2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, having made 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, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, 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 if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. 10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 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: Love Is Hard
The greatest and most important of all God’s commands is also the sweetest—love. All the joy in life comes from love—people you love, places you love, activities you love, food you love—from the shallowest to the deepest, all the delights of life come from some form of love. It’s the greatest command, it’s the sweetest command, but it’s also the hardest command. Of all the changes you can make in your life, is there any that feels more difficult than changing what you love? If there’s someone you don’t like at all and God commands you to start loving that person, what command in the Bible feels more impossible than that one? How do you obey the command to love? Peter’s going to help us with that in 2 Peter 1:7.
Outward Expression
I mentioned that the structure of this list of seven is three, perseverance in the middle, then another three. The first three are internal: moral excellence, spiritual knowledge, and control of your inner man. Those all have to do with what’s going on inside your heart, in your mind, and your internal impulses.
But as wonderful as those virtues are, even when you add perseverance, it’s still not enough because God’s holiness always expresses outwardly. When you share in the divine nature, that holiness won’t stay inside you. It will come out.
Internal holiness is essential, which is why it comes first. External expressions that aren’t driven by internal holiness are just hypocrisy. Whitewashed tombs. So you’ve got to have that internal reality, but if the internal holiness is real, there will always be external expression of it. You can’t grow in godliness in the privacy of your own heart.
James 2:26 … faith without deeds is dead.
Any virtue without deeds is dead.
So the back three in Peter’s list turn outward. Internal holiness will be expressed outwardly, first toward God, then toward the brothers, then out to the whole world. So Peter says:
2 Peter 1:6 [Add] to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
Godliness
So let’s look at those three. First, godliness. Godliness is living with awareness of God. It’s living in a way that someone could observe your life and say, “Okay, there’s a person who believes:
1) That God exists
2) That God is the way he describes himself in the Bible
3) That God is present
Godliness is living in the presence of God.
So how does internal holiness express itself outwardly toward God? Through godliness—simply being aware of his presence. The more you are what you should be in your private life on the inside, the less prone you’ll be to forgetting God.
The opposite of godliness is worldliness. Worldliness is when this world has your attention. You look out at life, and this world is really big and God is small. Godliness is when you look, and God is really big and this world is small. And Peter says, “Add that to your perseverance.”
Prevents Pride
Now, as we’ve gone through this list, we’ve seen over and over that each virtue is connected to the one before it and the one after it. Those connections are significant because not only do you use the previous one to attain the next one, but we’ve also seen that you need the next one to govern the previous one. For example, the first two in Peter’s list—moral excellence and spiritual knowledge. You use the moral excellence to gain the knowledge, but you also need the knowledge to inform the moral excellence. We’ve seen that pattern each time, and we see it again here. We’ll look at how to use perseverance to increase your godliness in a minute, but first, let’s consider how we need godliness to govern our perseverance.
You have all that perseverance, and that’s great. But it’s dangerous. What happens if you keep doing those perseverance workouts, you build that muscle, and you finally get to where you have a super-disciplined life? Your ducks are in a row, your bed is made, car is clean, garage is organized, you can resist temptation for long periods of time. What sin do you think will rise up in your heart next?
Maybe a little pride and self-sufficiency? When are you more prone to pride than when you’re doing well in the area of self-control and perseverance? You get a little bit of success in that area and it’s so easy to start thinking, “Ah, I’ve finally gotten my act together.” Now I don’t feel near as much need for God. I feel pretty good about myself … especially compare to that guy. His life’s a mess—why doesn’t he try harder? I’m glad I’m not like him.
And so self-control and perseverance can become deadly for your spiritual life if you don’t listen to Peter and add awareness of God into the mix, because you can’t be aware of God’s presence and be puffed up with pride. The more impressed I am with me, the more oblivious I am to God. The more in awe I am of God, the less I’m focused on me.
So that’s one reason you need to add godliness to your perseverance—it will protect you from pride. Another reason is to keep your self-control and perseverance from degenerating into the worldly kind. Remember, the worldly kind is when you have command over your impulses because of some earthly prize you’re after. That can happen very easily without you even realizing it. You don’t notice it, because the self-control is still there. You’re still saying no to your impulses, but now it’s more for temporal reasons than spiritual ones. Godliness will protect you from that.
