Furnishing Faith With Virtue

If y 'all would like to turn with me this morning to 2 Peter, the second epistle of Peter.

This is one of those times where I have prayed often that I can do justice to this particular passage.

And when the Lord put on my heart to teach from this passage, it was because it was very edifying to me in my personal studies at the time that I was going through this and made the decision after much prayer that I would use this as our primary text for today.

Again, it was very meaningful to me, touched me in a number of ways in my hope and my prayer is that my articulation of this passage today can be the same for y 'all and that I do it justice, at least in some kind of way.

And so let's take a look at this passage together and then we'll walk through it. So this is 2

Peter 1. We'll begin in verse 1. Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our

Savior Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our

Lord. According to His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and beside this giving 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.

For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you 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 there 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. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful day and for bringing us together once again as a church family to look at your word, to abide in it together collectively, and to grow together, and be sanctified by your truth, which is your word.

We thank you for these opportunities, and we ask that your spirit speaks today through the written word that we will assess and examine together, and we ask for your blessing over this time of fellowship and of learning.

And we ask all these things in the name of your son. Amen. Okay, so we took a look at the first 11 verses.

There's going to be a couple of verses within this passage that we really hone in on, but I wanted you all to have the full context.

The life of the Christian is filled to the brim with attacks from multiple fronts, and we're aware of all of them, from temptations to, in some cases, physical persecutions, verbal persecutions even, being mocked for the faith, discriminated against for the faith, targeted by false teachers, something we have been talking about in Sunday school.

We are the targets for those trying to subvert whole houses. We have all of these enemies.

We have all of these fronts that we face as believers. And what's amazing about it is that the

Lord, in his grace, actually sets us up for success even living within a context like that.

So against all odds kind of situation here, and yet we have been not only given the instruction for succeeding, but we've also been given the promise that we will succeed if we heed the warnings of Scripture, if we take to heart the instructions that we are given.

And in his final epistle, before being martyred for his faith, the apostle Peter shed some light on how we've been set up for the success.

So we know it's there. We know that we have been set up for success. But how is that the case exactly?

He expresses the dynamics of this in a way that is truly stunning because in a world that we live in, where it often feels like nothing is quite working right, and that could be in the battle against our own sin on a personal level.

It could be in the battle for the culture that we face and for reforming the society around us so that our grandkids actually have a worthy place to live and to grow their families.

It could be the battle for souls and our evangelism. We can feel sometimes discouraged because nothing seems to be working amidst all of these battles.

But in that, Peter reminds us that the weapons of our warfare, if they are actually used in the first place, are effective weapons.

And after telling us this, he then seals it with the promise of fruitfulness. And we'll reexamine a few of these verses.

But he tells us that they will be effective if we use them, and that if we use them, fruitfulness will be the result.

Now, I want you guys just to briefly consider for a second, why is it the case that well -meaning

Christians so often, with every desire to follow the true Christ with a true saving faith within them, genuine

Christians, genuine brothers and sisters, why is it that even they, and sometimes us, can often misstep and fall prey to any one of those battles we just mentioned a second ago, any one of the battles that we will face at any given point?

Why is it that we look around us sometimes, we survey the culture, we even survey down to the context of the church, and we see brothers and sisters stumbling and falling prey and falling into the traps.

Sometimes we feel the burden of ourselves having fallen into one of them and wondering perhaps what to do about it.

And while Peter does give us the antidote for this problem here in this passage, 2

Peter 1, it also wasn't new to Peter either, because Solomon warned us of how easy it is to fail even though we have been set up for success.

And that seems a little bit odd. We've been set up for success and yet we can somehow fail. But what we have to remember is that being given the tools, and they can be the best tools around, they can be the best tools imaginable, just because we have them doesn't equal good use of the tools.

And so we have to take in mind, we have to remember, that while God is equipping us for ultimate success,

He also created us to do His will at the same time. And like I mentioned, this wasn't new to Peter.

