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2 Peter chapter number 1, 2 Peter
chapter number 1. I want to read the verses that
we have dealt with over the past number of weeks, seven weeks,
and we're going to take a look at some verses afterwards, and
this morning as we think about these keys to spiritual growth,
and this morning we want to be taking a look at the benefits
or advantages of spiritual growth. What is in it for us? Suppose
someone were to say to you, I'm going to ask you to do something,
but in order to do it, you're going to have to work at it very
hard. In fact, it's going to take all
the diligence you can muster in order to do it, but if you
will accomplish it, it'll do something tremendous in your
life, because that's what we're talking about. Living a life
that is pleasing to the Lord is not easy. You have to be diligent in growing
if you want to grow, and you should want to grow if you are
a believer. Let's read our scripture, verse
number five, 2 Peter 1, and verse number five, and beside this,
give all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge,
and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and
to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness,
and to brotherly kindness charity. Now here's why we need to do
that, verse eight. For if these things be in you
and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he
that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off,
and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore,
though rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling
and election sure. For if you do these things, you
shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered
unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I will not be negligent
to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know
them and be established in the present truth. So I think we've
sufficiently covered the items that we are to add to our faith. We ought to know what those things
are. I think we, a lot of us, it was
just kind of a refresher course. We know those things need to
be in our life. But more than likely, most of
us probably have a difficult time taking and adding to our
faith the way that we should. because our flesh likes to take
it easy. That's right, our flesh likes
to take it easy. Self likes to take the easy route,
and that's why we have to give all diligence. No doubt Peter
knew that the things he had just written to believers there in
verses five through seven about adding to our faith may have
been a bit overwhelming to some, Can I get a witness? It's overwhelming,
you know. I mean, you look at it, in fact,
you look at it without taking a look at it step by step, and
it is totally overwhelming, but it can still be overwhelming,
even as we think about adding one on top of the other otherwise. So in verses eight through 11,
he encourages believers by sharing the benefits, or we might say
the advantages, of giving all diligence in adding to our faith. those precious things that are
found in verses five through seven. They are things that are
needed in our life. And understand that this, it's
more than just completing some kind of religious duty. Also,
it has nothing to do with earning our standing before God with
acts of righteousness. Listen, our standing before God
is in Christ. We're just as righteous as he
is in our standing. Peter has already stated in verse
one that the believer's righteousness is a supplied righteousness that
comes from God himself through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's not about our personal
righteousness at all, it's about the righteousness of God and
our savior, Jesus Christ. In fact, without his help, this
is not gonna come shining through in your life. He is the one that
shows up and shows out. He is the one that will help
you to establish these things in your walk and because He wants
to live His life through our life. So why do we need to add
to our faith? What are the reasons, or better
yet, what are the benefits or advantages of diligently adding
these virtues to our faith? And that's what we wanna take
a look at there, verses eight through 12, but we're only gonna
take a look at verse eight and nine this morning. There are
actually four benefits I wanna share with you, but we're just
gonna look at two this morning, okay? First of all, we see the
benefits or advantages of fruit, verse number eight. It says,
for if these things be in you and abound, they make you that
ye shall neither be barren, you ought to underline that word
or circle it, nor unfruitful, you ought to underline that,
circle it, okay, those two things that we're gonna take a look
at here, neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ. So, we see the benefits or advantages
of food. These qualities will keep our
lives, first of all, from being spiritually barren. That word
barren there. The word barren is a very interesting
word. It's translated from a word that
means inactive. That is, unemployed. That is,
it implies that the person is lazy, bordering on uselessness. That's what it means. It's kind
of like, can you not find something to get busy with? It reminds
me of a place in the New Testament where it's translated as idle,
and that is in the parable of the laborers. Matthew 20 and
verse number 1, you remember Jesus told that parable and the
master in that parable went and hired laborers at the beginning
of the day and then he kept hiring laborers throughout the day to
come labor. a couple of times there, he mentioned
something about their idleness. In fact, in Matthew chapter number
20 and verse number 3, he went out about the third hour, that'd
be nine o'clock in the morning, and saw others standing idle
in the marketplace. Okay, and then later, about the
eleventh hour, That's getting down to about five o'clock, and
he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them,
why stand you here all the day idle? And the idea was they were
not employed, were doing anything. They appeared to be lazy. Now, adding The qualities found
in verses five through seven to our faith keeps us from being
good for nothing. We don't like that being called
good for nothing, do we? We don't, but it keeps us from
being good for nothing in our spiritual life or walk. You ever
heard of someone being so earthly minded that they're no heavenly
good? That's what they're speaking of. We get our focus in the wrong
place. We get our focus on the living
that we make and get our focus on the things that we, the leisure
activities of this world. And we get all wrapped up in
this world and we got the wrong, we got the wrong focus in our
life and we wind up being so earthly minded that we're really
no good to the Lord. Even though we're saved, born
again, on our way to heaven, we're not, good to him and any
good for him as we should be. Now, Peter implies that it's
possible for a believer to be useless for the Lord who redeemed
him. That word barren or useless.
