Growing In Our Faith – 2 Peter 1:1-11 5.5.19
by: Rev. Darrell Williams
2 Peter is obviously written by Peter – one of the disciples – the one we see in the Easter story and the one we discussed on Palm Sunday that failed Jesus by denying Him three times. After the resurrection of Jesus Peter received a challenge from Jesus to “Feed His Sheep” which is exactly what Peter did with his preaching and the beginning of the church.
1st and 2nd Peter was not written to any specific church and was most likely passed from church to church.
Peter has basically three messages or themes in 2nd Peter:
• Discipleship – Spiritual Growth is essential
• A Warning about False Teachers
• Watch out for Jesus’ Return
This morning I want us to look at the first theme which deals with our spiritual growth or our effectiveness as a believer.
How many of you have ridden a bicycle? That is what I thought – most everyone has ridden a bicycle. If you get on a bike and put both feet on the pedals and then you don’t pedal – what will happen? Yes, you will fall. Now, what will happen if you start pedaling and you maintain your balance? You will keep moving and you will not fall. You will be more effective by moving forward than if you just stand still with your feet on the pedals.
Our faith is a lot like riding a bicycle. God does not want us to be stagnant or ignorant about our faith. He would desire for all his people to keep moving forward toward Spiritual Maturity by growing in our faith in this world of darkness in which we live. The people that Peter was writing to were being attacked by false teachers who were advocating a false gospel. If we are not careful we can easily be miss-led which will cause us not to grow in our faith.
So let’s read this passage of scripture and listen for three truths which Peter shares with us about growing in our faith.
2 Peter 1:1-11
1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: 2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The first truth we see in this passage of scripture is:
1. Growing In Our Faith Requires Knowledge.
Knowledge is a very important concept in Peter’s writing. He refers to knowledge in 5 verses so I have concluded that knowledge is very important in our Christian faith. Someone said that this knowledge is “knowledge of God and knowledge from God”.1 As believers, we should know God from an intimate level of understanding and should also be an intellectual knowledgeable of what God says to us through his Word.
One of the reasons I think that Peter is so concern about his readers having the “Knowledge of God and of Jesus Our Lord” is because of all the false doctrines concerning salvation. It is not any different today in that there are many different religions that will try to convince you that there are many roads you can take to get to heaven – when the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the father except through me.”
Peter says in in verse 2 that it is the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord that enables us to experience and enjoy God’s grace and peace. And in verse 3 Peter says that it is through our knowledge of him that we have the divine power to live a godly life. We have everything we need – we have every resource at our disposal to live a godly life and to enjoy the grace and peace of God. It is there if we are willing to grow in our faith with the knowledge of God’s Word.
I want you to imagine with me this morning that we are sitting in a coffee shop and you are ease dropping on the table next to you (Don’t tell me you have never done that). At the other table is a couple and you can tell they are in love. They are staring in each other’s eyes and she looks at him with a grin on her face and says “I want to know you.”
The guy looks back at her and says “Great, I will send you a book that I wrote about myself so you can read it and that should help you to know me.”
The girl says “no, that is not what I want. I want to be close to you”.
And then he says, “I know, that is why I am sending you to this seminar that is all about my life so you feel closer to me in a 2-day experience.”
She reaches over, grabs his hand and says “I just want to be with you.”
He says, “That is really nice. Did you know there is course at church that you can take where you can be with me.”7
So let me ask you this morning – do you really know God? That word “knowledge” implies that we know someone. The knowledge Peter is talking about is certainly head knowledge where we are growing in our faith by studying and learning more about God and Jesus. But is also heart knowledge of loving God and spending time with him just like the girl sitting in the coffee shop.
Maybe you have been attending seminars and classes where you have been learning all about God but that is all you have been doing. If that is the case – God would desire more from you. He would want you to have an intimate – love relationship with him where you are constantly in communication with him. The more we grow in our knowledge of God and Jesus – the better prepared we will be to combat the false teachings of this world.
Let me ask you this morning – do you fully understand who God is? Do you have a complete understanding of who God is?
• Do you understand the qualities of God and the attributes of God? That He is all knowing and all powerful. That he is Holy, and that He is infinite – not limited to time and space.
• Do you understand what he requires of you? Because He is Holy we too should be Holy. In Luke 9:23 it says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” It is not easy to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
• Do you understand and grasp hold of what he has done for us on the Cross.
A.W. Tozer said “Modern mankind can go anywhere, do everything and be completely curious about the universe. But only a rare person now and then is curious enough to want to know God.
A growing Christian will be growing in their knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.
The second truth we see in this passage about growing in faith is:
2. Growing In Our Faith Requires Discipline.
Look back at verses 5-7
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
Peter tells us to “make every effort to add to your faith”. To make every effort requires discipline in our Christian life.
The foundation on which we are to add these qualities is our faith. Faith is not only the basis for belief but is also the basis for our behavior and actions in life. If you have not to come to a personal faith in Jesus Christ then you will not be able to pursue the course of action that Peter is talking about here.
The qualities listed here are what Christians should be striving to achieve in life if you desire to be effective and productive in your Christian walk with Jesus. They will not be developed overnight but can be developed over time if we discipline ourselves and stay in the Word of God and surround ourselves with Godly Christian friends that will support us. That is why it is so important to be in one of our Bible Study Groups.
Let’s briefly look at these qualities.
Goodness
This goodness that Peter is talking about is more than just being a “good person”. Quite often we refer to people as a good person regardless of the type of life they live. A person will get arrested for stealing or shooting someone will say “but he is really a good person”. In my study this week I was reminded about a phrase that Forrest Gump’s mother said in the movie. She said “goodness is as goodness does.”2
What Peter is talking about is more than having good intentions but actually doing the right thing according to what Scripture says. It is an action that we take in showing acts of kindness – like we did yesterday at Ekklesia.
