Storms Creek Church 4-30-2023

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Episode Transcript

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Good morning, and welcome to StormStreet Missionary Baptist Church this Sunday morning radio
program. This morning, we'll bejoining Pastor Kenny Hurst as we once again
open the scriptures and study God's work. Okay, this morning, we're going
to be in the Book of Philippians. We're going to be in chapter one,

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and I'm going to read verses nine, ten, and eleven as I
talk to you about spiritual growth.Reading from Philippians chapter one and verse nine,
and this, I pray that yourlove may abound yet more and more
in knowledge in all judgment, thatyou may they approved things that are excellent,

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that you may be sincere and withoutoffense till the day of Christ,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, and
to the glory and praise of God. When I was a student at Marshall
back in the well early nineteen seventies, I had a class that we took

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a field trip, and I thinkit was a psychology class. I'm I'm
not really sure, but I rememberwe went to visit the state hospital that
was located in Gapolis. I cansum up that experience in one word depressing.
There were people there adults walking aroundwearing diapers. One person slept in

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a baby bed, and this personwas thirty or forty years old at least.
And so here you had just asad picture people that were thirty forty
fifty years old who were being treatedlike babies. Many had never matured mentally
and some physically. Now, thissad picture is an introduction to what we're

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going to be looking at today aswe talk about growth. You know,
it's sad when someone doesn't mature mentallyor physically. But what is even worse
than that is if someone doesn't maturespiritually. You have somebody who's been saved
for years, thirty forty fifty years, and yet you could say, in

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a sense, they're still wearing diapers, they're still drinking milk from a bottle.
They haven't grown up, and they'rebeing and well, they're acting like
babies. Now, of course i'mtalking about in a spiritual sense, we
have those who well spiritually need togrow up. Well, Paul is writing
this letter to the saints at Philippi, and he's already told them in the

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first verses that he prays for them. You know, you're on my pre
I regularly pray for you. Andhe prays for them because they were saints,
because they had been partakers of God'sgrace, they were saved, they
were believers, brothers and sisters inChrist. So he prayed for these.
But now when you look at versesnine, ten, and eleven, we're

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going to see what it is thatPaul prayed for. He gets specific.
He tells some of the things thathe was praying for. Now, if
you look at these verses carefully,you'll notice that he doesn't pray for their
physical needs, although I'm sure theyhad many physical needs, But he prays

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for their spiritual needs for spiritual growth, as he did in many of the
letters that he wrote. When hewould tell people he would pray for them,
you know, he spent more timefocusing on their spiritual needs than their
physical needs. Let me just askyou a question as we begin this morning,
I just want you to think,in your praying. I know you

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pray for yourself, but in yourpray not just for yourself, but especially
when you pray for others, doyou pray more for spiritual needs for physical
needs? You say, well,Preacher, both are important, and that's
exactly true. In fact, Jesusin his model prayer. In the Sermon
on the Mount in Matthew chapter six, talks about the need to pray for

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spiritual things and also for physical needs. He said, there pray our Father
give us this day our daily bread. So yes, it is important that
we pray for physical needs most certainly, but I would just say to you
this morning that spiritual needs, spiritualgrowth is much more important than physical growth.

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Someone has said, we often spendmore of our time praying to keep
believers out of heaven than in keepingunbelievers out of hell. When you think
about that, there's a lot oftruth to that statement. We know prayer
is a duty that we, asthe children of God that we have,
we have a duty to pray.Someone has said prayerlessness is a declaration of

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self sufficiency, which is nothing morethan pride. Prayer, on the other
hand, is a declaration of ourdependence on God. So when we don't
pray, what we're saying is Lord, I got this, I can handle
this. I don't need you rightnow. We're self sufficient, and that's
not a good place to be.When we pray, though, we're showing

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that we are dependent on God.Lord, I can't handle this. I
don't have this. I desperately needyour help. Now you notice in verse
six, which we looked at lasttime, Paul talks about well the doctrine
of eternal security. He says thatGod finishes what he starts. He's going
to complete the good work of salvationthat he has began in them. God

