Neither Barren Nor Unfruitful - Joel Schrock

I also want to greet you all this morning in

the name of Jesus. And I appreciated the good morning

this morning Marcellus talked us into. And the devotional he

gave on love. And some of the other things from

the service stood out to me. That will be touched

some in the passage we read. The last song we

sang about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

And even the proverb we read on wisdom a little bit.

More maybe knowledge than wisdom. I'd like to also welcome

all the visitors here for various reasons. Welcome here. Welcome

to worship with us. The title this morning is Neither

Barren Nor Unfruitful. So that's taken from 2 Peter. You

can turn there if you like. Could have been titled various,

could be various titles for this message. This message is

not so much a, it's more of a, I would

say an expository look at the first 11 verses of

2 Peter. And some of us are saying, what is expository?

I remember hearing that word when I was young. I'll

be sitting over here. What is expository? Well, simply, we're

going to be looking at a passage, a few verses

of scripture, not so much a topic. One topic. So,

first 11 verses with a bit more focus on verses

5 to 8. Could spend a lot more time than

What we have this morning on all of these 11 verses.

So we'll kind of touch on all of them a

little bit. Maybe a little more focus more in the

middle of it. I'll read these verses at this time.

2 Peter 1 verses 1 to 11. Simon Peter, a

2 Peter 1:1–11

servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that

have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness

of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace

be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and

of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath

given unto us all things that pertain unto life and

godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us

to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding

great and precious promises, that by these ye might be

partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that

is in the world through lusts. and beside this, giving

all diligence to add to your faith virtue, and to

virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience,

and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and

to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in

you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither

be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord

Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind,

and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he

was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather brethren,

give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For

if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For

so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into

the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Peter here, it's interesting looking at 1 Peter and 2 Peter.

They're both written toward the end of Peter's life, it's thought.

1 Peter was probably a couple years earlier than 2 Peter.

And there's some differences. There's enough differences that some people

that think too much think maybe it wasn't Peter the

second time. But there's also a lot of similarities. 1 Peter, though,

was written, was penned by Peter. Silvanus was written to

encourage believers. 2 Peter seems to be very near the

end of Peter's life. During the time of the persecution

by Nero. It was likely penned by Peter himself. At

least it doesn't say. I don't think that somebody like

Silvanus penned it. And it was a warning. So 1

Peter was an encouragement. 2 Peter is a warning to

believers against false teachings and influences that could harm the church.

And it seems that Peter here, instead of pointing out

all of the false teachings that could possibly come up,

stresses what true faith in Jesus looks like. As Kirby said,

convinced that the best antidote for heresy is mature knowledge

of the truth. Peter exhorts readers to have a proper

appreciation for prophecy and to live holy and godly lives

while awaiting Christ's coming and to grow in the grace

and knowledge of our Lord. Now, we've been told different times,

I'm sure you've all heard this, and I guess I

haven't asked an expert to be sure, but we've all

heard that people who are taught to spot counterfeit money

aren't taught every possible counterfeit out there because the possibilities

are endless. So instead, they're taught what the true money

looks like. So I don't actually carry cash with me

that often, so don't count on this. But I have

a $ 50 bill here. Can't see it real far back there. Um...

But how would you know if this is a real

$ 50 bill? Now, we all have kind of a basic idea.

Probably a lot of us haven't been trained or immersed

ourselves too heavily in it. But would it be by

all the possible things that could be different in any way? Like,

do you need to know that the person on the

front is not George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin? Go

down the list of all the people it's not. You

need to know this is Ulysses S. Grant. and maybe

what he looks like on there. And you could say

that about all different, you know, the little markings, the

little 50 on the bottom right that changes color in

the light. There's all sorts of things to know about

the true $ 50 bill. If you know, if you memorize,

if you're immersed in that, you don't have to know

all the fake possibilities. And I think in the same way,

if you immerse yourself in the truth, live a holy

and godly life, you read the Bible, pray to the

Father in the name of Jesus, led by the Holy Spirit,

you surround yourself with others striving to follow Christ, you

will know what true faith looks like, and as a result,

it will be easier, at least, to spot heresy. Now,

it was also interesting to me that this is a

letter of warning. Peter spends the first part, or a

good section of this part, of this letter of warning

talking about growth in the Christian's life. So why would

he do that? Well, if there's heresy, if there's false teachings,

we would say that take root, take hold in the church,

in a person's life, we could say that spiritual dying

is happening. Well, the opposite of dying is growth, right?

