Keeping Sight of Christ (Part A)

AW Tozier writes, he says, think of yourself like this. Do not let the world or books of psychology tell you who you are. Go to God's Word and find out what you are as a believing man or woman and as a Christian, a follower of Christ. You belong to a royal priesthood, your identity. Who are you? Who am I?

How do I find this answer? I can try to blaze my own trail, but what would God have to say about that, me blazing a trail about my identity without him? Well, that's what the world does. Today, Pastor Rick will continue teaching through the book of 2 Peter chapter 1 with a brand new message called, Keeping Sight of Christ. Welcome to the house of the Lord. You have your Bibles.

We're in 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 9 through 15. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted even to blindness and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For this reason, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.

Yes, I think it is right as long as I am in this tent to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover, I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. These words, they may appear uninspiring.

We stopped mid-paragraph last session, and so we're picking up mid-paragraph. But these words are twice written in blood. They're written, of course, in the blood of Jesus Christ that had not been for his death on a cross, his resurrection, and presence. There would be no 2 Peter. There would be no Peter, salvation, to speak of. And then there is the blood of Peter himself, who not long after these words that he wrote to the Christians, he himself was crucified. It is believed. He was certainly martyred.

We have no doubt about that. And the passion that goes into them, it wasn't an issue for Peter to be martyred for Christ. He was concerned with the believers who were being persecuted externally and physically by the state, Roman Empire that is, and then, of course, they were being attacked from within by false teachers. So we go back a little bit to set it up, those critical verses. This morning, I've entitled this consideration, Keeping Sight of Christ. In verse 3, Peter points out that there are things that Christ has given to us that we're supposed to do something with.

We're not just to hoard these things. Verse 3, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us, there it is again a second time, verse 4, exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So he says Christ has given us the power. He energizes us for those things that we face in life.

They are virtuous things. They are accompanied by promises that are great and given to us also that we could be partakers of the divine nature, Christ-like. And so we look now at these components that he has listed in the earlier verses. These components here are for our cooperation with Christ, which every Christian has to say, do I cooperate with Christ or am I resisting him? Verse 9, for he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from old sins.

What things, in verse 9, for he who lacks these things? He listed them in verses 5-7, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love. These he said through hard work, add to your faith. By diligence, add to your faith these things. Not enough to just say I believe in Christ. Add to that and it's going to take work, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love.

It needs to be repeated. It's so important. These are components of faith. And to keep sight of Christ, we have to work for these things. He mentions here, he says, for he who lacks these things is short-sighted, mentally, cannot see.

That's what the Greek word means there, that he cannot see it. He's speaking of the believer. He's speaking to believers, those who have lost sight of these things, those who are not paying attention any longer, those whose grip is being loosed from the values of our faith. He's speaking to, especially, the believer who has lost sight or is losing sight of their identity in Christ.

We hear a lot of nonsense about identity today, you know, people identifying with fish and other things, you know, whatever it is. It's just insane. That's what Satan does. He takes something that is sane and he tries to ruin it in some way.

He leavens the lump. You know, we call chocolate foods good. We also call them deviled foods, deviled foods cake.

The reason why is because you've added to the flour, the chocolate, and the chocolate has changed it. And that's sort of like what the devil does. He takes something and he adds to it and he changes it. In that context, I mean, there's nothing wrong with eating, we call it angel food in my house because we just don't want to give any honor to the devil, but the idea is nothing wrong with, yeah, maybe there's something wrong with eating chocolate, you should just give it to me and you won't have the problem. How do you think of yourself as Christians?

I think we touched on this last session. As a Christian, how do you think of yourself? A.W. Tozier writes, he says, think of yourself like this, do not let the world or books of psychology tell you who you are. Go to God's word and find out what you are as a believing man or woman and as a Christian, a follower of Christ. You belong to a royal priesthood, your identity. Who are you? Who am I?

How do I find this answer? I can try to blaze my own trail, but what would God have to say about that, me blazing a trail about my identity without him? Well, that's what the world does. So when Peter says, for he who lacks these things is short-sighted, he doesn't see far enough, he's blind. He says, even to blindness, and that word blindness now is a composite word in the Greek, it means to shut the eyes as though you were squinting to see because your vision's not, you can't see it. And those of us who were, well, we who are of the four-eye clan, we take our, two of our eyes away and leave us with the other two and we squint to see everything.

Squinting is, actually the Greek word is myopic, where we get our English word, myopic. And that is, you lack the ability to see, you're not very creative. He continues, he says, and as forgotten, he was cleansed from his old sins. Let me say this, you know, preaching, the adventure of preaching, it's not difficult for someone to study up on the scripture, step into a pulpit, and emotionally stir you up. There are times when that presents itself, it's not intentional, I'm not going to go up and I'm going to play with their feelings.

