, and you're so motivated, and then five days later, it never happens again. Is that just me, or have you done that? It's discipline training that leads to maturity and growth. And so it's ingraining that habit. Ephesians chapter four would, and I'm not gonna read that just for time's sake, but Ephesians chapter four would really condense these down into three steps. You've heard me say this before. As far as growth goes, we need to put off Sin, we need to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and we need to put on righteousness. Or the way that Ephesians 4 would really say it is put off the old man, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, put on the new man. So, let me give you quickly, let me give you five things, and I'm going to go through these fairly quickly. Five things that all growth and change is going to require. These things have to be in place if you're going to grow. Number one, all growth and change require awareness. You have to be aware of sin in your life. You have to be aware of a problem or you're never going to change it. It goes back to what I was saying earlier. Somebody says, well, it's just that expression on your face. What expression? It's just the tone of your voice. What tone? You have to be aware of the problem. It's not just you. I mean, we're talking about in this whole series, biblical counseling and discipleship. If you're trying to help somebody work through a problem and they're not seeing what you're seeing, good luck. They got to see it. It's not enough for you to see it. An individual has to become aware. So a good prayer to a good prayer, to pray regularly, or a good prayer to have folks pray regularly. I've gotten to where, as I'm meeting with people on the very first meeting, one of the things that they're doing when they go home, part of their growth assignment is this, they're praying every single day, Lord, show me things about myself that I am not currently seeing. That's just adapted from Psalm 19, 12, where David prays that the Lord would show him his secret faults. Lord, show me things about myself that I am not currently seeing. And then I'll say, just take five minutes and jot down any insights that God might give you. Think about the conflicts you've been having. Ask God to show you some things about you. You've already become a master of convicting the other person. But ask God to show you some things about you. Jot those down. Another thing as it relates to awareness, if you cannot clearly articulate the specific problem you're trying to address that's in yourself or somebody else, then your attempts to grow are going to fall flat. Let me give you an example. Now, again, clearly articulate the specific problem or area that you're trying to grow in. So if, let's just say your Bible reading fell in Ephesians 5, husbands, and a husband says, you know, my problem is that I'm just not loving my wife the way Christ loved the church. Now, is that a problem? Sure. Well, how do you fix it? Really, at this point, you don't really know anything. I mean, if I tell you I'm not loving Abby the way Christ loved the church, you don't know anything about me that you didn't already know. Anybody really think I was doing that? Okay, of course not. So you really don't know anything just yet. So, we might ask, in what specific areas are you failing to love your wife in this way? And then I say, well, I'm just not as attentive as I should be. And then we say, I know, we need to help this guy grow in attentiveness. Do we still know anything about what we're talking about? I mean, there's a bazillion areas of attentiveness that could be addressed. Which one? What are we talking about? And so you might say, in what specific areas have you failed to be attentive? And then I might say something like, I do not prioritize having meaningful conversations with my wife. Can we address that biblically? Yeah, sure we can. Or maybe I say, she's been asking me to do X, Y, or Z for a long time, and I just keep putting her off. Can we address that biblically? Well, of course we can, depending on what X, Y, or Z is. So we don't change by general, vague, biblical platitude-type diagnoses of what our problem is. We've got to get down to the specifics. Concretely, what is it? that I'm trying to change. Would I know it if it actually changed? Can I tell you what that change looks like? And do I know enough to be able to address what the problem, or at least what the scriptures say about the problem? So you have to clarify a specific problem before you can address it with a relevant passage of scripture. So often, okay, just in my experience, so often people rarely get past this one. I'm not saying they never grow, but I'm saying in their intentional efforts to grow, people rarely get to the point to where they've actually clarified what the real problem is. Okay. Number two, all growth and change. This is just a way for us. You need to be thinking this way. I need to be thinking this way. All growth and change occurs toward God. So what do you mean by that? Well, let me give you one example. Let me give you one verse that would be an example. Look in 1 John 5. 1 John 5. John says, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him. 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 that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous, or they're not burdensome. What John is addressing here is this whole business of loving those who are begotten by God, and that is just simply loving God's people. And he says, and John talks about this in a couple of different places in 1 John. He says in one place, how can you claim to love God who you've not seen if you hate your brother who you have seen? All these connections are just really exposing this problem. If you have an area, a relationship where you require biblical change, let's just say Brother Robert and I can't get along and it's on me. My problem first and foremost is with God, not Brother Robert. You see, what has happened is, according to 1 John 5, verse 3, the reason we've gotten to this place to where we can't get along is because at some point God's commandments have become burdensome to me and I have refused to obey them. I mean, what's the greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. What's the second? Love your neighbor as yourself. If