A Child of God's Rewards

I have really enjoyed being with you this week. That's been a great joy to preach. Have felt great freedom in preaching.

And it takes, under most circumstances, it takes a sympathetic, receptive audience for a preacher to really preach well. So as I have looked out over the congregation and seen you paying such attention, it's been an encouragement to me. And so thank you for coming so faithfully.

Thank you for listening so well. It's been a great blessing to me. I have, Carol and I have enjoyed the week. It's been very relaxing.

We loved staying at the Mission House. Thank you for providing that ministry. Delightful. And also thank you to all of you who have fed us and are yet to do so. Thank you. We've enjoyed the meals, have enjoyed getting to know you, have enjoyed getting to know your pastors and their wives. You have a delightful, conscientious staff, very friendly, very impressive. I believe that they are God honoring men and that their wives are God honoring women. And it has been a source of encouragement for us to be among you this week.

Thank you for asking us. Please open your Bibles to the book of Second Peter, chapter one. I need to say a little preliminary here, because there is a danger that someone could possibly criticize this sermon and say there's very little information in here on how to get saved.

And I suppose that's going to be true. But I think that we have made a mistake in identifying four or five facts about Jesus' work on behalf of sinners. And saying that alone is the gospel. I know there's a summary of the gospel that includes those four or five facts. But I'm talking about the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and his ascension into heaven.

And I am in no ways minimizing the centrality of those truths. But I just think that the gospel is a broader concept than that. I think that the gospel is the fact that Christ has done everything that is necessary to reconcile sinners to God. And now everyone who repents of sin and receives Christ will be transformed by him, redeemed from their sin and made fit to live in heaven. And it's that last part of the gospel that is especially contained in the passage that is my text tonight, the being made fit to live in heaven. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. And I believe that the kind of holy pursuit, the kind of holy life that is described in this text has the potential to be a powerful tool of evangelism.

To say this is the sort of thing that is expected of you. And if you look if you look fully at what the Lord expects of you and what the Lord expects of me, then we're going to have to admit that we cannot fulfill that perfectly and that we must have a savior who will fulfill the law for us. But as I said last night, the doctrine of justification is not a legitimate excuse for being lazy. The doctrine of justification by faith does teach us that when we are justified, it is because we have had faith. That faith is united to a savior who suffers on our behalf and who imputes his righteousness to us. But we would never have had faith if it were not for the regenerating power of God, that God gives us the new birth and enables us to believe in him.

So the the new birth brings about a response of faith and love. That faith is a transformative virtue and it is the foundation of the eight virtues that are mentioned in the text that the pastor just read and that I spent the entire evening on last night. So there are eight virtues, but they all rest on faith. You are not going to really have evangelical virtue.

You're not really going to have gospel knowledge unless it is founded, first of all, on faith. Believing what God has said, especially because God has said it and especially when that's the only reason that you have for believing it is because God has said it. So faith is fundamental to everything that I said last night.

It's fundamental to everything that I say tonight. So in this passage of scripture, there are there are two conditions that are mentioned and then there are three rewards that are mentioned. And so we will just divide our time between those things. That's the way we'll look at this text. There are two conditions that are mentioned. They are both phrases that begin with the word if.

If this is true, then these things will be true. I want to be happy. You want to be happy. I don't draw the fine distinction between happiness and joy that many people do the way that some people end up describing joy.

It is. It seems to be something like perseverance without being happy about it. Or the confidence that everything is going to turn out right, even though I'm deeply miserable right now. And those are those are that that's a valuable perseverance is valuable.

Constancy is valuable. I just don't think that that's what joy is. I think that joy carries with it an idea of emotional exuberance, that there is a happiness, a sense that I am delighted about God's overall plan.

And while I'm not supposed to plaster a sappy smile on my face when someone in my family dies and say, well, I'm happy about this, that yet the the usual state of a healthy Christian is one where there is emotional exuberance about the overall way that things are going. And so I want to be happy. Everybody wants to be happy. You want to be happy. The person who cuts his throat wants to be happy. The person who hangs himself wants to be happy. They're under the delusion that they will be happier if they end their life in this world.

But they do it because they want to be happy. God has constituted us so that we want to have and and a delighted sense that all is well and that it is going to continue to be well. I want to be happy now.

I want to be happy in eternity. And God has revealed the way that we can be happy. And that is that we should turn away from ideas, ways of thinking, ways of behavior that are ultimately. Contrary to our long term happiness.

