I'm always amazed at how huge airplanes, I mean, you see these Mammoth 747s and these huge airplanes which can weigh hundreds of thousands of pounds, can lift off the runway, climb to thousands of feet up into the sky, and then cruise through the air at hundreds of miles an hour that defy the law of gravity. And it's able to do that because of the law of aerodynamics. The airplane is designed to move forward and upward as its powerful engines give it thrust and its special wings provide the lift that it needs to get it off the ground. But it's the pilot's responsibility to regulate the engine speed and the wing flaps angle to maintain its altitude. And only to the degree that the pilot reduces the airplane's speed and then changes the angle of those wing flaps, does then the law of gravity take effect once again and the plane begins to descend. You know, as I think about an airplane in a similar way, I believe our spiritual growth can be likened to the airplane in that we as believers are intended, intended by God to spiritually move forward and upward in our own lives by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God that enables us to rise above, to rise above the downward pull of sin, that law of gravity that indwells us, that indwelling sin that we have. And just as the pilot is responsible to regulate the airplane's engines and wing flap angles, so we must do our part. We must do our part to experience victory over sin and spiritual growth towards Christ-like maturity. This, I believe, is what we're gonna be looking at as we begin this morning. in this next passage of 2 Peter. In 2 Peter 1, verses 5 through 11, as I've poured myself into that this week, I believe we can see four facets four facets of spiritual growth toward Christ-like maturity that every one of us as believers need to know. This is absolutely vital for us to know. And as we will see next time, it is vital for us not only to know this, but to do it, to practice what it is that the word of God is teaching. Now, the first facet is pursue diligently spiritual growth. The first facet that I believe we need to know is to pursue diligently spiritual growth. Look at just the first part of verse five. Peter says, for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith supply. Now stop right there. The phrase now for this very reason is what links verses five through seven, the passage we're looking at this morning, to the previous passage we saw last time, verses three and four. Because of Christ's power, because Christ's power has already given to us as believers, as we saw in verses three and four, the gracious spiritual resources of new birth, everything pertaining to life and godliness, the precious and magnificent promises, as well as sharing in the divine nature. Because of that, because of Christ's power giving us all of that, Peter now exhorts us in verses five through seven, to utilize those, appropriate those in our life, to grow spiritually toward Christ-like maturity. In other words, on the basis of all that God has done for us, Peter's saying, now do this, do this. You see, new birth is not the end. When we become a Christian, It doesn't stop there. It's just the beginning. We are to grow, we are to become what God has recreated us in Christ to be. But spiritual growth in our lives is not automatic. Theologian Thomas Schreiner accurately states, and I quote, as is typical in the New Testament, grace precedes demand. The priority of grace, however, does not cancel out strenuous moral effort, end quote. God graciously gave us all of the resources, the spiritual resources that we looked at last time. In His grace, He has given those to us. But that grace does not cancel out the fact that now God holds us responsible to obey His commands. See, Peter then used a strong language to emphasize just how strenuously we need to pursue our spiritual growth. in the phrase, look what he says, applying all diligence. Very strong language that's packed with meaning. The word applying literally means bringing to bear alongside of. And it pictures diligence on our part as something brought in alongside of what God has already done. The word diligence refers to an attitude of eagerness, of zeal. It's actually in the Aorist tense which gives it a note or a sense of urgency, do this now. And the word all shows that our diligence is to be wholehearted, wholehearted, not half-hearted. give it all the determination that we can muster in doing what it is He's called us to do. In other words, we're to give our maximum effort in pursuit of growing spiritually toward Christ-like maturity. Why? Because spiritual growth is not automatic. Just because God has changed us and given us all these resources that we looked at in verses three and four. As we said last week, it's not enough just to have them. We have to appropriate them into our life. A Christ-like life does not take place from an attitude of passivity. or lazy indifference or complacency. We are not going to become what God calls us to be unless we pursue that diligently. Peter then reinforces his point in saying, in your faith, supply. In other words, supply is the main command of this passage. It's the main verb. and it ends up impacting the other verses as six and seven. It's stated here, but it's carried over in each one of the things we will look at. Originally in the Greek culture, the word referred to a wealthy benefactor who generously