Turn with me to Proverbs chapter 4, because I want you all to see that what Peter is doing here is he's actually playing off of the wisdom of Solomon himself and some of the things that he warned believers about so long ago.

So again, turn with me to Proverbs chapter 4, and we will be right back to 2

Peter in a moment. But I'd like you to take a look at this with me as well. So Proverbs chapter 4, we'll start in verse 14, and we'll read from there through, but I want to make note of a couple of things here.

So in verse 14, Solomon tells us, Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not into the way of evil men.

Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. For they sleep not, except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

For they eat the bread of wickedness, and they drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

The way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not at what they stumble. So one way that you could summarize that otherwise pretty poetic warning that we get from Solomon is don't be like this.

Don't be like these men. And what's interesting about it is that it implies that even as a

Christian, even as a believer, we can be like this. Otherwise, we wouldn't be given the instruction to avoid it in the first place.

You can fall. You can stumble across the traps of the evil man, who is often very subtle in his or her kind of schemes to draw you in to their sin, because something

I've talked about with a few of you all recently is the reality that sin doesn't like to be lonely.

It wants company. It wants to pull you in. And that's why up in verse 16, it's quite a frightening verse if you think about it, they don't even sleep unless they've done mischief.

Sometimes you hear the kind of pithy phrase, how do you sleep at night? And, of course, that can be attributed to a wide array of different circumstances.

A person could ask that about a Christian that is just wanting common sense tax reform or something.

How can you sleep at night not wanting the redistribution of wealth or something like that? Or we could say it to an abortion doctor.

How can you sleep at night having done that? Well, what's interesting is in verse 16, Solomon is literally telling us they can't sleep at night unless they have done wicked, unless they have done mischief.

And he goes further and says their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall.

So just remember that as we live our lives and think about it in the context of your children, especially, and your grandchildren, especially, is that the evildoers out there, those that they are out in the midst of, they are lurking and headhunting for others to fall into the same sin habits that they have because sin doesn't like to be lonely.

It likes company. And they're going to try to draw you in with a number of different traps, many of which start out very subtly and are very easy to miss unless you are in God's word enough to understand what the traps are.

And of course, the Proverbs is just filled with this. And so we can stumble, we can fall across the traps of the evil men because of how subtle they are.

We have to be watchful of this. We have to be mindful of this. And remember, this is Solomon giving us a warning that Peter is now building upon in our passage at hand today.

But keep reading with me a little bit in this Proverbs passage, because look what he says in verse 20. He turns the focus back on to you, back on to the believer.

And he says, My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let not them depart from thine eyes.

Keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and healing, or health, excuse me, to their flesh, all their flesh.

Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, or a crooked mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.

Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. You guys have often heard me talk about the reality that in so many cases, we have the straight and narrow path of righteousness with two ditches on either side of it.

Well, that's not an original idea. That comes from this verse. Don't turn to the right. Don't turn to the left.

Keep your eyes on the straight and narrow. A number of different examples we could give where, you know, you can preach harsh against the, in a good way, harsh against the particular ditch over here and may be neglected.

There's also a ditch over on this side too. We have to be careful to avoid both ditches. We can't overcorrect.

You can't be the pendulum that overswings. We have to stay on the straight and narrow. It's all right there.

And that's what Solomon ends that proverb with. So going back to 2

Peter once again, we will break down this a little bit.

We have read the passage already. We just took a look at some of Solomon's wisdom. So the question is this, how do we avoid the path of the wicked and all manner of traps that we could fall into?

Remember the implication there is that we can at any moment fall for those traps. How do you avoid it? How can you keep yourself safe from that?

How can you instruct your children to keep themselves safe from that? How do we keep from falling, which is what

Solomon warns about and what Peter is now saying, this could happen. Again, Peter gives us the answer and it's clear.

And of course, it's beautiful because it is all of grace. In the first couple of verses, we learn who

Peter is specifically talking to when he says, them that have obtained like precious faith with us.

In other words, to those who have received the same kind or literally the same value of faith as us, the apostles.

