Again, Dr. Paul Carter, the pastor of the Grace Christian Church in Lexington, Virginia. We have certainly benefited. What was his sermon about this morning? The motivation for mission. Now he's going to talk about diligence. Thank you. Yeah, you will notice that we sing in faith of our fathers, verse three. Faith of our fathers, we still strive to win all nations unto thee. And through the truth that comes from God, mankind shall then indeed be free. And verse four talks about how we are going to do that. It's faith of our fathers, we will love both friends and foe in all our strife and preach thee to as love knows how by kindly words and virtuous life. I talked about the commitment This morning of my commitment, I'm convinced of this, that overseas missions, and I think you are too, overseas missions is a simple extension of that which we're doing here. There really is no difference. We're involved in expanding the kingdom of God, the church here in Johnson City, and we aren't just throwing money to make ourselves feel better that we're part of that, but we are being the church together here and asking those we support to take that which we are doing around the world just as it was brought to us in this community at one time. And now we're here maintaining our missionary efforts so we send others. And so I talked about that motivation and now the diligence that's required to be the church together in this place as we are missionaries. where we are and I think you understand that that isn't just talk. It isn't just a different slant on a missions conference. That's the reality of who we are as we involve ourselves not just here but certainly here and around the world. Now 2 Peter is where I am this evening and I'm going to read Now, verses one through eleven, though the focus is on my sermon will be five through nine. Second, Peter, chapter one, verse one, Simeon, oh, I'm sorry, one thing or other, if my voice tends to drop at the end of sentences and if you can't hear me, please do that or something so I can. So I'll know that I need to speak a little more loudly, especially if the air conditioner kicks in again. I do have a soft voice, as you've noticed. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this reason, Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Father, make your words effective. We are a people who come at the end of a day in the calm of the day, perhaps thinking ahead of what the week will bring, but nonetheless coming now to be evaluated by your word, to be encouraged by your word, to see your grace and your mercy and see your calling as your people together, that we might more fully fulfill the Great Commission, that we might more fully fulfill the calling to be the body of Christ together. That's our desire. We pray that you would make it so by the power of your spirit within us. In Jesus' name, amen. What conference speakers tell me is attractive about grace is that it means that there are no lists to keep anymore in order to be pleasing to God. But the truth of the matter is sometimes I prefer a list. Just tell me what to do. Just let me check it off and it's done. I understand that my sin nature makes it impossible for me to be 100% pure in my actions or my motivations as God requires if I am ever able to see Him. And I understand that nonetheless I will see God because on my behalf Jesus was and is 100% pure in actions and motivation. And I further understand, as you do, and I know you know this because I know your pastors, I further understand that because Jesus is fully God and fully man, and because he lived a morally and spiritually pure life, He really was able to pay the penalty for every one of my sins and the penalty for every person in the world who comes to Him. I know that. I know that you know that. And I know that none of us who knows God takes that lightly. But what do you tell Christian people who say, well, you know, I want to know God better, but nothing I'm trying is working. Imagine you try to diagnose the problem with them and you ask them, well, are you reading your Bible? Are you praying? Are you taking part in worship with other Christians? And you get by those basic questions. Well, are you reading good Christian literature? Do you have a disciple or do you have a mentor or are you a mentor? Do you have a ministry with someone else? But would you ever have said, as Peter did, well, You've got to make every effort to supplement your faith. That's what you've got to do. Make every effort and supplement your faith. That's exactly what Peter says, as you saw. And so, surprise of surprises, this passage teaches us that our actions are key to knowing Jesus. Not only that, but Peter gives us a list. And he starts out with the words, Make every effort to supplement or add to your faith these things, virtue, knowledge, self-control, all the rest you see there." Well, of course, you recognize, because I've read it and you're familiar with it anyway, that right above it, Peter wrote about grace, and he wrote about faith, and he wrote about having obtained a faith by the righteousness of God and of Jesus Christ that is one that's not our own doing. And he said that it was Jesus' divine power that has granted us all things that pertain to life and to godliness. So there's no mistake about the source of power, about the platform upon