Antidote to death or dying, or at least the opposite,

is growth. I think you could argue that every living

organism is either growing in some way, whether just reproducing

cells or growing taller, broader, producing fruit, or it is dying.

What would happen... If you planted a redwood tree and

it stopped growing at five feet tall, let's say. Well,

the tallest redwood tree that we know of is, and

they found this one since 2000, so it could be

more out there. But as far as we know, the

tallest redwood tree is a little over 380 feet. Tall.

So taller than a 35-story building. About that high. Really tall. Tall.

Very tall tree. So if we would see that a redwood,

if all that potential stops growing at five feet, there's

a problem. We've got a problem. It's stunted. It's likely

dying if it's not dead already. Or what if someone,

what if you planted a redwood tree and decided for

whatever reason that you didn't want it to grow taller

than five feet, so you kept the top lopped off,

pruned it at five feet tall? Well, it would leave

a weak, multi-stem, decay-prone tree, susceptible to, well, obviously decay, sunburn,

weak limbs, weak core, all the bugs and beetles that

show up. And that sounds a lot more like dying

than like living and likely would result in dying before

too long, especially if any storms come up or anything

like that, beetle infestations. And this is why growth is

so important. If we decide that, you know, I have faith,

I have faith in Jesus. That's important. We'll get to that.

That's enough. I'm just going to sort of sit back now.

And we don't continue to grow in our Christian lives.

We open ourselves up, I believe, to stunting, spiritual sickness, decay,

and potentially spiritual death when the storms of life come along.

So back to the verses here, Peter's introduction. Verse 2 says,

Peter says, grace and peace be multiplied. Now, grace, I

like to think about as maybe a step beyond or

step above, maybe, mercy. Mercy, from mercy, I believe, is

not getting, not receiving a punishment that we deserve. If

we've done something, we deserve mercy. And we don't get it.

We've been given mercy. Grace, on the other hand, is

receiving a reward we do not deserve. It's the grace

of God, not just the mercy that we're adopted as

his sons and daughters and can have eternal life with him. Grace,

as it relates to each other, has the idea of graciousness, goodwill, gratitude, appreciation,

and so on. Grace is a beautiful gift from God

that we can and should pass along to others. And

we'll see this different times through here, both the vertical

and the horizontal relationship with God, relationship with man. And peace.

Some of the words associated with this word peace here, rest, tranquility,

every kind of good, reconciliation, And calm. And there's more.

Peter says that grace and peace be multiplied. Not just added.

Not just joined. We'll see added after a bit here. Multiplied.

Through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Now this knowledge he talks about. And we'll see there's

knowledge various times in these verses. There's two different words

used here that's translated knowledge. Knowledge here. And I'm not

going to promise I'm going to say the Greek words correctly,

so if anybody wants to correct me in real time,

go ahead. The knowledge here is not the Greek word gnosis,

but epinosis, which this knowledge has the idea of a full, relational,

experiential knowledge that implies a personal connection to God. Grace

and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God.

A personal relationship with God. A full relational experience. It's

a transformative knowledge that instead of accumulating a bunch of

things we know and becoming proud and boastful, this knowledge

leads us to humility because the one we know is omnipotent.

Peter goes on to say in verse 3 that his, God's,

his divine power hath given us, hath given unto us

all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the

knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.

God's divine power. And this is the power, this divine

power is the same power that spoke the worlds into existence.

It's the same power that healed the sick, walked on water,

raised the dead. It's the same power that will come

again in glory and and take his own to eternal rest.

This divine power has provided all, everything. Now, Peter may

have been addressing the heresy of Gnosticism, which comes from

the root word is Gnosis, knowledge. It seems like Gnosticism

was a bigger deal maybe a few years later. There

may have been some of the rumblings of it in

the church. Don't know that we know that for sure.

But Gnostics taught, one of the things they taught was

that not only did you need to believe in Christ,

but you also needed an esoteric knowledge, which would be

like a specialized knowledge. There's something kind of specialized here,

maybe only a select few figured it out or no.

