Spiritual Blindness

Now I'm so glad you guys are here.

This morning we're going to be in 2 Peter, chapter number one, 2 Peter, chapter number one, and we've been going through the book of John and something that is justit's almost fascinating.

When you look at the book of John, how many people were blind to the fact that Jesus was the Son of God.

I mean, y'all think about it.

Y'all think about it.

Jesus did all these miracles.

He fulfilled all these prophecies.

He walked on the water and people are like, nah, we don't think you're the Son of God.

I mean, come on, guys, if you saw somebody walk on the water, it'd be like this guy is not from this world.

And they still were.

They were blind to the fact that he was the Messiah, the Son of God.

And they weren't just blind, they were blind to their own blindness.

All right, can we get that next slide up?

They weren't just blind, they were blind to their own blindness.

It's like they didn't even realize that they couldn't see what they couldn't see.

And if you've been around, we've talked about them and we're like man, come on.

But if we're honest, how often do we have blind spots in our life that we don't see?

How often do we have blind spots in our life that we don't see man?

The number of times I've thought I don't need to hear that person or listen to them because I'm right.

And I've been blinded to my own pride and ego.

The times I've thought in my life, if those people would just put Jesus first in their life, like I do, then they wouldn't have so many problems.

Blind to my own self-righteousness.

Times in my life where something's happened or somebody said something to me and I just reacted and I've thought, well, if they didn't do that or they didn't say that, then I wouldn't have reacted that way.

And I've been blinded to my lack of self-control.

Can we just have a moment of honesty in the room?

How many of you can look back on your life and there's been a time where you've had a blind spot or two?

If your hand's not up, let me lovingly tell you what your blind spot is.

Your blind spot is your blind spot to your blind spot.

Here's the reality.

We all have had blind spots and I bring this up because we're in between series this week and it's easy to see the blind spots of the people in John, but 2 Peter, chapter 1, actually tells us that we can have blind spots and and, and.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

It gives us the specific blind spots that people that are Jesus followers can have.

In fact, this is what it says in verse 9 of 2 Peter 1.

It says the person who lacks these things I'm going to tell you what those things are in a minute, because Peter gets all up in our business he's going to tell us specifically what those things are.

The person who lacks them is blind and short-sighted.

He doesn't say the person that lacks them is kind of going through a hard time right now, or you know, they need some things to work on.

No, he's like you're blind and you're short-sighted.

Man, peter, that's really strong and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.

So you've forgotten that you're a child of God.

Because in verse 12, it tells us who he's writing to.

He says, therefore, I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth.

You now have, in other words, these people.

They're followers of Jesus, they were mature in their faith, they were established.

And he says hey, y'all know all this stuff, but I need to remind y'all Because if you don't have them, you're blind, you're short-sighted.

Well, what are these things?

It's very simple.

We're going to read it in just a minute.

He says it's goodness, it's knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly affection and love, and these sound a whole lot like the fruit of the Spirit.

You say what's the fruit of the Spirit?

Maybe you're in here like fruit of the Spirit, like fruit, like the grapes that grow in Napa.

Fruit of the Spirit is spiritual fruit, characteristics that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives as we live our lives in dependence and surrender to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces things in our life that you cannot produce on your own.

And what is he talking about?

Many of the fruit of the Spirit are in this list here, so check this out.

Verse number five he starts listing all these things that can be blind spots in our lives.

He says this for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with what's that word?

Your faith with goodness.

Goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.

I think it's really helpful if we can break these things down and look at what they actually are.

He says goodness when he says goodness and I got some boxes so we can see these.

When he says goodness, he's talking about living with integrity and moral excellence.

What is integrity?

Integrity is doing, yeah, it's honesty.

It's doing the right thing, even when it's the hard thing.

How many of you would agree?

Sometimes doing the right thing is the hard thing, especially when people around us aren't doing the right thing.

Especially when it's like, hey, if I just take this little shortcut, it won't really affect that many people and it'll be okay If I just tell this little white lie.

Be okay If I just tell this little white lie.

Everybody does it and it can be tough to have integrity.

I remember growing up and seeing my parents time and time again doing the right thing, even when it was the hard thing.

I was super fortunate to have really godly parents.

My dad was actually a pastor and, in case you didn't know, being a pastor is really hard, which is why I didn't want to be a pastor, but that's another conversation.

God's got a sense of humor, okay.

And I remember seeing my parents time after time again where, honestly, people would just treat my parents wrong and they would just say things to them or treat them in an unjust way and my parents would, time after time.