I've heard it put this way. When God says thou shalt not, he is saying don't hurt yourself. And when God says thou shalt, he is saying help yourself to happiness.

And so in in this passage of scripture, but I think throughout the Bible, God is saying. Here is a way that you're going to make yourself desperately unhappy now and forever. And here is a way that you can make yourself incredibly happy now and forever. So what do you really want out of life? I've answered the question for you.

I know that it's true. You want to be happy. I want to be happy. But then our answers may vary a bit when I ask you, what is it that will make you happy?

What what is it in life that may while you are on your deathbed in your last day, conscious of the fact that within 24 hours you will enter eternity. What is it about your life that you'll look back on it and it will make you smile and say. By God's grace, I'm happy about the way I live my life. So what are.

It's worth thinking about and probably you don't have time to work it all out right now. But I'll tell you some of the things that I think contribute to my happiness right now. And that will make me smile when it's time to die.

One thing is and I can't overemphasize how this is at the top of the list. I don't want to go to hell. And I do want to go to heaven. And I hope that I am spiritual enough that my desire to go to heaven is stronger than my desire to avoid hell.

But honestly, I'm not quite sure. It's been a long time since I have really dreaded hell because I've had assurance of my salvation. But if you if you're in the state where you're not right with God, I don't think it's terribly unspiritual of you to dread hell far more than you anticipate heaven. Your taste for the things that make heaven delightful has not yet been implanted in you. But when you're converted, then you are given a taste for the delights that await in heaven.

But right now, if you are not converted, you should really be afraid of going to hell. One of the books that I have taught through the years is Dante's Divine Comedy. Now, the Divine Comedy has three sections to it. There's the section that is devoted to an exploration of hell. It's called the Inferno. And then there is the Paradiso, which explores, explores purgatory.

Dante was a Roman Catholic. If you never had the Bible purgatory would be just an extraordinarily good idea. But since we have the Bible, then we know that purgatory is not true. And then the third section of the book is exploring. I said the middle section of the book was Paradiso, but it's actually the third section of the book that is paradise. The middle section is purgatory. And most people only read most people don't read it. But if you do read it at all, you're probably assigned to the Inferno.

That's a little bit like going to New York City and touring the whole city on the subway and not seeing anything but the subway. There are great beauties in the purgatory and beauties also in paradise. But like like many people, when I taught when I taught the Divine Comedy, I never had time to read to have the students read the whole thing. And so we just read the Inferno. And in one of the one of the discussions questions that would come up when I was teaching the Inferno was, is the fear of hell a legitimate, a legitimate motivation for embracing the gospel and fleeing to Christ? Now, a lot of these students, like some of us surely, came out of ministries where perhaps that was overemphasized and that there was just a constant threat of going to hell.

And that perhaps received more emphasis than it receives in the Bible. And so some of the students would respond and say, no, it's that's not a legitimate motivation for wanting to turn away from your sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I would perform a little experiment with the class. If there were twenty seven people in the class, then I would say, all right, let's find in our Bibles the book of Matthew. And I want you to take Matthew one. I want you to take Matthew two and so on until all the chapters of Matthew had been assigned. And then I would say, now, I want you to read your chapter in Matthew. And when you come to a reference to eternal torment, whether it's hell or the place where the fire, where the fire is not quenched and where the worm does not die, if you come to a reference to hell, then you tell me and I'm going to write it down on the board.

And so we would go through that and I would write it down. And if you ever do that, then you will find what the students discovered, that there are more references to hell in the book of Matthew than there are chapters. Jesus talked way more about hell than he did about heaven. And so is it is it a legitimate motivation? Is the fear of hell a legitimate motivation for changing your life, turning away from your sin and embracing Jesus Christ? You better believe it is.

Yes, it's not the only motivation, but yes, it is a legitimate motivation. Flee from the wrath to come. The the terrible part of the death burg that I preached about on Sunday morning is this eternal, this eternal being under the wrath of God. And you should be terrified at the prospect of going to hell if you're not right with Jesus Christ. And so, boy, at the top of my list is I'm glad that I'm not going to hell and I'm glad that I'm going to heaven. And looking forward to being there.

So that's one of the things that makes me happy now and will make me happy forever. And then something else is that I don't I don't want my life on earth to be a waste. I want my life to have meaning.

I want to bear fruit. I want it to have influence for for the glory of God. And then really, this is kind of the flip side of that. I don't want to bring disgrace on the Lord. I don't want to be one of those preachers that people say, wow, can you believe that Orick did that?