Think about it for a moment. Is that something that we want
to be known for in our spiritual walk as a believer? I don't want
to be known for that. I hope that you don't either.
The Lord surely wants us to hold to proper beliefs, but he also
desires that his children live lives that are useful to him. Our earthly parents did the same
thing, didn't they? When they were raising you up,
they were raising you to help them out a little bit, do some
things. At least my mom and dad did. We lived on a small farm
and they taught us how to do things, taught us how to work. and it was beneficial to them.
Listen, our Heavenly Father wants us to work and be beneficial
to Him. We need to contemplate at least
just every once in a while and ask ourselves the question, just
how useful is my walk to the Lord? How useful is it? How much
of the Lord's work and or His purpose for our lives are we
carrying out? How much of our energy is going
into service for the Lord? How much of our resources, by
resources I'm talking about our time, our talent, our treasures,
are going into serving Him? So we see these qualities will
keep our lives from being spiritually barren. And then that second
word there, you might think, well, isn't that saying the same
thing? But it's not. When he says these qualities
will keep our lives from being spiritually unfruitful. The word
unfruitful means barren of fruit. And when we're talking about
barren, he's talking about your activity. If your activity's
not right, guess what? You're not going to bear fruit.
You're not going to bear the fruit that you should. And if
we're bearing of work, then we will be bearing of fruit. And that ought to make sense.
If a farmer doesn't go out and plant, he's not going to have
anything to reap. If he doesn't get out there and
till the soil, keep the weeds from taking over, doesn't make
sure he's got plenty of water, guess what? No labor. no gain, and he's bearing a fruit. It takes a high degree of humility
to read the words of verse 8 here in our text with an open heart.
Most of us don't ever want to think of our life as a believer
being described with the two adjectives which mean useless
and fruitless, because that's what they mean. Barren and unfruitful,
useless and fruitless. In fact, we get so accustomed
to measuring our walk with the Lord by how generous He has been
with us that we don't even think in terms of how useful and how
fruitful we have been for Him. And we just a couple of weeks
ago had our annual Thanksgiving and praise service, thanking
the Lord for the things that he's done for us. And that's
great, that's wonderful, and God does do great things, but
what have we done for him is what this is dealing with. If only fruitfulness were measured
by how much we knew, or how much we professed, or how religious
we are, or how long we've been in church, but it's not. Those things aren't enough. Living
faith is measured by usefulness and by fruitfulness. Notice the
conditions Peter lists there in verse number 8. He says, for
if these things be in you and abound, that's important. Abound,
you ought to abound with those seven qualities, adding them
to your faith. If these things be in you and
abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. In other words, our faith has
to be real and it has to be growing. There has to be consistent pruning
of unfruitful areas and redirecting more and more of our lives away
from greed and self-interest and into the purposes of God
for our lives. We must constantly be replacing
more and more of our natural instincts of pride and self-will
with humility and the Lord's will. He wants us to do what
He wants us to do. This process, understand, never
stops until we are called home to be with Him. I mean, as we
become believers, we become the servants of Christ. Well, how
long do we serve? We serve from that point forward,
and on this earth, we serve until we are called home to be with
Him. We need to ask ourselves some very direct questions in
light of this. What am I doing with what I know?
You know, knowledge is to be put into practice. It's great to come to understand
the Bible, but if it has no effect upon your living, what good is
it? It's not none, is it? What are
we doing with what we know? Is my knowledge of Christ a fruitful
knowledge? Is it a working knowledge? Peter says that we must give
all diligence to add to that work of faith that God has initiated
in our hearts, and that takes, listen, it takes constant monitoring
in light of God's Word. You know, we go through the Bible
and we're just before putting out the read through the Bible
in the year. We'll put those things out on
this table here very shortly. The reason why we encourage you
to read through God's Word is because the more you read through
it, the more God can quicken in your heart the things that
don't need to be in your life that you need to get out and
the things that need to be in your life that you're to put
on. It is to be a working knowledge. It has to be a constant monitoring
in light of God's word. It takes constant nourishment
from God's word. Sadly, most folks, the only word
they get is on Sunday morning. That's it. you know, whatever
the preacher dishes out to them, they think that that's good for
the weak. If you ate physically that way,
what kind of physical shape would you be in? Not very good, would
you? You know, we're to be daily,
daily in the Word. daily getting our nourishment
from God. It takes constant communication
with God in prayer, talking to Him. That's what prayer is. We
talk to God. And we need to have those lines
of communication open and talk with Him on a regular basis.