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preserves those that he saves. We'rekept by the power of God. We
don't have to keep ourselfs God keepsus. But we also we also see
that we are to persevere, becausethese are two sides to one coin.
On one side you have preservation.God keeps us. On the other side,
we persevere. It means we areto work, We are to do

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something. In fact, the endchapter two of this same letter, in
verse twelve says, wherefore, mybeloved, as you have always obeyed,
not as in my presence only,but now much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fearand trim. He said, you work
it out. That means we havesomething that we are to do, for

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it is God which work within youboth the will and to do of His
good pleasure. Yes, we work. But then verse thirteen reminds us because
God is at work in us.So with the spirits enabling, we're able
to grow spiritually, we're able togrow into the image of Christ. You
know, the Apostle Paul was neversatisfied with his spiritual life. He never

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got to the point where he wasyou could say he was content. He
realized he always had room to grow. But that is true of the Apostle
Paul. How much more is ittrue of you and I today? So
we're gonna focus on verses nine,ten, and eleven, and we're gonna
look at spiritual growth and the importanceof us growing spiritually, and as we

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pray for one another. There arethree ways that we pray for spiritual growth
that are found in this text we'regonna look at this morning. The first
one is Paul prays for them togrow in their love. That's what he
says in verse nine. And thisI pray that your love may abound yet
more and more, he prays theirlove will abound. You know, when

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we think of love, we haveto begin with the source of love,
and that's God. Not God notonly loves, but as the Bible tells
us, God is love. FirstJohn four and verse seven says beloved.
Let us love one another, forlove is of God. And everyone that
loveth is born of God and knowethGod. He that loveth not knoweth not

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God. For God is love.So God is love. Now you make
that statement, and most people's reactionwould be, well, of course he
is. We all know that Godis love. In fact, that's about
all most people know about God isthe fact that he is loved. Now,
I'm not undermining the fact that Heis loved. Oh, I just
I'm thankful. I praise God thathe is a God of love. But

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friends, he's much more than justlove. Now, before he created anything,
anything to be the object of hislove. When you go back into
eternity past, before creation, whenGod existed only within the Godhead, keep
in mind there was perfect love betweenthe Father and the Son and the Holy

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Spirit. Well, because God loveshis children, we are to love as
well. Now there is a differencebetween God's love and our love. There
are several differences, but one thingis is that God love. His love
doesn't grow. It's a perfect love. Do you realize that the love that

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God has for you right now isthe same love that He had back when
you were saved and it is thesame love he'll have for you throughout eternity.
God's love is a perfect love,and because it's a perfect love,
it cannot grow, nor can itdecrease. Whereas you and I, well,
we know it's not like that.Our love often, well, it

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can increase, which is what Paulis praying for here, and sadly it
can decrease now. The word heuses here for love is the Greek word
of God, bake. It meansa divine love. It's the highest kind
of love. It's a sacrifice,official and unconditional love is the love that
gives and doesn't expect anything in return. You see, friends, God doesn't

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love us because we are desirable,because we are lovable. No, I
hate to break it to you.In fact, we're just the opposite of
that. Romans, Chapter five andverse eight. God commends his love toward
us in that while we were yetsinners, Christ died for us. See
God loved us when we were sinners. He goes on later and says,

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when we were enemies, even Godloved us. So here Paul prays for
love, and he says he wantstheir love to abound, it to grow,
to increase, and it's in thepresent ten, meaning he wants it
to continually grow and to continually increase. You know, physically, our bodies
reach a time when we quit growing. I'm talking about vertically. I'm not

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talking about horizontal. We all knowthat horizontally, a lot of times we
keep growing when we really don't needto. But I'm talking about heythwise,
we have a point when we stopgrowing. I'm as tall now, I'm
about six two as I was backin when I was eighteen years old.
I haven't grown any and I won'tgrow anymore heith wise. But spiritually,

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we never reach a time when wequit growing, or we shouldn't reach a
time. The kind of love thatPaul prays for here is a fruit of
the spirit. It means it's alove that's only produced by the Holy Spirit,
This divine love, this sacrificial love. It's a love that only comes
about with the Spirit of God workingin us to produce that. So as

