Kingdom Character (2 Peter 1_3–11) Brian Raby _ December 28, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

So glad to be back with you.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas this week and just enjoyed some time reflecting on the coming of our Savior and King.

I just want to maybe echo the words that Pastor Miles just said and just expressed to you.

Just my heartfelt appreciation for him and for his friendship and for uh just who he is as a man of God in my life.

I have so much affection for him, admiration, and even just consider it an honor, really sincerely and honestly, to be able to open God's word with you here from his pulpit.

And so as I say that, would I uh maybe invite you to open up your copy of God's word to 2 Peter.

2 Peter, and if you don't have a copy of God's word, we've got some ushers here.

They're going to be walking up and then back down the aisle.

Just yeah, slip your hand up into the air, let us know that you need a copy of God's word.

If you don't own a Bible, then um it is my pleasure on behalf of Redemption New Market to say, keep this as their gift to you.

Uh we we uh in our church as well, we say this every week.

We would be so happy to be able to place a copy of God's word into your hands to take home with you, to read it and to learn and to grow from it.

Well, as you open up your Bibles, uh maybe I'll open by saying that there are things in life that necessarily have to go together, where you can't have one without the other.

You know, you can't have a book without an author or a lock without a key.

You can't have guitar without strings or a shadow and not light.

And this is true, of course, also of the deeper, most meaningful and important things in life: things that the Word of God speaks to, like uh branches and a vine, or sheep and a shepherd, or salvation and a savior.

You can't have one without the other.

And what I want to show you today from God's Word is that citizenship in the kingdom of God, which entails both this life and the life to come, cannot go without the kind of character that is fitting for one who has Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Kingdom character must accompany kingdom citizenship.

The two necessarily go together.

That's what we're gonna see from the Apostle Peter today as we look together at God's word.

Maybe I could say it like this: Peter's gonna show us that the kind of person that you are is indicative of the person that you truly are.

The kind of person you are is indicative of the person that you truly are.

And as Peter writes his final words to the churches, he writes with the expressed intention of leaving something behind for them to remind them of who they are in Christ, and in so doing to stir them up and to stir us up as we read to keep after a certain way of living.

In reading this letter, we too are reminded that if we bear the identity of kingdom citizen, then our lives must look a certain kind of way.

We must have kingdom character.

You know, perhaps heading into the new year, it's really a good time to consider these reminders from Peter and what our lives ought to look like.

Look with me.

I'm going to read from verses one through 15, and then I want to particularly focus on verses 3 through 11.

This section's been called a mini-sermon of the Apostle Peter, beginning in verse 1.

The Word of God says, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.

For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.

For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities.

Though you know them and are established in the truth that you have, I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.

And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

From this text, I want to show you how the apostle intends to stir us up by way of three reminders.

Three reminders.

And the first is this kingdom character is divinely powered.

Kingdom character is divinely powered.

This is what verses three and four are ultimately teaching.

These opening two verses are really the because or the since that's going to lead to the for this reason that begins verse 5.

Okay, so think of it that way.

He's setting up the charge, the call, the command in verse 5 with a with a because or a sense in verses 3 or 4.

He's going to remind us what we are to do, but first he wants to show us that godly character, the godly character that's consistent with eternal life is possible only because of the awesome and mighty power of God within us.

He is the one that supplies us with all things, the text says, all things that have to do with life.

And by this he means the beginning, the continuation of, and the never-ending new life that we've obtained through faith in Jesus Christ.

Everything he says that pertains to life, this life and godliness, and godliness you can think of as what one writer said, a love for the things of God and a walk in the ways of God.

When you hear godliness, you can think a love for the things of God and a walk in the ways of God.

And Peter begins this mini-sermon, as it's sometimes called, by saying that God's power has given to us all things that are necessary, that pertain to life and godliness.

Life and godliness, he never wants us to forget, are his power at work in you.

If you try to transform yourself, and if you try to put on kingdom character, apart from the one who fills you with all that's needed, then you've got the order mixed up.

Your dependence will be in the wrong place.

But if you put your faith not in your own righteousness, but in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, that's why I wanted to read for us verse one.

If you put your faith in our God and Savior Jesus Christ and His righteousness, then He supplies you with the power to make all things that pertain to life and godliness possible.

It's his righteousness, church.

It is not our own righteousness that leads to or continues us on the path of having godly character.

We must be people of faith who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his perfect life, his substitutionary death, his resurrection from the dead.

