2 Peter 1 - A Flourishing and Fruitful Faith

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and uh indeed we have a new study today, which I'm very excited about, and I hope you are as well.

We're gonna continue in a two-part series.

We had first and second Peter together, and uh we have uh come now to that place where we're gonna enter into 2 Peter.

But before we start, oh by the way, yeah, if you would like a copy, raise your hand up.

These guys are so graciously walking through.

Anyone need a copy?

Just raise your hand up, they'll drop one off.

It'll be good to look at the text.

We send warm greetings to our brothers and sisters in Christ who joined us through TVC Online last week.

Um, we heard from folks from uh Nairobi, Kenya, uh, two cities in Australia, Adelaide and Sydney.

Uh we heard from folks in Singapore, and then still others from back here in the USA in places like Springfield, Virginia, and Houston, Texas.

So glad you could be with us and uh uh welcome again if you happen to be worshiping with us today.

Um we're calling this uh series with 1 and 2 Peter Our Living Hope.

So I'll put that up on the screen.

Today we're gonna look at 2 Peter chapter 1, a flourishing and fruitful faith will be our text.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

I will say before we start reading 2 Peter chapter 1, no other New Testament book has been more disputed as to canonicity and authorship than 2 Peter.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

We don't have time to lay out all of the reasons, but I am persuaded this letter has come to us from Peter.

Um the letter does begin with a clear declaration of having been written by Peter.

I realize that could be faked, but the possibility doesn't prevent the probability.

I think that's important for us.

Good history includes uh an acknowledgement of that we don't have all of the empirical data right in front of us.

We can't hear, see, taste, touch, feel, whatever.

Uh all of the uh elements that might uh help us come to conviction or conclusion about something.

As I say though, the possibility that somebody else could have written it doesn't prevent the probability that Peter wrote it.

The author claims, uh, this is his second letter in chapter three.

Claims of the author include having been an eyewitness to the transfiguration of Jesus Christ.

We'll see that in our chapter today.

And just three people can actually make that claim Peter, James, and John.

The burden, I think, falls to the skeptics to prove it is not Petrine.

If you are curious and you would like to explore more reasons to believe 2 Peter was written by Peter and belongs in the New Testament canon, I do encourage you to visit either Bible.org or TGC.org.

There you'll find some helpful articles about it if you just do a little bit of a search.

2 Peter focuses on faithfulness and truth in the face of falsehood.

Peter writes to Christians suffering under increasing persecution, under an avalanche of false teaching that would test and try the faith of really any believer.

I don't know if that sounds familiar to you or not.

Our text for today, chapter one, reminds us that Christianity is not the move from vice to virtue, but rather the move from both vice and virtue to grace.

That's a big difference, isn't it?

Peter's not shy, though, about reminding us that we're not passive in the process.

And nurturing a flourishing and fruitful faith will look like something.

What does that look like?

I think we'll find some meaningful answers here in chapter one.

Who is Peter?

Well, some of you know a little bit about him, and it might lead you to ask why we should be interested in what he has to say about growing in steadfast faith.

Um, after all, wasn't he the guy who denied Christ three times?

That's true.

But ultimately, the object of Peter's faith wasn't Peter, it was Jesus.

And Jesus came for failed and embarrassed sinners like Peter and like Jim.

And like you.

Besides, at the end of the day, again, the object of our faith is what really matters.

Jesus is the object of Peter's faith, and he encourages us to look to Jesus, as you'll see in chapter one.

Let's walk through and look for both the encouragement and the exhortation that flow from one of Jesus' closest disciples.

First, a prayer for illumination.

Lord, it's been you who has protected us while we slept.

It's been you who provided for our every need.

It's been you, Lord, who's given us strength for every battle.

And it's been you, Lord, who has made a way through every wilderness.

As we end one week and we begin another, have mercy on us, especially those in need, those who suffer injustice.

Something inside us, Lord, is longing for more of you.

May our souls find peace in your presence this morning.

May our sorrows fall exhausted at the feet of your joy.

Help us remember to rest in your sovereignty, your faithfulness, and your great love for us.

