Develop Spiritual Knowledge with Randy Bell's 7 Steps to Virtue

Phase 2 in Christian growth is about walking as a believer and heading towards spiritual maturity.

It's a stage where you've turned away from sin and are starting to walk in obedience to God.

In Phase 2, you're establishing obedience by keeping God's commandments.

You must be honest with yourself and others about your actions, and not just claim to know God if you're disobedient.

Thank you. Alright, so we're looking at level 2, phase 2, in other words, not just being born again, but now heading to the second phase of what it means to be walking as a believer, as a Christian. Phase 2 is a whole lot different than phase 1. So let's do a quick review then. Remember when 1 John chapter 2, and you can open your Bibles to 1 John 2, we'll look at the number of verses in that chapter this morning. But remember the key verse from our phase one was, I write to you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. Remember, being born again is that concept of being repentant, turning from sin and being forgiven. Now, when you first become a believer, you have limited information. You don't know the entire Bible. You don't know all the teaching. God is convicted usually in a couple of things that you know are right and wrong. and you know you've been wrong. In other words, you were convicted, you're a liar. You were convicted, you knew maybe you were a thief or dishonored God or whatever. You know there's something there, but there's a lot more information. That's why at saving grace, you repent of everything you are aware of, but then you begin to read the Bible and the first phase that God has is for you to continue reading and you repent of all the rest of the stuff. Right? You get it out of your system. You get to know what He's talking about, what His commands are, and you start turning from them. That is the emphasis of being a little baby. And you're getting to a place where you can learn how to walk. And to get to walk means you keep turning away from the sins of your past, the practices of your past, because the only thing you know to start with is that your sins are forgiven, but God wants them out of your life. And so grace begins to stir in you, causing you to desire to do His will, and grace begins to get more involved in your heart that you have the strength to walk away from that past. And that is what God is doing in your life at that first stage. If you understand what he's doing, then you can cooperate. Know that he's not hurting you or resisting you, but he's helping you get out of that place. He doesn't want you to become an evangelist yet. He wants you to get rid of your past. He's working on the basics right now as you start. So then when we get to that concept of understanding what deliverance from sin is, it comes from the parallel teaching of 2 Peter 1. remember it said everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know personally and intimately the one who invited us to God. The beginning is when you get born again and saved you receive all the promises all the power you get the Holy Ghost to live inside you you get everything you need to do what God wants is what he's saying here. You get it all in one package but it takes time to unravel it and understand it know what to do with it and cooperate It's not a one-time instantaneous action that you're perfect as soon as you're saved, is it? It takes a time of maturing and growing and unwrapping the information. And so it says, we were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to us, or to you it says, your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust. Notice, after you turn your back, after you repent, is when all the promises are for you. But until you make the repentant turn, none of the promises are of any valid nature to you. This is why you must be complete in your repentance. That's why phase one is so important. You can't just take it lightly. You must wrestle with your past. You must make sure you understand what God's saying and get rid of that stuff and go whole hog into full and complete obedience to His commands. So that phase one is always the step of deliverance from all sin and our practices of sin. Then, once you've accomplished that, whether you know it in your mind or not, you automatically become a part of phase two. Just like a baby doesn't necessarily know what the phases of their life are, we look at them as adults and see what their phases are. When an infant gets to a place where he starts to walk, he enters a new phase of being a child. An infant no longer, he becomes a toddler, or a boy, or whatever. It goes into a big full stage there. And so I want you to see the picture of how to understand that second stage. From about a three-year-old up to through a teenager, they're still called a boy or a girl. They're not called an infant any longer. It's a long stage. The same spiritually. We're looking at phase two means, and the Greek here says in 1 John 2.13, I've written to you children because you know the father. That word child or children means half-grown boy or girl. half there. Zeke, who's two years old, just went to the doctor this week. They measured him and said, man, your kids are going to be big. He's half grown and he's like 36, 37, 38 inches tall already. He's a two-year-old. They