What does it mean to be a Christian?
2 Peter 1:3-11
Introduction-
Good morning – Welcome to service, I pray that the Lord will bless our time together and that you receive His precious anointing and wisdom for your life.
Can you believe that we are in the last Sunday of the year and moving into 2022?
That seems funny to say and it seems like time flies bye and we have to jump off the roller coaster to slow it down.
I have drilled you this advent season with several scriptures repeatedly.
Isaiah 9:6- the prophecy of the coming of the Lord.
John 3:16, Jesus coming to save mankind and His love for us.
Luke 2:15 that we ourselves must go and see this thing that the Lord has done and experience it for ourselves.
The four weeks of Advent have been about Hope, Joy, Peace, and love. These are the presents under the tree for us to open and experience. They are all free gifts by the love and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus.
In our text we will see that as we mature, there are other gifts available to us to help us walk close with the Lord and be a productive part of the kingdom of God right here until we go home and spend eternity with Him.
2 Peter 1:3-11
Prayer-
Peter is a good old boy. He thinks and acts like a lot of us- he puts his mouth in gear before his brain and it gets him in a lot of trouble.
Trouble that can be avoided if we would think before we speak. If we would rather be favored by the Lord than right by man.
I am reading a book by Louie Giglio titled “Don’t let the enemy sit at your table” - most of us would say I would never do that!
Have you ever done something that you knew was wrong?
Have you ever heard good advice and thought that you knew better?
Have you ever wanted something badly enough that you would hurt someone else to get it?
Have you ever watched someone make terrible mistakes and thought that would never happen to me?
You have not only sat at the table with Him but you have invited him to stay and started taking notes.
Peter in this text talks about our calling as a believer and reminds us who we are in Christ. That as we mature, we should be changing our mindset to match and line up with Jesus.
I said the other night at Christmas banquet that most know me only after Jesus.
Most cannot imagine some of the things that I have confessed that Jesus has moved me away from and changed my life. But Jesus knows us at every area of our lives.
He is the one that wants to take us from where we are to where we need to be and wants to walk with us as we mature and move closer in a relationship with Him.
It is important that He walk with us because we cannot do the changes that are needed without Him.
We are not able to fix ourselves and repair what the enemy has stolen and desires to keep from us.
We do not have the power to change our lives.
We are debtors to Christ and His power is what breaks the chains of bondage and will set us free to live the life that Christ desires for each of us as we walk with Him.
Peter tells us the source, the power and the foundation for living that “abundant life” we hear so much about that seems like an impossibility to achieve.
(3) His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him.” UNDERLINE THE WORD EVERYTHING
Everything we need in every situation and circumstance in a believers life.
Divine power focus here is on life and goodness. Goodness on the fact that we want God’s will lived out in us.
Peter is challenging the false teachers who were putting approval on immoral behavior and he is telling true believers that we should want to live holy lives reflecting a godly life.
Peter is challenging early believers and us to not live by what the world says is okay but on what Jesus puts His approval on.
The foundation is the conversion that we confessed and professed to the world as we accepted Christ as Lord.
Peters understanding of salvation is neither dualistic or Gnostic. He does not imagine that believers partake of the essence of God to escape and become gods, Instead through Christ believers share in the holiness of God and thus are conformed to the image of God.
(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.”
Participation in the divine nature is going to be in conflict with the world because the world has no desire to escape evil but draw closer to it as we are moving away from it.
Some interpreters maintain that the escape is the future, not a earthly experience but I side with the smaller group that believes that God is able to have us avoid sin not only in the future but right now.
Peter rejects the claims of the false teachers that divine grace frees us from moral obligations.
Those frauds intended to go on sinning even after having an experience with the Lord.
I believe the gift of the divine nature enables believers to counter the fascination of evil desires and live a life pleasing to God.
“What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus”… What can keep me from sinning is the power of the Holy Spirit actively working in our lives.
My desire and His power to keep us living the life God intended for us.
The Passion version for verse (3) “Everything we could ever need for life and godliness has already been deposited in us by his divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing him who has called us by name and invited us to come to him through a glorious manifestation of his goodness.”