Help us to honor your name, walk in your ways, and praise you with all of our being.

Hallelujah, Amen, and Amen.

This is God's word, unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, and transforming in its power.

Chapter 1 reads like this Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

There's so much right there.

We could camp out there.

There's Peter identifying himself by two names and two titles.

He's Simon, the Hebrew version of it would be Simeon.

But he's also Peter, Petros, in the Greek.

This is the name Jesus gave him, meaning rock.

And he's also got two titles.

He's a bondservant and an apostle.

He's a bondservant first.

I find it interesting that he puts that first.

He's the doulas, he's the bondservant, the slave of Jesus, and then he's the sent one of Jesus, because apostles are those who have been sent.

There's a very broad sense in which we're all sent by Jesus to go out into the world and preach the gospel and make disciples.

But there's a very unique thing that happens as well with these original eyewitnesses of Jesus, the original apostles.

And so he's identifying himself that way.

He's letting his readers know that he understands he came from somewhere.

He's both Simon before he was called Peter, and he's Peter.

He's both the slave and the sent one.

And he's letting his readers know, and who are his readers?

Well, they're just kind of vaguely actually identified here.

Those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours.

It's not the same as in 1 Peter, where we have this list of places.

There's a lot of folk who, a lot of commentators think it's probably to the same group of people, but we're not 100% certain.

Here's one thing I'm certain of.

I've received a faith that's of the same kind as his.

And if you've trusted Christ, you've received a faith that's of the same kind as his.

I did not think this up.

It did not originate with me.

I didn't make the first move.

God did.

And that's what received reminds me of.

God is always the initiator.

We are always the responders.

Peter knew that.

And he's reminding all of us of that.

Verse 2.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The knowledge of God, knowledge is a word that'll be used eight times in these three short chapters.

So this is an important part of the theme of 2 Peter, knowing something.

Epicnosis is the word.

And it's not merely academic knowledge, it's experiential knowledge.

And that's so important when he's speaking to, and you'll learn a little bit more about this next week, when uh when Ryan walks us through actually chapter two, and we'll be learning a little bit about some of the false teaching that was going on during the time.

But he wants us to have received this faith that's of the same kind as his and the twelve apostles, and that he wants us to receive this righteousness by this righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ, and he wants us to grow in grace and peace, may it be multiplied, he says, to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ.

So growth is rooted in increasing knowledge of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

That's interesting.

Seeing, verse 3, that his divine power has granted to us, again, there's the initiative of God granting things to us, his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

Has his divine power granted us some things?

No, everything.

Pertaining to what?

Pertaining to life and godliness.

In other words, we look to him for everything.

We look to him for gravity.

We look to him for air, for water.

He holds the whole universe together.

He is the grand unified theory.

He is it.

He's the creator, sustainer, ruler, and judge of all of his creation.

One day he promises to come back and set things right.

Yeah.

That's right.

And so we look to him because his divine power is so great.

It blows our mind.

He's granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, everything.

Through what?

The true knowledge of him, who's called us by his own glory and excellence.

Doxa chi erete, those last three words, glory and excellence.

This knowledge of him, right?

He's called us by his praise, his doxology.

We get that word doxology from that.

We sing it every Sunday here at the church.

His praise and his excellence, his majesty, his virtue, highest level of virtue there is, right?

For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent.

That's not fragile and magnificent.

That's really priceless.

There's a difference.

He's granted to us his precious, again, that's his initiative, and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

There's just so much in those first four verses.

I love the word excellence that we see there, erete.

This virtue.

He's going to use that same word again in just a minute as he talks to us a little bit about our part, our active role in this.

Now, for this very reason, supplying or applying all diligence, that's, you know, be diligent, go after it, be earnest, be eager, in your faith, supply.

And now here comes a list of seven things.

You might go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven in your margin if you would like to.

Are these sort of building blocks that start here and it goes on up like that?

Or is it just sort of a cluster of things together?

I don't know his intent.

I just know all seven of these things are pretty amazing.

And I could use a little bit more of all seven in my life.

And I think as I read the story, read the list, rather, you may see the same is true for you.

For this very reason, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence.

