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.