Just take the high road, just take the high road.

And as a teenager I'm like why y'all say taking the high road?

It's a lot more fun when you take the low road.

I think of a time specifically that my dad told me about as I was getting a little older.

My dad used to be a pastor out in the Sacramento area and it was out in the country, the church that they pastored, and they had a bigger piece of property just because it was an old country church and whatnot, and my dad and my mom, they had purchased a double-wide mobile home they were fancy, double-wide mobile home, yeah and they put it on the church property there.

And there was kind of the agreement where the big old property they just put it on the side of the property and they lived there.

And then they transitioned out of that.

They were pastored there for a while and they went to pastor in Solano County.

And out of that, they were pastored there for a while and they went to pastor in Solano County and their names were still on it and the agreement was the church would just or the new pastor would just take over the mortgage payments and he would live there and then it would be theirs.

Like my parents didn't sell it to them, my parents were just giving it to them and that was the agreement.

Everything was good.

Everything was great.

So my parents thought.

And so my parents got a notice in the mail that for a long time they had not been paying the mortgage on that mobile home and that mobile home was still in their name.

And what my parents could have done and honestly, what I probably would have done is my parents could have gone and taken that mobile home and said you're living there but you're not paying for it.

I'm like graciously, give this back to me, I'm taking this.

My parents didn't do that.

In fact, what my parents did is my mom worked overtime and they took a bunch of money out of their savings and they took a bunch of money out of their savings and they paid for all of that and then they gave it all right back to the church and to that pastor and all that like literally thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, a lot of money.

And I remember asking them I was like, why would you do that?

Like dad, like that's not cool, like they did not treat you right, like they misled you, like they said that they didn't.

They didn't even tell you any of this.

And he said this is why he was like because it was the right thing to do, because it would have hurt that family and it would have hurt that church and I don't want to hurt that church.

And because of that, me and your mom decided we were going to sacrifice and we're going to take the high road in this situation and my dad literally never had a conversation with me about it one time, like he was never braggadocious about it.

He was never like.

This is what he did.

He lived his life with integrity.

Now here's a question you might say what does it look like to live your life with integrity?

Three questions is what you can answer and think about this.

Does your life align with what you say you believe in?

Okay, most of us we would say we follow Jesus, we believe in Jesus.

Okay, does our life align with what we say we believe in?

Do we tell the truth, even when it's inconvenient or uncomfortable?

Are we dependable and trustworthy?

Do we say what we say we're going to do when we say we're going to do it?

Jesus followers should be marked with superior integrity.

We should be the most dependable, trustworthy people in the world, in our jobs, in our families, in our neighborhoods.

Our word should be our bond and this is what Peter says.

Peter says hey, if you lack goodness, if you lack integrity in your life, he says hey, it's a blind spot.

He uses the next word.

He says the word knowledge.

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is well, it's simply understanding and discernment.

There's another word in the Bible for understanding and discernment it's the word wisdom.

Everybody say the word wisdom, ready, wisdom, wisdom.

You ever met somebody and maybe you're like man that's like such a wise person, like how do they have wisdom?

Maybe you've met somebody else and you're like they're a wise guy.

I don't want to be like that person, but you've met somebody with wisdom and you're like how do you have wisdom, how do you have understanding and discernment?

James, chapter 1, verse 5, it says this If any of you lack wisdom, you know who that any of you is.

James 1:5

That's me.

That that's me, that's you.

If we lack wisdom, what do we do?

He says we should ask God, who gives to all, generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to him.

God wants to give you wisdom.

Y'all know that.

God actually gave us the entire book of the Bible.

That's all about wisdom.

Anybody remember what's that book of the Bible?

Proverbs, that's right, proverbs.

In fact, somebody told me in high school and I don't know why they told me this.

They told me they said a proverb a day will keep foolishness away.

I don't know why they told me that, but you know what I mean A proverb a day will keep foolishness away.

Why?

Because Proverbs is filled with wisdom and what God wants to do is give us wisdom.

And Peter says hey, hey, hey, hey.

Do you have wisdom?

Do you have discernment?

Here's what discernment tells us to do.

Discernment allows us to figure out man, these are all the opportunities in my life I have.

What should I focus on and what should I say no to?

It allows us to be able to determine between these are the good things, these are the best things.

It allows us to say this is a person that I love and I care about, but I probably need to put a boundary right here with them.

That's discernment and wisdom.