And in your moral excellence, knowledge.

There it is again.

And in your knowledge, self-control.

And in your how many of you need just a little more of that?

Okay, yeah, me too.

Um, self-control.

It's like of the whole list, it's right in the middle there.

It looks like the diamond, you know, atop the ring there.

It's just right there for us all to see.

In your self-control, perseverance, in your perseverance, godliness in your godliness, brotherly kindness, in your brotherly kindness, Christian love.

I love the lists of the apostles Paul and the Apostle Peter here.

Peter, I think, maybe has read enough of Paul that he he saw all of those lists that Paul used to come up with and he's gone, like, well, here's a little list too.

I think it's a really great list for us to add to our faith or supply our faith with these seven things.

Verse 8.

If these qualities are yours and are increasing, not just are yours, you got them this checkbox.

No, if they're yours and they are increasing, you're continuing to move along in those.

This is a flourishing and a fruitful faith we're talking about, not a stagnant faith.

And how many of us, if we were honest, and I just said, raise your hand if you've ever felt like your faith just came to a stall, to a stop, or stagnant, or you were just drifting, just coasting and drifting backwards.

This is not what Peter wants for us.

Peter wants for us a flourishing and a fruitful faith.

If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useful, and he said this is interesting.

He says this, it's a, it's actually an incentive in the negative, okay?

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 are yours and they are increasing, they render you, here's another word to say, they they render you neither lazy nor barren in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For he who lacks these qualities is blind or nearsighted or short-sighted.

In other words, you can see right at what's right up close, but maybe not so much what's further on down the road.

You're not really aware of much ahead of you.

You're not thinking that way at all.

Um, short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins, also can't see what's behind you.

What God has done already for us in space-time history, he has paid the price for your sins, past, present, and future.

We ask all of those we are baptizing that question.

Do you understand that Christ, when he died, he has paid the price once and for all.

Past, present, and future.

And so many of us don't, we might say we believe it up here in our heads, but we aren't conscious of it all the time.

So he's reminding us.

Peter does, he's a reminder.

He may be a dulas, he may be a bondservant and an apostle.

Here's one other thing he is a reminder.

It's another title, and it's a great title, I think.

He who lacks these qualities is blind or shorts, I haven't forgotten his purification for his former sins.

Verse 10.

Therefore, brethren and sister, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you, for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.

Here's another incentive not falling, not stumbling.

For in this way, the entrance to the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

And this is not this isn't about salvation.

He's writing to believers.

We already noticed that in verse 1, didn't we?

You've received a faith of the same kind as ours.

But the roar when we enter the heavenlies, when our journey here on this in this life is done, the roar will be great, will be powerful.

And therefore I shall always be ready, here it is, to remind you of these things, even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you.

And I consider right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder.

There is his title.

He is a reminder, and I feel so often that's my own role as a pastor teacher in a church.

It's not to say something new.

I'm not an innovator, I'm a reminder.

I'm a reminder of those things that have been handed down to us by the apostles and the prophets before them.

The good news, the gospel, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, Peter says.

He knows he's coming to the end of his life, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.

And he's in deep communion with Jesus.

He knows that his time is drawing near.

This is probably being written around the middle or late 60s.

Verse 15, I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure, you may be able to call these things to mind.

In other words, he's literally going to remind us over and over and over again till his very last breath, because he wants to, when he gets home to glory, he wants to be looking down and seeing a church that's flourishing, that's faithful and fruitful.

And that's so important.

He's so pastoral in this letter, I think.

Verse 16 through 21.

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

How so, Peter?

Well, Peter walked with Jesus, didn't he?

Peter walked on dusty roads with Jesus, and when a leper approached and said, If you're willing, you can make me clean, Peter may have been throwing stones at the guy and telling to get away, but when Jesus went up to embrace him, Peter was guffawing.

Peter had that sort of, you know, ready-fire aim approach to life.

I mean, he was always jumping and speaking a little bit too quickly.

However, he was an eyewitness, eyewitness, of the majesty of Jesus.

And here's he described it here in verse 17.

For when he, Jesus received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory.