We need to trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins, first and foremost, foundational to the Christian life.

And if you're here with us this morning and you haven't trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, I want to let you know that what we believe as churches is that there's no other way to be right with God.

This is what the Bible teaches, than through trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

See, God doesn't give us this Bible and tell us, here, go and have the kind of character that I want you to have in order to earn your way into a righteous standing before me.

That's not what the scriptures teach.

The scriptures teach that we could never do it.

All of us are born dead in our sins and in our trespasses, and before God, we have no righteousness of our own, and we could never put on enough kingdom character to earn that standing before him.

But through faith in Jesus Christ, as a free gift of his love for sinners, he came to live that perfect, righteous life that we could never live, and then to die a sinner's death that we deserved, so that if we trust in him for eternal life, he gives his righteousness to us.

And I want to invite you to believe that that promise today, to accept that gift from God today for your salvation, and then and only then to look at what Peter's going to tell us to do next, to put on kingdom character that matches the new life that he's given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

His divine power, Peter says, grants to those who have faith all things that pertain to life and godliness.

And he goes on to talk about how this works.

You know, we might ask this question well, how is how is this power that is of God transferred to us?

What's the conduit through which God's power travels in our lives?

And the second half of verse 3 shows us this.

Peter shows us that the way that the gift of his power for kingdom character is given to us is through us knowing him, knowing the gracious gift giver.

His power for our transformed lives comes through a deeper and deeper personal relationship with him who called us to know his glory and his excellence.

His glory and his excellence.

You have come to see him for who he is, and all of his splendor and his majesty, all of his beauty and perfection has been made known to you.

You've come to know him.

And Peter says that through coming to know him and continuing to grow in a deeper and deeper knowledge of him, this is how the power of God is transferred into your life.

More particularly, going on in verse 4, he says, you know him and his precious and very great promises.

His precious and very great promises.

Now, he doesn't say here what promises he has in mind in particular.

You know, I suppose that Peter maybe was thinking of a wide breadth of God's promises, perhaps.

I know for sure he mentions two of those promises in this very letter.

In chapter three, he he includes the uh the talk about the promise of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He's talking about how there are going to be people in our lives who scoff at our hope in Christ.

And they'll say to us, Well, where's the promise of his coming?

And Peter's highlighting here that we believe that God has made a promise through Jesus Christ that though he's gone away, he will come back again.

Going on further in chapter 3 and verse 13, Peter talks about the promise of the new heavens and the new earth.

He says, But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

See, we believe that this world is not as it should be, and it's not as it one day will be when God recreates, right?

When he establishes a new heaven, new heavens and a new earth.

And we look forward to that day, that fullness of Jesus' kingdom, where there will be no more sin, no more death, no more sorrow, no more sickness, no more unrighteousness.

It'll be a kingdom of everlasting righteousness in the presence of the one who is to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We come to know his precious and very great promises.

And Peter says, when you have a growing knowledge of the Lord, right, of his glory and his excellence and of his promises, his power will flow in and through you so that you become partakers of the divine nature, he says in verse 4.

Now don't let this confuse you.

He's not saying that anyone becomes part God.

That's not what he's saying at all.

He's saying that that newness of life is taken up and matured by the new nature that you've been given.

If you're in Christ, you've been given his nature by residence up inside your heart, and he enables you to live in his likeness as he lives in you.

And this in contrast to the way that you used to live when you followed after your own sinful desires.

That's what the end of verse 4 says.

This is the corrupt way that we used to live when we had a worldly nature.

But now we have a new nature, living inside of us, the divine nature.

And this is what we see throughout the scriptures, by the way.

We see this in Paul's writings as he says the same thing in different ways.

I think of a place like Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Maybe you know this verse.

The apostle Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Or how about Ephesians chapter 4?

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

You know, Paul's he's giving uh a list of what to put off, and then he says, what to put on, and he says in verse 24, he says, put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

This is what Peter means here when he says that we have become partakers of the divine nature.

See, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ has taken up residence in our hearts through faith so that we can go now and live a different kind of life.

The scriptures say that if you know him, you will be like him.

You will be like him.

And that's where Peter is headed.

That's what what Peter is trying to uh set us up for in verses 3 and 4, coming next to verse 5 and following with uh this second reminder, he says, kingdom character is diligently pursued.

It is divinely powered, but it is also diligently pursued.