And if we'll put forth the effort with the Lord's help, there are
eternal benefits. The first benefit being that
we will experience constant growth and fruitfulness from our knowledge
of the Lord. Our faith will be an expanding
faith, it will be a growing faith, and it will be a fruitful faith. So that's the benefits or advantages
of fruit. Second of all, we found in verse
number nine, let's read verse number nine again. But he that
lacketh these things, Verse 8 talked about if these things be in you.
Verse 9 talks about what happens if you lack these things. He
that lacketh these things is blind, cannot see afar off, and
hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Well, I call
this the benefits or advantages of function. We saw the benefits
and advantages of fruit, but here we see the benefits or advantages
of function. The lack of these things is still
referring back to verses five through seven, those seven things
that we're to add to our faith. Listen, a faith that is not growing
is blind and short-sighted. While not many of us can relate
to total blindness in here, many do know what is to be shortsighted
or nearsighted. My wife is nearsighted. I'm farsighted
and got a little astigmatism in the other eye. She knows more
about the nearsightedness. She can do things without her
glasses. I take my glasses off and I can't
see here. It's no good. But if you're nearsighted,
that's not the problem. Now, what am I getting to? You
can see things up close if you're short-sighted or near-sighted.
But you can't see things far away. Your vision is good, but
only good for things immediately close to you. Now, Peter describes
a person who has that problem spiritually. Think about it spiritually. He doesn't see things too far
off. A person is spiritually short-sighted
or near-sighted. He doesn't see things too far
off into the future. He sees only what's on his doorstep, but not what's coming down the
road. Because of that, he lives for the moment. He lives for
what I call the nasty now and now. Okay? Instead of the sweet
by and by. Okay? We're to have a heavenly
focus. Our goals are to be heavenward,
not earthly. And this person that is living
short-sighted, their goals are all geared toward this earthly
life. He takes care to apply all diligence to this life and
its concerns, but He takes no thought of eternity, of judgment,
and work that needs to be done for God in the light of eternity.
Listen, every one of us in here, we're going to stand before God
one day, every one of us, and give an account. You're going
to give an account of yourself before Him. What I'm talking
about here is the person that lacks these qualities. They see
bits of the journey, but they never consider the end of the
journey, the destination. They enjoy looking at the scenery
out the window on the trip, but he's forgotten where he's going.
He started out on the trip, he has the map, but he forgets where
he's headed. It's not a good place to be in,
is it? Is it just really not? His attention is focused short-range
rather than long-range. Turn a page or two over there
to 1 John 3. I want us to take a look at verse
2 and 3. In fact, we'll read verses 1,
2, and 3, okay? And think about the love of God for us. This
time of year, how God has bestowed his love through his son to us. Verse one, behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us
not, because it knew him not. Beloved now, are we the sons
of God. And it doth not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as it is. And every man that
hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. See, the mark of the person who
has his destination in view, is he going to try to clean his
life up? Because he knows he's going to stand before God one
day. He knows Jesus is coming. He focuses on the reality of
that truth every day. This could be the day that Jesus
comes. That's right. It could be right now. It could
be the day. He keeps that hope alive in his
heart, and that's what drives him. That's what his life is
all about, is being focused on the Lord. How
can we tell that he knows this and is focused on the Lord? It shows in how he lives his
life. You show me how somebody lives
their life, and I'll tell you what they're focused on. Easy
enough. This person, he labors to keep
his life pure and clean, not just because he wants to be moral
or wants to be a better person. No, he's thinking about the destination
of his life. We're heaven-bound. We're going to be with the Lord,
and we need to keep that in mind. And this person, that keeps these
things, adds these things to his life. He knows where he's
going, and he's constantly getting ready for that moment when he
stands before the Lord at the Bema seat, at the judgment seat
of Christ. And that's the judgment that
we stand at as believers. There's another judgment seat
and glad we don't have a part of that because of our relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't have to worry about
the great white throne judgment. All of our sins were judged in
the Lord Jesus Christ, but we are going to be judged for what
did we do once we got saved? Were we faithful to the Lord?
A faith that is not growing is blind and short-sighted. Another
thing, a faith that is not growing is forgetful. A faith that is
not growing is forgetful. He says there in the latter part
of our text, look at verse number 9, and hath forgotten that he
was purged from his old sins. Peter warns against forgetfulness
of the fact that we have been purged from our old sins. What
is forgotten? Well, the aim of salvation. Do you know why Jesus saved you?