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

And we ourselves heard this utterance, made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

Oh, interesting.

You remember the event, don't you?

The transfiguration of Jesus.

You remember the three disciples that went up the hillside with Jesus that day.

Peter, James, and John.

Yeah.

And so we have the prophetic word, Peter says, as he's writing to these folks and writing to us by extension.

We have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

He's looking forward.

As he looks back, he's looking forward at the same time.

We have this prophetic word that's been handed to us that we were eyewitnesses to, and now we're passing it along to you.

And we want you to make it more sure.

Be persuaded by this.

Look at it.

It's a lamp shining in a dark place.

But know this first of all that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

It's really beautiful.

Men moved by the Holy Spirit, the Greek word is pharaoh, and it's just, we actually get our word phry, F-E-R-R-Y.

We get that word from a same root word, and it's carried along as the idea.

I saw one commentator write about it, and he said, it's as if each book of the Bible is a car on a ferry boat.

And each one of them is being taken to the place where the Lord has decided it should go, which is, you know, to the island of Jesus.

We're going there, where everything points to Jesus ultimately.

But the cars came on from a lot of different places.

And, you know, and that's fascinating to me as an image.

No prophecy, though, has ever been made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

And it's not a matter of one's own interpretation.

In other words, Peter, all the way back in the first century, there, is basically saying, it's not God as you imagine God to be.

It's not a gospel just as you want it.

This is not build your own religion.

This is not create your own deity.

Now, this is something that has been handed down to us by the apostles, and it's really beautiful, really wonderful.

So if we're going to study a flourishing and fruitful faith, I have some questions.

These questions are a little bit different.

I think the answer is the same, though.

What marks those individuals who are habitually successful in business, academics, and sports?

What quality strengthens security in relationships?

What characteristic earns respect over the long haul?

What draws you over and over again to the same restaurants?

What's needed most by Both parents and children in the home.

What promotes growth in my life as a Christian?

Now we're kind of steering it in the direction of what we've studied here.

I think at least one of the answers has got to be this word: consistency.

How do we develop consistency in our spiritual life?

Or how do we nurture it, if you will?

And that's what I hope to be able to talk about here today.

I'm going to give you the outline in advance so a bunch of you will be able to kind of look at all four of these and think about them, and then we'll take one, take each one one at a time.

Rely on the power of God and his faithful promises.

Respond to the exhortation to supply our faith with Christian virtues.

Review the evidence of our election.

Read the scriptures and remember it's all about Jesus ultimately.

So first, rely on the power of God and his faithful promises.

We see this in verses one through four, don't we?

It's really all about what God has done for us in Christ.

We've received a faith, and it's by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And by the way, that combination of words right there, the grammar, there's not much getting around it.

It actually is saying that Jesus is both our God and our Savior.

So the idea that somewhere way down in the fourth or fifth century, somebody decided to try and make Jesus out to be God for the first time to prop up the image of a fallen hero or something.

That's just not true.

Here's Peter in the first century, and he's already seeing the deity of Jesus Christ.

And Peter saw it, of course, early on when he said, You are the Christ, when Jesus was asking the question, who do they say I am?

Who do you say that I am?

Peter says, You are the Christ.

God's sent anointed one, God's deliverer.

And so he recognized something about Jesus, didn't he?

But look at the promises that are being mentioned there.

Seeing that, verse 3, seeing that his divine power has been granted, has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

For by these he's granted to us his precious and magnificent promises.

I know some of us have questions.

I know probably all of us do.

But the Christian faith is not all about just answers, it is all about promises.

And I think that's really important for us to be reminded of over and over and over again.

The question is, of course, when you are promised something, do you trust the promise maker?

And I would say over and over and over again, whether you're in 1 Kings, 2 Kings, or all the way at the end here, toward the end of the New Testament, 1 and 2 Peter, what you see is a record of the trustworthiness of the God of the Bible, who comes in the person and work of Jesus.

So we can rely on the power of God and his faithful promises.

God is powerful.

God has already granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, verse 3.

He's trustworthy because he's been and is faithful to his promises in history.

God wants us to become partakers of his divine nature.

That's one of his promises.