So he's talking to believers. He's talking to every one of us. His specific audience is those in Christ, those who have a genuine faith.

And we received this faith by the very righteousness of Christ, our

God and Savior. So you see that there, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God.

So there's the idea, the reality of that imputed righteousness that we received upon salvation, where when the father looks at us, he sees

Christ and the fact that he has paid for our sins. We have this faith through the righteousness of God and our

Savior, Jesus Christ. This is where it all comes from. This is where it all flows from. And he goes immediately into verse three, where he says, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.

And I have to just point this out, because it's one of those things that really does make a difference.

The word in verse three, where it says who hath called us to glory and virtue, that should be translated by or even through, because the

Greek word there is dia, and it literally means through or by. So the way this should be read is through the knowledge of him, that being the father that hath called us by glory and virtue.

And what's the implication there? We are called by his glory and his virtue. The word to there makes it sound like we're being called to a particular thing, which is true, but Peter hasn't gotten to that yet.

That's later down in the verses to come. Right here, he's making a point to tell us we have been called by the glory and virtue of the father himself.

So you might circle the little word to there and write by in the margin or something like that, because that would be more accurate.

I have to share that because it does change the reading a little bit. So we've been given everything.

This is what verse three is all about. We have been given everything needed for peaceful living in a mad world and for attaining a godliness, literally a piety toward God.

That's what the Greek term means there, that flows from our faith. Now, Solomon just warned us about wickedness.

What's the opposite of wickedness? It is godliness. And we've been given everything we need to fend off those traps of evil.

Remember what we started with. We've been set up for success, even in the midst of the kinds of battles we face.

And we've been given everything we need to be godly, which is the opposite of wickedness, which is how we might fall, the potential for fall through evil men and other things, all of our enemies, the devil himself.

So then we know that we have what we need to attain these things, but again we come back to the question, how?

Peter at this point is breaking it down and kind of building an argument on an incredibly strong foundation.

Peter tells us how exactly we acquire these all things that he's talking about in verse three, all things that pertain to life and to godliness, that is through the knowledge of the

Father. It says, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us, again, by glory and virtue.

And what's amazing about it is we know the Father is the one that calls us, that draws us. We learn this from John 6, among many other places.

Peter is telling us that all of this happens through the knowledge of Him, of the Father. But what's amazing about it is that the only way that one can get knowledge of the

Father is through the Son, Jesus Christ. We learn this in John 1, verse 18.

And on top of that, there is only one way to learn from the Son, which is by reading the

Word written by the Spirit, and of course through prayer as well. But the point is, we have this amazing unity within the

Godhead that are all working together to ultimately reveal the Father, which is exactly what we receive.

We get all of this, everything that pertains into life and godliness, through the knowledge of the

Father. So we begin to see the answer to how we remain steady in the face of wickedness in verse 3.

But Peter's not done yet. Because right now, he's merely setting the foundation. He hasn't actually given us the practical terms that build upon that foundation just yet.

He starts by saying the Father has called us by His own glory and virtue. And Peter is about to tell us that we are called to be glorious and virtuous in like manner.

So he does get there. He starts by saying we've been called by His glory and virtue, and he's about to get us to the point where we are called to glory and virtue ourselves.

You look at verse 4 now, and it says, "...whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature."

And just think about that for a second. That we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

So the promises of God to us, promises that have established our position as sons and daughters now, even though we still mess up in these corruptible bodies, we still sin.

But positionally, we have everything. We have His righteousness. We have our justification.

There are places that even talk about our positional sanctification in the eyes of the Father. Romans chapter 8 tells us that we are positionally glorified already.

And so we have the positional realities that again are being set.

They're being established as we live our lives now, as the foundation to build everything up from.

And that very foundation is ultimately what make us partakers of the divine nature. When we walk in the new man that we talk about so often, we are already partaking in it.

But Paul tells us elsewhere that in our future, Jesus shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto

His glorious body in Philippians 3 .21. And so that partaking of His own glory, that partaking of His nature, so to speak, is something that's taking place now.