Wisdom allows us to say man, I got this credit card and I could do a lot with this credit card.

Wisdom and discernment says I probably shouldn't go on a $5,000 shopping spree with that.

I probably shouldn't sit front row at the Giants game, but if you are, let me know and we'll go together.

It's wisdom.

Wisdom says, hey, hey.

Wisdom allows us to look at who we follow on social media and be like, yeah, I probably shouldn't follow that person.

Wisdom says, hey, I probably shouldn't reshare that or repost that.

Wisdom tells, yeah, maybe there's nothing wrong with this, but how is this gonna come across?

Wisdom this is what Peter says.

Peter says you need to have wisdom, you need to have knowledge.

He goes on to the next one, and this is the tough one.

He says self-control.

Can we just all agree?

This is a hard one, this is a difficult, this is mastery hard one.

This is this is a difficult, this is mastery over one's desires and impulses.

This is the ability to not fly off the handle.

You go through the drive-thru and you get the cheeseburger and they put pickles on your cheeseburger.

All right, no.

And you get home and you take a bite of it and you're like what in the world?

Self-control says it's not a big deal.

A lack of self-control says we need to go back.

Right now I'm so angry.

Self-control Now, here's the reality.

If you were to ask me you were to say hey, nate, how's your self-control doing?

This is what I would tell you Honestly.

I'd be like it depends on the situation.

Peter would say nah, that's not going to fly, because self-control isn't based on the situation, it's based on being surrendered to the Holy Spirit.

It's based on being surrendered to the Holy Spirit.

You know it's possible to have righteous anger and be upset and still have self-control in the midst of that righteous anger.

Having anger is not sinful alone of itself.

You can have righteous anger and self-control will allow you to have self-control.

You can be in emotionally charged environments where things are just heated and you can still maintain self-control if you're surrendered to the Holy Spirit.

Next, endurance.

What's endurance?

Endurance is perseverance in trials and hard times, trials and hardships.

Man, wouldn't life be a whole lot easier if there were no hardships?

Sometimes I'm like man, can I get a break?

It's like it's not this.

It's that.

You know there's trials and hardships.

And when we have hardships, what do we do?

How do we respond?

Is our default God?

It's your fault?

Is our default God?

It's your fault?

Is our default God?

If that's how it's gonna go, I'm not going to church on Sunday.

Okay, god.

I'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna read my Bible.

What's our default when we have hardships and trials?

This is what Peter says.

Peter says we need to have endurance.

Next he says godliness.

What's godliness?

Godliness, simply, is reverence to God.

It's having this reverence for God that produces awe.

This reverence is an awe of God that produces love and obedience.

He says have brotherly affection.

What is that?

That's kindness towards others.

The word that's used for brotherly affection is a word that describes love, kindness, in a familial type of way, so in a way that we would love our family, and what Peter is saying is we need to have this family-like love one for another that followers of Jesus should have for each other.

You say what does it look like if I'm going to have brotherly affection amongst the body of Christ?

Here's what it should look like we actually pray for each other.

We pray for each other.

We pray for each other.

So it's not that I just like randomly see somebody.

It's like I actually pray for them and then take a step further, tell them you're praying for them.

It's this we serve one another.

This can look like being on a serve team, or this can look like you find somebody that has a need and you're like I just want to help you out.

You're allowed to serve people outside of a serve team.

Yeah, it's serving each other.

It's this.

It's caring more about how people are doing, more than what people are doing.

It's when people are in here.

It's our faith family.

It's not seeing them as objects and like, oh, that person's in my seat, oh, that person took my parking spot no, but seeing people as people that are made in the image of God that God gave his only son for it's loving people, it's caring about people.

It's not seeing people as cogs in a wheel to do what you want them to do, no, no, but it's seeing people so I can love them.

Now, here's the reality.

People are a little difficult.

Sometimes, church people are a little difficult more sometimes.

You know what's a little difficult.

You are.

You know what's a little difficult.

Sometimes I am.

Don't say amen, don't say amen.

Here's the thing I love you.

Whoever said that?

Thank you so much, let's go, let's go.

And in the midst of this, the body of Christ is meant to be people that love each other, that are for each other, that forgive each other, that care about each other.

This is how sanctification happens in our life.

This is how it says okay, the body of Christ is meant to grow you, and not just through the teaching of the word, through worship, music, through serving.

It's meant to grow you by the way.

You care for each other because you're learning to live more like Jesus.