It's one of his desires for us.

God wants us to walk in the light of his powerful promises so that we can mature, flourish, and be fruitful in this faith that he has given to us.

The list begins, John Piper says, with faith, and then we'll end with love, and we'll see that as we go through the next couple of verses here.

That agrees with the rest of the New Testament.

Confidence in God's promises is the way we plug into God's power.

And love, even for our enemies, is the golden sum of life, the light of the world that shows others the way into the kingdom.

I think Piper's on to something there.

It is God's promises.

That's where our confidence lies.

It doesn't lie in ourselves.

It's not about you pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

It's you reminding yourself as you read the scriptures of the promises of God and asking yourself the question: can I rely on the promises of God?

I think when you continue to marinate in the scriptures, you start to increase in your true knowledge of who Jesus is.

And then that true knowledge yields a flourishing and fruitful faith, a proper confidence in God's promises.

Second, if we want to nurture a flourishing and fruitful faith, we respond to the exhortation to supply our faith with Christian virtues.

There they are.

We read them, verses five through seven.

Moral excellence, moral excellence, knowledge, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, perseverance, godliness, godliness, brotherly kindness.

I love these couplets too.

And in your brotherly kindness, Christian love.

I like the couplets because it kind of gives me the sense that these are all overlapping, if you will, much like the different facets of a beautiful diamond or a jewel in a ring setting like that.

They're all important.

They're all beautiful.

They're all going to add to the overall beauty of your faith and the way that it shines and serves even as a witness.

He says, here's this exhortation, though, to supply our faith with these Christian virtues.

Look at that in verse 5.

Applying all diligence in your faith, supply these things.

That means richly add, some of your English translations might say.

Or add to your faith, it might say.

Keep in mind, while grace is opposed to earning, it is not opposed to effort.

We say that around here all the time.

It's really important that we all know that, okay?

Um, Philippians 2, 12 through 13, though, reminds us of this.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Here's the command, here's the exhortation: work out your salvation, and yet it's God who's at work.

Why?

Because God is the one that supplies the power.

I have no power to change myself.

I have no power to even redirect my affections.

I have to lift up the empty hands of faith and say, Lord, I confess my sins.

Lord, I've been holding on to this, Lord, I'm afraid of that, Lord, I'm having difficulty trusting you for this.

Please, God, give me the power.

Change me, transform me.

Help me to fix my eyes on Jesus.

Help me to redirect my affections in the right direction.

And I need Him, His power to be at work in me, but I have to also be involved.

A lot of theologians call this concurrence.

Warren Weirsby said, a holy life isn't the automatic consequence of reading the right books, listening to the right tapes, or attending the right meetings.

It's the result of a living, loving union with Jesus and a life marked by godly discipline.

So rely on the power of God and his faithful promises.

But respond to the exhortation to supply your faith with Christian virtues.

Thirdly, review the evidence of our election.

Here we see it in verses 8 through 15.

Here's the evidence.

If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful.

Right there's lots of ways of seeing evidence.

If these qualities are yours, are these qualities yours?

If they are increasing, are they increasing?

Can you look over your shoulder in the rearview mirror and see that you've made some progress with the Lord?

And as your pastor, I never want you to become settled and comfortable.

I always want you to be sort of a bit restless, yearning, eager to grow, but not restless in the sense of anxious and afraid.

Listen, we all have a storm rolling in.

We all are gonna go around a corner soon, and there's gonna be a giant there.

And we're not gonna like the storm, and we're not gonna like the giant.

And we will need to be looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross.

He left the comforts, comforts of heaven.

And what was the joy set before him?

It's you.

It's me.

We're the joy that was set before him.

God saying, Here are your people.

Go and save them.

And that's exactly what he did.

Review the evidence of our election.

Less stumbling, less falling, less drifting, less being ineffective, less being unfruitful, less being short-sighted, blind, and forgetful about our past forgiveness of sins?

That's progress.

That's evidence of our election, having been elected.

God wants our faith to flourish and become fruitful as we walk in both the light and the freedom of the gospel of grace.

Does Peter shed any light on the subjects of predestination and election?