Every time we walk in the new man and it will be consummated at the time that our vile bodies are fashioned like unto

His glorious body. And this is where we're headed. This is our future. The rights to claim these promises have already been purchased with Christ's blood.

So now, it is because of these realities, and keep all of this in mind as we move into the verses that are really mainly under view here this morning.

As we move into the following verses, keep this foundation in mind. It is because of these realities, it's because of this position that we've been given, that we are able to actually take part in a very special aspect of our growth and in this grand battle that we face as individuals, collectively as a church, collectively as the body of Christ around the world.

And so now look at verse 5. And I want to talk about the idea of furnishing our faith, supplying our faith, working with God in this life.

He says in verse 5, the first part of it, and beside this, giving all diligence, beside all of that foundation, that positional righteousness that we have, giving all diligence, add to your faith.

Add to your faith. And he says virtue and goes on to list a number of other virtues to build upon from that.

So it's here that we see this amazing teaching that is built upon the combination of the position that Christ put us in upon his suffering on the cross, dying for our sins, so that the

Father could look down at us right now and see us as positionally righteous, as positionally glorified.

He sees our justification as if we have never sinned. He sees that righteousness on us right now.

What Peter is now saying is that there is a combination of that reality, the free gift of faith that we have been given.

We are saved by grace through faith. That is the gift of God. We learn this idea in Ephesians 2, verse 8, and even in verse 1 of this very passage we're in.

We are reminded that all of this is through the righteousness of God and our

Savior, Jesus Christ. And so he is building upon this combination of the position we're in that is immovable, that we can't really mess with.

We can't mess up. And that is grace, of course, defined. But it is alongside our diligence in our good works as believers, in our virtuous living.

And that is what begins to be unfolded here in verse 5. So Peter sets the stage with the foundation, and he now shows us how to build upon that foundation.

In verses 3 -4, we learn that we have been given all things, exceedingly great and precious promises.

What more could there be? We've been given everything. We already own everything. We are already joint heirs with Christ.

What more could there be? Into the human mind, when we hear Peter say these things in the opening verses, what may seem kind of initially logical would be to assume that Peter could literally just end the story right here.

He gives us the promises. You already own them. You already lay claim to them. So, end of story.

It seems logical at first that he could just grant us the right to sit back and simply enjoy the promises that he just said we've been given past tense.

So we already own these things. Why isn't it the end of the story? Or, I guess you could ask, is it the end of the story?

But, just as with so many other things, we see that God designed things far more differently than we would have ourselves.

Because here in verse 5, we are told, somewhat paradoxically, that we are to add something.

We'll look at what that something is in a second. We are to add something to all that we've already been given with all diligence.

What exactly do you do with that as a believer? How does that come into play? How does that practically affect my

Christian living now? And how is it the answer to avoiding the stumbling of the wicked and following in their footsteps?

Well, the beginning is by understanding and having a good understanding of who we are as human beings.

Why is it that God structured it this way? Why is it that he gave us these promises and then expected us to add to it in some way, shape, or form?

And when you understand humanity as it was created by God, we remember, we are reminded of the fact that we aren't machines.

God didn't create machines with this pre -programmed illusion of sentience that he could then claim saviorhood over.

He creates the machines, and then he programs them to mess up, so then he can say, I'm a savior of those things.

Because even if you had such a machine, and even if they were programmed to kind of display the illusion of sin and rebellion,

God's saving work in that weird, disfigured dystopia of the redemption plan still wouldn't be grace, ultimately.

And, of course, as we know, grace is the entire purpose of everything that he was doing. That was the thing he wanted to display in all of the work that he did.

So, in other words, unless the undeserving creature, which is us, willfully rebelled by their own volition, and was morally culpable to pay for that rebellion himself or herself, unless that were the case, it wouldn't be all that undeserving after all, the salvation that, of course, we have received.

And this is how we know that we're not puppets, but people. And not just people, but in fact, a race that God created in his own image.

