Do You Feel Stuck in Your Faith? This Could Be Why… | Tony Evans Sermon

Dr. Tony Evans dives deep into spiritual growth and explains how God desires us to experience more of His presence. Dr. Evans highlights how God’s word, when planted in our hearts, can flourish if we actively nourish it.

If you would like to download two encouraging, FREE full-length MP3s of Tony’s popular sermons: “The Sovereignty of God” and “How to Handle a Crisis,” you can do so by clicking on this link:

Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.

If you are increasing in your spiritual development, you are going to become more Christlike.
In your attitudes and actions, character, and conduct, you’re going to act and react more like he would act or react if he was in the same situation you are in.
Christ like character gives you the ability to forgive things you wouldn’t forgive.
To enable you to do things you were not able to do.
McDonald’s offers to supersize it.
Sonic offers to sonic size it.
What a burger offers to what a size it.
And Wendy’s offers to bigger size it.
In other words, what they say is we can give you so much more.
They offer to supply you with much more than your original request or expectation.
In our study of 2nd Peter chapter 1 versus 1311, God wants to supersize your experience with him and of him.
He wants to give you and me us a greater experience of his life.
The Bible calls eternal life, not merely everlasting life, but eternal life.
That is the experience of the life of god in time as we make our trip to eternity.
He wants to biggie size his reality in you and in me and collectively in us.
2nd, Peter, chapter 1 verse 8, For if these qualities, the 7 qualities found in verses 56and7, If these qualities are yours and are increasing, They render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our lord Jesus Christ.
If these qualities, he says, are yours?
And our head is increasing.
The word means to grow or expand He’s talking about your spiritual growth and your spiritual development.
To experience more of god, you must expand your capacity to receive it.
You must expand your ability to take it in.
You must he uses the word increase the expansion of your faith through the qualities that he has listed.
He wants to make sure that we are growing.
Spiritual growth is more of Christ expressing himself through less of me.
It is Christ feeling free to expand who he is inside of our soul.
Let’s review. When a person accepts Jesus Christ, They receive the seed of the divine nature.
God himself moves in to your soul. Your soul is your real self life.
He moves in like somebody moving into a house. He moves in, but he moves in in seed form.
That seed must develop in order for the full life that has been placed inside the soul to manifest its fullest expression.
A growth process must occur.
Every believer in Jesus Christ has had the seed placed in the soul, but it must expand.
It is in the expansion of the seed in the soul that Jesus Christ and the life of god becomes manifested as these supplements to faith begin to grow.
Now he makes it clear that these must increase. It must expand.
It can’t lay dormant. Your salvation was totally of god.
He saved you by no works of your own, but your development includes you.
There must be dependence on god while there is simultaneously the the responsibility of man.
You must utilize the divine resources but not ignore diligence in the human process.
He is concerned that believers who possess the seed don’t just let the seed sit there without developing, growing, expanding, or increasing.
More of god through less of you That’s the goal. Increase growth.
The great tragedy today is that you can be in church forever and not grow.
You can be in church forever and god not have meaningfully expressed himself in you to you and through you.
We call it stunted growth. Look at 1st Peter chapter 2.
Turn back a few pages. Look at this.
He says like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word so that by it, you may grow in respect to your salvation.
So he takes something all of us can identify with. All of us can relate to.
He takes the physical to teach the spiritual. Which the Bible regularly does.
He says if you wanna grow, let’s let’s just get this by looking at a newborn baby.
Like a newborn baby, Crave’s to grow and feeds to meet the craving, believers are to crave to grow in relationship to their salvation and not be satisfied until it happens because that’s the nature of a newborn baby.
So why are not? More of us growing rightly because we ain’t hungry.
Like a newborn baby, he says, I want you to crave the sincere or the pure milk of the word.
Now spiritual development like human development does not occur in a moment.
It occurs progressively over the consistent use of time.
He says to desire, like a newborn baby, the pure milk of the word.