And Peter... heads this off. God's divine power has given

us everything that pertains to life and godliness. And it's

through this knowledge, again, this is the full relational knowledge,

that personal connection with God, through the knowledge of God

that is available to all that has called us to

glory and virtue. Verse 4 starts out, whereby. Now, if

I looked at this correctly... We're still in sentence 1

of 2 Peter. Whereby, it's a continuation. Whereby are given

unto us exceeding great and precious promises. So, not only promises. Now,

promise from God means something. But not only promises, but

exceeding great. For those of you going back to school,

that's an adjective. Adjective. And an adverb. So we're really

trying to describe something here. And precious. Precious promises. Promises

we hold dear, special, close to our heart and the

heart of God. And what is a promise anyways? Well,

I heard this example given in some form before. So

it's not completely original with me, but it made sense

to me. So I'll give it in slightly different form.

But let's say that you are in need. You have

debts to pay. You have children to feed. You have

bills coming due. And you don't have enough money. So

I find out about that. I pull out my checkbook.

And I write your name. and a million dollars on there,

hand it to you. Now, that would be an exceeding

great promise. It may even be precious, but certainly great.

That's a great promise. But, what's lacking? What's lacking with

that promise? What is lacking is It's what we see

in verse 3 that precedes this verse. There's power. There's

power behind the promises of God. If I write you

a million dollar check and you take it to the bank,

they may chuckle a bit, but it would certainly bounce.

It would not clear. There is no power behind that promise.

Certainly not nearly enough power behind that promise. The promise

is no good. you would not be able to pay

off your debts. You would not be able to feed

your children with that promise. Now, if Elon Musk wrote

you a million-dollar check, likely, very likely, you could take

that to the bank and cash it. There is abundant

power behind that promise. It's not much of a question.

More than enough power behind that promise. And so in

the same way, or far beyond that, God's power is

exceedingly abundant above what we can imagine. So he is

able to keep his exceeding great and precious promises because

there is the unlimited power behind them. You can cash

all of those checks. And because of that, We can

partake of this divine nature and escape the corruption and

lust of the world we live in. And this is

the undeserved grace of our loving Heavenly Father. Now, the

end of verse 4... 4 marks, as far as I

can tell, the end of the first sentence. So again,

if any of you teachers need a spare time project,

you could have people diagram that. It's almost as good

as some of Paul's. Verse 5, though, starts out with

kind of another continuation. It's a new sentence. But he says,

and beside this, give all diligence. And beside what? Beside

all things that pertain to life and godliness? Beside great

and precious promises that have the power to back them up?

Beside the partakers of the divine nature? Like, Peter, what

do you mean beside this? What are you looking for? Well,

The things that we've read so far, as far as

I can tell, are God's part in this relational knowledge,

this relationship. But if we are going to have that

relationship-based knowledge, that relationship with God, we have a part

to play as well. Relationships are not one-sided. We cannot

expect Just to sit outside, just like sit out in

the rain and let the water flow over us. Just

let the blessings wash over us with no effort on

our part. Peter says, give all diligence. Not try a

little bit harder than you have been. Not try some

diligence sometimes. All diligence. We need to be diligent in

our relationship with Christ and our brothers and sisters, as

we'll see. Remember that we are to be growing constantly

or we are dying. We should be in a continual growth.

It doesn't mean that there won't be times of down

or that it'll be hard to see growth or things

like that. We all run into those things. But the trajectory,

we should be growing. Growth doesn't happen in a tree,

for example. without roots going down, finding water, without leaves

reaching out, branches that go out, and pulling in nutrients

from the ground, the photosynthesis, that miracle of the green

leaves pulling in from the sun and just beautiful growth.

And in the same way, I believe we need to

allow the sunshine of God's grace to work in our lives.

Diligently grow. We have a part to play. Then he says,

add to. I don't know for sure that the order

here is really important, but it does seem, the more

I looked at it, the more it seemed to make sense,

the order here that he gave. So look at them

in the order he gave them. And he starts out

in verse... 5, saying, giving all diligence, add to your faith.