And not only that, but we were literally created for the purpose of communion with him for all eternity.

And when you remember these things, and you take things like God's character and his sovereignty and all the attributes that we talk about in concert with the fact that we are image bearers that are morally culpable, that do have their own will to either serve

God or rebel against him, it starts to make why Peter says the things that he says make sense.

Why there are promises and positional realities that we own already, and yet God still expects us to add to it in real time as human beings.

So, yes, we were given the promises. We were given the foundation. And, in verse 5, we are told to add to them by our own will, by our own desire, with as much zeal as we could possibly muster.

And for what purpose? From what place? It's out of a deep love for that gracious Savior, because he did save us by grace.

Because we're not puppets. We're not machines. We were sinners deserving of hell, deserving of paying for our own sins ourselves.

And he rescued from that anyway. And therefore, it gives us a zeal, it emboldens us to want to add to that faith that we've been given by grace.

So, when Peter says here to add to our faith, this is in the command form.

In other words, he is saying, do this. Add to your faith. It's in the command form, that imperative move that we talk about somewhat often.

And the command is for us to strive and make every possible effort to make our faith manifest for all to see.

And I've said this before, but regeneration itself isn't something that any person can actually see.

It is a spiritual reality that takes place within us. We can't even see it ourselves, even if it was done to us.

Regeneration isn't something that a person can see. So what did God do about that? He ordained our good works as a means to display our regeneration.

To let the world know that we have been bought with a price. That there was bloodshed on our behalf, so that we didn't have to pay for our own sins.

And this is why Peter is going here. Look at verse 5 one more time with me, and let's go down through verse 7 and see the different virtues that he lists.

That we are to add to our faith as we live the life of sanctification.

Beside this, giving 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. So from verses 5 through 7 here, we're given seven specific things to add to our faith.

Literally, the Greek term means to furnish or to supply something. With equipment.

With stuff. With things to furnish it with. So they can actually be furnished.

The root word here means to be a chorus leader. So you are in ancient times.

You would have a great Greek play at one of the amphitheaters or whatever it may be.

And back then, you had these great poets that would write these epic plays and these amazing forms of entertainment that were immediately going to just hit the ground running as far as popularity goes.

But they did have a problem, and that is they needed funding. And not only that, but they needed people that were willing to do the gritty work of actually displaying the play.

So it's one thing to write it, and that's a gift in and of itself. It's another thing to put it on a stage with a lot of different people acting out each part.

And so you would have these people come, and they would be called the Greek term that is beneath this word, the root word for it.

And they would furnish or supply the play, the act, with all of the needed instruments, all of the needed clothing items, you know, costumes, things like that.

And they would lead it at the same time. They would supply it, and they would lead it. And that's the root word for the

Greek term that Peter uses here to add to our faith. It's to be a chorus leader, as in to furnish a chorus, or to direct a band, or a dance, or a scene in a film, or a military march.

You supply the gear, and you lead the chorus. That's what the root word means underneath what

Peter is saying. We as believers, now that we have the faith that Christ gave us, we need to map out our lives and furnish it in a way that is consistent with the faith of Christ that is within us.

Another way you can think about this is that the virtues that we add, all of those things we just read from verses 5 through 7, all of those virtues that we add by our own will, by our own desire to obey

God, is what clothes our otherwise naked faith. So you're given the faith.

How are you going to adorn it? What is it going to look like all dressed up in the most extravagant, beautiful way that you can possibly imagine?

How are you going to do that? And so when you read those lists of virtues from verses 5 through 7, it's

Peter kind of laying out, okay, here are the items to pick. These are what are virtuous in the eyes of God.

Here is how you can adorn or dress your faith in a way that is respectable and that is consistent with God's Word, with His instruction, and His own character,

His own holiness, and all of these things. It's what clothes our otherwise naked faith.

The virtues that a Christian displays in his life adorns his or her faith as a bride is adorned for a marriage.

