Make Your Calling & Election Sure - 2 Peter 1:10-11 Series

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2 Peter 1:10 Therefore, my brothers, make every effort to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you. 12 So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.

Introduction: Christian Hackers

I always thought that if I ever had a chance to race cars, I’d be pretty good at it. Not a pro, obviously, but better than average. I thought that until I had an opportunity to race at a pastor’s event at Bandimere speedway called “The Faster Pastor.” I raced, and I got smoked by Bob every single race. Bob, it turns out, is actually the faster pastor. And not just Bob. If I remember right, I think I had a slower time than every pastor there. So not only am I not above average, I’m not even average. Poor showing.

Want to know what I’ve been doing to speed up my reaction times off the line? Nothing. I would love to be the faster pastor, but I don’t care enough about racing to work on improving.

I’m not going to get any better at that, just like I’ll probably never get better at golf. In golf, I’m what’s known as a hacker. A hacker is someone who just whacks away at the ball and rarely hits the fairway. And usually when people use that term, it’s not just to say the person is a bad golfer, but that he’s bad because he doesn’t take the game seriously. He never gets any better because he’s not even trying to get better.

That’s me. I haven’t always been a hacker. There was a time when I did take it seriously. I really was trying to get better. I would practice every day, I was trying to learn, even took a couple lessons.

But now—pure hacker. I never hit under 100. What am I going to do about it? Nothing. “No lessons?” Nope. “You’re not going to read a book about golf or practice more or watch a video on YouTube?” No. I’m good enough to be able to have fun playing, and that’s enough for me, so I’m not going to work hard at improving. Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to be better at golf, I just don’t have the time.

Is that a bad attitude? Not really. It’s the attitude you have to have toward almost everything. No one has enough time or energy to achieve at a high level at everything.

So the attitude I have about drag racing and golf—that’s the attitude everyone has to have about most everything in life. And that’s fine. It’s fine to have that attitude about most things, but there’s one thing it’s not okay to have that attitude about. The whole book of 2 Peter, and especially today’s passage, were written to urge us not to be Christian hackers. Peter wrote this book to prevent you from ever having the same kind of attitude toward spiritual growth that I have toward golf. The attitude of complacency. You’d love to grow and change, but not enough to really devote yourself to it with high energy—that’s what this book was written to help us overcome.

Peter is especially concerned for his readers in this area because he’s writing to seasoned Christians.

2 Peter 1:12you are firmly established in the truth.

Complacency is a problem for people who have been Christians a long time.

A lot of good things come with maturity, but one negative thing is often low passion and zeal. You get tired, you get a little bored, you get so used to God’s grace you start taking it for granted, you’re disillusioned in some ways because of how things haven’t gone the way you had hoped. And you settle into a kind of low energy complacency where you say, “I’m not going to coast, but I’m not going to stand up and pedal either.” In today’s passage, Peter is going to show us exactly where that attitude will get you.

Peter’s Sermon

The commentators refer to the first 11 verses of 2 Peter as a mini sermon. It has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Today we look at the conclusion, which is in vv.10-11.

And as you might expect for the conclusion of a sermon, it begins with the word, “therefore.” Now, anytime you see the word “therefore,” if you don’t know what it’s referring back to, then you don’t understand what’s being said. If I say, “Therefore, no more potlucks on these Saturday night studies”—that sentence by itself is meaningless. What came before the “therefore”? If I say, “I’m gaining way too much weight, therefore no more potlucks,” that’s a lot different than, “From now on, Tracy and I are providing all the food for our meals, therefore, no more potlucks.” The meaning is totally different. The first one means we’re not going to eat together anymore and the second one means the opposite of that. You never understand what comes after a therefore until you know what came before it that it’s referring to.