When a baby drinks its mother’s milk.
It does not need external add ons.
God has so miraculously this put the woman’s body together that he’s built into the milk, all the necessary ingredients for the baby to grow once it takes it in.
What does he mean? To desire the pure milk of the word don’t add human additives to it.
Don’t add human opinion to divine revelation when it it’s it’s not the same or it’s inconsistent with it.
In other, you don’t need to go outside of god to get god to grow you in god.
Don’t put additives that are not consistent.
One of the reasons why we’re not growing, even though we may be listening to the sermon to reading the Bible, is we’re adding man made thoughts thinking approaches to it thus contaminating it so that it’s not free to do its work because god is built into the milk of the mother, everything the baby needs.
He’s built into his instruction for your spiritual growth, everything you need, and he doesn’t want manmade additives because it makes the milk impure.
Here’s what you have to understand.
The seed in your soul, the the divine nature in your soul is hungry.
See, it’s hungry because there’s a seed. So it needs to eat.
And so it’s waiting for food so that it can expand in your soul.
The food has to be consistent with what the seed can digest, and the divine nature can only receive divine truth.
As the divine nature gets in divine truth, even truth you don’t understand yet or cannot articulate yet, But because divine nature knows it’s true, it’s gonna eat it.
And when the divine nature eats divine truth, the divine nature expands in the soul.
So the question is, is it being fed?
How much is it being fed He says like a newborn baby.
Now in order for you to be like a newborn baby, You must have spiritual discontent with your current status.
The reason why you can’t shut a hungry baby up is because it’s discontent.
Going to be discontent until it’s fed.
What you and I must understand that what’s happening in our souls that’s providing spiritual misery is a discontent for lack of feeding.
That the soul is discontented.
It’s hungry, and you’re giving it a choir song. It’s hungry, and you’re just giving it a sermon.
It’s hungry. It’s hungry. And the new nature is saying, come on now. Come on now.
I need to eat more than once a week. Like a newborn baby, that must be discontent.
But wait a minute. Wait a minute. We just introduced a problem. Why is there discontent?
Why am I not hungry?
Why can I go days weeks without interfacing with god in a meaningful way?
What’s wrong with me? Cause wait a minute. If a newborn baby is not regularly crying, something is wrong.
Something is wrong. Look at what he says in first Peter verse 1 before he gets to verse 2.
He says, therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Like newborn babes, preceding the like newborn babes. What does he think? Sin will kill spiritual appetite.
Let me say that again. Send will kill spiritual appetite.
If you want the appetite of a baby, You cannot be sitting unconfessed, unrepentant sin because like eating a lot of doughnuts, it may taste sweet, but it’ll kill desire for something nutritional.
So he says in verse 1, deal with the sin, and I’ll give you back the appetite When I give you back the appetite because you dealt with the sin, then I’ll feed the new nature.
When I feed the new nature, now you will grow.
So the motivation for dealing with sin is not simply that it’s wrong, but in addition to that, because it kills the newborn desire.
And when it kills the newborn desire, you will not eat the right foods, spiritually.
And when you don’t eat the right foods, Spiritually, you will not grow.
Like a newborn babe.
Desire the sincere milk of the word that you might grow.
And so the issue is do you really want to grow?
Do I really want to grow? Let me put a growth another way.
Do I really want to experience more of god in time and not just have to wait till I meet him in eternity.
Because the whole purpose of growth is the greater experience of the divine nature.
That’s expanding in your soul.
So you must deal with the things that are quelching the appetite.
Because when you stop feeding on the word, you stop growing.
God says there’s a lot more to your salvation than what you got on the day you were born again.
But unless you know what the book says, unless you’re feeding it, it will not be your experience in the new nature, your experience of god, to a greater degree, You will not grow.
You can be in church for a lifetime and not grow because you’re not feeding.
Why does god want us to grow?
He says it in the second part of verse 8 of 2nd, Peter 1.