use this stance about double that usually when you're an adult. You're half grown about that point. You double that, he's going to be about six to something. How tall are you, Jason? Yeah, see, I don't know if he's going to quite make it to you, but they kind of estimate that's kind of he's like in the upper 90 percent of height already as a two-year-old of all the kids in america so they kind of can measure that way half grown two three-year-old it's kind of quest is half grown that's what they're saying here you're kind of half grown you're not mature yet a two-year-old cannot go play football he get hurt you know but uh get up a little more mature and strength they can play football he can't uh you know drive a car yet but they get up to 16 they can drive a car it's a big wide range here being half grown isn't it and it covers a lot of area well so in the physical and the spiritual it's the same kind of thing i want you to understand it that way there's a lot to go but you're not an infant any longer and the only way you know you're not an infant is when you've turned away from the sin and you're now starting to walk in obedience to god does that make sense everybody where we're at so if you see that that's the basic idea of the Phase 2, it'll help you to see what we're saying here. Notice in 1 John 2 where we're looking, in verse 3, it says, Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. Now you move down to verse 13, our key verse. It says, I've written to you children because you know the Father. Now how do you know the Father? We think the word know means when you hear about God, you know God. Or if you pray, you know God. John is not defining it that way. What does it say? Go back up to verse 3. Now by this we know that we know Him. How do you know Him? If we keep His commandments. So phase 2, when he says, I'm writing to you children because you know God, he means in phase 2, you are keeping His commandments. Phase 1, you're trying to get there. You're getting rid of the stuff that you're not keeping His commandments. in phase two you're establishing the obedience that you are keeping his commandments so you're not into phase two unless you honestly have thrown out all that old stuff and are into the new okay that makes sense everybody with me that's beginning that's what john says now this we know in verse three we know him if we keep his commandments look at verse four he who says i know him and does not keep his commandments is what a liar whoo he's making it clear here phase two is very carefully designed you must not even just because you claim you know god if you are disobedient to him you don't know him now think about that in the christian world of america people that are in the church they say they know god but secretly they're lying every day to their children or on the telephone lying to their boss saying oh i'm sick while they go fishing or oh i don't i don't feel good today i can't go out to date with you rather you know all the lies that people say. Now, I've grown a long time. I've watched a show called Seventh Heaven. You ever heard of that? It's supposed to be a story of a preacher and his family over the years. The one flaw Hollywood has chosen to do with that, they have made the effort to make that family a bunch of liars. I don't know if you've ever watched it. But over and over again, the one thing they do almost every episode, they sit there and lie through their teeth. Now, the Bible says that can't happen. In fact, in Revelation it says all those who are liars are going to do what? End up in the lake of fire, it says in the book of Revelation. So this is not true. Hollywood keeps wanting to make people have flaws, even the preacher's families and the preacher's and his wife. I mean, it's not just the kids that were unchristian liars. The parents are lying. The preacher lies. The daughter who's now a minister, she lies. They all lie. They're liars, liars, liars. They do it every week. And it just irks me to no end that that's just not truth. but they want to make it what they decided is personal and normal and the preachers couldn possibly not lie i guess to hollywood they think that got to be normal You can just overcome lying Here it says very careful that if we know Him we do keep His commandments. We stop being liars. We stop being deceivers. That's what the world did do. We're not of it any longer. The proof that we're not there any longer is we quit being liars. We quit being adulterers. We quit practicing lust. You know what I'm saying? It's behind us. It's not still part of our life. Look at it says in verse 4 again, He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Verse 5. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. The word perfect, remember, in English doesn't mean the same as Greek. We think of perfect meaning you never did anything wrong. Right? If you say you're perfect, you're innocent. That's not what perfect means in the Greek. It means complete. If a builder builds a house and it says it's perfect, it means he got done with it. In English in America, it means he finished it, now the people can move in. It's all over. It's finished. It doesn't mean that he didn't have flaws and mistakes on the way to get it done. It means now it's done and it can be livable. He might have had to go back and fix the floor, fix the sink. He had to make up his mistakes, but now that it's done, it's over with. See what it's saying? And this is what he's trying to get you to say. Whoever keeps his word truly loved God is completed. now in him. By this we know that we are in him. How? He who says he abides in himself also to walk just as he walked. Notice phase one is infant. They don't walk. Notice phase two. You walk just like Jesus. Before that they can't walk like Jesus. They want to walk like Jesus. They wish they could walk like Jesus. They're trying to learn how to walk like Jesus. Phase two is you are starting to walk like Jesus. Make sense? You are now walking in obedience. But the point of the goal is a little different now. Now doesn't just start walking. It's now establishing it so that you are strong, consistent, and always walking. You know, you think about it. You know, generally, do you go to the store and fall down? Now, if somebody trips you, you might. And as you get maybe sick or feeble, you might. But generally, I don't have to worry about falling down when I go to the store. a toddler they have to worry about it every step they take for a while they take 10 steps and they fall down well eventually they take 20 steps and they might fall down but over time pretty soon it's only once in a while they fall down that's the key we're talking about with this phase it's learning to walk in constant obedience and the less and less you fall into sin because the stronger and stronger you get as you get the grace of God pouring His power into your life you become stronger and develop your life. Does that make sense? In other words, you might disobey God. And you might sin. And it took you about one minute to do that, say. Then you ask God to forgive you. And then honestly, the rest of the day, you can't think of any sin you did. That means you lived and walked with God 23 hours and 59 minutes, but whoops, you fell down for 60 seconds. you might have got angry and cursed or something whatever but it only took you know a few seconds and you realize you're wrong you forgot ask god to forgive you it's over with and you're back to walking notice you're walking is becoming so much a part of you that you're walking a lot more than you were falling now at first it wasn't that way for me i felt i was more down than up i kept wanting to get up but i was still down and then i started to get up but i kept falling back down it seemed like it never ended my first early year of being a Christian. I thought I was a sinner day and night. I was convicted all the time. I fought and hated and whatever what I was doing, but it kept changing. I kept getting stronger, not realizing it at the time. I could just feel my frustration and my disobedience was so bad, but it kept changing. And over a year's period of time or year and a half, something that developed that I didn't realize. I started to be so stronger, I wasn't falling all the time and then when I started looking back I thought wow my anger that I used to have always a battle with has vanished I'm not losing my temper like I used to I don't even know when it left I just realized now it's gone and nobody taught me how to understand that I just was struggling with the fact that things were going on in me that I didn't have control of and they were getting good I didn't know how or why but they were getting good because that junk I hated was starting to fall away. And the only thing I was doing is weeping to God, praying and reading his word and getting more convicted. It was really a rough time. Remember, I've told you that a few times. But see, phasing into this next phase, there's a lot more walking and a lot less falling. Because the new phase is very clearly similar to the physical. Now, if you look at my illustration, level two has basically three steps. You're starting to walk in steps. there's three steps that Peter talks about. And Peter will make it clear, and the issue is that righteous character is now becoming the development. Remember, character is like hammered into your soul a consistency to do right. It's hammered there like being stuck in stone or poured cement over you. You don't move from it any longer. You just kind of keep doing what's right. In fact, in Romans, Paul says, you used to be slaves to sin. now you become slaves to righteousness and he actually uses the word you become a slave to doing good stuff you can't get out of it you try to do bad and you do good because you're a slave to good you get a temptation in your mind that you want to say something but you just can't do it you ever heard that you feel like you want to say but it won't come anymore in the old days you just curse the guy out or smack him and now in these days you can't help it you just feel and then you feel guilty for even having the thought you ask God to forgive you and you never even did the action because the change is going on is you're becoming a slave to righteousness is it making sense and this phase is powerful in a very long extended period of time it's not something quick the first phase really shouldn't be that long in your life if you really have experienced the grace of God within a year or two you should find yourself a lot of repentant going on as God shoves you right through with his grace phase two though building character is a very very long phase