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we pray for each other, maywe pray this petition that we would abound
in love. Now, I wantyou to listen to what John wrote in
Revelation chapter two, when Jesus gavehim seven letters to send that he inspired

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John the right to seven various churchesthat were in Asia Minor. The first
one, when he sent a letterto, was the church at Ephesus,
at well in a lot of wayshad a lot going for it. He
says in verse two, I knowthy worst and thy labor and thy patience,
and how thou cannot bear them whichare evil. And thou hast tried
them whild say they are apostles andare not, and has found them liars,

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and has born and has patients,and for my namesake, has labored
and not fainted. So Jesus hada lot to say about this church that
was good. I mean, infact, if you look closely at those
two verses, he talks about thembeing a hard working church, a church

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that was very concerned about being pureand dealing with sin, and they were
doctrinately sound and all of these things. You say, well, that's a
good church. That's a church thatI'd like to be a part of.
But he doesn't stop there because hehas more to say, because he says
in verse four, nevertheless, hereit comes I have somewhat against you because

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you've left your first love. You'veleft that love for the Lord that you
had when you were first saved.That love that should be growing abounding,
as Paul says, but it's not. It's decreasing. Anytime we begin to
decrease instead of increased and our love, we're in bad shape. In fact,

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it's so bad. If you lookto the next verse. In verse
five, he says, remember therefore, from which thou art falling and repent.
Now, notice he says that they'vefallen and they need to repent.
That tells me that they're not lovinglike they should as a sin. So
this isn't anything just to be treatedand lightly, just to be tossed aside.
No, loving the Lord, increasingour love for him and others is

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serious business. So serious. Hegoes on and says, if you don't
do the first works, or I'mgoing to come into thee quickly and will
remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent, meaning that you're
going to lose your influence, you'regoing to lose your testimony, or you're
going to even go out of existence, which is what happens a lot of

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times sadly to churches. So loveis an important virtue. It's an important
part of our lives. As thechildren of God. The love we have
for God and the love we havefor each other, we want that to
abound, to increase, not towell, not to decrease. So how

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does our love grow? Boy?He says here in Philippians, he says
that you may abound it yet moreand more in knowledge. Your love abound
more and more in knowledge. Seeas we grow in our knowledge, guess
what we're going to grow in ourlove? You know you hear sometimes people

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say love is blind. Well,spiritually that's not true. Now, I
guess it might be. It mightbe physically, I don't know. But
spiritually that's not true because the loveof the believer is enlightened. It's instructed
by the word of God. It'snot blind. Oh no, it's enlightened

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by God's word. You see.The Bible reveals to us who God is
and what he has done. Andwhen we understand that, the result is
we're going to grow in our lovefor him. See, the more time
you spend with somebody, the moreyou'll grow to love that person. It's
hard to love somebody that you neverspend any time with. We know that

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in human relationships, and it's inour relationship with God, So we grow
in our love by knowledge. Whenhe goes on, and he says,
and in all judgment, meaning inall discernment a certain The discernment is the
ability to be able to distinguish betweengood and bad. Matthew Chapter seven,

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Verse one is the most misunderstood versein all the Bible. It says,
judge not that you be not judged. It doesn't mean you're not to ever
make a judgment. Doesn't mean you'renot to evaluate things. You're not going
to you're not going to distinguish betweensomething that's true and something that's false.
We're always making judgments. We're alwaysusing discernment, or we should be,

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and in our love we need touse discernment. Our love needs to be
a discerning love. Judge not doesn'tmean that we're not that. What it
does mean is is we're not tobe judgmental. We're not to be condemning
of other people, but we makeevaluations. I know that's it because when
you look at verse six, hetalks about them casting their pearls before swine.

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Well, in order to carry outthat command, you have to know
who is swine, who is classifiedas being swine. Later he talks about
beware of false prophets. How doyou know somebody's a false prophet unless you
make a judgment, You make anevaluation. You use discernment. You see,

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we love, but it has tobe a discerning love. We have
to be able to discern what isto be the object of our love and
what isn't you see, friends,we are gonna love what God loves,
and we're gonna hate what God hates. We here use discernment as to who's
gonna preach behind this pulpit. We'renot gonna let just anybody come here and

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preach. No, we want somebodythat's going to preach here. We want
them to be doctrinally sound. Wedon't want them to stand here and preach
things that are not true and thento kind of carry it along with this,
he goes on the verse ten andsays that you may approve things that
are excellent. See this is whereagain discernment comes in. You know,

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in discernment, we're going to approve. We're going to make an evaluation that
this is excellent, This is vital, This is the most importance. It's
not just between good and bad.A lot of people can distinguish between something
good and something bad. No,here it is it's between good and better.