Can you believe that he ran off with that money, ran off with that woman, was involved in that shady deal, wrecked his ministry? I don't want that to happen. So I don't know what's on your list, but those are three things that I really want to be true of my life. And I think that those three things are going to make me happy.

And those are three rewards that are promised in this text. Do you want your life to matter? You want your life to be effective? You want your life to be fruitful? Then pay attention to what this text says.

Do you want to live your life in such a way that you are never guilty of a witness destroying scandal? You never stumble so as to fall and bring disgrace on the name of the Lord? Pay attention to this text. Do you want to have the confidence that you are going to be ready to live in heaven and you're going there? Pay attention to this text.

Let's first of all look at the two if clauses that are in the text. And it says in verse eight, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, which qualities? OK, let's back up to verse five here. Here are eight qualities that are mentioned. For this very 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. So these are the qualities. And he says, if these qualities are yours and are increasing.

And then there follows the first promise. They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's just take a moment to think about this, this first of two conditions, and it is if these qualities are yours and are increasing. I believe that this chapter here in First Peter gives us a summary, not an exhaustive summary, but a summary of character qualities that are present in every believer.

They may not be very well developed. That's why you need to be diligent about this. That's why you need to make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and so on through the list. But I believe that everyone who has been born again has been given a nature that at least has the seeds of these character qualities present. I believe that it's not that one Christian has faith and then another Christian has virtue.

And then there's someone else who has knowledge. There are many ways that we have different gifts, but I don't believe that this is a list of giftings that only certain Christians are to have certain one of these. But all of these characteristics are to be manifested in everyone who has been born again.

And so this is a it's an opportunity for us to examine ourselves in light of these things. Do I have faith? Am I pursuing after virtue? Do I have knowledge?

Do I have self-control? Is it are the seeds of it at least there? Do I have steadfastness?

Are these seeds at least there? I think that what I'm saying about this list is also true of a couple of other descriptions of Christian character that we have in the Bible, like the Beatitudes. I don't think that the Beatitudes describe. Here's a person who is poor in spirit, but he may not be mournful or he may not be meek. I think that the Beatitudes are a description of Christian character, that everyone who is in the kingdom of God is poor in spirit.

Everyone who is in the kingdom of God is mournful and has been comforted. Everyone who is in the kingdom of God is meek and is inheriting the earth and so on through the Beatitudes. I think that the same thing can be said for the fruits of the spirit that are described in Galatians Chapter five. The fruits of the spirit of these love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

I know people who are famous Christians and I'm not their judge, but I don't see any of those characteristics born in their lives. Sometimes I look at their lives and say, man, they don't love anybody except someone who's going to give them some kind of advancement. Joy, are you crazy? It's the most angry person I've ever known. He doesn't have joy, peace.

He's always agitated about something. And to go through the list, well, there would be a dangerous thing if I just said, well, what about that guy over there? Does he have these fruits? What I'm really supposed to be doing is looking at my own life. Do I have love? Do I have joy? Do I have peace?

Am I patient? Are the seeds at least there? Your character is a garden that must be cultivated. It's not one of those kind of plants that you just throw the seed out on the ground and then go back later.

And lo and behold, there's a crop there. Your character that God has given you as his child is a character that must be cultivated. And that's what this passage of scripture is encouraging us to do. It says, if these qualities are yours and are increasing. And so I have said that I believe every Christian has at least the seeds of these character qualities implanted in his nature. They're not always increasing in everyone. And I think that these blessings that are promised are conditioned on are they increasing?

So this is an ongoing project. We're never able to just fold our hands and say, well, certainly that's enough knowledge. I don't need any more after that. Or I've got this self-control thing down. I don't need any more self-control.

I would say that saying something like that is probably a pretty good recipe to get yourself some very trying circumstances to show you that you're not as patient as you think you are. And the Lord, the Lord has gentle ways of dealing with us, but he has alternative methods as well. There is a psalm that says, Psalm 32, I will guide you with my eye.

If you grew up with parents who guided you, then there were probably times when your mother or your dad gave you that look in church that said, if you don't stop that, you're going to get it when you get home. And it was just that look. And if you didn't pay attention, then then things would things would become more severe.

But it started with a look. Pay attention to my eye. The Lord says, I will guide you with my eye.

But then he says this. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, but which must be guided with bit and bridle else they will not come near you. So the Lord says, I have a preferred method of dealing with you. I will guide you with my eye. But if you don't pay attention, then I'll put something in your mouth that will make you obey. That's, of course, the way a bit works.