You're learning to care about people.

Why?

Because you care about the body, and this is the body of Christ, who Jesus loved and died for.

Can somebody say amen, we need to have brotherly affection.

And then he gives one more here.

He says we need to have love.

Now, this word love comes from the word agape.

Everybody say the word agape, together, ready Agape.

This is the highest form of love.

Agape is a form of love that reflects God's own love for us.

This is self-sacrificing, this is unconditional.

It doesn't matter what.

I'm still choosing to love you.

You can do nothing for me, but I'm still here for you.

You, you can do nothing for me, but I'm still here for you.

And Peter says this is what we need to have in our lives.

This is so important and here's why it's so important that we have these things in our life, because verse 8 says this.

Verse 8 says in 2 Peter 1, if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful.

In the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, you realize that God wants to use your life.

You realize that if you have breath in your lungs, then God has something for you.

You realize that God has purpose for your life.

You realize that, no matter what's happened to you or how you've been hurt or where you've been, god is not done with your story.

He's not done, but he says this if we don't have these in increasing measure, these will keep us from being useless or unfruitful.

If we don't have these in our life, we will not be fruitful.

If we don't have these in our life, we won't fulfill our purpose.

If we don't have these in our life, god won't use us like he could in other ways.

God wants us to live out what it means to be his child, and when we do this, we can have these things in our life.

Now I look at that list and I think, man, all these characteristics.

Some of y'all think I'm some, you know, some pastor.

So you know I wake up in the morning and like the angels sing over me or something, but I'm just normal.

I look at that list and I'm like, oh, my goodness.

I'm like whew and darn I'm doing.

Okay, some of them.

Others I'm like, eh, yeah, so you think, is it even possible to have those things in our life?

Yeah, here's how it's possible.

Verse 3 of the text.

He starts it this way, talking about Jesus through his divine nature, his divine power, has given us what's that word it's given us.

Jesus has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him, who called us by his own glory and goodness.

This is how he starts this whole thing.

He's like hey, just so you know, before I talk about all these blind spots that you can have in your life, I want to start here and say, hey, jesus has given you everything you need for life and godliness, everything you need.

You say what's everything?

Everything, it's everything.

I don't know if you guys have ever been to an all-inclusive resort.

You guys ever been to an all-inclusive resort?

Okay, so that's like a bucket list item for me.

My buddy was telling me the other this my buddy was telling me a couple years ago he went to an all-inclusive resort and he was saying would an all-inclusive resort include it?

He said whatever food you want.

He said there's room service, there's restaurants.

He said entertainment, you could go, do anything you wanted there.

He said you want some sun.

He said you can go to the beach, said you can go to the beach or you can go to this pool or you can go to the water slide pool.

He said you do anything you wanted.

It had everything.

I set my battery mic just went out for a second.

I said so that means y'all didn't go down the street to grab a Whopper at Burger King.

Y'all didn't go to some $12 public pool where all the kids are peeing in the pool.

Y'all didn't go over there.

I'm sorry, y'all know it's true.

No, why, why?

Why it had everything they needed.

Y'all realize Jesus has everything you need.

Now here's why some of y'all don't realize this.

Because the word knowledge right here, it says he has everything required for life and godliness.

How?

Through the knowledge of him.

So you realize this through having knowledge of him.

This is not just an intellectual knowledge, although that's part of him.

So you realize this through having knowledge of him.

This is not just an intellectual knowledge, although that's part of it.

This is a intimate, thriving relationship with him.

So, until you have a thriving relationship with him, you will never realize that he's everything that you need.

You will never realize that he has everything that you need for life and godliness.

You'll say, yeah, jesus is cool, but I need this.

Over here You'll still pursue man, if I could just get more money and a bigger house and a better that and a nicer this and more, and another zero in my bank account, then I'll be cool.

No, friend, this is what Peter says.

When you have a knowledge of him, when you walk with him, you will see that he is every single thing that you need.

You'll see that this is one reason, as a church like we are so committed, guys, to help you growing in your knowledge of Jesus and your walk with him.

Like we are not committed just having a one hour show or whatever entertainment consumer thing on Sunday mornings.

That is not who we are here.

We want you to grow in your knowledge of Jesus.

This is why next week, we're going to start something and we have people sign up for it at the 845 service, something called our Foundations Group.

It starts next week during this service, 10 am.

It's about seven weeks or so and what we'll do is we'll walk through the foundations of the Bible over seven weeks.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Who is God?