paid all the expenses for the chorus of a play. And since this was very expensive, the word came to mean being generous and lavish. In your faith, supply lavishly, generously. is what Peter is saying. Therefore, alongside all the spiritual resources that Christ's power has already given us, we are responsible to not only pursue diligently our spiritual growth with maximum effort, but also to generously, lavishly add to our growth in certain ways by adding certain things. And we see this in the second facet of spiritual growth toward Christ-like maturity. That every believer needs to know, and it's this, the qualities to pursue. The qualities to pursue. Look at the second part of verse five through seven. In your faith, supply moral excellence. In your moral excellence, knowledge. And in your knowledge, self-control. And in your self-control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness. And in your godliness, brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness, love. Here we see a chain. Some commentators call it a ladder. But it's a chain of eight virtues or qualities. that we must pursue diligently to grow spiritually. Now there are other virtue lists in the New Testament. So this isn't the only one. We see Romans chapter five, three and five, Galatians five, 22 and 23. You see first Timothy chapter six, verse 11, James one, three and four. Again, there's various lists of virtues and they're not all the same. Peter here uses the literary device called seritis, where each quality leads to the next one in a step-by-step chain that culminates in a climax. Again, this is just a way that he is using to present what it is he wants to say. These eight qualities are not the only qualities involved in spiritual growth, and it's difficult to see how each one necessarily builds on the previous one. Therefore, we should not read anything into the specific order of these listed qualities, nor think that one quality must be mastered before we can move on to the next. Although each one is carefully chosen, And it's vitally important, that's why Peter put it there. Again, when I say Peter, it's God through Peter. And although these are from him, Peter does not intend that we finish one and then start the next one in the precise order that he gives us here. You see, this is more, as I said, a form of presentation than of logical development. I believe we are to work on all of them together. God wants all of them to be active in our life. We're to work on all of them at the same time. And notice that Peter begins this chain of qualities with faith, with faith in verse five. In your faith. We already saw in verse one that this faith is not the faith of Christian doctrine. He's not talking about the word of God, the doctrine, the truths of the word of God. Now as vital as that is, that's not what he's talking about. The words your faith show that it refers to personal faith, Our trust, it's our trust in the Lord. In your own trust in the Lord. Since our entire Christian lives is a walk of faith. Hebrews 11, six says what? Without faith it's impossible to please God. We are to continue to trust God. No matter what happens in our lives. God calls us to walk by faith, not by sight. The trials, the tribulations, the things that we encounter in our life confronts our faith, our trust in God, our belief in Him. And we need to cling to it. Faith is the root from which all these other qualities sprout. It is the foundation on which all these other qualities or virtues are built. So faith is the foundation, it's the bottom, it's the first. And although saving faith was given first to us as a gift of God, apart from works, which we saw, true saving faith is evidenced in our lives. by works. Saving faith is a gift of God, for by grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's first given as a gift apart from works, but once we have true saving faith, that faith then is evidenced in our lives as we now do what it is that God calls us to do. When we trust God, it always will result in action and growth. That brings us to the second quality that we must pursue diligently, which is moral excellence. Look again in verse five. In your faith, supply moral excellence. We already saw that the word supply is the main command of this passage. and it's on the foundation of our faith that we are commanded to then generously, lavishly add to it each of the following virtues or qualities in verses five through seven. The one Greek word translated moral excellence speaks of the proper fulfillment of anything. We saw last time in verse three that this referred to the impact of Jesus' own virtuous, sinless life that he lived out before sinners. As we see him walking through the pages of the Gospels, he lived that out, his moral excellence was lived out. And as he lived that out, that moral excellence was that which effectively, effectually, Both, as we saw last time, called sinners to a saving relationship with Christ. The power of salvation is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to speak it. We are to give the gospel. But it also has to be lived out and demonstrated in our life. And it was Christ in his moral excellence that lived that out, that demonstrated that through his virtuous, sinless life. And God used that back then to bring people to a saving relationship in him. Here we see that those of us who have been effectually called by God to salvation, we are also