of christianity and i'm gonna and i'll explain some of this to you as we go through the lesson and this is just introductory i'm going to spend a number of weeks again on this as i did on the other one but first of all consistently walking in obedience to christ starts with knowing biblical principles in christ's commands notice the steps the step two of second peter is knowledge see knowledge doesn't start like you think. It's virtue is what God wants to do first. If you start with knowledge, the Bible says knowledge puffs up or causes pride. If you fill your head full of biblical knowledge without knowing Jesus, all it does is pump you up and you get actually unusable for God. Because God resists the proud and only gives grace to the humble. Remember it said everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know personally and intimately the one who invited us to God. Before you can go to middle school and develop, you've got to know the basics. You're not going to gain anywhere. And you can't go up there until you pass. Each level, you can't get to. Exactly what Peter said. You can't pass step two until you get a favorable... You've accepted it. You've conquered it. You've passed the test before God will take you to step three and step four. Each is the exact same way. You have to pass before you get there. The elementary school basics for Christianity, according to Hebrews chapter 5, number one says foundations of repentance, which we talked about as step one. You begin at that level of truly developing not just talk, but true action of repenting fully and completely of your sin. Step two is taking those faith in God. Truly not just saying I believe with your head. It's literally learning how to walk in faith with God. What it means to trust in, cling to, rely upon, and hold on to the life of Jesus for your very being. That takes a lot of development. And look what it shows there. Basically, that means you've got to have knowledge. Knowledge, first of all, you have to have a working knowledge from creation to the cross. To really get anywhere, you've got to have a good foundational concept of why God created us, how He developed that, why He got all the way to the time in history where Jesus died on the cross. Between those two points are valuable knowledge that you must master the ABCs of understanding before you'll be able to walk with God in power. Does that make sense? And that's very time-consuming. That's a lot of the Bible, isn't it? The book of Genesis all the way up to the Gospels is a lot of stuff. But that's where it's going to, all the way to the Gospels from the book of Genesis. all that he gave you on purpose he didn't tell you to skip the danger of the church we get somebody coming in and says they want to follow Jesus what do we tell them? read John or Matthew well that's dumb God said read from Genesis up to Matthew Mark Luke and John it more reading but America doesn want to get that much reading in That fanatical I just want the short version Do you have the cliff notes of the Bible I just want John. Yeah, I just want the cliff. But the point is, the limited knowledge causes ignorance and confusion. And you do not develop to be a solid Christian person. God can't use you in that confused state. you do more harm than good. Why do you think America is the leader of cults? Because we have ignorant people because the church failed to develop the truth from Genesis through the Gospels so people understood what was going on. With the confusion, they're like hungry fish that bite any bait that comes their way. And they get sucked into every stupid movement and stupid idea and false doctrine that can come out there and they get in circles with this stuff. Our country is full of false stuff compared to other places. You know what I'm saying? Because of this very thing that we have not dealt with the foundations and we haven't taken the time to truly lay it down for you. You need to make sure you understand. You need to take the effort. Remember what Peter said. It says you need to go into that great effort to develop that in your life. You have to take the choice and effort to make sure you understand from Genesis through the Gospel. Why it's there? It's a long process. It's not something you learn in a day. But when you go to school, do you get through with multiplication by the time you're in kindergarten? No. It takes time to plow through that. Do you have enough love for God and desire to start and start plowing your way through until you get it? I'm not talking about you being a preacher. I'm not talking about you being an evangelist. I'm talking about just being a normal, educated Christian. These kids that go through elementary, we don't expect them to be President of the United States. necessarily, but that basic education is for everybody no matter what they do. This is basic education. Does that make sense to you? And yet what I'm talking about already is huge to people. They go, that's way beyond, and they're already freaking out. It's just basic. We see the world is doing it for elementary school, but not the church. Oh, that's way too heavy. We can't go that direction. Secondly, not only do you have to get the foundation, then you need to, on top of that, understand when it says that if to know God, like we said in 1 John, means that you keep His