Since, since verses 3 and 4, I want you to follow the logic of the text here, since his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, Peter says now in verse 5, go and live this godly new life.

Verse 5 begins, for this very reason.

Make every effort, make every effort to supplement, or some translations would say to add to your faith.

And this church is the exhortation of the passage.

This is the command before us in God's word this morning.

Make every effort.

This is what God has to say to each and every one of us who have by faith embraced Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior.

He says, make every effort.

In other words, where Peter's gonna say, be all the more diligent.

So I don't want you to miss this this morning.

God supplies the power that you and I need, but then he says, go now and strive hard in these areas to be the kind of person that I've called you to be.

Don't try and do it as though it all depended on your own strength, but don't sit back on your faith.

Don't don't sit idly and think that because it's God's strength, that it doesn't also mean that you and I don't have to work very hard.

Both things are true.

Tom Schreiner has this uh helpful uh quotation I want to put up on the screen to help us think through this.

He says, New Testament writers never polarize divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

Those whom God has effectively called to virtue are also to practice virtue with energy and intensity.

I think that's really helpful and really um captures accurately what the scriptures teach about divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

They're not at odds, they they go together.

And again, I I just want to say this for clarity's sake.

This is not about earning a right relationship with God.

Our working hard is not about earning an entrance into the eternal kingdom, it's about living as a disciple and Who's experienced the grace of God through forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ?

But what Peter's saying here in this middle section of this mini-sermon is that kingdom character doesn't just happen to happen to us.

Right?

He's saying that we can't just, again, sit idly and hope that God's gonna transform our lives apart from us, heeding the command to make every effort to add to our faith, to supplement our faith.

And I think in every church, some need to hear this and and really contemplate this.

Maybe I'll ask each of you personally, are you in any way sitting on your faith?

Or heading into this new year, are you diligently pursuing growth in godly character?

Well, what are we told to supplement our faith with?

Peter's gonna go on here to list seven more qualities that we need to pay careful attention to when we think about cultivating kingdom character in our lives.

And this list does not uh exhaust everything that could be said about kingdom character, but these are the ones that Peter chooses uh to highlight here for us.

There's gonna be overlap.

Don't try and make too strong of a distinction, maybe from one to the other.

There's gonna be overlap at times between uh these characteristics or these qualities that he's gonna list for us.

And also don't try and make too much of the order.

Uh the theologians kind of have some consensus here that that really there's no discernible reason for the order.

It's not as though one stair steps to the next, to the next.

It's not that kind of a list.

It's really Peter's just kind of putting down pen to paper, obviously, what the Holy Spirit is inspiring to be part of his word for us to be remembered for all time.

A list of qualities that he wants us to consider.

And the first one is he says, supplement your faith with virtue.

With virtue.

And this word virtue, it's the same word actually that's used above in verse 3 that's translated excellence.

So it's talking about God's moral character.

And Peter's saying we need to strive to reflect that very character of God in our moral character.

In every area of life.

We need to work hard at putting on what is what is virtuous, what is good and perfect even, according to God's holy and righteous standards?

We need to ask ourselves these kinds of questions, regardless of what circumstances that or situations we find ourselves in, what would be the way God Himself would handle this?

How would God, in his moral virtue and his excellence, think about this situation?

How would God speak about this?

And then we need to seek to put on that same virtue ourselves.

Next he says, add to your virtue knowledge.

Knowledge.

We must always be trying to know him more and more, right?

Deeper and deeper is kind of the language I used earlier.

I think of the apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 3, and we know this.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

The apostle Paul, when he writes to the church in Philippi, he he knows God, right?

Can we all agree he knows God?

And yet, in chapter 3, he says, Oh, that I may know him.

That I may know him.

The desire of his heart is to grow deeper and deeper in knowing his God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And listen, in order to grow in knowledge, you must be devoted to prayerful meditation on the written word of God.

Prayerful meditation on the written word of God is what leads to us knowing Him more and more.

And so, again, perhaps heading into this new year, I don't know, maybe you are or you aren't the resolution type.

I I know for me, I I historically wasn't always the resolution kind of guy.

But I've I've um changed in that, and I and I now seek opportunities throughout the year, not even just January 1, but you know, different parts of the year, new seasons starting to kind of reset and get my focus back on what I know I want to be true of my life in terms of disciplines and and you think of reading the word of God and making that a part of your daily desire and your daily habit.

And maybe, maybe for you heading into January 1, this is a time for you to say, I need to get back into the Word of God regularly, devotionally, prayerfully, and meditatively.