to practice moral excellence. So that our excellent deeds, our Christ-like lifestyle can be a powerful witness in the lives of others. You see, we're talking about a faith that is living and active. In your faith, supply moral excellence. And each of these qualities that Peter lists are in stark contrast to the false teachers that Peter will expose in chapters two and three. We saw in our first message that 2 Peter is primarily about dealing with false teachers. And as Peter is laying out these qualities, in doing so, the backside of that, he is exposing the total opposite of what these false teachers are. They are not those who have faith. They are not those who have moral excellence, which is indispensable to being a genuine Christian. The third quality we must pursue diligently is knowledge. Again, verse 5 tells us, and in your moral excellence, Now, this Greek word translated knowledge here is actually different. It's different than saving knowledge in verses 2 and 3. It's the practical knowledge. He's talking about practical knowledge, insight, understanding, discernment, practical knowledge of God's will and ways. from his word that are necessary for us to be effective, to be victorious in our Christian lives. God wants us to have a practical understanding of what his word says, to be able to now live that out in daily life and dealing with the things that we deal with. To grow spiritually toward Christ-like maturity, it demands that we diligently study the Word of God and to obediently apply these truths in our daily lives. Again, as I've said many times before, we can't live out what we don't know. And so it requires that we diligently apply ourselves to understand God's Word better. But as important as knowing God's Word, just knowing it isn't enough. We have to obey it. James tells us that. Don't just be hearers of the Word, but be doers of the Word. Because if we're not doers of the Word, then we delude ourselves. We think we're at a different place spiritually than where we really are. The Word of God is so vital that we must, we must spend time studying it, listening to it. If we can't read it, then hear it. We live in a day where we can buy CDs, we can get it on our phone, download it to where we can hear it. We need to saturate ourselves in the word of God. Where Paul said in Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ richly dwell. And I loved how Spurgeon defined that. He said, let the word of God saturate your life so much that your blood becomes biblene. Because we are in the word. Why? Because God's primary means of grace to enable us to grow is through His Word. It's through His Word. Now, there's other means of grace as well, but the primary one is the Word of God. The false teachers claim to have a superior knowledge But that knowledge that they had only led them to an immoral lifestyle. It did not lead them to moral excellence. Only the word of God does that. The fourth quality we must pursue diligently is self-control. Look at verse six. In your knowledge, self-control. The word self-control literally means holding oneself in. It refers to the power to control one's own desires and cravings and passions instead of being controlled by them. What controls our life? Can we say no to something? Or are we just compulsively drawn to where we've got to do it? Whatever we have to do is in control of our life. And in that, we lack self-control. We might start off with something, something may be good and legitimate in itself, but it can become sinful when it takes the place in our lives that only Jesus Christ is to have. He is to be first and foremost. He is to be control of our life. He alone. Self-control means maintaining a balanced life even when the world encourages indulgence. Self-control is listed in Galatians 5.23 as one of the manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit, when the Spirit of God is controlling our life. That's why it's so important to live in dependence on the Spirit of God, so He controls our life, and then His fruit is manifested in our life. Self-control is the exact opposite of the greed and immoral practices of the false teachers that Peter is going to expose. So even here, he is kind of laying out and showing that these false teachers that he is going to address are not living a true Christian life the way God intended. The fifth quality we must pursue diligently is perseverance. And in your self-control, perseverance. Whereas self-control is power over that which is within, handling the pleasures or the desires of our life, perseverance is the power over that which is without. handling the pressures, the problems, all the difficulties and trials that life can bring into our particular situation. The word perseverance means to bear up, to bear up, to remain under. It's like a heavy weight on our shoulders. It's to be able to stand and remain under the heavy weight. We are persevering without collapsing. It means to be steadfast. Perseverance is not resignation, just giving up. Instead, it's patient endurance and remaining steadfast, continually doing what is right, without giving in, without giving up. in the midst of whatever trials and difficulties that life brings our way. That's perseverance. Perseverance or endurance is often described in the New Testament as the desired character of believers. It's something that we are to have in our life. It's a desired characteristic or quality. And this