I'm in an ongoing conflict with an individual and that has not been resolved, the command to love my neighbor as myself has become burdensome to me. And in turn, the command to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength has also become burdensome because I love me. and I have a wonderful plan for my life, and Brother Robert's getting in the way, and so is God's commands. So, I say that just to illustrate, all change and growth occurs, it's toward God. There are obvious things horizontally, like these relationships that we have to take care of, but even in those, there's no such thing as a problem that you have between another person. where there isn't also a problem between you and God, at least an area where repentance needs to happen. Number three, all growth and change, all growth and change is going to require confession, repentance, and faith. All growth and change is going to require confession, repentance, and faith. Change, again, we're growing into Christ-likeness. Now, again, we ask the question, why in the world would we go through all the effort to change? Well, in order to please God. And so what would change look like? Well, it would look like putting off sin and unrighteousness, ungodliness. And then it would look like putting on godliness. So all growth and change requires Confession, repentance, and faith. Proverbs 28.13. I'm not going to go there for time's sake because I've got two more. Number four, all growth and change. This is another one. I think the first one, as far as not clarifying the problem, that's a major one that rarely happens or people have a tough time doing. And then number four, this is one that people oftentimes overlook. All growth and change, all is the emphasis, all growth and change requires renewed thinking. All growth and change requires renewed thinking. Your thinking was rotten long before your actions were. How you were thinking about something. Remember God's twofold out of this is from Sunday. God's twofold instructions to Isaiah or in Isaiah. In Isaiah 55 seven, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts so. Renewal needs to be happening in our Minds are in our hearts, those are synonymous, and it needs to be happening in our behaviors and in our actions, both. Jay Adams also says this, and I think it's a pretty powerful quote. External changes that do not follow an internal change of heart toward God always move a person further away from the Lord. Think about that. when you rearrange behaviors and you have not internally changed, that is, the change hasn't happened at the heart level, you always move further away from God. Can you think of anybody, any group of people in the Bible who had all the right outward behaviors and none of the heart change that was required? The Pharisees, the Pharisees. So if our idea of biblical growth and change is to just fix all the behaviors and leave the heart and the thoughts unaddressed. Then. Then we're just moving toward the same direction that the Pharisees did. OK, and Jesus said with your lips or with your mouth. You draw near, but your hearts are what? Far from me. Far from me. They were hypocrites. So Romans 12, verse 2, don't be conformed to the world, but transformed, how? Through the renewing of your mind. Ephesians 4.22, we talk about being renewed in the spirit of your mind. And so, how do you renew your thinking? How do we renew our thinking? Well, first off, we have to learn. We said that already. You got to know what the Bible says about what it is you're thinking about. And then you have to replace, that is, have the insights. The Spirit blesses you in that. You have to work at it, but you hammer out the insights of being able to realize, okay, I was wrong here. And rather than thinking this when this happens, I need to be thinking this. I need to understand this particular area this way. So, for example, here's a big one. A lot of people, Believe maybe not you, but you probably did at one point a lot of people believe that the reason That your marriage exists is for your happiness Anybody ever believe that? All the folks have been married for a while. They're not even close to shaking Well biblically speaking We can enjoy our marriages, and it ought to be a blessing. I mean, it's the greatest earthly relationship that a man and woman have, the highest priority, but your marriage is really more for your sanctification than for your happiness. I mean, you've just entered into a covenant with an individual who sees you all the time. You can't fool them anymore. You can't put on a plastic smile. You can't fake giggle. You can't do any of that and then think it's real, okay? They see you and God is using them to grow you. So, renewed thinking, renewed thinking. Last, number five. Not only does growth require renewed thinking, but all growth and change requires renewed actions or behaviors. And I'll just give you the gist of James chapter 1, 21 through 27, where James says, don't just be hearers of the word, be doers of the word, okay? So sometimes people can leave off the thinking component. and they can just try to rearrange their behaviors. But there are also, on the flip side, there are people who think, well, if I can just change the way I'm thinking about something, then the actions will be automatic. Well, that's not necessarily true. The wicked in Isaiah 55-7, they're called to change their ways and their thoughts. Actions, renewed actions are required. So I've got something out on the four-year table for anybody who wants it. It's sort of a way to categorize what we've talked about and use it for yourself. So there's an example of how you might use this for personal growth on one side. And then if you flip it over, then you just have the categories there for you to work your way through. If you want my notes from tonight, they would probably be helpful. Just ask me and I'll email them to you. But again, that's on the four-year table for anybody who wants it. All right. The process of biblical change. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for your word. We thank you that you have given us all that we need for life and godliness. Lord, I just do pray that you would bless us to make use of what you've given us through the power of the Holy Spirit for your glory. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.