How to Leverage Perseverance into Godliness
Okay, so what are some ways you could use perseverance to increase your godliness—to give you greater awareness of God?
Keeping a Clear Conscience
The most obvious way is by using your perseverance to fight sin in your life, because the more you sin, the more you’ll be like Adam and Eve and try to hide from God. You’ll shy away from him. When you’re in the middle of committing some sin, the last thing you want to do is think about God. You have to put him out of your mind to even be able to commit the sin.
And that’s true anytime your conscience isn’t clear, even if it’s something that you’re not even sure if it’s sin or not. Whenever you dabble in something questionable—you think it’s okay but you’re not totally sure, maybe it is, but probably not … doesn’t that make you tend to shy away from God as well? Maybe you have it rationalized so you’ve come up with an argument for why it’s okay, but still, you don’t want to deal with God too much because you’re afraid your argument for why it’s okay might fall apart. “Yeah, maybe my argument for why this is okay is a little flimsy, I don’t want the Holy Spirit to take a wrecking ball to it, so I just won’t think about him.” The more sketchy stuff you have in your life, the more you’ll turn a blind eye to God, which is the exact opposite of godliness.
And not only does sin make you shy away from God, it can also provoke God to withdraw his presence from you.
Isaiah 59:2 Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you.
Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
You can’t rebel against God and live in his presence. But if you use perseverance to fight sin in your life so you have a pure heart, that unlocks the promise of Psalm 24:3.
Psalm 24:3 … Who may stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart.
Psalm 15:1 Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? … 2 He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous.
Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
If you want to see God’s glory, stand in God’s holy place, and dwell in his sanctuary (in other words, if you want godliness), you need to have clean hands and a pure heart. So you use perseverance to enable you to draw near to God. But if you don’t have perseverance and you get your hands dirty with sin, your view of God will cloud over and you won’t be able to live in the presence of God.
Use It to Focus
That’s one way perseverance helps you live in the presence of God. Another way is this: perseverance enables you to break free from earthly distractions.
You’re trying to walk with God, so you put your attention on him, but then the world screams to pull you back to earthly concerns—the news, lunch plans, that aching knee—you’re trying to focus on God, the world’s trying to distract you from God, what will help you resist those distractions? Perseverance. Perseverance will enable you to stay there with God for as long as you need to. It takes perseverance for me to say to myself, “That phone alert will still be there in ten minutes—just keep your mind on things above a little longer.” And that extra 5 or 10 minutes in God’s presence can make all the difference in the world for the rest of your day—and for the rest of your life.
Remember the Source of/Reason for Your Perseverance
So, how do you increase your godliness? Use perseverance to keep a clear conscience so you can draw near to God, and use perseverance to keep your focus on God, so you’re not distracted by the world. Then one more. Every time you exercise any perseverance at all, remember the source of that strength and the reason you’re doing it. If you can persevere even for 2 minutes, that’s the power of the Holy Spirit enabling you to do that. Make a habit of reminding yourself of that. So it’s not just, “I need to keep at this another 2 minutes,” but rather, “I need to take advantage of the Holy Spirit’s power to go another 2 minutes.” Remember the source.
And remember the reason. “I need to persevere, not just so my life is more successful, but to please God, because he’s right here with me.” I’m going to finish this project … for God. I’m going to resist that temptation a little longer … because God is right here in the room with me. If you remind yourself in every instance of perseverance that the reason you’re persevering is to honor the Lord, that will be a lot of reminders all through the day of the Lord’s presence. And the reminders are one of the most important factors for living in God’s presence. He’s invisible, it’s easy to forget about him, so if you develop a reflex of all your efforts of perseverance reminding you of God’s presence, that’s another way to use perseverance to build your godliness.
That’s how you express your internal holiness outwardly toward God—through godliness.
Brother Love
So how do you express it outwardly toward people? That brings us to the climactic virtue—love. And it’s not just the last one in the list—it’s the last two.