He says When you are growing, that is increasing, he says you you will be rendered neither useless nor unfruitful.
Alright. Let’s go to that one.
If god can get you to expand and become useful, James chapter 2 verses 14 to 26.
You have to turn there, but he talks about having a useful faith rather than a useless faith.
That your faith is only useful when activated.
Faith to get saved is what god does, but faith for god to expand in you takes also what you do.
You must act by faith, operate by faith.
And so he says that will make your life useful and fruitful.
Let me put it the other way. If you are not growing, you become useless and fruitless.
If you don’t grow, that will be nothing produced out of your life that has eternal value attached to it.
You might be successful in the marketplace. Successful with degrees on the wall.
But when it comes to living life and experiencing me in life, you will be useless and fruitless if there is no increase in the new nature inside you.
Look at John chapter 15. Turn with me there.
This is the quintessential passage on fruitful and useful. Verse 2 of John 15.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit. He takes away.
Every branch in me that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. Verse 5.
I am the vine. You are the branches. He will abide to me and I and him.
He bears much fruit. Verse 16.
You did not choose me, but I chose you, appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain.
See? Fruit is fruit all through there.
He goes from no fruit to fruit, to more fruit, to much fruit, to remaining fruit in those 16 verses.
It’s all about being a fruity Christian.
So let me give you the 3 characteristics of fruit.
Number 1, fruit always bears the character of the tree of which it is a part.
If it’s an apple tree, you’re gonna get If it’s an orange tree, you’re gonna get oranges.
If it’s a pear tree, you’re gonna get pears.
You’re not gonna get pears on an apple tree because the nature of the tree is not designed to produce that fruit.
So the fruit will always reflect the character of which you are a part.
If you are increasing in your spiritual development, you are going to become more Christlike in your attitudes and actions, character, and conduct.
You’re going to act and react more he would act or react if he was in the same situation you are in.
Christ like character makes gives you the ability to forgive things in your own human nature, you wouldn’t forgive to enable you to do things in your own human ability you were not able to do.
You are able to spawned as he would because you’re plugged into that tree. Yeah.
Secondly, Fruit not only bears the character of which it is a part, but fruit is always visible.
You’ve never seen invisible fruit. You can always see fruit.
You can you can always say that’s an apple, that’s an orange, that’s a bam, because it’s visible.
So if you’re a secret agent, Christian, you’re not fruity.
See, a a fruit a fruit Christian is visible.
In fact, the more fruity it is, the bigger it gets and the more visible it becomes.
It should be obvious that you are a follower of Christ if you’re growing.
If you were accused of being a Christian there ought to be enough evidence to convict you. Yeah.
You shouldn’t be found innocent of all charges. Wow. Because it is obvious.
It’s appropriate, but it’s obvious because it’s it’s that’s fruit. Fruit, you can see.
Thirdly, Fruit as a character of the transits part, fruit is always visible. Watch this.
Fruit always exists for the benefit of another.
Fruit is grown so somebody else can eat it.
Any fruit eating itself is rotten.
So one of the reasons why we got so many rotten Christians.
Is that their whole Christian life is only about them.
When fruit is on a tree, the design of the fruit is for somebody else to pick it and bite in it.
So the question of being a fruitful question is Is there anybody else trying to take a bite out of your life?
Are you having an impact on the lives of others That’s the problem with this blessed me thing going around the day.
Bless me. Bless me. I want my blessing. I want my blessing.
Nothing wrong with what your blessing as long as you attach it to being a blessing too.
Not just being blessed, but being a blessing. That’s why he wants you connected to the family of god.
He wants you connected to the family of god to give you practice in bearing a fruit that somebody else can take a bite out of.
He says, I want you to bear fruit.
How do you become a fruity Christian. I’m talking about juicy.
I’m talking about juicy. You know, I’m not a rotten Christian eating itself.