commandments, obviously, if you're ignorant of His commandments, you'll never obey them, will you? You've got to know Him. That is why I had passed out to you today that brochure. You might have got it before, but the brochure actually spells out the 49 commands of Christ. You'll never learn them by just taking it in your Bible and looking at it in a glance, but they're there for you to take home and begin to process those. it's going to take you a period of time of learning those but if you don't learn them you will not have passed first grade in the elementary school of Jesus you know what I'm saying you're going to be stuck back in preschool or K only kindergarten but you're not going to get into the elementary school past any place because that's the beginning level of knowledge wow why do I know that Jesus said go make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and then it says teaching them all things whatever I commanded you. Well, if that's the elementary principles and we are to do that to every believer and it's the very foundations, we haven't even passed the foundations for most churches, have we? Honestly. I mean, any church you know, the people are sound and firm in the commands of Jesus. I was raised in church and I don't know any. in fact I don't we're just starting it here right and yet the Bible says that's only step two step two wow how we got a long ways to understand the teachings of God now the third section is moral freedom in that foundational area why because remember it said that you have to leave all sin behind and the key according to the scripture we looked at last week was the world is corrupt by moral corruption it said. Remember that was the key reason why they're in darkness and sin. So moral freedom is also on level two, the first area of level two teaching step two. It's the very beginning of first and second grade education. You must learn the morals of God and learn to have moral absolute freedom from lust and immoral sin. You have to have absolute strength over those just in your first level of education. Then, once that happens and you enter that, see, notice what's going on because you're heading into self-control. Moral purity would be self-control. See, you learn it there because once you've established into that area, then you're able to go get promoted to middle school for Jesus. Middle school. And middle school deals with those principles I mentioned to you. The broader, remember we talked about command start, because the Bible says the commands of God drive you to Jesus. That's what Paul said. So you start with the commands back up at first level, but then you start to understand and learn the principles. What's behind the commands? God's character, His principles, His commands. Remember how I labeled that for you to see. You need to learn what those principles mean. In middle school, teaching under self-control is where you start to learn the principles to have self-control in your life. Now, it's spelled out in Hebrews in two areas. It says baptisms, not single. It doesn't say the foundations of understanding is baptism, but baptisms. Well, that's because there's two levels, the physical and the spiritual. Remember, the physical is water baptism. When you become a Christian, we say we need to put you and dunk you under the water and bring you up as a symbol of something that happened in the spiritual realm. Water baptism is always the sign of connection to membership. Remember, this ring is a sign of something that's real in my life. It's not the real thing, but it symbolizes. Water baptism is a symbol of something else happening to me in the spiritual realm. This is happening to me in my relationship realm. This ring says I am married. It's a symbol, sign, a physical sign of something going on in my relationships. Water baptism is a sign of spiritual relationship, right? Baptism is the physical where we take a person who has made confession of faith, we stick them under the water, bring them up, and we receive them into membership of our church. They are firmly, physically proclaimed to be a member of the body of Christ, right? In the spiritual realm, the Bible talks about being baptized in the Spirit. That's the spiritual side where we are immersed. The word baptism just means immersed or flooded. You're flooded with spiritual life. Well, that happens, basically, it starts at conversion. You are flooded with life. If you go to the book of John, chapter 20, it talks about the disciples after Jesus was dead and resurrected. It says He came to them alive. And it says that they were afraid of Him, remember, and they didn't know what was going on. And it says that He came to them in John chapter 20. It says He breathed on them and said, Receive the Spirit. Well, see, before that, they weren't born again, remember? Because they didn't have what we have. We are born again when we're converted because Jesus always was resurrected from the dead. Before that, they were followers, but now they had that flood of life that came into them. They were flooded with the Holy Spirit entering into their being, and they were new creatures at that point in John 20. Now, that was the first idea of that flooding. It was inward. Their grace release was that they began to have the power that they wished they had when they were first hearing Jesus