2 Peter 1:7 [add] to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
From Faith to Love
So the list ends with love plus more love. You knew this was coming. Love is always the climax. Even the commentators who insist there is no significance to the order in Peter’s list, which is most of them, they all say, “The order doesn’t mean anything … except … for the first one and the last one.” It matters that faith is first and love is last because everything in the Christian life sprouts from faith and grows into love.
Galatians 5:6 … Only faith working through love accomplishes anything.
Faith is always the most basic starting point, and love is always the highest goal.
Why Godliness Needs Love
I told you each virtue in the list needs the next one—why does godliness need love? Answer: you need love for people to reveal whether that godliness is real or not. When you’re checking to see how you’re doing with godliness, that question is always answered by checking to see how much you love people.
If you don’t love people, you need to go back to the drawing board with your godliness.
1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
Brother Love Is the Priority
So of course Peter’s list will climax with love. But Peter splits love into two virtues—first brother love, then love in general.
2 Peter 1:7 [Add] to godliness, brotherly kindness.
Your Bible might say “brotherly affection.” The Greek word is philadelphia. Same spelling, same pronunciation as the city. philos—love; adelphos—brother So it’s brother love.
The Priority of Loving the Saints
The world likes to speak about the brotherhood of all mankind, but that’s not a biblical idea.
In the NT, the brothers refers to fellow believers. Jesus made that very clear in Mark 3.
Mark 3:35 Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.
So philadelphia is that special love we have for our spiritual siblings within the household of God.
Now, the last item in the list is the word agape, which covers all the different kinds of love, for believers, unbelievers, family, friends, enemies, God—all the forms of love. If Peter would have just said, “Add to your godliness agape love—that would have covered every kind, including love for the brothers, so why make brother love a separate item in the list? It’s to show that loving the saints has priority. It’s a whole different kind of love that’s in a class by itself.
Your love for the saints should be far greater than your love for everyone else.
Galatians 6:10 Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Most of what the NT says about loving people is about loving one another in the church. Just look up how many times the term “one another” appears in the NT, speaking to churches.
• Carry one another's burdens
• Be devoted to one another
• Honor one another above yourselves.
• Accept one another
• Be patient, bearing with one another
• Serve one another
• Encourage one another and build one another up
• Agree with one another
• Teach and admonish one another
• Spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
• Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other
• Have anxiety for one another
• Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other
• Bear with one another
That’s not even the whole list. Fifteen times we’re told to love one another in the church. Four times in the NT we’re commanded to greet one another in the church with a holy kiss—a very warm, unusually affectionate greeting even in that culture. The kind of greeting reserved for close family. It never says to greet unbelievers that way—only the saints.
God’s Special Love for Believers
Why is it so important that we love the saints more than everyone else? Because God loves believers more than he loves everyone else.
Now, I know a lot of people will hear that and gasp and get the vapors and freak out and say, “No, no, no! God loves everyone exactly the same!!!” To which I reply, “Show me that in the Bible.”
Because here’s what I can show you: Listen to how Paul describes Christians in the church at Rome.
Romans 1:7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.
The saints are loved by God in a unique way.
Psalm 147:11 the Lord delights in those who fear him.
If he delights in everyone the same, verses like that are meaningless.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.
Christ’s love for the Church—the saints, Christians—is the model for the way husbands are to love their wives. Ladies,do you want your husband to love you exactly the same as he loves all the other women in the world. If there’s nothing special about Christ’s love for the Church, then that verse is saying there should be nothing special about a man’s love for his wife. That’s nonsense. The verse is saying the exact opposite. Christ’s love for his Bride is unique, like an ideal husband.
Does God love his enemies? Absolutely. But not like he loves his own children.
And the reason for that becomes clear when you think about why God loves believers. Why does he love us? Because we are in Christ.
Romans 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God the Father loves you as his own child because of your connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you think God would feel the same about people who are not in Christ as he feels about those who are in Christ? If being in Christ is nothing special, what would that say about the Father’s love for Jesus? It would mean God doesn’t love his own Son any more than he loves his enemies. If being in Christ doesn’t put us in a place of special affection in the heart of God, then what good is it to be in Christ?