You remember why he saved you? Not only can this person not
see forward to the end of this age, but we're talking about
the coming of Jesus Christ and the approaching judgment seat
of Christ, but he's forgotten the whole point of his conversion
and the cross of Christ. And the Bible is very clear on
the purpose of salvation. Paul told Titus in Titus 2.14
that Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from
all iniquity, praise God for that, amen, and purify unto himself
a peculiar people zealous of good works. We're to be busy
for the Lord. Think of Ephesians 2, 8 through
10 there. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. We were created, that new creation
that we became was created unto good works. God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them. So God's given us a purpose. Peter says that if we don't give
all diligence to add the virtues of verses 5 to 7 to our faith,
we have simply forgotten God's plan in saving us. We've forgotten
these things. We can talk about forgiveness
of sins, we can be baptized, we can partake of communion,
but unless we keep the purpose of forgiveness before us, Unless
we stay close to the cross and remember the foulness and the
ugliness of all sin, unless we live in the moment with some
idea of being bought and being purified from our former sins
for a purpose, then listen, we're never going to experience the
connection between past forgiveness and present purity. Paul is very
clear about the connection between past forgiveness and present
purity in his teaching on the cross. In Galatians 6, 14, he
said, but God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and
I unto the world. Listen, we should glory in the
cross, not just in the sense that we're happy to be forgiven,
but we glory also in the sense that we recognize that through
the cross we have been purified from our sins. We don't live
there anymore. We don't live there anymore. Our relationship to the world
around us is totally different because we remember the cross. We stay close to the cross of
Christ. So, the aim of salvation is forgotten. Also, the assurance of salvation
is forgotten. They say, I've forgotten that
he was purged from his old sins. When we don't grow in our spiritual
walk with God, you know that Satan gets an advantage over
us. If you're walking with God, you've got the Holy Spirit as
your advantage. He's the one that helps you walk in that spiritual
walk. But if you're not walking in the spiritual walk with God,
you're grieving the Holy Spirit, and that gives Satan an advantage. And Satan will keep dragging
up the old sins that we were purged from, but that we continue
to maybe participate in, and he'll cause us to begin to doubt
our salvation. Ever talk with somebody who used
to know they were saved, and then they began doubting their
salvation? Realize that if we can sin without it bothering
us, that is when we need to do a reality check on the realness
of our salvation. Because if you can sin without
it bothering you, that shows that the Spirit's not doing His
work in your life, and He ought to be doing His work. It ought
to bother you when you sin. Two things will happen when a
believer sins. Number one, peace ends. You can't
have peace if you're walking in sin as a believer. The indwelling
Holy Spirit will bring about conviction in your life. He'll keep you miserable with
that. Not only does peace end, but chastisement begins. Because
listen, we're the children of God. And God loves us too much
to leave us in a condition of not walking close to Him. He
said, no, my children are not going to do that. My mom and
dad, they chastened us. The reason they chastened us,
they wanted us to walk. We started to walk in a different
way. They made sure that they brought that loving discipline
in to get us back to where we needed to be. God does the same
thing according to Hebrews 12 verses 5-11. So these are two
of the four benefits. or advantages of adding to our
faith. These seven important things
that we've looked at over the last number of weeks. Lord willing,
next week we'll look at two other benefits or advantages, but let
me ask this one in closing. Are you alive in Christ? Because
that's where it begins. In order for something to grow,
remember we said it has to be alive? Are you alive in Christ? If not, come get born again today
so you can have that life, so that you can begin to grow in
the Lord. And if you are alive in Christ,
are you growing in Christ as you should? Are you adding to
your faith? The Lord wants all of us to grow
spiritually in Him. A lot of times folks look at,
well, there's two categories of Christians, those that should
grow and those that don't. No, no. It's not just for the
preacher. It's not for the preacher and
his wife. It's not just for the leaders
of the church. No, all of us are to grow. We're to grow in
the Lord. And if you're saved, if you're
alive in Him, search your life. Add to your faith those things
because the Lord definitely wants you to grow spiritually in Him. Let's bow in prayer. Father,
we thank you this morning for the truth of Scripture, and Lord,
using Peter here in this way to help us see these advantages
and benefits of spiritual growth so needed in our walk, if we're
going to walk in a way that's pleasing with you. And Lord,
I just pray that we'll do as the Song that we last sung. Search me, O God, that we'll
ask you to search us. Know our hearts. See if there's
any wicked way in us that we need to turn from and get back
to where we need to be at with you. If there's one here today that
doesn't know Christ, help them to come receive that life that
only can come from you. It only comes through what Christ
did there on the cross of Calvary, having His blood shed, His body
broken on our behalf. He took our payment for sin.
And Lord, He's the only way. He's the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father but through Him. If somebody
has not received Him as their Savior, help them to come this
morning and receive that. Have your way in this invitation,
we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Benefits Of Spiritual Growth-Pt 1
Series Keys To Spiritual Growth
| Sermon ID | 123231741324665 |
| Duration | 33:45 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | 2 Peter 1:8-9 |
| Language | English |
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