teach. Remember when Jesus first talked to them? What happened? They would say, Oh, we don't know what he's talking about. It said they were frustrated, and they didn't get it. and they'd ask them a hundred times, and Jesus would say, how long have I been with you, and you still don't listen to me, or don't hear me? Well, that was because they weren't born again. But remember at the resurrection of Christ, when it was over, remember the guys that were walking along the Emmaus way, and it says a stranger came to them, and started telling them about the Bible, and they said, oh, did you notice that tingling? I forget how it's worded, but it was like, it just overwhelmed them, the truth was there. Well, the resurrection brought the difference. It brought resurrection power. Suddenly, the Word made sense impacting, They received life. The Word of God became alive to them. But then Acts 2 comes along, and then they needed baptism again. This is a third baptism. But it's not the inward, and it's not the water. This time it was the outward power they needed immersion under. And so if you read Acts 2, it says, the church was immersed by the power of God. And that dunamis power was a power that brought conviction to sinners. It wasn't the power they needed to walk with God. They got that in John 20 but the new baptism they needed was the power that so when they spoke the word it brought power to convert sinners You hear me Three clearly defined ideas of baptism That's why it says baptisms when it talks about basic understanding. Now, what does that have to do with our personal life, and how does that affect us? And also, the idea of how that impacts us. Well, look at it. First of all, believe it or not, That's a connection to acceptance of yourself. Something you must learn through this period of being a new believer. What does accepting a self have to do with the baptisms of water and spirit? To me it's a basic foundation, but I've thought about it for a long time and I'm throwing it at you now. Can you become any connections? How does baptisms of water and the spirit have anything to do with self-acceptance? First of all, think about when I got married and got my ring and so forth. What does that tell me about who I am now? I'm not a single person anymore. I'm a different kind of person. There's something else going on in my life that wasn't there before. The same thing, see what we're saying? Yeah, there's responsibilities that have been added. Now I have to accept my responsibility. I have to accept who I am that's different than before. I can't keep living like a bachelor. I can't be wandering around all night messing around. I'm in a new phase of life. This is what I'm trying to get you to see here. As you enter into Christ and have that baptism of the Spirit and baptism of water and so forth, you're a different person. You have to begin to wrestle with who you are. You won't have self-control until you actually accept who you are. Under being single, you don't have to have control, I guess. You can go wild. But suddenly I've got responsibilities and children will be coming and so forth. I've got to accept who I am in this new role or life I'm in. This is what accepting self is. In Christ, you have to accept who you are. You have to learn to accept it in all its goodness. It's a good thing to do, but if you keep thinking of yourself as, oh my, I'm only a sinner, which is I hear so often in the church, you can't live any different. I'm just a sinner, saved by grace. People will say that. You were a sinner, but Jesus says now you're a new creation, so now you can say, I accept my new self. I'm in Jesus and I have life. I don't have to keep saying my old wife, I'm still a sinner. That's almost the same thing that happened back in the Civil War. Remember when Abraham Lincoln declared the freedom of the slaves? A lot of them still said, oh my, I'm still a slave. They had to accept their freedom. Otherwise, they still sat there on those plantations and still let the master ruin their lives and beat them or whatever. They didn't accept who they were. Truth or knowledge starts the deliverance, but you have to accept it. Well, what happens when you accept yourself? You begin to have self-control. Because you're in that whole different area of life. So it's very important to understand what it means to accept yourself. Secondly, in the other part of what Hebrews stated in chapter 5 of Hebrews, one of the foundation principles to teach at the beginning was laying on of hands. That has nothing to do with more than one thing, authority. You need to learn authority and what it means. laying on the hands is the teachings involved with submitting to the authorities or the hands that are above you. Learning how God works through those hands that are above you. Learning to accept that authority. How to share that. It talks about a lot of doing that, but it's really the core issue is responsibility. Learning your authority and taking on those responsibilities you started to accept as you accepted yourself. Now it's taking them on learning what they mean. Now, thirdly, if you get through that, you actually can get promoted to high school. in Jesus. And that high school level is an application of all the things that we begin to do. In other words, learning how to flesh it out in your real life. How to do