So God has special love for the saints—what are the implications for your love? The only reason loving people is a virtue people because God loves people, so if you’re a sharer in his nature, you’ll do what he does.
And if that’s the case, then the proportions and priorities of your love should mirror the proportions and priorities of God’s love. And since God has special family love for those in his household, if you share in the divine nature, you’ll have a special family love for those in his household.
If You’ve Been Hurt
You say, “People in the church have hurt me worse than people in the world ever have!” Of course they have. That’s what happens in families. Isn’t it true that no one in the world has hurt you more than your spouse? When you were growing up, did you fight with most—your siblings or the neighbor kids? When you were raising children, did you yell at your kids more or strangers’ kids more? No one can hurt you as deeply as family can hurt you because no one else has as much access to your heart as they do. No one matters to you more than they do, so their offences hurt the worst.
So people in the church have hurt you? Of course they have. And you’ve hurt some of them. Is loving the saints painful at times? Does their betrayal hurt? It’s excruciating. But that’s all the more evidence that they are family.
And if you find it difficult or painful to love the saints, do you think it’s a bed of roses for God? Or does he also suffer grief in loving the saints, just like we do?
Ephesians 4:30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
I said loving the saints can be excruciating—for God to love you was literally excruciating. (The word excruciating comes from a root word that means crucifixion.) So yes, loving us was literally excruciating for Jesus.
If people in the church have hurt you, that doesn’t change the divine nature. You don’t love people in the church because of how they treat you, you love them because God loves them and you love whoever God loves because you love God.
Christian Ghetto?
Some people object to this and say, “Loving the church more than the world will create a Christian ghetto, or a holy huddle where we love all our friends and ignore the lost.” That is a legitimate concern. Jesus warned us about that.
Matthew 5:44 Love your enemies … 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good … 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
So yes, we love our enemies, our persecutors, we love the lost, we love our neighbor, we love the poor, we love the whole world. But none of that comes close to our responsibility to love the saints.
And again, it all stems from our love for God. Unbelievers are attracted to people who ignore God, hate God, blaspheme God; we’re drawn to people who love God because they love God.
If you don’t have more love for those in the church than you do for unbelievers, that’s unfaithfulness to Christ.
James 4:4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
So why does Peter make a special point about love specifically for believers? Because your attitude toward God’s family says a lot about your relationship with God.
Use Godliness
Now, I said at the beginning that this is the hardest virtue because you can’t just snap your fingers and change how you feel about people. So if you can’t do it by snapping your fingers, how do you generate love in your heart where it doesn’t already exist? You build each virtue using the previous one, so what’s the virtue right before this one? Godliness—awareness of God’s presence. How do you use that to increase your love for believers? By considering God’s love for them.
If your love for people comes from your love for God and thinking about how much God loves them, the perfect time for that is when you’re aware of God’s presence, and that’s what godliness is. So godliness is the perfect virtue for this. Every person you see at church, or here, or in your home—wherever you’re around believers, when you’re aware of God’s presence, all you have to do is ask, “How do you feel about that guy, God?” The answer is, God feels such intense affection for him that he spent years working to win his heart and he deeply desires closeness with him.
Think about how wide and long and high and deep God’s love is for that person. You have trouble with compassion, think about the compassion Jesus feels for that woman when she’s in the throes of pain. Think about how God’s heart breaks for her when she’s heartbroken.
You’re having a hard time being generous, think of God not even sparing his own Son to be generous to that person. You can’t forgive him? God forgave him (and you).
Are you annoyed with having to listen to that person prattle on and on? God loves it when she speaks to him and listens to every word. He even rewards him for it. You can’t see any redeeming quality in that person? God chose him and takes delight in him. He enjoys spending time with him. God loves that person so deeply that God will give great rewards to anyone who will just be nice to that person in God’s name.