And maybe I would say this, don't even don't wait till Thursday.

You know, if that's start tonight, start tomorrow morning.

Get in the Word of God with the expressed desire in your heart.

God, I want to know you more.

Show me yourself as I open the Word of God.

God, would you open the eyes of my heart and take your truth about yourself that you've revealed to us in your word and plant it deep in my heart that I might grow in the knowledge of you.

Next, Peter says, to your knowledge, add self-control.

Self-control.

It's amazing, isn't it?

How many areas of our life and character are impacted either positively or negatively when it comes to self-control?

Either exercising discipline and self-control or having a lack of it.

We see such a carryover in so many areas of our lives when it comes to this quality.

One writer defines self-control as the restraint of one's emotions, impulses, or desires.

And so we see here, restraint really is at the heart of it.

The ability to say no, to be zealous at putting off things in our lives that are maybe worldly or immoral, you know, that putting off the sin or not even the sin.

Sometimes it's just the weight, things that are not morally neutral, but there's too much of it in our lives and is weighing us down in other pursuits after the Lord.

And to be able to exercise self-control is to be able to say no to the things that we ought to be saying no to in our lives so that we can give yes to the things that are better and good.

Is there an area in your life where self-control is clearly needed, where you need to make every effort to add this to your faith?

Next, God's word commands us to add steadfastness.

Steadfastness.

Steadfastness is the ability to bear up under the face of difficulty.

Difficulty, suffering, hardships.

They come in many different shapes and sizes.

And again, all these character qualities are so interconnected, aren't they?

Steadfastness is required in the Christian life, or else so many other wheels start to fall off.

Because we're going to experience hardship and difficulties in our lives.

And so Peter reminds the church here, and he reminds us as we open God's Word together this morning that we need to strive and work hard at being steadfast, to endure through the trials and not lose hope.

And for this, I want to encourage you not to try and be steadfast on your own.

And in order to be steadfast, we need one another.

We need to be able to hold each other up, link arms, right?

We need to enlist the help of others when we're going through the furnace, and we need to be the ones to help others when they're going through the furnace.

Further, Peter says, supplement your steadfastness with godliness.

And we already kind of looked at godliness earlier.

Just a love for the things of God and a walk in the ways of God.

I think godliness could could capture this whole list, really.

I think of what Jesus said in John chapter 8 and verse 29.

John 8 · chapter mention

He says, I always do the things that are pleasing to him, meaning the Father.

Is this a characteristic of your life?

Is this part of your character that you're always trying to discern?

What would be pleasing in God's sight?

How can I walk in his way, right on his path, the path of godliness laid out for me in his word, and not stray to the right or to the left.

Grow in godliness and strive to walk in the ways of God.

And a good way to do this, perhaps uh maybe this would be helpful for for someone here, would be to fix your eyes on other godly people.

Right?

Look at others who who model for for you godliness in their lives and strive to be like them.

Maybe it's someone else in the church, maybe it's someone that you're reading about in a book.

Maybe you look at someone else and say, I want to be godly, like that person.

And then you make every effort.

Next he says, add brotherly affection.

Brotherly affection, or maybe if you've got a different translation again, another English translation might translate this as kindness.

Brotherly affection or kindness.

I don't think we have to say too much in uh describing what this looks like, but maybe I'll ask, is there someone else, even in the church, maybe whom the Lord is laying on your heart even now, that you need to demonstrate this kind of affection or kindness toward?

Maybe God is going to work in your heart today, in an area of taking this command of God serious, to make an effort to show brotherly affection to this individual.

Maybe even after the service, maybe maybe at some point during this week.

But brotherly affection in the body of Christ is very important to God.

Now finally, Peter says, supplement your faith or add to your faith love.

Love.

And I know you know we said that there's not necessarily any particular order here, but I think it's fitting.

It's fitting that in a list of character qualities, uh, that the capstone would be love.

You know, Peter probably remembers Jesus' words when he was asked what is the most important commandment, and Jesus said to love God and then to love others is the greatest and the next greatest command.

Adoring devotion to God and then a commitment to giving yourself for the greater good of others is what love is all about.

That's the vertical and the and the horizontal.

Adoring devotion to God and then giving yourself the way that Christ gave himself for us for the good of others.

Right?

I think of 1 John chapter 4 in this regard when we're thinking about what does it look like to love.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

And Peter's saying, look, if you're not diligently working hard and making every effort to put on love in your life, then something needs to change.