And after all, we are the bride of Christ. In verse 8, he says, For if these things be in you, and listen to this, if these things be in you and abound, so not that they just pop up every now and then, but they abound, that they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ. So the chief end of obedience to Peter's words in verses 5 through 7 is fruitfulness in our knowledge of Christ Himself.

And of course, what more could a Christian, a person that literally bears the name of Christ, what more could that person ask for than to be fruitful in the knowledge of Him, the

Savior, that paid the blood price on our behalf? We do these things, and that's where the fruit of that knowledge comes from.

In verse 9, he says, But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

And this would be a very frightening place to be, because Peter is still talking about Christians here. He is still talking about a believer that has been saved, but who has forgotten some very important realities and forgotten to do some things with the life he's been given to live out in the first place.

When the virtues of true religion and when a lived -out faith, based upon the instructions that were given in Scripture, when those things are neglected, the result is a blindness that covers even the remembrance of our forgiveness.

And imagine that. Being a Christian to the point where you have lived in such a context.

You know, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, I think verse 33, talks about the idea of bad company corrupting good morals.

You can be a stand -up Christian your entire life, from birth through high school, and then the moment you convince yourself that you can just fit into any kind of societal context, because obviously

I'm equipped and I'm strong enough to fend off the various attacks and the various morals and these types of things that will be in direct contradiction to what

I know to be true. I'm strong enough to bear all that. The Apostle Paul says absolutely not. The moment you convince yourself of that, you fall into bad company, and it literally corrupts your morality.

And it actually can change your memory to where you cannot even recall that your sins have been purged.

Again, it's a very scary place to be. So rather than resting in the truth that our sins have been blotted out, if you find yourself in this particular situation, rather than resting in that truth that our sins have been blotted out, we blot out our forgiveness from our memories altogether.

And then all of a sudden, you start dealing with all kinds of odd things, like am I even saved? You start questioning your salvation.

You start questioning your assurance. You start to doubt the promises of God. It's just a natural cycle.

It is a natural ramification of forgetting the starting point, forgetting the main thing, forgetting the price that has been paid on our behalf.

There is a misery here for the person that is in verse 9. But the thing is it's a misery that is entirely avoidable.

The sad part is that even though it's entirely avoidable, it's all too prevalent today among the church.

A lack of assurance. The plight of false guilt for sins that have already been paid for. A doubt, and perhaps even confessed.

A doubt in God's promises. These are all things that Christians deal with today, and it's sad because it is not necessary, and Peter's words in this passage is the antidote.

They are the antidote to avoiding these things. And so once more, Peter is just telling us plainly how we can avoid such a plight altogether and rest in the certainty of our salvation.

How exactly do you do that? And it is through this virtuous living. It's by obeying God's Word and adding to our faith, furnishing, supplying our faith in such a manner that we are like the chorus leader of our life.

This isn't to say that a person can achieve sinless perfection in this life, but it's to point out that we are to be set apart from the unbelieving world in the way we present ourselves, in the way that we display our lives to the outside world.

We can't let sin rule us again. And we read a passage in Romans 6, verse 14 in Sunday school this morning.

Sin does not have dominion over us any longer. And so we don't have to let sin rule us again.

This is why Paul made the point to place the sinful lifestyles of the Corinthians in the past tense, a passage that we're all very familiar with.

In 1 Corinthians 6 .11, Paul says, In such were some of you. He puts it in the past tense.

Why is that? Because of the price that has already been paid, because of the position that these

Christians have and that they have already given the right to lay claim to. Such were some of you, but you have been washed.

You have been sanctified. You have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

He's reminding us that we do not have to let sin rule anymore. We don't have to put ourselves in the miserable position of the

Christian in verse 9 that lacks the virtues, that lacks the ability to add to his faith.

And by ability, I simply mean because of neglecting God's Word, because of putting himself in a very sketchy situation to begin with, where his morals themselves have been corrupted.

He's like a blind man. He can't see far off. And he even forgot that he was purged from his old sins, and that is very, very sad.