which we are to build, about the motivation behind this list. All those things, it's the grace that's been given to us that's that source, that is that platform, that is that motivation, and that it's that gift of faith in the completed work of Jesus on our behalf. There's no question about that. Again, we know that. But the point here is that grace-motivated actions are key to knowing God. Peter's not dealing with the same question that James was when he said that faith without works is dead. James is teaching us that works are the result of faith and they're the proof of genuine faith. But here the Bible is telling us that the way to live and mature as Christians, that is, the way to become more holy as we heard described to us today, this morning in Sunday school is growing in the knowledge of God. Growing in the knowledge of God comes in the usual way that we think about Christian growth. Worship, prayer, Bible reading, and we grow in the knowledge of God by making every effort to add to our faith this list. And so because grace-motivated actions are key to knowing Jesus, my first point is that the add-ons of faith, not the add-ons to faith, the add-ons of faith are revealed in verses 5 through 7. And I've read them. I won't read them again. There's the list, and I just read them. So you can see them. You see the list. We are going to talk about them in a little bit of detail. So this, if you know this already, this is a good time to sleep and I'll wake you up at the second point. Virtue is how my Bible translates the first one on this list. Excellence and goodness are other translations I noticed that Bibles use. But what Peter is getting at is the same thing you've told your own kids or your mom told you when when you were going off to the prom or to some big dance or after prom party and breakfast that they used to do when I was in high school. And when I'd walk out the door she said, now you be good. Well, it's moral excellence that she was talking about at that point. Knowledge here means to use your common sense to understand the situations that you're in. My mom would put it, look Paul, you gotta use your head. Come on man. Everybody else did it too. Come on. That's no reason for you to do it. Use your head. That's what you got it for. Self-control is a picture of the athlete who trains diligently and perseverance of course means the very opposite of what we do every time we take up a new diet. Godliness is the result of doing all things conscious of the fact that God is with us and that we are accountable to him. It's doing what God would do and therefore would have us to do. Following in his footsteps is another way of saying it. And then we move on or Peter moves us on to the word brotherly affection. That is, we love the people of God around us. And then he seems to repeat, but instead he's really expanding it in light of of of teachings of the scriptures. Don't just love those who love you, but love your enemies. Oh, no one, anything except, of course, to love. Well, there are no surprises there through that list. We know how Christians are supposed to act. In fact, everybody looks like they know how Christians are supposed to act. That's one of the criticisms that we always, you guys aren't acting like Christians. Well, how do you know you're not even a Christian? Well, everybody seems to know. We know as well. But isn't the problem those first words? Keep sort of sticking in me. Make every effort. The picture behind that word effort is, as you would expect, it's diligence. That's what he's picturing for us. But it also carries another idea of, and be quick about it. Don't waste any time. Don't put it off. Do it now. The word to supplement could be used in this way. There's the picture behind this word. To supplement is what we do when we make our houses feel like homes rather than just buildings in which we live. And you know what we do. We put in necessary furniture. We have beds and tables and sofas and chairs and we put up pictures and we put the books in their proper place. We make it comfortable. We make it beautiful. We decorate. That's the idea that Peter's talking about there. The Spirit of God then is telling us that diligently and immediately we are to build on to what God has done in our lives. That we are a part of that process of beautifying our lives with these things. We are to beautify by adding to the faith given us these attributes. But it's more than that, isn't it? He is saying As you've read closely, as you've heard tonight, that our spiritual growth is tied to what we do. Our spiritual growth is tied to what we do. So an implication of this is that one reason some folks aren't growing spiritually is because they are doing half of what God has called us to do if we want to know Him. And that fits exactly with what Jesus taught us. And what the apostles and the prophets teach us throughout the Bible. You remember some of these places. Luke 6. Jesus begins the parable about building our houses on rock and not on the sand. And you remember what he started with? He said, why do you call me Lord, Lord and don't do what I say? He goes on to teach that people who are obedient to his teaching have stability in their lives, while the disobedient simply don't. And you remember too, when Jesus is walking by and this woman yells out of the crowd