quality always has a forward look to it. We are able to persevere because we are focused out in front. It always has a forward look. Just as we see Jesus had in Hebrews chapter 12, verse two, where it says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. See, just as Jesus endured the cross by focusing on the future joy, what was going to happen because of his substitutionary death on the cross? What was gonna happen in the salvation of so many that would come that he would draw to himself? The joy of once again being in his Father's presence at the right hand of God. Just as Jesus endured, so we are to endure our present trials by focusing on what is ahead, Christ's future return, our eternal rewards for faithfulness as we continue to persevere, as well as being with Him in heaven. The need to persevere was particularly important to the situation that Peter was addressing with these false teachers. Because they were trying to lure people away from Christ, from the promises of the word of God. As we will see, they were saying that Christ's return wasn't gonna happen. It's delayed. It's not gonna happen. They were trying to undermine the truth. The sixth quality that we must pursue diligently is godliness. In verse six, we see in your perseverance godliness. Although Christ's power has already given us as believers everything pertaining to life and godliness, as we saw already in verse 3. Here we are called to pursue godliness. As we saw, godliness is Christlikeness. It's Christlikeness. I like that theologian Michael Green defines it as this, and I quote, a very practical awareness of God in every aspect of life, end quote. Godliness is a very practical awareness of God in every aspect of our life. You see, the godly Christ-like person, as we are growing spiritually to become that, We're becoming more and more mindful of God's continual presence with us throughout the whole day. We bring him into every situation we're dealing with, no matter what we're doing, no matter what job we have. We're practicing His presence. We're mindful of Him. Godliness is an attitude of reverence that seeks to please God in all things. And we are living godly when our relationship with the Lord is first and foremost in our life. First and foremost. That's how Jesus lived. He came only to do the will of His Father. That's all that he wanted to do. His father was first and foremost. Christ is to be first and foremost in our lives. And second is our relationship with others. It is this quality that distinguishes the true believer from the ungodly false teachers. They were anything but. Godly. The seventh quality we must pursue diligently is brotherly kindness. Look at verse 7. In your godliness, brotherly kindness. One Greek word translated brotherly kindness or brother love is Philadelphia. Philadelphia in the Greek. It refers to the family-like affection and devotion that should characterize the Christian community, because we see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. It was this affectionate relationship in the early church among one another, in spite of their diverse status, as well as their varied backgrounds. You had Jews and Gentiles, male, female. You had those who were in high positions. You had slaves. I mean, in light of all the diversity in the church, it was this affectionate relationship that amazed the unbelievers around them. And Jesus said that is exactly what would happen. In John chapter 13, verse 35, he said, by this, by this, all men will know that you are my disciples. Why? If you have love for one another. If you have this kind of affectionate love. And beloved, that's what we're to be known for. Brotherly kindness expresses itself clearly as believers carry out the numerous, numerous one another passages of the New Testament. Each one expresses a different aspect of Jesus' command to love one another. Just a few, be devoted to one another, accept one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens. encourage one another, build up one another, and on and on and on. There's a bunch of them in the New Testament. You see, godliness doesn't exist without brotherly love or this brotherly kindness. For we live out our love for God in our relationships with other people, our love for them. This is because God has inseparably connected the two. And I've shared that many times. God's great commandment to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength, to love our neighbor as ourself. On these two depend the whole law and the prophets. The whole intent of the word of God is to make us better lovers of God and lovers of one another. He has inseparably connected them together. That's why we read in 1 John 4, 20 and 21. If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's what? A liar. He's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. In this commandment we have from him that the one who loves God should love his brother also. You see, Peter wants us to know that false teachers only love themselves. They only love themselves, they're in it for them. And they show no love for God's family, as we will see. The eighth quality we must pursue diligently is love. Love. Look at verse seven. And in your brotherly kindness, love. Different word here. Brotherly kindness is the word for love that is Philadelphia. This is agape. Agape, which is the selfless, sacrificial, other-centered love that God himself is. When twice in 1 John 