What is prayer?

All these different things?

We'll just sit there and walk through it with you, and it's going to be a group during the 10 am service.

If nobody has ever done that with you, I cannot implore you enough to do this.

Why?

Because we want you to grow in your knowledge of God.

Edgar and Doris are going to lead it and they're going to do a great job.

That's what we want you to do.

We just want you to grow, because growth happens one step at a time.

Jr Packer gave this incredible quote about knowing God and the power of it in his book, which is called Knowing God.

This is what he says.

He says what were you made for To know God?

He says what were you made for To know God?

What should we set our?

What aims should we set ourselves in life?

To know God?

What's the best thing in life Bringing more joy, delight, contentment than anything else?

Knowledge of God.

What, of all the states God ever sees man in, gives him the most pleasure?

Knowledge of himself.

Once you've become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God.

Most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.

I'm going to put that up there one more time because I see some of y'all wanting to take pictures of it and the screen moved too fast.

Okay, let's start again.

Okay, what were we made for?

To know God.

What aim should we set ourselves in life?

To know God.

What's the best thing in life, bringing more joy and delight and contentment than anything else?

Knowledge of God.

What of all states God ever sees man in gives him most pleasure?

Knowledge of himself.

Once you become aware that the main business that you're here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.

It's getting to know him.

And when we get to know him verse number four, last verse this is what we're going to see that he's given us great and precious promises.

By these, he's given us very great and precious promises.

God has given you very great and precious promises so that through them what are the them?

The promises you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.

What are the great promises?

Pastor Cody talked all about it last week the promises of what it means to be a child of God.

The promises of prayer that we can have direct access to God, the Father, anywhere we want, don't have to be in a church building.

You can wake up in the middle of the night.

You can be driving Just don't close your eyes when you drive and pray, prayer, the presence of God goes with us everywhere.

The Holy Spirit how do we have the divine nature?

How can we share in the divine nature?

Because what the Holy Spirit does, he indwells us and he transforms our lives and we become more like Jesus.

His promises will produce these things in us.

Now I want to end by sharing this, and it comes from a conversation I recently had with somebody, and Josh, you can come up here and start playing, because it just sounds more spiritual when he's playing in the background.

Some of y'all got that.

So I was talking to somebody and they were talking about their church background and now just their own account and their story.

It was a very pressure, guilt, shame-filled church background and it was.

These are obviously characteristics and things that God wants us to do, but it was very much like guilt and shame and this and that, and if you don't, then you are, and if you this, then you that, and it broke them.

Verses like in Romans 2 that God's kindness leads us to repentance.

There was no space for that.

Verses like for God so loved the world that he gave, like he gave everything to us.

And the motivation in that environment that this person was raised in to live these things in their life, to live out an obedient christian life in alignment with god, was guilt and shame.

But here's the reality.

When you have a growing knowledge of him and you understand the great and precious promises that he's given you, this is what it makes you do.

It makes you say Lord, I want to serve you, lord, I want to follow you, lord, I want to honor you.

Lord, you've given me everything.

I want to give you back everything.

Lord, I'm not doing this because I'm trying to earn your favor.

I have all of your favor in Jesus.

But what I want to do is I do want to make an effort to live in alignment with your ways, it, jesus.

But what I want to do is I do want to make an effort to live in alignment with your ways.

It's completely different, because the motivation is not about guilt.

The motivation is about love, because he loved me, so I love him.

This is the Christian life, this is joy, this is meaning, this is purpose.

It's Jesus.

You've given all to me.

In Romans, chapter 12, paul shares the whole gospel.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Then Romans 12, verse 1, he says I beseech you, brethren, in light of the mercies of God, in light of all he's done for you, present your bodies a holy worship, a holy sacrifice to him.

Romans 12:1

That's all he's done for us.

Man, I got to stop, but I want to leave y'all with a question in our reflected response time.

It's this which of these seven do you need to grow in?

Which of these seven, man?

I mean, I was thinking about it this week.

I was like which of these?

And maybe it's, maybe it's just like I'll pay love, maybe loving God, loving others, maybe it's brotherly affection, maybe it's like I just need to get more committed to the body of Christ here.

I don't know, I'm not your Holy Spirit, I'm not trying to be, but here's what I'm saying.

I'm saying, guys, if we don't have these things, then we're blind and short-sighted and these prevent us from being useless and unfruitful in the kingdom of God.

So can we just do this?

Can we just have a holy moment where we bow our heads and close our eyes.