You're able to control that fifteen hundred pound horse because you have something in his mouth that that hurts him if he tries to put his head the way that you don't want it to go. Several years ago, my two youngest daughters, they're now 18 and 21. And I think they were about three and six when this happened. They shared a bedroom and Grace and the older one came in into my room crying, saying that Naomi had hurt her and Naomi came in crying because she was afraid that she was going to get a spanking. And they were both delirious. And I just said, now, just settle down, just settle down, show me what happened. And I wasn't expecting what came next. Naomi, the three year old, said, well, we were just wrestling and I and she reached her hand around Grace and face and put a fish hook in the side of her mouth. I did this to her. Grace and said, hey, that's a little too much information.

But really, you know, I was kind of proud of the girl for doing such a great a great wrestling move. It's illegal, of course. But you get control of a person's head if you get that the corner of their mouth. You you guide them where you want. And that's the principle of a bit and a bridle. And the Lord says, don't do that.

I can put a bit in your mouth if you want to. But why don't you pay attention to my kindness? As it says in Romans Chapter two. Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience? Not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance. But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself. So the wrath is coming because you showed contempt for the kindness. These these qualities can be cultivated in the quiet pursuits of your heart as you watch the Lord's eye and respond to his kindness. Or they can be cultivated with the paddle of his corrective discipline upon you.

But he is not going to leave you alone if you're his child. And so pay attention to this condition. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, then there follows this blessing. But let's look at the second condition.

It's very similar. A little further down in the text, it says in verse 10. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent. To confirm your calling and election. So last night we had the phrase make every effort. Now we see tonight that these qualities are to be increasing and that we are to be all the more diligent. Pay attention to this.

You've got to watch it. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? Be careful that you don't just let a happy life drift away from you because you're too lazy to pay attention to it and to make every effort and to be diligent. So those are the two qualifications, the if clauses. Now, what are the three rewards that are mentioned? Look again at verse eight for these qualities are yours and are increasing. They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It seems to me like it has the possibility that you can be a Christian. You can know the Lord Jesus Christ and your life is not as effective or not as fruitful as it ought to be. But that if these qualities are present in you and they are increasing, you will be effective and you will bear fruit. It's very similar to what Jesus says in John Chapter 15. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will bear much fruit.

Now, this is a this is a great promise. This is a great comfort because sometimes we look at our lives and we say, I'm not exactly sure that I'm doing anything. Some of your most powerful fruit and probably some of your most powerful effect. You may never know about. And much of the time, your most influential influence is unconscious.

It's just. The influence that you exude because of who you are. One of my favorite little poems captures this so beautifully when someone is expressing her appreciation for a mentor who has helped her so much. But she expresses the truth like this, not only in the words you say. Not only in your deeds confessed. But in the most unconscious way is Christ expressed.

Is it a beatific smile or holy light upon your brow? Oh, no, I felt his presence when you laughed just now. To me, it was not the truth you taught to you so clear, to me so dim. But when you came to me, you brought a sense of him. And from your eyes, he beckons me. And from your lips, his love is shed till I lose sight of you and see the Christ instead. You are a reading people. I know that some of you have read the sermons of C.H. Spurgeon, and you also have read a biography of Spurgeon to see how powerful and influential that sermon was when he preached it. And honestly, you rarely feel it when you read Spurgeon.

Now, so much truth. It's great. I've read a lot of C.H. Spurgeon and love C.H. Spurgeon. He's been my hero since I was a boy. But I realize that when I read those sermons of C.H. Spurgeon, I'm not feeling things the same way that I would if I were in the congregation hearing Spurgeon preach. There is something powerful about the word of God coming from a holy person. It doesn't have to be a preacher, but if he is a preacher, then if you don't think he is a holy preacher, then his words fall with no effect. But if you think this is a person who walks with God, this is a man who walks with God, his English may not be that great. His exegesis may not be perfect, but somehow it comes with power. And I can say the same thing about what I said about Spurgeon was true about George Whitefield. So you read the sermons of George Whitefield.

You're not melted to tears, but thousands of people would be melted to tears as they listen to George Whitefield preach. George Herbert is my favorite poet. And he has a poem that talks about this. It's called The Windows. And he starts off expressing his admiration. Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word? He that is man is a brittle, crazy glass. Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford this glorious and transcendent place to be a window through thy grace.