Think about how eager God is to bless that guy. And about all the promises God has made to him. Think about the eternal rewards God has in store for him. If you love God, the more you consider the various angles of God’s love for that person, the more your heart will warm up to that person. That’s how you use godliness—awareness of God’s presence—to build love for the brothers and sisters in Christ.
Promises for Increasing Love
What are some promises that will help you increase your love for the saints? How about Hebrew 6:10?
Hebrews 6:10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.
I love that—he won’t forget what your kindness cost you. If it takes a lot of your time or costs you money or it’s just painful, like when you forgive when you don’t want to forgive—anytime your love for a brother costs you something, God puts his hand on your shoulder and says, “I’ll never forget this.”
We can’t even scratch the surface of the promises God makes to those who show love to his people for his sake.
Matthew 25:34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”
Why do they get this amazing inheritance?
40 "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
If you give food or water or visitation or any other act of kindness to a brother or sister of Jesus (a believer), Jesus takes that as a direct act of kindness to him and he’ll respond by giving you a massive inheritance in his glorious kingdom. And when that inheritance takes your breath away, he’ll say, “I told you I wouldn’t forget.”
Love
The final virtue in the list is the catch-all term for love (agape). This is the NT word to cover all Christian love—love for the saints, for family, for strangers, for enemies, for the needy, and for God. This is the pinnacle of Christian virtue, and it’s last not only because it’s the final goal, but because it depends on all the other virtues.
Dependent on Other Virtues
It comes at the end of the list because there is no shortcut to love. When you set a goal of being more loving (“Oh, I want to be a more compassionate person. I want to be more kind and caring and thoughtful.”)—when you set a goal like that, realize what a huge undertaking that goal is. You go through Peter’s whole list before you finally get to love. There’s no shortcut. Love is last in the list because it’s supported by all the other virtues(remember, Peter’s list of 7 represents all the qualities of God’s moral nature), which means any virtue in the Bible that is lacking in your heart will hinder your ability to love.
If you lack moral excellence, and your values aren’t in sync with God’s, it will mess up your love. If you lack knowledge, it will mess up your love. If you lack self-control or perseverance, it will hinder your ability to love people. If you lack godliness, humility, gentleness, meekness, holiness, wisdom, faith, justice, patience—you name the virtue—if you lack it, it will mess up your love. That’s why if you love, you’ve fulfilled the whole law.
Colossians 3:14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Use Brother Love
Each virtue comes from the previous one—how do you use brother love to increase your love for everyone? Brother love is like training wheels for the harder kinds of love. Brother love is easiest because if you love Jesus, what’s easier than loving other people who love Jesus? Those people have the Holy Spirit in them producing the fruit of the Spirit, and people with those qualities are attractive to people who love God’s will and highly value righteousness. It won’t seem that way if you fix all your attention on their flaws and failures, but if you cover over a multitude of sins and take delight in the work of the Spirit in them, they’ll be the easiest people to love in the world.
And the more you love by considering God’s love for them, the better you’ll be at love in general, and you’ll be able to love your enemies and the lost and everyone else by considering God’s love for those people. We all have obstacles to our love—fear, past wounds, selfishness, deeply rooted resentments, all kinds of things that make love hard. But the more you live in the presence of God, the more God’s love will empower your love.
Conclusion: Jesus
Now, to close out our discussion of this whole list, let’s go back to Jesus’ example. He had his sights set on the prize—that joy set before him, that enabled self-control and perseverance. And we found that just as Jacob’s prize was Rachel—a love relationship, so it was with Christ. The great prize that kept him going was his bride. So you can see how Jesus’ example ties all those previous elements in with love—everything culminates with love.
God offers a lot of different kinds of rewards, but the greatest is tied in with love relationships—fellowship with the saints and intimacy with God. If you have trouble being motivated by God’s promises of reward, think of those rewards in terms of ideal relationships. Nothing is more fulfilling and joy-giving than love relationships that are the way God designed them to be. Let your highest goal—your Rachel that gives you perseverance—let it be everything God promised, but especially the parts that have to do with love relationships. That will take you up through the full spectrum of virtues starting with faith and taking you all the way up to the highest and greatest virtue of all—love.