to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed. And he responds to that. I would have said, well, thank you. I appreciate that. And he said, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. It's not just his mother who gets the good blessing because of her relationship to him. Instead, it's everyone who has and obeys his word. Those are the ones that are deeply blessed. So what we are blessed with is growing, by that obedience, is growing in our ability to know God. That is, to know His mind, to know His heart, to experience Him, and to be made better able to love Him more deeply and fully. That's what it means. John 14, Jesus said, He who has my commandments and keeps them, He it is who loves me. Then keeping His commandments causes this. He who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love Him and manifest myself to Him. Make myself known to Him. And more clearly, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and the Father will love him and we will come to Him and make our home with him. Amazing words, aren't they? Wonderful. These things are what Peter is describing here. They're not extra credit points. They're not add-ons. They are a key element in knowing and experiencing God. And without them, we will not grow in our understanding and our experience of Jesus. And how will we be the church together? apart from that growth. And that leads then to my second point. There is a great advantage to these add-ons of faith. A great advantage to these add-ons of faith. Verse 8. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter writes here that the advantage is that they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful, as I said, in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, this is a bit of a head scratcher for us. People who are not developing these characteristics are wasting their time when they're reading their Bibles, when they're praying, when they're attending worship. Is that what he's saying? without developing in these things, that is doing them, they're not going to get to know Jesus no matter what else? Well, it's a hard question. Could it really be? Could it really be that the way you treat brothers, sisters, husband, wives, neighbors, co-workers, even people you do business with, even your enemies. Affects your ability to know Jesus? Well, the fact is, I noticed in college that the guys who had started strong with Jesus, but then lost interest and turned away, generally had first lapsed back into some sort of usually sexual immorality. I've also seen that people who give themselves over to anger to lying, to drunkenness, to cheating in their business practices, tend to lose interest in the things of God and spend most of their time during church. You've seen it, maybe. Could it be that your refusal or our refusal to exercise self-control, steadfastness, brotherly affection and love is what's keeping us from experiencing Jesus in our particular situations right now, whatever they might be. I mean, could it be that while we keep hoping for a breakthrough spiritually and we're seeing some progress, But what is keeping us from seeing Jesus in our marriages, in our jobs, in our finances, in our struggles, and in our joys, what is making us ineffective and unfruitful in our quiet times, in our prayer times, in our worship times, is our ethics. It doesn't make sense to us. But isn't that what he's telling us? We thought it's our lack of Bible knowledge that's holding us back. We thought it's our lack of education. We thought it was our lack of a loving and healthy family life in the past. Our mom hated us or whatever. We thought it was our lack of spiritual gifts that other people had, and we don't seem to. That's the problem. Or even our personality is what's holding us back. We're just not bubbly like the others. Well, it turns out to be our behavior is keeping us from growing in Christ Jesus. It's keeping us from overcoming the issues that are tearing at our souls right now. So how are these add-ons an advantage to our ability to know Jesus? Living as a Christian lives, that is, Doing these things even when you know that others aren't going to change their behavior towards you or even towards Jesus or towards life in general just because you're doing them. It's not an exercise in futility like people seem to think it is. Believing God enough to live as Jesus lived is our holy offering to Jesus. Through which He works in our souls to give us more of himself. Well, is that self-serving? I'm just doing it so I can get more of Jesus. Well, of course it's self-serving. You bet it is. It's called putting your treasure, not just your money, but your love of comfort, your love of ease, your love of pleasure, your love of being admired, your love of being well thought of. It's putting that in heaven. where you will enjoy Jesus for all of eternity, enjoying that treasure instead of using your treasure here to be comfortable in this life where it dies with you. Living as Peter describes is practical living, practical. Because it is living for Him who died for you instead of living for yourself in a way that neither honors God nor enlarges your soul to help you to know more of Jesus and experience Him more. See, the advantage then is that refusing to develop these characteristics keeps you as children, spiritually immature, what the Bible calls fleshly. While doing these things in His name enlarges your soul to see, enjoy more of Jesus in this life and most certainly in the next. Which leads to my last point. The motivation of these so-called add-ons. Verse 9, and actually it goes into 10 and 11 too, but we'll have to quit at 9. Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. See, there's an unbreakable connection between the depth of your understanding about the forgiveness of your sins and how you live this life that God has given you. Verse 9 describes what has happened in the person who is not pressing forward in Christ's qualities. They're blind, short-sighted to be even blind, well, I just said blind, forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. The problem that the person who does not strive toward the fruit of faith has is that she or he is blind in two directions. When they look to the future, it's all haze, and the promises of God are swallowed up in the blur of those worldly belongings and worldly preferences. And I think that's what it means to be shortsighted. And when they look to the past, the forgiveness that made them so excited at first is almost forgotten. And all they see is a religion of empty knowledge and emotionalist performance. And this list becomes another thing to try to check off, but no power. Who wants to live that way? when by his grace we have been ransomed from our futile ways inherited from our forefathers with the precious blood of Jesus, as Peter wrote in his first letter. I find that I can't always drum up the emotion of horror towards my sins. And that makes me wonder sometimes if I appreciate grace enough. And it makes me wonder if grace motivates me as it should. There's no question. I want to live my life with a constant remembrance, just as you do, that my sins built up in me such a hatred for true righteousness and for true holiness that it really can be said I drove Jesus to His death. I didn't know it in my earlier years, but I know it for sure now. And my sins chased Jesus to the cross. And even though he could have turned at any moment and taken my life instead of giving his, instead he freely, in fact joyfully, with joyful expectation for our eternal life, for our communion with him and him with us, gave his life for ours. And how that motivates me is hard to express. It's more than Thanksgiving, but it is Thanksgiving. I may not always want to do certain things that I know that He would have me do. But I can't imagine living a life where all that is left to me is simply standing outside and looking in the window at what Jesus and His people are doing inside, but never experiencing Him myself. Not when by His grace, I have been given the means to grow in knowledge and the experience of Jesus. Well, the next verses go further there and you can read those yourself, but let me end here. Isn't it good to know that the times when by the Spirit you do what Jesus would do, those are the times that your soul is also expanding to know Him better. to see Him more clearly, to love Him more as He deserves. The Word of God warns us against being lazy in our faith, drifting away from Jesus, who is our only hope. And the Word encourages us to fight that good fight of faith and to take hold of eternal life, to lay aside every weight and every sin that clings so closely, to run with perseverance the race set before us, to press on to the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. What do you think that lifestyle looks like? I mean, isn't it by pushing forward, advancing and growing and moving forward in virtue and in knowledge and in self-control and in patience, in godliness and brotherly affection and love? Doesn't that define it? You have the Spirit of God to strengthen you, to lead you, to guide you in this very thing. You have the life of Jesus in you. His love that is poured out in your soul, His light to illuminate and to give growth to His life in your soul. That's the reason that Peter is talking about when he says at the start of the passage, for this reason, because of what we've been given by Him. He has granted us His promises so that you may become partakers of the divine nature and live as sons and daughters of the Most High God growing in fellowship with Him. It's wondrous, isn't it? How can it be? But it is. And thank God then that everything we do as followers of Jesus and in His name is bringing us deeper and further into His life that we might be the Church of Christ together. Let's pray. Father, we are a people who long for holiness. A people who recognize that the Gospel's call is to holiness and the Gospel's equipping is to holiness. But not just a mere empty phrase or particular lifestyle, but knowing you, walking with you, experiencing you, becoming more and more like Christ, changed by the gospel. That's what we want is you. And so we pray that we would be a people that pursue you in this life, as Peter teaches us, motivated by the grace that's been given. by the divine power granted us by your spirit dwelling within us, by those precious promises to become partakers of the divine nature, may we be these people who supplement our faith with virtue, who decorate our lives with the characteristics of Christ by your power, by your spirit, in cooperation with your working. And we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.