And to Goodness – Knowledge
From my study this week - the reference to knowledge here is probably not an intimate knowledge. It is the ability to discern God’s will and then orient our life to His will.
And to Knowledge - Self-Control
This is allowing God (Holy Spirit) to be in control of our lives. Theologian Douglas Moo defines it as “the ability of the human being to act entirely of one’s own free will without the pressures of other people, competing philosophies, or one’s own emotions.”3 If we are not careful distractions along the way will keep us from growing in our faith. Self-control is a great quality to possess.
And to Self-Control – Perseverance
Perseverance is continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition that may come our way. If we are following Jesus the way we should be following Him then we will face opposition. We will stumble in our Christian walk as we strive for Christian maturity. Perseverance is trusting God in all situations – good and difficult – to lead you to do the right thing.
And to Perseverance – Godliness
Someone defined godliness as “living out our disposition with respect and reverence to Christ in all aspects of our life.”4 Godliness is letting others see Jesus in us through the way we live our lives.
And to Godliness - Mutual Affection or Brotherly Kindness
This is when we love each other and treat others as you would want to be treated. We all need friends and not just friends on Facebook. We should be striving to build relationships that will help us live a Godly life and Grow in your faith.
And to Mutual Affection – Love
God showed us what unconditional love was when he sent us his Son to die for us. In turn we should be showing love to others. Listen to what John writes in 1 John chapter 3.
10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Then in John 13:35 he writes: 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The greatest commandment is Loving God and Loving Others. I think it is quite fitting that Peter begins the sequence of qualities with faith ends this list of qualities with Love. If you look at 1 Corinthians 13 – what is known as the love chapter in the Bible it ends with “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Each quality builds upon the qualities before it. These qualities are similar to the ingredients in a cake recipe where all ingredients are needed and if you leave one of the ingredients out of the cake it will not turn out like it should.6
If we leave one of these qualities out of our faith then we will not be all that God intended for us to be – so we need to make every effort to add to our faith.
Look at verse 8 & 9.
8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
Peter implies here that we – as believers in Christ – already possess these qualities just as we possess the fruit of the spirit. These qualities are there - they just have to be developed by allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives as we keep moving forward in our Spiritual Journey.
There was a FedEx commercial on TV many years ago that was a take-off from the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down – stranding him on a desert island for years. In the commercial the FedEx employee goes up to the door of a suburban home with a package in hand. When the lady comes to the door, he explained that he survived 5 years on a deserted island and during that time kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives him a simple “thank you”.
However, the FedEx worker is curious about this package and wanted to know what was in it. The Lady opens the box and it shows the contents with the lady saying, “Oh, nothing really, just a satellite telephone, a global positioning device, a compass, a water purifier, and some seeds.”8
We are sometime like the FedEx worker. We have all the resources and power available to help us grow in our faith but quite often we never take advantage of the gifts that God has given us.
This verse is also telling me that as Christians we are called to be effective and productive in our spiritual journey. It says if you possess these qualities “they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Unproductive – means to be “without fruit”. So to be productive in Christian journey then we should be producing fruit as Jesus says in one of my favorite verses in John 15:5:“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
It all comes back to our knowledge of Jesus and our relationship with Him that will help us in being productive for the Kingdom of God.
Many Christians will be happy to know they are not going to hell and not be motivated to grow in our faith. God has given us gifts and abilities to use and not to store up but it will take discipline to keep adding these qualities to our faith.
Look with me in verses 10-11 where we see the last truth from this passage which is
3. Growing in Our Faith Brings Rewards.
10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Peter says to “Make every effort to confirm your calling and election.” He uses the same wording earlier in verse 5 when speaking about the qualities that we possess as Christians. What he is saying is that as we grow in our faith toward spiritual maturity – and we add these qualities to our everyday living - then we will have assurance of our salvation.
When we have the assurance of our salvation then Peter says we will never stumble. What does he mean by never stumble? From my study this week I determined that most theologians think that the stumbling here is of the final nature – denoting a fall that prevents one from getting to heaven.9
Walking in faith with these qualities will allow us to walk upright without fear of falling or losing our salvation. There will be hard times in our lives but we have assurance that God is with us every step of the way.
Then in verse 11 Peter says we will receive a rich welcome in Heaven as our reward.
Do you remember the welcome the prodigal son received from his Father when he came home in Luke 15? The son had left home – spent his entire inheritance – and then he came to senses and was ready to come back home. His father saw him from a long way off and was filled with compassion – ran to his son with his arms wide open – hugged his son and gave him a kiss. He then threw a big party to welcome his son home.
It is also a lot like the welcome grandparents receive from their grandchildren. It is nothing any better on this earth than to see my grandson come running up to me reaching out with arms stretched wide and saying “Grandpa let’s go get ice-cream”.
That is the welcome we will have waiting for us as we continue to grow in our faith. What a welcome it will be to hear our Heavenly Father say – “Well done, my good and faithful servant”.
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1 Bob Deffinbaugh – bible.org
2Steve May – “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Believer” – preachingtoday.org
3The NIV Application Commentary – Douglas Moo, page 45
4Dr. Richard J. Krejcir – intothyword.org
5Steve May – “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Believer” – preachingtoday.org
6https://bible.org/seriespage/pursuit-christian-character-2-peter-15-7
7Steven Lucas – sermoncentral.com
8 Bill White – preachingtoday.org
9The NIV Application Commentary – Douglas Moo, page 49