Then he begins to answer his question. But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, annealing is the process of putting color in glass. So it's the process of making a stained glass window. But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, making thy life to shine within the holy preachers. Then the light becomes more reverend and more winsome. I'm not going to quote the whole poem to you, but the point of the poem is the word of God actually is enhanced when it is mediated through a holy person. And that's true not just for preachers. That's true for all of you who are not preachers. Because when these qualities are yours and are increasing, there is a power that that God utilizes because it is a likeness to his own nature that is being stamped on you. And so when these qualities are yours and are increasing, then you will not be unfruitful or ineffective in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You may not always be aware of it. You may not may not always hear reports of it, but God's word is true. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's go on in this text and see what else is promised to those who who meet these conditions. It says in verse nine, for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. The imprinting of God's nature on you helps you to remember some very important things.

It helps you to see the big picture so that you're able to look back and remember with effect the fact that you were cleansed from your sins and then that has power on you right now. I was cleansed. The Lord changed me.

Now I'm not living like it. I am just so caught up in what is around me and so obsessed with what is around me that I've become like a nearsighted or a short sighted person who can only see things clearly that are close. Now, for a while I was nearsighted. I've had LASIK surgery on my eyes, but some of you are nearsighted and you know what that is. You can read a book.

You can see what's near, what's close to your face, but then when you look up, everything is blurry. And that's a bad thing when that happens spiritually that you get so caught up in the things that are around you that you fail to see the big picture, the overall trajectory of things. And so for one thing, you cannot see that you were cleansed from your sins and that will cause you to be unhappy because you're not really sure that you are a believer. Now I believe in the preservation.

I believe in the perseverance of the saints. I believe that once a person is truly born again, he will never again be lost. But I believe that there are a great many people who are deceived about whether or not they are born again. And that being born again makes a change in your character.

You have been cleansed. And those of us who know the sovereignty of God are sometimes pestered with questions that people do not have to deal with who don't believe the sovereignty of God. So we might ask, am I elect? Because we know enough about doctrine to know that if I am elect, I will eventually be in heaven.

So am I elect, we might ask. And when we are not having the character of Christ formed in us, that's a legitimate question. You're not supposed to let the doctrine of eternal security make you complacent in a lazy, sinful life. If you're living a lazy, sinful life, the indications right now are that you have never been born again.

Nobody lives a perfect life. We all have to cope with sin and elements of sinfulness that remain in us. But the overall bent of your life is changed the day that you become a born again follower of Jesus Christ.

And so when these qualities are not tended in your life, when they're not obviously present, when they are not increasing, then you are troubled with wondering, have I really been cleansed from my sins? Am I elect? So be diligent to make your calling and election sure. And that's the way that it should go. The fact of the matter is, you and I cannot look back into the council halls of eternity and hear the discussion among the Trinity when they establish the covenant of grace to save certain persons called the elect and to provide all the means for their salvation. We are not privy to that conversation. But here's what God has said.

Everyone that I elect, I'll call. And we can look at that because that's something that happens in time. So effectual calling is the work of God's spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds and the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills. He persuades and enables us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel. And so you look then say, well, have have I been convinced of my sin and misery apart from God? Or do I still relish the idea of living a sinful life?

Do I still call up those sins that I allegedly have repented of and kind of roll them around under my tongue and enjoy them again? Have I been convinced of my sin and misery? Has my mind been enlightened in the knowledge of Christ so that I see him to be a suitable savior? I'm willing to submit myself to him as a prophet and a priest and a king.

Am I willing to take him on the terms that he has offered to us in the gospel? If you have been called, then you may be sure that you were elected. You make your calling and your election, sure, but it's connected to the thriving and prosperity of the divine nature in you. As I've said before, in this conference, the greatest evidence that you're going to heaven is that even now your character is being formed so that you will enjoy living there. And so if you if these qualities are not yours, then you will be ineffective. You will be unfruitful and you'll be confused about your your present spiritual state. You will have be so nearsighted that you're caught up in what is going on right now. And you will forget that you have been cleansed from your sins. You cannot make your calling in your election, sure, because the evidences of calling are not present in your life. And so that's the first benefit.

Let's look at the second and third benefit, which will not take quite so much time. So remember, in verse 10, we have this condition repeated. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling in election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. Now, this does not mean that you will never mess up. It doesn't mean that you will attain perfection. But it does mean that you will not fall disastrously. It does not mean that you will stumble so as to stumble beyond recovery. And if you just kind of think through this, there was there was a day when that man who fell into sin with a woman.