Somebody should be shouting, someone should be praising the Lord!
By Jesus power which is already deposited in the life of a believer who Jesus knows by name is invited to partake of his blessings and goodness.
I want you to see the triumphant grace of God - scholars call it the ladder of virtue. It is God building upon on our lives so that we have everything we need to be who Jesus wants us to be.
It begins with faith and sandwiched between love so that we have everything we need.
(5) “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection, and to mutual affection love.”
So we begin with faith and we add;
Goodness
Knowledge
Self-control
Perseverance
Godliness
Mutual affection
Love
Here are seven things from scripture we must add to our lives if we are going to be the Christian (Follower) of Jesus that He intended of us.
We are going to quickly look at each one and I would suggest you do a study for yourself to get a better look at each one,
Goodness
Well pastor, you told us that we are not good people and that God doesn’t save us because we ar good, he saves us because we need a savior.
There is a difference between a good person and godly goodness.
The goodness Peter is talking about here is God is good, it is not just what he does, it is who he is.
Biblical goodness is action, it is not just to be virtuous, it is the Greek word Agathosune
(A-Gath-tho-sune) and means an uprightness of heart and life.
Knowledge
There are a lot of smart people who have no common sense and have no spiritual sense and in the eyes of the world are smart but the knowledge talked about here is the knowledge to take what God has shown you and respond to Him.
The smartest person without Jesus is a lost person that will one day be far from God for eternity because they did not respond to the knowledge that was before them.
Proverbs 1:7-
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Godly wisdom is to depart from evil. That means we must avoid evil, or anything that lures us to do evil or wickedness. Stay completely away from sin as a child of God.
Self-control
Biblical self-control means choosing to give up trying to control things on our own, Self-control is surrendering to God for help, and working alongside Him for real change.
Self-control allows you to keep your mind focused on God while avoiding the temptation of your desires. Many worldly temptations can be strong, but our spiritual self-control can be stronger with the help of the Holy Spirit. We are our worse enemy.
The ability to control behaviors in order to avoid temptations and to achieve goals.
The ability to delay gratification and resist unwanted behaviors or urges.
Perseverance
Godly perseverance is possible- the world tells you it is not. The world says that you cannot control your urges and that no one will blame you if you give up but spiritually we are told to persevere to the end and those that do will be saved.
James 1:12
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Philippians 1:6
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Godliness
What is the biblical meaning of godliness?
The quality or practice of conforming to the laws and wishes of God; devoutness and moral uprightness: To be wise is to live in godliness, reflecting the nature of the kingdom of God in the course of everyday life.
Other words that mean godliness are holiness and meekness.
You want to grow in godliness
Don’t follow the advice or counsel of wicked or ungodly people
Delight in God’s law
Meditate on God’s Word day and night
Godly Mutual affection
Mutual affection is used in some translations as brotherly kindness and it simply means a tender affection to all our fellow Christians. This suggests a selfless attitude that makes it easy for us to put the interest of our brothers and sisters ahead of our own interest.
Paul admonished the Galatians to do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers, within the scope of available opportunity.
God’s Love
I will only touch on God’s love because that would be a time all by itself.
Love is a key attribute of God in Christianity.
1 John 4:8 states that "God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
John 3:16 states: "God so loved the world..." In the New Testament, God's love for humanity or the world is expressed in Greek as agape (???p?).
Agape love is the everlasting love, sacrificing, free and unconditional.
(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. But whoever does not have them is near sighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past.”
Closing-
Between faith in God and God’s Love sit these virtues. It is important that they are between these two things because the other virtues are not just Christian virtues, but between faith and love they become Christian values to live by.
True knowledge of Christ produces these moral and virtuous qualities in a believer.
Scripture here tells us when we forget, we become near sighted and blind- when we remember, we fulfill our calling and we will not stumble.
It is not that we will not make mistakes, but means that we will not fall into sin that will cause us to stumble from our faith and will not fall into a disaster of life.
Amen.
Prayer-