Now look with me again at verses eight and nine.

He gives this list of qualities and he says, For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Here's what I have to say about verses eight and nine, and I think you'll tend to probably agree with me.

No one wants to be characterized as ineffective, unfruitful, or blind.

Right?

And we've give we've been given in this passage a list of character qualities, and the word of God says that we ought to be progressing in these ways, and if we are, then we won't be characterized as ineffective, unfruitful, or blind.

And so here's what I want to urge you to do.

I try and do this myself when I'm reading through scriptures, and I come across some kind of list like this, and it's just simply this maybe just pick one.

Pick one.

Identify one of the qualities in this list where you recognize in yourself that striving is needed.

And maybe if you're taking notes, you write that one quality down, or you just think about that in your mind right now.

Maybe you share that with someone after the service today.

And then purpose by God's power, never forget that part, right?

Not in your own strength, but in God's strength that He supplies, purpose to bring this to bear in greater measure in your life.

Put a name to it.

Think of some very specific and concrete steps to grow in this area.

And then actually do something to make a change in your life.

Right?

Whether it would be virtue or knowledge or self-control or steadfastness or godliness or brotherly affection or love.

Whichever one of these stands out to you, do something about it.

If you don't change, right, there's a saying, if nothing changes, then nothing changes, right?

Make a change.

Even again, going into this new year.

Say, God, I want to get after this character quality.

I want to make every effort as you call me to in your word.

Help me, Lord.

Help me.

It's really up to you.

No one else can do this for you.

Don't sit idly by and wait for God to do it in you.

Depend on his strength and make every effort.

It's gonna cost you, it'll cost you time, it'll cost you effort, it'll cost you money.

It might cost you other other things in other ways as well.

Maybe it costs you certain relationships, but it's worth the cost, is it not, church?

Make every effort, make every effort to pursue kingdom character.

Don't be casual.

Be intentional, be purposeful, and get after these qualities.

Persist in them.

Make every effort.

Listen, here's why.

It makes all the difference in the world.

It makes all the difference in the world.

That's what verses 10 and 11 hold out for us.

In verses 10 and 11, we see here finally that kingdom character is definitive proof.

Peter says that it's definitive proof.

In verse 10, he continues on and he builds further on the why behind our diligent pursuit of kingdom character.

Peter says, since it would be totally out of character for a kingdom citizen to be ineffective, unfruitful, and blind, he says, therefore, brothers, and he gives the second command of the passage, which again really is just a reiteration of the first.

It's the same root word.

He says, be all the more diligent.

Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.

Extend every effort.

Again, through the power that comes through the knowledge of Christ.

He says, make every effort to take great strides forward to prove that you truly are a kingdom citizen.

Be all the more diligent, he says, to show that you truly do belong to Jesus Christ and to his kingdom.

Demonstrate by your changed life and by the godly qualities of your character that you really have been chosen by God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Again, this is not earning your salvation.

That's not what Peter's talking about.

He's talking about confirming your salvation.

He's talking about demonstrating that you are truly an adopted son or daughter of the king.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the book of James and what he writes along these same kinds of lines.

It's the same point that Peter's making here, which, by the way, is the same point that Paul makes in his letters and John makes in his letters, because it's the same point that Jesus makes in his teaching.

Do you remember the words of Jesus?

He says, Go and bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

This is how Jesus taught.

This is what Jesus taught.

And so the apostles just continue on and they write these kinds of things.

And the point is that he makes the case that if you have faith, going back to James in James chapter 2, he says, if you have real and sincere faith, then your faith will be accompanied by a corresponding kind of life.

James 2 · chapter mention

Your life will look a certain way.

And he says, if if you say that you have faith, but your life doesn't reflect that by the pattern of the way that you live, then he asks this question: Can that faith save you?

And what he's saying is, no, it can't, because that's not real faith.

It's dead faith.

It's inauthentic faith.

And so James is saying the same thing as Peter's saying here.

Authentic faith looks a certain way in our lives.

And so Peter's saying, prove your citizenship in the heavenly kingdom is authentic by practicing the qualities on this list.

Live out kingdom character.

If you do this, he says in verse 10, you will never fall.

You will never fall.

You won't be what Peter is going to go on in chapter 2 of this letter to write about.

He says, you won't prove to be like a dog that returns to its own vomit or a sow that returns to wallow in the mire.