By the fruity Christian bearing the character of Christ being visibly displayed and with other folks saying, how can I become like you?
Notice what he says. Verse 4th. John 15 still abide in me.
Second half of verse 4. It abides in the vine.
Verse 6.
If anyone does not abide in me, verse 7.
If you abide in me, And my word abide in you, it means what you’re hanging out with.
Guess what Jesus said.
If you wanna be useful and fruitful, you gotta hang out with me.
You you gotta you gotta you gotta hang out with me. See, hang out.
That abide means to hang out with to stay to saturate yourself in the environment of something.
God or the lord Jesus Christ wants to be your best day.
That’s why he calls those who are biting in him, his friends. Folke hangs out with.
That’s why Paul can say, pray without Cecee.
You’re not talking about getting on your needs for 24 hours a day.
He was saying, stay hanging out with your bestie.
Oh, and oh, by the way, let me tell you what what happens when y’all start hanging out together, verse 7.
If you abide in me and my word abide in you, ask what you wish, and my father will do it for you.
Because we’ve been hanging out together, my father’s gonna pay particular attention to your request because you’re hanging out with his favorite son.
He’s only begotten, sir. You you know what folk are hanging out with now? Social media.
They hanging out. In technology, and it has absorbed their world.
But that technology can’t answer no prayers.
Jesus said, you better hang out with me. But hang out with me.
Let’s be besties. You abide in me and my word abide in you.
It’s a 2 thing. It’s the word, and then it’s the person.
The Bible was never just to be a book.
Jesus told the disciples on the emmaus road, he said, when you read the Old Testament Moses and the prophets, they’re really talking about me.
Even though my name is not in the old testament directly, every page in the old testament is anticipating Jesus Christ.
So he told them, even when you’re reading Moses and Joshua and and Amos and Obi Dyer, I want you thinking about me.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The old testament was predictive of me.
The new testament is the revelation and history of me. The epistles are teaching from me.
All of this thing is about me.
So when you read the book and think about me, I’m gonna show up through the book.
So view it as a letter to you rather than simply information about me.
The true knowledge means the experiential knowledge, not just informational knowledge, not just quote verses, but you will experience eternal life.
My life operating in you. So look at this final verse.
The last verse of 2nd Peter chapter 3.
But grow in grace and the knowledge of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, To him be glory, both now and to the day of eternity, Amen.
Notice our word grow again. Same as increase.
Spiritual growth flows from god’s in exhaustible supply of grace.
First p to 5, 10 says god is the god of all grace.
Grace is the goodness of god dispensed to you. It there is enough for everybody.
God does not run out of grace.
In fact, Efusions 2 says god’s grace will be manifested throughout the ages to come.
So in order to use up all of god’s grace, it’ll take you forever.
Ages to come.
God’s grace is this indispensable supply of goodness for his divine purposes and for our development.
But it must be accessed.
And the more the new nature expands in you, the more it can be accessed.
What god says, I want you to access, grow in grabbing what god is supplying through the expansion of your faith and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The knowledge of a person.
When you go to a restaurant, you just want a menu that you can read, you want a meal you can taste.
If you only read the menu and leave, you’re still hungry.
The idea is to read it because then you know what’s in it, but then it’s to taste and see that the lord is good.
God wants you to taste him, but you do not taste him simply by reading, you taste him by knowing and pursuing a personal intimate besty relationship with the one you’re reading about.
And when that becomes the goal, I’m gonna read my Bible, but I’m a look for the And and me and the lord will hang out all day long.
And and and some days, I’ll have a formal reading time.
Someday, I’m a I’m a put a verse in here and I’m a put a verse in there.
I’m a put a verse in there.
Sometimes I’m a quote a little something that Jesus you and I gonna talk about some stuff.
Softly and secretly, the nutrients of god’s grace will begin to flow in the divine nature expanding in the soul and folks are gonna say you’re changing.
What’s happening? And the fruit will begin to grow.
There’s enough for you.