So he didn't say to add faith to something. This

is where we start. I believe that faith is the

foundation to our relationship with Christ. Hebrews 11, verse 6 says,

Hebrews 11:6

but without faith, it is impossible to please him. For

he that cometh to God must believe that he is,

and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently

seek him. Faith in God is a confidence. in the

evidence of things unseen. And just read Hebrews 11 in

its entirety. It's a beautiful chapter. Faith is a powerful force.

It's also a necessary foundation to have a relationship with

God and to please God. It's necessary. So it starts

out there. Add virtue to faith. Virtue in the NIV

is translated goodness. But I like the definition of This definition, better,

that I found of virtue. Another meaning would be excellence.

Add excellence. Virtue. Not just good, but excellent. What does

excellence mean? Well, I think it means we could talk

about different things excellence means. But I think that excellence

has the idea of going above and beyond excellence. what

is necessary, above and beyond the bare minimum to slide by.

Excellence goes above that, beyond that. So we should be

diligent in adding excellence to our faith. Add to faith virtue.

And then we have add knowledge to virtue. Add to

that excellence some knowledge. Now, this is the other knowledge

we talked about. This is the gnosis, which is different

than that personal relational knowledge that we talked about earlier

in the chapter. It basically means to know, knowledge, science, learn.

It is the opposite of agnosis or an agnostic, right?

So if somebody says, well, I'm agnostic about that, that

means I don't know about that or I don't have

an opinion about that. An agnostic, we would say, is

someone that says, I don't know if there's a God.

An atheist says, there's not a God. An agnostic says,

I don't know. Could be, might not be, I don't know. Adgnosis. Ad-knowledge.

Do not be ignorant. Do not be agnostic. especially about God.

So add to virtue knowledge. Then add temperance to knowledge.

In other words, for temperance, self-control. There were those who argued,

I believe in this time and other times, that if

you were knowledgeable enough, you had enough knowledge, self-control was unnecessary. Peter,

it seems, argues that knowledge should lead to self-control. Self-control

is the bridge between between what we know, the knowledge,

and the wisdom of what we do. Self-control is denying

yourself pleasures that will hold you back from future goals.

It is perhaps saying no to the $ 7 coffee so

you can buy a new vehicle that you need. For example,

you say no to something, you hold back from something

for a future goal. It is the athlete that says

no to smoking, drugs, unhealthy food, and partying, and says

yes to a healthy diet, working out, and getting plenty

of rest. Now, why would an athlete say no to

all of these things and yes to these things? Is

it just to be miserable? No, the athlete says no

to this group and yes to this group to be excellent,

to win, is a future goal. So add to knowledge temperance, self-control.

Add patience to temperance. Add patience or perseverance to self-control.

Patience also has this idea of looking to the future,

not just the here and now, not just the present.

It takes a patient looking to the future for that

athlete to give up snicker bars and Mountain Dew so

they can win a race, if they like Snickers and

Mountain Dew at least. This word also has, I really

like this, has the connotation, has the idea of an

uplifted spirit, a cheerful or hopeful endurance. So, you know,

when we hear of endure, you might get this picture

of like this donkey sort of like bowed down and

plodding along, and you're just enduring. We're just, in our family,

we're reading through the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and when

Laura went off to teach, it was a really rough

Her dad said, keep a stiff upper lip. Endure. You

got it. That is not what this is talking about.

This patience is a cheerful or hopeful endurance. So add

to temperance, patience. Add godliness to patience. Godliness, here we

have that connection to God. A holy living God. out

of irreverence for God. We could say God-likeness. Little Christ, Christians,

make sure that in your hopeful endurance on earth, you

keep your eyes up. Add to patience godliness. And then

we see that's your vertical relationship with God. And now

add brotherly kindness. It's interesting, it seems that Peter seems

to be pointing out a direct line or relationship from

godliness to brotherly kindness. This is one of the words

that gets translated as love. You ever hear of Philadelphia? Philadelphia. Philia.

A while back, I preached a message on love. So

I'm going to borrow from that just a bit here.

This love is the love of friendship. Think of a

best friend or group of friends. There's affection. There's loyalty.