Made a very slight decision that he was going to cast his lure in that direction and see if he got a bite. What if that morning he had prayed through these qualities and said, Lord, thank you for giving me faith, I want to supplement my faith with excellence of character. I want to pursue after virtue. Help me to grow in the knowledge and wisdom of you.

And he's not just playing around saying words. He's really having fellowship with God. God today give me self-control.

Help me to be steadfast and true to the calling that you've put on my life. And what if having that kind of fellowship with God, then he sees that pretty little thing. That pretty little thing that is going to cause disaster in his life. I sometimes just wince in grief over the story of David and Bathsheba. Oh, man, you just love David from the first time you see him going out there to beat up on Goliath. Oh, you got to love David. And then one thing after another, David is just such a wonderful man.

No wonder God said he is a man after his own heart. And then that day sees Bathsheba on the roof. And he sends to inquire.

Comes back. She's married. Wife of Uriah the Hittite. And right then. If David had said. Well, God bless Uriah, he's got a pretty wife.

What are we having for lunch? How different the rest of his life would have been. But instead. He said. Send for her.

And you can just hear the cracks in that building start to start to fall. Please don't say that. I read the Bible through, you know, year after year and I get to that is like, oh, man, I just wish he wouldn't say. Send for her. But that that terrible story is there for a variety of reasons.

But one reason is. When your day comes. May you have these qualities in you and increasing so that you say. Yeah, she's pretty little thing.

May God bless her husband. What's for lunch? Let's go on. Let's think about something else. If these qualities are yours and are increasing. If if you practice these things, you'll never fall. And then the third promise that is made here is that if for in this way that is in the way of practicing these qualities, being diligent to see that they're in your life in this way, there will be richly provided for you. An entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I think it means that you're going to have a bigger parade when you get to heaven.

Or that you're going to get to ride in a nicer convertible. That that's what it means that you will be richly provided. I think that it means that even now you are going to have a character that is going to make you more richly happy when you get to heaven. I don't believe that everyone.

Let me start that again. I don't believe that anyone is going to be unhappy in heaven, but I don't believe that everyone is going to be equally happy in heaven. I believe that there are going to be rewards and that they're going to be rewards for the works that have been done on earth and for the cultivation of character that has been done on earth. I believe that there are some people who are going to be more prepared to live happily in heaven right away. And I suppose I just have to imagine that everyone is going to have opportunity to become increasingly more and more happy as they live in heaven. But there are some people who cultivate this. It's not just a few super Christians.

It can be all of you Christians in this room. That if you are cultivating this kind of character, then you are going to arrive at heaven and say, wow, this is better than I ever dreamed. And I'm so happy to be here. I, as I was thinking about an illustration for this, I thought about my own experience among you this week. I've never met most of you before, but when we when we get together, then there's already so much that we have in common that there's just a comfort and a joy.

And we get along well. And of course, they're going to be this and that that we disagree on. But for the most part, our characters are ready to mesh before we ever met.

And I think that's what is being explained here. You're going to have a character that is really going to be a rich entrance into heaven, into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I think that people who have this character implanted in them have already entered into the kingdom of God, that the kingdom of God is now.

And so I think the eternal kingdom of God here is referring to what's going to happen in heaven. I'm reminded of a proverb. It's not in the Bible, but it's one of my favorites.

It's it's strengthened me and helped me a lot through life. It says the stone that is fit for the wall will not be left to lie in the ditch. The stone that is fit for the wall will not be left to lie in the ditch. It's a it's a proverb that relies upon some knowledge of building a wall.

Maybe you've done something like that and you've had all these stones scattered about. And and here is a place in the wall that you need just exactly a rock that is square, but a little bit deeper on one side than the other. And so you look at your rocks that you have and there is the perfect one.

And you get that perfect one. You put it right there in the wall. Well, God in this illustration is the great wall builder and he is building his church on earth and he is building his family in heaven. And this chapter tells us about ways that we can ready ourselves and chisel ourselves. And in our various circumstances, cultivate faith and virtue and then so on through all the qualities that are mentioned here.

We can cultivate those things. And my rock doesn't look exactly like your rock. But thank God because there is a place in the wall for your rock.

There is a place in the wall where I'm going to fit. And this passage teaches us that the stone that is fit for the wall is not going to be left to lie in the ditch. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so be diligent to cultivate these character qualities for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall and there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.