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Let me give you a simple exampleof this. It's good to study
eschatology. Eschatology is prophecy in timeevents, and it's good to study that
because it's in the Bible, andanything in the Bible is good for us
to study and to know. ButI would say to you that it's better
to study Christology, which is thestudy of the nature and work of Christ.

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See, it's important to know prophecy, but it's more important to know
Christ. Could say it like this, It's important for us to try to
figure out maybe who the anti Christis going to be, as far as
what he's going to do, butit's much more important for us to know
who Christ is. We see thisin Luke chapter ten, when Jesus went

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to visit with Mary and Martha says, there, now it came to pass
as they went that they entered intoa certain village, and a certain woman
named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary,
which also sat at Jesus's feet andheard his word. But Martha was
cumbered about with much serving and cameto him and said, Lord, do

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not care that my sister hath leftme to serve alone, but her therefore
that she helped me. Jesus answeredand said Martha, Martha, thy art
careful and troubled about many things,but one thing is needful, and Mary
has chosen that good part which shallnot be taken away from her. You
see, Martha is being a goodhostess. She's preparing food for her guests,

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and that is a good thing.While her sister Mary is sitting with
Jesus listening to him teach, andMartha is getting all bent out of shape
and say, Lord, she needsto come back here and help me.
And Jesus says Martha, Martha,you're troubled about many things, said Mary
has chosen that which is most needful, and that is spending time with me.
So you see here, it's goodto be a good hostess and to

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provide for your guest, but it'sbetter to spend time with Jesus. So
Paul prays for growth, growth inlove, which comes about through knowledge.
It is to be a discerning love. You need to have the ability distinguished
between that which is good which isbest. So that's the first thing that

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Paul praised for as far as theirgrowth the second and third. We won't
spend as much time on the secondone. Is he praised that they would
grow in Christian character. At theend of verse ten, he says that
they would be sincere and without offensetill the day of Christ. He says
that they would be sincere. Itmeans that you would be pure, that

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they would be genuine. You see, in Paul's day, pottery was a
well, it was a big business, and just like today, any product
that you buy, you can buysomething a lot of times cheap that isn't
very well made, or you canspend morning and buy something that is well

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crafted, but you're gonna pay forit. Well, sometimes when pottery was
put into the fire, when thatclay was ready to go into the oven,
sometimes it would come out with acrack. And what would happen is
is that a dishonest dealer would takewax and cover the crack, paint over

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it where you couldn't see the crack, not at least you normally couldn't see
it, and they would sell itas if it was a perfect piece of
pottery. Well, a honest dealeron their products, they would stamp without
wax, meaning that there is nowax on this product. You say,
well, how can you tell?The way you could tell is taking it
out in the sunlight, and thesunlight would reveal whether it was had wax

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or it didn't have wax. We'llsee. What Paul is saying here is
that the believer, as believers,as the children of God, we are
to be genuine, the real thing, Our flaws, our sins are to
be dealt with, not hidden,not to be painted over like were covered
with wax to hold to cover acrack. No, we don't want to

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be hypocrites. No, we wantto be the same in private as we
are in So we are to beas far as Christian character, we're to
be sincere. We're to be genuine, we're to be pure. And then
he says to be without offense,meaning blameless, holy, without stumbling.
It means, I mean blameness ina sense that we are without sin.