I hear some of you out there thinking about that.

You heard me say election, and you know I'm not talking about the year 2020, whatever, you know, I'm not doing that 2024 election.

That's not what I'm talking about.

Does Peter shed any light on the doctrines of predestination and election?

Well, not as much as some might want.

But as we say around here, if you even want to be among those who are predestined and elect, go ahead and be one.

And then what you'll find out is you were.

This is a beautiful gift.

Don't argue with the giver of the beautiful gift of salvation by grace through faith.

Believe and receive.

Don't try to figure it all out.

Listen, I know that I'm not asking you to set your mind on the shelf and that, you know, just become kind of a robot, predestined Presbyterian robot or whatever.

That's not what that means.

We say around here when people say, What do you think about predestination election?

Hey, listen, the Bible teaches that.

But the Bible also teaches that I must respond.

Which is it?

It's both.

And a beautiful paradox mystery I can't understand.

And all I know is that if you want to be one, be one.

All it takes is you responding to him.

Spurgeon was really great at sort of talking about this.

He says, if you stop and say, I want to know first whether I am elect, you ask what you know not, basically, is what he's saying.

Christ was at the everlasting council.

He can tell you whether you were chosen or not, but you cannot find it out in any other way.

Go, put your trust in him, and his answer will be, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn you.

There will be no doubt about his having chosen you when you have chosen him.

Now, entering heaven, it's gonna be all who will repent and believe, and you know, when you get in there, it's gonna say, I have chosen you.

On the back, you're gonna look back over the doorway.

It's a beautiful mystery, isn't it?

Reviewing the evidence of your election means you can see progress in your faith that is, that shows that you've been elected.

You have more desire to honor and please God.

As a result, you have an increased desire to develop moral excellence in your life.

Or is that just gone?

Or is it just reserved for some categories?

I want moral excellence in this area, because I can be a pretty good Pharisee in this area.

But over here, man, that's the little category I'm gonna hold off.

That's for me.

Moral excellence.

I'm gonna wink, I'm gonna kind of look for some wink and nod through that category of my life.

And um uh if we are truly born again, this is what happens to us.

We begin to change, we begin to develop moral excellence, to gain more knowledge of God's word, to exercise greater self-control.

And by the way, what is self-control?

It's it defines itself, doesn't it?

Control self.

The world we live in says, indulge self.

Worship self.

You are the center of the universe.

But see, I love modern-day physics.

It's it's already beginning to prove that we just can't, nobody there is no center of the universe, therefore you can't be it.

Yeah.

I love that kind of stuff.

So if we are growing and flourishing in a fruitful faith, there'll be more steadfastness, more godliness, more brotherly kindness, more Christian love.

What if we decided this year we're gonna really go for that in our family unit, in a household that's full of strife or anxiety, fear?

Or what if we tried to do that on our block, on our city block, our street, or maybe in our neighborhood, or maybe at the place of work that you are at, or perhaps in our state, or man, what if Christians everywhere in the U.S.

of A decided to develop more seriously and add this to our faith?

That'd be pretty powerful.

My fear, Kevin Deoung says, is that we rightly celebrate and in some quarter rediscover all that Christ has saved us from.

We are giving little thought and making little effort concerning all that Christ has saved us to.

I think he's right.

He then says, shouldn't those most passionate about the gospel and God's glory also be those most dedicated to the pursuit of godliness?

I worry there's an enthusiasm gap and no one seems to mind.

That's a really good book called The Whole in Our Holiness.

I highly recommend it to you.

Uh Packer, a holy person's motivating, aim, passion, desire, longing, aspiration, goal, and drive, is to please God.

Both by what one does and by what one avoids doing.

And listen, I'm just coming to the place where I'm starting to wake up once in a while to ask the question: is this pleasing to God?

Every single day you're at a crossroads, about 150,000 choices you're gonna make, or actions you're gonna take, or words you're gonna say.

Is this pleasing?

Will this honor God?

Good question.

And I look back over my last week and I go, ugh, I wish I had asked that.

Wish I'd thought that, to ask that before I said that or felt that or entertained that thought.