Then in verse 10, Peter says this. In contrast with the miserable person of verse 9, he says,

Wherefore the rather, or another way you could say that is all the more. Wherefore all the more, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.

For if you do these things, you shall never fall. What was the warning from Solomon back in Proverbs chapter 4?

They are looking for people to bring with them in their fall.

He is warning us to avoid the evil and the bad company so that we don't fall like they are falling, like they are stumbling.

And so Peter gives us again the instructions for how to protect ourselves from it.

In a deep fervor of pleading, Peter, what he does here is he literally doubles down on his imperative.

He says, Be even more diligent than I said to be back in verse 5. So if you see verse 5, be diligent to add to your faith.

You get to verse 10, be even more diligent. If you do these things, in other words, put the doctrines of God and His Word into action, live them out.

Don't just read it. Don't just put it in your mind and let it sit stagnant. God's wisdom was never meant to be imported in such a way as not to be exported in your life.

You have to live it out. It's not meant to be stagnant. The wisdom of God wants action. It wants you to move and it wants you to accomplish great things.

If we do these things, if we put God's Word to action, we will not stumble. That's the message of verse 10.

Just as Solomon warned us so long ago, that we're not going to fall prey to these evil men.

We're not going to fall prey to any of our enemies, for that matter, if we add to our faith, if we furnish our faith with virtue.

One thing that's very important to remember is for the apostles, there was no complicated distinction between doctrine and living.

So it wasn't like over here they're giving us some doctrine and over here is just your day -to -day routine, the normal ebbs and flows of life and living in general.

There's no distinction in those things for the apostles. They always combine them.

They always assume that their brothers and their sisters would be doing what they taught, not just consuming it intellectually, not just consuming it academically, but actually putting it into practice.

And that was their assumption. Anytime you read the instructions of the apostles, and of Jesus for that matter, the assumption is that you are in the new man and doing this good work alongside

Christ because we have been given the capacity to do it. That's what they assumed.

And that's the key to assurance. It's the key to assurance of our salvation. Having the desire to consistently implement the

Word of God is one proof that we are saved in the first place. The desire to consistently implement the

Word, even when we know it's not the easy way out. We will be presented in life with plenty of situations where a compromise or compromises of varying degrees will appear more pragmatic in the moment.

It will appear like maybe even the more strategic thing to do. We will adjust course a little bit over here and maybe we delve a little bit into this subjective situational ethic as opposed to what

God's Word says about this matter and how to handle it. It may be uncomfortable, but if we consistently apply

God's Word, even in those contexts, even when the discomfort starts to bubble up within us, that is an assurance in and of itself of our salvation.

Of course, being pragmatic and pulling ourselves away from God's instruction is a great danger, even when living out

God's instruction is in fact very uncomfortable in the moment. If we put

His will before our own in every instance, we are literally proving our election, proving our salvation, being diligent to add to our faith, being diligent to live virtuously, even when we might be mocked for it.

I don't think it's completely necessary to add this qualifier for this congregation because we are so solid with regard to the doctrines that we have been taught by Dad and Otis and Bill over all of these years.

But just to cover my bases a little bit here, I don't want anyone to lose sight of the main thing as we discuss the work that we do because we are talking about our responsibility here.

We're talking about the command, the imperative from Peter to add to our faith. Is this

Peter overemphasizing the will of man? Is he somehow saying that in and of ourselves we can accomplish all of these things?

We have to remember that it is God, it is He that begins a good work in us and will be the one that finishes that good work in us as well.

Because in Philippians 1 .6, Paul literally tells us that we are confident, being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

And so we cannot accomplish any of this, anything that we've talked about, adding to our faith, furnishing our faith with all of these virtues and living a virtuous life as a way to protect ourselves from the wicked paths and from stumbling and from falling.

We can't accomplish any of that in and of ourselves. It's not something that we can do alone.

We have to rely on the sufficiency of Christ in our lives or else the exhaustion of the good work will defeat the purpose of the good work in the first place.

And what is that purpose? It's to grow closer to Him. It's to grow closer to the Lord, not to be constantly discouraged by our own shortcomings.

