Show video “Resolve”
I want to discuss two words with you today. Those two words are “resolve” and “resolution”. Resolve means, “To come to a definite or earnest decision about.” At the first of the year, we resolve to take actions to improve our lives. Some popular ones are to lose weight, to stop smoking, to exercise more, and numerous others. To reinforce our efforts we make resolutions to achieve these goals. The word resolution means “the mental state or quality of being resolved.” In other words, we determine in our minds to make a definite decision to improve our lives. Unfortunately, as we heard in the video, only 20% actually achieve those goals that they set for themselves.
This morning I want to challenge you to resolve to achieve a goal this year that will build you up spiritually. Paul instructed Timothy, his young protégé that “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8)
I want all of us to resolve to begin a spiritual workout that will benefit us as individuals and as a church body. So let me introduce you to the “From Faith to Love Workout Program”. This program is detailed for us in 2 Peter 1:3-11.
As you begin a workout program, you want to look in a mirror and see what you have to work with. This can be painful. However, we make a pleasant discovery as we examine our condition in God’s mirror. “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)
According to the Bible God has supplied us with everything we need to be successful at achieving our goal. We have been given the tools in the form of promises to enable us to be godly and to escape temptations. Things look promising in God’s mirror.
Next, we begin laying out the program and how we will achieve eight steps to achieving godliness. The program is found in 2 Peter 1:5-7. “In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone”
If you begin a physical workout, the first item on your agenda will be your muscle mass. We all have this. It just that with some of us our muscle mass has become hidden quite well. In our spiritual workout, the first item on our agenda is “faith”.
1) Faith, we all have it.
We are told in Romans 12:3 that we should measure ourselves “by the faith that God has given us.” We are told that great faith is a gift given by the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 12:9) Therefore, some may have a greater measure of faith than others may but we all still have it. Faith is our assurance that things we cannot see will indeed work out to our benefit. (Hebrews 11:1, Romans 8:28) Faith is the action that pleases God the most. (Hebrews 11:6) This is faith; taking God at his word.
2) Take a swig of moral excellence
We are instructed to add a supplement to our faith. The definition of a supplement is “something added to complete a thing, supply a deficiency, or reinforce or extend a whole.” It’s like an energy drink. You need your faith completed; take a swig of moral excellence. Is your faith lacking deficiency; take a swig of moral excellence. Does your faith need to be reinforced; take a swig of moral excellence. So what are the active ingredients in this supplement of moral excellence? There are two; having the courage to exercise your faith and doing right for the sake of doing right.
So now that we have our faith at work being supplemented with moral excellence, how do we go to the next level?
3) To do right, you got to know right.
You have to have knowledge about God’s word. According to Romans 10:17, knowledge of God and the Gospel is the root of faith. But according to a recent Gallup poll only 16% of Christians read God’s Word daily, 37% read it weekly (usually on Sunday morning), and 35% do not read God’s Word at all. Proverbs 19:2 reads “Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good---”. We can be enthusiastic about moral excellence but without knowledge we cannot achieve it. I am giving each of you today a small devotional book. Each page consists of one verse from the Bible. My challenge to you for 2013 is to read this one verse for each day and meditate on what God is saying to you for that day. It will take you less than 10 seconds to read but will begin to sow knowledge into your being and pull some of you from that 37% who never read God’s Word to the 16% who do it daily.
4) With knowledge comes self-control.
I must warn you, there is a danger to knowledge. With knowledge comes responsibility. As you learn more about God’s expectations for your life, you must begin to flex your self-control muscles. Self-control is the “control of one’s emotions, desires, or actions by one’s own will.” Someone angers us and we want to give them a piece of our mind but God’s Word says “Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble.” (Proverbs 21:23) Self-control keeps me quite. We desire a possession that belongs to someone else but God’s Word says “You must not covet---” (Exodus 20:17). Self-control turns my eyes away from looking at someone else’s possessions. Someone hurts us and we want revenge but God’s Word says “never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God.” (Romans 12:19) Self-control places justice in God’s hands.
5) With self-control comes the need for patience
As you exercise your self-control you can expect your faith to be tested. There are two words at play here, patient and endurance. Patient means “bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint”
Endurance means “the ability to withstand hardship or adversity”
Therefore patient endurance is the ability to withstand hardships calmly. James 1:3-4 paints a picture of achievement in our struggles with accomplishing our goal of spiritual growth. “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing”
James is saying here “Bring it” because once you have conquered patient endurance you are on your way to success.
6) Over the hump and on the way to godliness.
We’ve got our faith working along with moral excellence. We reading the Word daily and gaining knowledge. We’ve learned self-control and how to endure patiently. Now we begin to exercise godliness. At this point we should not have an issue with this. Godliness is simply acting with the virtues of God. We listen to the Holy Spirit who guides us and act upon his instruction. We do not need to dwell on this phase of our program any longer. Because the real test now lies ahead.
7) Godliness will be exemplified in brotherly affection.
As you know I am a bread delivery person by trade. We are known in the business as “vendors” and we rank along with liars and thieves to some store managers. One particular manager would not even acknowledge me when I greeted him but rather looked at me with distain. One morning he had a request for some bread and the fact that I was a pastor came up. He soon discovered that we were of the same denomination and I was acquainted with his pastor. Suddenly I was his brother that deserved respect and honor. He never knew I was a Christian and by his attitude I would have never guessed he was a Christian also.
Let me read you two passages. John 13:34-35 “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
These twelve guys were very different. One was a tax collector, the other a rebel. They would have been on opposite ends of a spectrum. But Jesus said that by amazing the world with their love and acceptance of each other that people would be convinced of his lordship.
1 John 4:20-21 “If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.”
This applies to all in this room. We may be parent and child, husband and wife, in the eyes of God we are brothers and sisters. When we get angry with each other we disappoint God. We often are kinder and more forgiving to friends, neighbors and co-workers than we are to our parents, children, and spouses. God says if we cannot love these people than we cannot love him. That is why He says unless you forgive others He cannot forgive you.
8) Goal achieved--- love for everyone.
1 John 4:16 “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”
Taking God at his word, doing what is right for the sake of doing right, gaining knowledge, learning self-control, facing hardships calmly, reflecting God in your life, and learning to love your Christian brothers and sisters in spite of their faults has brought us to the perfect love. Faith says God loves us. Faith says we can trust him. And love is the common denominator between us and God.
How well will you do this year with this resolution? 2 Peter 1:8-11 shows us a contrast between success and failure.
“The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”
How well you do will probably be based on how well you do with your Bible passage reading. According to statistics two weeks from now 30% of you will no longer be reading daily. In four weeks half of you will have given up. In six weeks 60% will not know where your book is. Only 20% will complete the year with the reading plan. Can we at whitestone change those stats? Can we finish the year at 100%? I believe it will make a difference in all of our lives.