Rely on the power of God and his faithful promises.

Why?

Because I'm a failed Christian.

I need Him, His power, not Jim's power.

Respond to the exhortation to supply your faith with Christian virtues.

Review the evidence of your election and finally read the scriptures and remember it's all about Jesus.

See, that's what he says basically in verses 16 through 21.

We were eyewitnesses of his majesty, but we also have the prophetic word.

You know, all the prophets of the Old Testament.

Peter would have known some of that.

Somebody, you know, some commentators try to argue that this 2 Peter, this letter couldn't be Peter's because the Greek is so different from the Greek in the first letter, and a simple Galilean fisherman surely could not have had the kind of Greek that would be in 2 Peter.

And I think, what a chronological snob.

This is 30 years after the time Jesus walked the planet.

You're gonna tell me Peter couldn't have learned anything in 30 years about Greek?

Especially living in and around and throughout the Mediterranean, like he did during those 30 years.

Yeah.

This is, read the scriptures and remember it's all about Jesus.

Martin Lloyd Jones says, ultimately it comes down to this the real cause of our trouble is failure to realize our union with Christ.

Many seem to think that Christianity means that we are delivered in that sense that our sins are forgiven.

But that's only the beginning.

But one aspect of it.

Essentially, salvation means union with Christ.

Being one with Christ.

That happens daily, moment by moment, sentence by sentence that you speak or think.

Moment by moment that you act and enter the social, you know, the society of other people, whether that's online or here in this room or in your own family or at work, whatever it might be.

If you've ever been one like Peter, who can probably look back on his life and think about being a failure, and yet here he is writing to us about what it takes to have a flourishing and a fruitful faith.

You might every now and then, like me, and maybe you do as well, have some of those thoughts that cross your mind about things you've said in your life that you wish you hadn't said.

The enemy of our souls reminds Peter over and over again, would have reminded him, though everyone else forsakes you, I never will.

There's Peter.

You'll never wash my feet.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know the man.

Three times he said that.

They're reminding us of our failures over and over again.

The scriptures, on the other hand, and I'm again, this is what Peter wants to get us to do, is look to the scriptures and see that they're all about Jesus.

The scriptures and the Holy Spirit speaking through them remind us of the faithfulness of Jesus.

And Peter along the way would have heard the Holy Spirit say, you know, remember when Jesus said, follow me.

Remember when Jesus said, I will never leave you or forsake you.

Remember when Jesus said, Peter, feed my sheep.

Remember when Jesus said, I'm gonna return and I'm gonna set all things right.

May He speak to us.

May the Lord whisper to us over and over and over again.

If you're interested in spiritual growth, I want to close by saying it has nothing to do with your physical age.

There are younger saints who are spiritually mature, and there are older saints who are spiritually immature.

So it's not about your physical age.

You can grow old and not grow up.

Don't do that.

Let's grow up together.

Unlike physical growth, you and I can also grow just as much in a spiritual sense.

We can grow as much as we want.

Remember when you were little and you wanted to hurry the growth?

You couldn't wait to be 16 to drive a car, and before that, you couldn't wait to be just be running outside free all by yourself as a little bitty one.

You couldn't wait to grow.

The eagerness, the enthusiasm for growth.

Do we have that eagerness, that enthusiasm for growth?

You and I can be just as holy as we really want to be.

Doesn't it make you mad a little?

Oh, but Lord, give us the desire.

Again, we need his promises, we need his power at work in our lives.

Let's pray, Lord, thank you for Peter.

He's in so many ways, he's such a comfort to us.

Um, and at the same time, uh such a challenge to us.

I thank you for his confidence in you, in spite of his own personal failure.

I pray that if we were to catch anything from what he says here in 2 Peter 1, it would be that we could have that confidence in you as well.

I pray that we would all bow before you, lift up the empty hands of faith, and ask you, Holy Spirit, to remind us of these precious, these beautiful and magnificent promises that you have given us.

That we would turn to you and trust in you.

And that we would remember over and over and over again about the gentle and lowly heart of Jesus who welcomes sinners home.

We pray this in his name, for his sake and his glory.

Amen and amen.