That's the purpose of the good work, growing closer to Him, not becoming exhausted by our lack of ability to live perfectly.

Ironically, the moment we try to live perfectly and try to keep the imperatives, the commandments, all of these things perfectly our own is the moment we start to break them.

It starts to all fall apart because that's a foundation of sand. It's like a house of cards, really. But the moment that we throw all of our reliance on Christ, the person, in Him doing all of these things alongside us, obviously

He sent us His comforter, His Spirit, to be alongside of us as well. And that's when we actually start to fulfill the instructions that we've been given.

So there's some irony there. We want to do it perfectly, so we mess it up. We remember that we can't do it ourselves, and then we start to do them because we are reminded that the

Spirit is working in us all along. So, in closing,

I picked this passage to share with you all today because I care deeply about I'll kind of summarize it in three specific things that I believe

Peter's words cover here. And all three of these things are something that I care a lot about for me personally, for my family, for my church family.

And Peter gave us all the instruction we need for getting started in these areas. And the first is that the congregation that I help shepherd has assurance and certainty in their faith toward God, being reminded that through the pursuit of virtuous living, you can have confidence that you are

God's child. Make your calling and election sure. How do you do that? You live virtuously.

You obey the commandments of God. You strive to implement His word and His instruction in every instance, even when it's not the most comfortable to do so.

When you are doing that consistently, it's one of the greatest proofs of your salvation. It's where confidence and assurance comes from.

It's where security comes from. So that's the first thing that I believe that this passage teaches us quite well.

And the second is that you remember that all of the good work that you do perform, that all of us should desire to perform, everything that we add to our faith, it's all built upon the foundation of God's promises to each and every one of us.

The promises that we hold the purchased claim to already.

It's already ours. We don't have to do anything to earn it because that's what Christ did in His finished work.

But rather, that is the foundation that we can then act upon above and build from on top of it.

We have to remember that all of the good work we do, everything we add to our faith is built upon that foundation.

And then thirdly and lastly, that you always remember that none of this is done alone.

And it kind of plays into that last point. He is the one that works with us. He works in us both to will and to do

His good pleasure, Philippians chapter two. And so we're never alone. And to know that we're not alone is actually kind of going back to that irony

I mentioned a second ago. Knowing that we're not alone is actually what gives us the strength to add even more.

So the moment we realize we can't really add anything in and of ourselves and that we have to rely on Christ in our lives to do it and desire to work and walk with Him as closely as we can, that's the moment that rather than in exhaustion and in discouragement that we just can't do better than what we have been doing, that's the moment we're strengthened and with that strength can add even more to that faith, to furnish that faith even more than we have been doing.

So these are the words of Peter. These are the words of God. And I hope that it's been edifying for everybody.

Again, this is a passage that has been rather encouraging to me on a personal level lately.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day, for bringing us together, for giving us the opportunity to open up the pages of Scripture to see what you have to say for us on this particular

Lord's Day at this particular point in history. We thank you for the grace of ordaining these gatherings, for ordaining all of us getting together in person so that we can be refreshed by one another, so that we can encourage one another, fellowship with one another, and go out there and then through that refreshment face the battles that we ultimately will face in all manner, in all diverse forms that we will.

We thank you for the jumpstart that we get each and every week through assembling ourselves together.

Of course, we thank you also for the grace of your Word and for the grace of your Spirit living within us, equipping us, teaching us how to avoid ungodliness, how to avoid the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the world, how to apply the virtues that your

Apostle told us are there and possible to be lived out by your people. He would not have told us these things if he didn't have confidence, if you didn't have confidence,

Father, that we could live all of these things out. So we ask for your strength to do it.

We ask for your guidance, for your wisdom, and for your comfort to live this way so that our confidence can be firm, so that our assurance can be ever -present, and so that we have the strength to keep adding to our faith.

We thank you once more for the time we have together. Blessed the meal we're about to have as well. And we ask all these things in your name.