You won't be like someone who shows with their life that they never really were a true kingdom citizen because they didn't have true and lasting character change.

You won't prove yourself to be the same person as you always were, having the same old nature as you did before.

One writer commentating on these verses says, if the way of godliness is rejected, then so is the hope of eternal life.

That's what Peter is saying here.

If the way of godliness is rejected, then so too is the hope of eternal life.

There's a great warning here in this passage.

If anyone persists in ungodliness, if there's just no effort at all to grow, and then they they ask this question, well, am I truly a follower of Christ?

Then it's appropriate to doubt that and to say, well, I'm not sure you are, because your life doesn't reflect that.

So there's a warning here.

For sure, there's a warning.

But listen, church, much more than than that, there's a truly wonderful, encouraging reminder that Peter is putting here.

Into these verses in this passage.

He writes what he does here to help us to have confidence and assurance.

That's the main point here.

If your character reflects that of a kingdom citizen, then this is proof that eternal life is yours.

And that's good news.

Look at verse 11 again.

Peter says, For in this way, in this way, if if you practice these qualities, if you confirm your calling, listen, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Praise God.

Praise God.

The promise that he talks about, we looked at in chapter 3.

The promised new heavens and new earth will be yours if you practice these qualities.

And you will have proved yourself to be a kingdom citizen, and you can look forward to being lavishly ushered into the glory of our King in his kingdom.

Richly provided for you.

An entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You know, um I'm a huge sports fan.

I just love playing sports and watching sports.

I get caught up in the competition of it all.

I love a whole uh bunch of watching sports.

You know, I got in my kind of uh mind's calendar and some some on my phone's calendar some some of like the championship finals of different sporting events throughout the calendar year.

And I look forward to them and I like to watch them and I and I like to see someone be crowned the champion.

I like to see the teams celebrate together, throw all their stuff up into the air, run together with like jubilation, right?

At having received the crown.

I get caught up in the agony of defeat and in the thrill of victory.

And this has been the case in my life for many years since I was little, and and um since becoming a follower of Christ, it's changed for me.

I hope rightly so, as I watch these celebrations and I and I watch these championship victories get won, and and I see you know the look on the screams and everything happening, I've cultivated a habit, I just share this with you, um, of imagining during those times the greatest celebration and the greatest uh crown being awarded that that we could ever imagine.

Entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And I think, well, this is fun and this is uh there's energetic and it is it's it's um you know something that I enjoy watching and seeing people participate in.

Really, it's it's nothing compared to what Peter's talking about here in this verse.

And it makes me think of, you know, that song uh is it called If I Could Only Imagine?

Maybe some of you know that song and it's imagining what would it be like to stand before the King of Kings?

What's gonna happen on that day?

And again, furthermore, it just makes me think of, you know, I think of this too when I'm watching those celebrations, and I think of John Bunyan as he describes the entrance into the celestial city.

And we can't we can't get quite there in our mind, right?

We can only begin to maybe scratch the surface of the imagination of what that day will be like.

But Peter wants to hold that before us here in verse 11 and make us to see by way of reminder that we're called to live a certain way of life because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

And how he has won the greatest victory of all for us, and we can look forward to that day when we will enter into the riches of his eternal kingdom.

And he says, listen, live your life in such a way that it evidences that you have been transformed from the inside out, and that your character looks like one whose life has been completely overtaken by the kingdom of God.

You can't have kingdom citizenship without kingdom character.

And so I close with these words, church, make every effort to see that these qualities are yours and are increasing.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, and we believe that in it you show us glorious and excellent things about yourself and about your son Jesus Christ.

And you do this through the power of your Holy Spirit working in us.

God, we praise you for the opportunity to open your word today and to see what you have to say to us from this text.

And it is my prayer, Lord, that you would just take of your word and again press it deeper and deeper into every heart listening, such that you would glorify yourself through our change lives.

That we would just take so seriously the call to make every effort in our lives to live for you in a way that is consistent with what it means to be a kingdom citizen.

I pray for a redemption new market, Lord, as they head into this new year, that you would grow them deeper and deeper in their knowledge of their Lord Jesus Christ.

I pray, God, that you would fill their hearts with much worship, much awe of who you are and what you've done for them.

And that, God, you would uh just work in their lives individually, but also corporately as a church, to love you and to love one another, and for this to manifest itself in so many different ways in this body of Christ.

God, that they would head into this new year with purpose and with zeal to live for you.

I pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.