it. And that means there's two basic doctrines behind that. Hebrews said, resurrection of the dead. Learning the idea of what it means that there's truly a resurrection from the dead. You know, if you don't think you're going to be resurrected from the dead, how do you live your life? First of all, you have no hope forever, so you can do whatever you want. But what happens if you believe that you're being resurrected from the dead and that you will face eternal judgment? Doesn't that affect the way you live your life, if you believe it? This is why this foundation in high school makes all the difference. It's going to put a purpose in your life. It'll change what you do. Therefore, first of all, you need to learn how to clear your conscience. Timothy, when Paul wrote, in Timothy, he explained in chapter 1 and 2 of 1 Timothy the importance of having a clear conscience. And he said that the guys who don't see that have spiritual shipwrecked their lives. So understanding that everything has to do with clear conscience. Why? Because you're going to face God in judgment. It's important that I have my conscience clear now so God doesn't point at me and say, you did evil, never tried to make it right. I've got to learn now how to walk with God. Secondly, personal rights. If I'm going to live forever and I'm going to face judgment, what do I do when I keep saying, it's my right to do what I want? I don't think so. It's time to yield your rights to God, because He's the sovereign. And so you have to learn what that means in every aspect of your life. And then thirdly, how do you have a successful life? Well, by going through understanding you have eternal life, not just temporary life. You will face judgment. God, in His Word, teaches you how to be successful now, so that you will enjoy heaven later. Success is very important to God. And the fourth thing, which I mentioned, was it gives you a full purpose. You need to learn the five purposes of God. Learn what purpose is, because that's all a part of eternity. It's eternity. Now, if you don't believe in eternity, you can ignore all these things, right? But for us, this is important. Now, what does all that bring us to? When you get to that point, you get strength. Strong as a person. But think of the strengths that are there. A person who has the ability to overcome moral impurity, who accepts himself. You know, it's always they talk about the freedom of people that really know who they are and the freedom of accepting yourself releases you to follow the purposes and dreams and visions you get from God. Otherwise, you go, oh, God never could use me. I'm just an old sinner anyway. You know, you don't go anywhere. All these things are bringing you to a place of power, of strength. Therefore, reminder here as we finish then, the goal then is to develop strong character in your life. So that you are a very powerful overcomer, in fact, is what it says once you get to the second level. It says, I write to you young men because you're strong and you've overcome the devil. And the word of God dwells in you greatly or richly or whatever how it's worded. Those things are the evidence that you went to level three. So that's why you're heading that direction. You're developing character to get there. Because when you get there, you're automatically in phase three. So you're in school to develop strong character. So here's the last couple notes. When a child walks for a while, they become strong, stable, and consistent. Therefore, God's after you to get you to be strong, stable, and consistent in your walk with Him. That's what this phase is all about. That's why character has to be developed. Number two, when a spiritual child walks, they develop character. They don't develop muscles in their legs. You're developing muscles in your soul. Your soul is being empowered. You're becoming strong in spirit or mighty in spirit, the Bible uses. That's what we're talking about, being mighty in spirit. It's based on consistently obeying the commands of Jesus Christ. Number three, remember, always through this, the grace of God will take you where you need to be. The natural process or the supernatural process is that God desires to give you the strength and the desire to do His will. You can always rely on Christ that He's working these things out in you. You just need to learn to cooperate and understand what He's doing. But it never ceases that the grace is being poured out into you. And it's a motivational factor to bring you to life of strength and success. Number four, a spiritual child must study and learn. That's why they call it elementary school and middle school and high school. It is learning. And you cannot get out of it. If you're lazy and refuse to do this, you will find yourself in a terrible spot. But if you will get it in your mind that the Bible commands you to study, to show yourself approved unto God, then that means that you'll be a workman that he can truly what? Yeah. He wants to prove you and use you, but it says clearly you must study to show yourself approved by him or pass his class. He's the one that says, pass, fail, pass, fail. He's the one. Not me, not your friends, but God. And so he's going to bring you to that place over and over again so that you will pass the test. And that's it for today. You love my Lord.

Playlist coming soon.