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It just means without any outstanding sins. We don't want to fall into sin,
and we certainly don't want to bea stumbling block to others and to
keep others from growing. So wewant to grow in our Christian character.
We want to be more and morelike Christ. And the key here is
at the end of the verse hesays, until the day of Christ,

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until the day of Judgment, untilthe judgment seed of Christ for the believer.
See, Paul always had that dayin mind, and you know what,
we need to have that day inmind as well. I think a
lot of times we treat the judgmentSeed of Christ as if it's not a
big deal. And that is becausewe believe our sins have already been forgiven.
They were judged on the cross.That's true, and we praise God

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for that. The friends, we'regoing to stand before the Lord one day
and give an account of our serviceand how we've lived our lives here in
this world and what we've done forthe Lord. And so we want to
grow spiritually. We want to growin character christ Like character. Because of
that. It was Luther who saidthat there's really only two days that the

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believer should be concerned with. Todayand that day. Well, let's move
on. We're run out of time. The third thing that Paul prayed for
for the church there at Philippi wasthat they would grow in good works.
Look at verse eleven, he says, being filled with the fruits of righteousness,

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which are by Jesus Christ. Andto the glory and praise of God.
He prays for good works. Hesaid, he wants them to be
filled with the fruit of right tasciousness. As Christians, we are to
be fruitful, we are to bearfruit. How do we do this,

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he tells us in verse eleven.We do this by Jesus Christ, through
Christ, by depending on Christ,and to be more specific, by depending
on the Holy Spirit, the Spiritof Christ, who empowers us in our
good works. See, good worksare important. Don't ever underestimate the importance

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of good works. We are toperform good works not in order to be
saved, but because we are saved. It's the evidence of our salvation.
And we want to grow in ourgood We want to do more and more
good works, and we can onlydo that through the Lord, through the
Spirit of God who dwells us.That's why John writes in or Jesus in

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John chapter fifteen one says I amthe true vine, and my father is
the Husbandman. Then verse four,abide in me and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit ofitself except it abide and divine no more
can ye except you abide in me. I am divine through the branches.
He that abideth in me I andhim the same bringeth forth much fruit.

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For without me there it is withoutme you can do nothing. We cannot
bear any fruit on our own.Only through the Lord Jesus Christ learns of
Arabia. There's a funny story toldabout him, and I'll finish with this
this morning. He went to Parisafter World War Two with some Arabian friends

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of his who had never been outof the desert. Well, they toured
the city of Paris and looked atall the sights. He said, what
impressed them more than anything were thefalsets in the bathroom. All they had
to do was turn a handle,and all the water they wanted just came
out, says. When they wereleaving, he found these men trying to
remove those falseods. He said,what are you doing? And they said,

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it's hot and dry in Arabia.These falsets are just what we need.
They'll give us all the water weneed. Well, he explained to
them that that's not how it works. The water didn't come from that falseod.
No, the water came from anunderground system where there were pipes that

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were connected that went back to areservoir maybe miles away, that that water
went through those pipes and came outof that falset. You just can't you
take the falset because there's no waterjust in the falset, and say how
that applies to what we're talking abouthere today. Is simply this. Our

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bodies are like these falsets. Theyare instruments of good works. But the
good works don't come from our bodies. They come from the Holy Spirit who
dwells within us and enables us todo that. Friends, we need the
Holy Spirit, we need his powerin order to do these good works.

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So Paul has prayed for the saintsat Philippi, and he prays for all
of us that we would all growin three ways, in our love,
Christian character, and in good works. And when that happens, what's the
result. We look at the endof verse eleven. All this is into

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the glory and praise of God.You see, when we do this,
God is glorified, God is praised. Have you looked to Christ today?
Have you looked to Him as youronly hope of salvation? We'd like to
thank you for listening to our programthis morning. We pray that God has

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used this message to draw you closerto Him. Storms Creek Missionary Baptist Church
would like to take this opportunity toinvite you to any of its services.
We have a Sunday School which startsat nine thirty am, Sunday Morning Worship
ten fifteen, and our Sunday Eveningservice starts at six pm. We also
have a Wednesday Night Bible Study whichstarts at seven thirty pm. Storms Creek

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Missionary Baptist Church is also on theinternet under sermonaudio dot com. You can
go to www dot Sermon Audio,look for Storms Creek Missionary Baptist Church and
listen to any of our sermons andin full length audio at the side.
Again, we'd like to thank youfor listening this morning, and may God

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bless you throughout the week. S