There's companionship. There's love. This is the love of friends

and brotherhoods. This is considered by some to be the

strongest bond that is possible outside of God. You know,

motorcycle gangs have some level of this brotherhood. But I

think that's true. I think it is possible to have

this outside of a direct relationship with God. But it

is stronger, it is better, it is more beautiful when

brotherly kindness comes, when we add that to godliness. Add

brotherly kindness to godliness. And add charity to brotherly kindness. Finally,

what started with the foundation of faith is capped off

with charity. Again, this is another word translated love, differently.

times it is agape love and so i'll also borrow

from that same message with a bit of an explanation

here this love is perhaps the greatest but perhaps the

love of the greatest order probably take perhaps out of

there this love is unconditional it is focused on the

needs of others not the desires of oneself such love

could be considered a divine love it certainly is not

a natural love This love is the love of sacrifice.

This love is a love that goes beyond reason and logic.

It is a choice, not a feeling. It is the

choice to get up in the morning and do the

right thing no matter how you feel. And then, with

some examples that I've given in that message, I believe

it can be as simple as packing lunches for school

when you're overwhelmed and exhausted, to Dirk Willems pulling a

his persecutor out of the frozen lake, even though it

meant his own death, to the Samaritan man, helping his

enemy with his own time and resources. Agape love is

a sacrificial love. Add that love, add charity to brotherly kindness.

And that brings us, so this list, remember this list,

we're going to be referring back to this list. These

are the things in verses 5 through 7. When we

refer to this list or the list above, that's what

we're referring to. It brings us to verse 8, which

is the verse that the title of the message comes from.

I'll read verse 8 again. Notice Peter's not just saying,

have a little knowledge, a little temperance, some godliness, so forth.

But he's calling us to have all of these in abundance.

So I don't think as you read through this list,

it's like, okay, I'm going to nail down faith, and

then I can move on to the next one. It

says add. As I understand it, literally, more literally, like

hand in hand, joined together. He's calling us to have

all of these in abundance. What does abundance mean? The

NIV translates that as increasing measure. Remember the growth. It

is continually increasing. The tree, not stunted, not lopped off,

but continually growing, moving upward, out, perhaps producing fruit, giving back.

The idea here is also overflowing. being filled, but not

only filled, but running over. What happens to a body

of water if water only flows in and not out? Anyone? Okay, yeah.

Have you heard of the Dead Sea? Okay, that's the most,

you know, maybe vivid example. The Jordan River flows into

the Dead Sea. There's a source of fresh water flowing

into the Dead Sea. But the water comes in and

is trapped with no outlet. And it's a hot, dry,

barren desert. And so there's a significant amount of evaporation.

Happens quickly. Quickly. And whatever sediments come moving through there,

stay there, gets saltier over time. The Dead Sea is

extremely salty. So salty that, in effect, it's lifeless. Now,

there may be some microbes or something that live there.

But essentially, the Dead Sea is a lifeless body of water.

Too salty to contain life. Too full of itself. There's

no outlet. Now you contrast that to a more local

example here that most of us know. Take Clear Lake,

for example. Clear Lake is a beautiful body of water, clear,

different reasons for that, but there's wildlife and plant life

thrive in and around that lake. It's fed by springs

and snow melt. But not only does Clear Lake fill

up with these excellent sources of fresh water But it

flows out. The McKenzie River flows out of Clear Lake.

And this overflowing, this fresh water coming in and this

flowing out, this giving, this running over keeps this beautiful

lake a fresh water paradise. Now perhaps if it's just

spring fed and not actually water running in, it might stay.

I don't know how that works, but That's the idea,

the running over, the flowing over, the receiving, the filling

and giving. These things listed above, that list in verses

5 through 7, should abound in us. They should be

in increasing measure. They should grow continually through life. We

don't come to this point of capping off, now I've

got this. Just continue to grow and overflow from our lives.

And if this is the case... If they're in you

and abound, you will neither be barren nor unfruitful in

your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll just

point out this is, again, the knowledge that is that

full relational experiential knowledge that has that personal connection with God.

So if you take these two things, this abounding, this growing,

this overflowing, and compare that to barren and unfruitful, that's

quite a contrast. What do you think of when you

think of something barren? Maybe a sandy windswept desert. What

is the most, what is the driest, most barren place

in the world? Anybody have that off the top of

your head? The driest desert, the most barren place, I

don't know how this is measured exactly. There's really barren

places in the world. But there's at least places in

Antarctica that nobody has ever... There's no evidence of precipitation

in recorded human history. Now, I don't know how long

people have been recording history in Antarctica. Probably not terribly long.