4, it says, God is love. This love is the highest love that it has its origin in the giver, not in the receiver, Therefore, this kind of love can't be blocked. It can't be stopped because it originates within us. As a believer, we can love regardless of the other person. You see, this is a love that God demonstrated towards sinners and desiring our highest good. This is a love that he calls us to show. to everyone, to one another, as well as to a lost and dying world. And he calls us to this because Romans 5.5 says that he has poured out his love within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. We already have the love that he has called for us to give. That's part of the spiritual resources that we have. to be able to live out, to appropriate, but we have to do that, we have to appropriate it, we have to use it. Now, whereas Peter's chain of qualities began with faith, it ends now with love. All spiritual qualities find their source in faith, in trusting God for everything, but they culminate, they climax in love. Love is the top. It is the culmination, the climax of these qualities. Christlike love is the supreme evidence that one is a believer, as we saw in our study of 1 John. Christlike love is the goal of our Christian instruction. It is the fulfillment of the law, the supreme virtue. Now abide faith, hope, love. The greatest of these is Love, it is the supreme virtue. It's the glue, according to Colossians 3.14, that holds all the other virtues together. And Peter wants us to know that nothing could be further from the false teacher's attitude of self-centeredness and exploitation. They are the furthest away from this kind of love that they could be. And since they lack both faith and love, they prove themselves to not be true Christians at all. Although Christ's power has given us all the spiritual resources we need to grow spiritually toward Christ-like maturity, Peter wants us to know the part that we have to play. He gave us these specific qualities. After calling us to diligence, to pursue these diligently, with maximum effort, He gave us these specific qualities to help us, to encourage us, not to discourage us. This is for our benefit, especially in light of the fact that there's two extremes that we need to avoid in our Christian lives. The first extreme is what I call the try-harder approach, whereby we legalistically try to grow spiritually by our own sheer willpower and self-effort. This is called pietism, which says all of us and none of him. All of us and none of him. The other extreme is what I call the do nothing approach, also called the let go, let God approach, whereby we passively wait for God to do everything for us as if we just lay back and just drift into spiritual maturity. That will never happen. This is called quietism. First is pietism, this is quietism, which says all of him, none of us. Total opposites, two extremes. Both are wrong, neither one will bring about spiritual growth, the spiritual growth toward maturity that God commands. The biblical balance involves both human responsibility and divine enablement. Both are vital. Peter tells us that we are to work alongside of what Christ has already done as we give our all in obedience to God's command. And as we are doing that, as we are obeying His commands, we do so in complete dependence on the Lord, who alone can bring about the growth. And we see that in a couple of different passages. Colossians 1, 28 and 29, you see both of those. Listen to Philippians chapter two, one of my favorites. Philippians two, verses 12 and 13, where we are commanded to work out your salvation in fear and trembling. That's our responsibility. And yet verse 13 says, for it's God who works in you both to will, to desire, and to do, the enablement for his good pleasure. Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, that's our responsibility. but it's God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. You see, both are required. Both are required, not either or. Theologians call this mutual cooperation with God. and they give it a name, they call it concurrence. This mutual cooperation with God in our sanctification process of becoming more and more like Christ is called concurrence. Personally, I like to call it responsible dependence. I'm responsible, but as I'm being responsible to obey God, I'm very aware that I'm doing it in complete dependence on the Lord, who alone can bring about the growth in my life. Let me ask you this morning, are you pursuing diligently your own spiritual growth? Are you pursuing diligently becoming more like Christ? And what qualities do you need to work on? Wherever we are in our spiritual growth, God intends that we continue to move forward and upward in our spiritual growth toward Christ-like maturity. Heaven is the finish line. There is no finish line here. It's when we breathe our last and we immediately then go to heaven. That's the finish line. Therefore, it's never okay to stop growing in our Christian lives while we're here to become more and more conformed to the image of Christ. Therefore, may we all assume our responsibility like the pilot of an airplane and do our part in the growth process. And as we pursue diligently with maximum effort, the qualities that God commands of us to add to our faith generously and lavishly, as we do that, He will conform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. And God will get all the glory.