But most barren deserts get some rain sometimes. Some rain

or snow. But if you think of Antarctica, windswept, icy valley, frozen,

no known precipitation as long as people have been recording.

If you were to take garden seeds there, that valley,

and poke them into the ice, put some water on

that frees immediately, throw some fertilizer around, you would not

get a garden because it is barren. You will get

nothing from that. icy, windswept, hostile environment. But, you know,

that was not always the case. Antarctica, according to the

fossils they find, there was once a thriving temperate region

with dense forests and swamps supporting life like big amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs,

other mammals. Somewhere along the line, likely after the flood

and surrounding weather events, This region, this lush, productive region

became barren. Unsustainable for life. Hostile to life. A really

disappointing place if you're looking for continued growth. Do not become.

a barren place. And then there's unfruitful. It is possible

to plant a seed, plant a plant in an area

that has relatively fertile soil, temperate climate, and for whatever reason,

you don't get fruit from the plant. In some ways,

this is even more disappointing because of your expectations. You expect,

if you plant an apple tree, to get apples. You

expect that. Both barren and unfruitful have this idea of emptiness,

of sadness, of not living up to potential, maybe heartbreak.

The lesson here is abound. Continue to grow and overflow. Overflow.

Verse 9 says, if you lack these things, if you

lack these things, so back to verses 5 through 7,

I won't read them all, but these things, you are blind.

You're short-sighted. Maybe you have something blocking your vision. Hindering

your view. You're lacking clarity and forgetting that the grace,

you're forgetting the grace that God has bestowed upon us

by cleansing us from our past sins. And we can

sit and wallow in self-pity or Just sort of selfishness.

Thinking about all the things that we've done or people

have done. And forget that God has forgiven us for

our past sins if we've repented of them and turned

away from them. And instead of growing and overflowing, we

become unfruitful. And maybe eventually barren. So do not lack

these things. Verses 5 through 7. I would like to

conclude this morning by reading verses 10 and 11 again.

I won't spend much time on this, but I think 11,

verse 11, is just one of the most beautiful verses.

And I would like to read what F.B. Meyer commented

about the abundant entrance in verse 11. I'll read verses

10 and 11. Wherefore, the rather brethren, give diligence to

make your calling and election sure For if ye do

these things, and I believe these things would be referring

back to verses 5 through 7, ye shall never fall.

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly

in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now God could have, in his great mercy, saved us

from the torment of hell without giving us an entrance

into his everlasting kingdom. So here again we see the

grace of God. F.B. Meyer had this to say about

this abundantly, this abundant entrance. There are two ways of

entering a port. A ship may come in waterlogged and crazy,

just kept afloat by continual working at the pump, so

it may enter with every sail set or pennant floating

at the masthead. The latter is what the apostle desires

for himself and those he addresses. He desired that an entrance, abundant,

should be ministered unto them. An abundant entrance is really

a choral entrance. The idea may be illustrated from the

entrance of a Roman conqueror to his city, whence he

had been sent out to war. Amid the crowds of spectators,

the procession climbs slowly to the capitol. While sweet incense

was poured on the air and music raised her sweetest

and most inspiring strains. Will your entrance into heaven be

like that? Or will you enter it saved so as

by fire? Which I believe he's referring to 1 Corinthians 3.

Where it talks about our works being burned up even

if someone is saved. And I believe Steve might have

referenced that the other Sunday in his sermon on crowns.

or to receive a reward, will you come unrecognized and

unknown or be welcomed by scores and hundreds to whom

you have been the means of blessing and who will

await you? Will your coming make music right through the

home of God? This is the meaning of the choral entrance.

I think the idea here, this abundant entrance, is also

given in the context of the Greek Olympians. Someone would

win some amazing feat. Come home with honor. People line

the streets and cheer that person. It's an abundant entrance.

I believe that the works we do for God's sake,

the works we do with agapula, that sacrificial love, the

overflowing of our lives, the continual growing, even if that

means some discomfort now, will be rewarded in heaven. Amen.

even if no one notices on earth. So may we

be found, may we not be found, barren or unfruitful,

but may we be diligent. May we abound, grow, and overflow.

Make our calling and election sure. And may we have

an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord

and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's have a song.