And that would be wrong. But to go through the whole word of God is critical because it appeals to more than just my feelings and what I think I want to hear. And so the preacher has to say, God, what do you want to say from this text?

How do you want to say it? How is this to be presented? And the congregation has a responsibility too, because you don't come to God's house to be entertained. It may be entertaining at moments, but that's not your purpose. Your purpose is first to come and worship God and second to hear from God, understanding that he has established a system by which he preaches to an entire flock through a single character or characters, if you count in other dynamics within the body of Christ. This is fellowship hall. If someone may say a word in season to you, they might not even know they're preaching to you.

They just say something that they felt they had to say, maybe not even directly to you, and you catch it though. You understand this is God. So, my point is, Peter, in writing this letter, he is not looking to stir them up emotionally, though he knows some of that will be there when he gets to the part about his death. He doesn't come to that, but at the moment, keeping sight of these things, he says that about the person who's lost sight has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Taken together, they're losing sight of their salvation, this passage of being short-sighted and blind.

Taking those two things together, they're losing the grip. Subsequently, their identity in Christ. This ain't going to be good.

It's going to be tragic. Remember, Israel, out of Egypt, put under the blood. The blood of the lamb put on the lentils of the door, the passageway, the portal out, the portal in. They were brought through the water as the sea parted for them to pass through, and they marched in triumph out of Egypt through the water into the wilderness with the destination in mind, the promised land, which most of them did not make it to. They fed upon the manna.

They drank water from the rock. They saw miracles. They were brought to Mount Sinai, and they were taught how to behave before God and amongst each other as a redeemed people should behave. God did not say, well, you know how to treat everybody nicely. No, that wasn't good enough. God knew that.

He laid it out in what we call the law. But most of them never grew up. They never learned to walk by faith instead of sight.

They never entered into the promised land of Canaan. Instead, they murmured. They complained. They criticized. They found fault with their leaders.

At every turn, they were problematic. They attacked Moses. They attacked Aaron. They full out rebelled until the ground had to open up and swallow the ringleaders of that movement against what God was doing. They provoked God, so at last he condemned a great majority of them to wander in the wilderness until all but two of them were dead and gone.

Their carcasses littered the desert, all because they lost sight. They lost sight of the hand of God in their lives. When something happened and they didn't like it, they felt that that gave them ground to protest instead of just shutting their mouth and trusting God or opening their mouth to praise him nonetheless, as Job did. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Bible says twice, in all this, Job did not sin with his mouth. He did not charge God with wrong. He did it when he lost his possessions. He did it after he lost his sons and his daughters. Exodus chapter 16, and the children of Israel said to them, Oh, that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full.

Oh, you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. They lost sight of God. They weren't walking by faith at all. Were they so foolish to nostalgically look back at Egypt where their boys were being murdered out of the womb? Were they that dumb that they were being enslaved and killed? So they romanticized bondage. Oh, it was glorious back then.

No, it was not. And if they were put back into slavery, they would have protested that too. They'd forgotten about their taskmasters and the sentences of death on them. They lost sight of reality because they lost sight of God. You cannot separate God from reality.

They go together. This is what Jesus was saying. If you're going to worship me, you're going to worship me in spirit and truth.

Not with idols and trinkets and something you made up, but with spirit and truth. What is so difficult about that humanity? Well, apparently, it is very difficult because of sin. Peter did not want them to do this with their salvation. He did not want them to lose sight and so he calls them out, those who were guilty. He said, you're short-sighted, you're blind. If you're missing this, if you've lost the interest in virtue and self-control and love and kindness and the things that he itemized, you're short-sighted and you're losing sight of salvation.

Because you're losing sight of the Savior. In verse 10, he continues, he said, therefore, linking it together, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. That's what he says, you will never stumble. So the first part, therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. He says, you've got to exert yourself.

You're going to have to work for this. Oh, no, Jesus did all the dying. I just have grace. I don't have to do anything. I can sin.

I have grace. I don't have to practice what is preached by Christ or anybody else. I just have to enjoy my salvation. Who would ever verbalize such a foolish thing?

All the antinomians, the group of those that are lawless. We must exert ourselves once we are saved in the cause of Christ. The writer of the Hebrews says, but, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Remember, when we went through Hebrews, that was an outstanding word. Better. Better than Moses. Better than everything.

Better was all over the Hebrew letter. And here is one of them. We're confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation.

These things that go with it. It's not enough to say I'm saved. That's critical. God expects more because he has his eyes on others getting saved.

And if the saved do not behave as though they're saved, who wants to be saved? By the sweat of the brow, everything in this life, every good thing comes by the sweat of the brow. The essentials also takes hard work to achieve anything worthwhile in life. Very seldom is something just given to us.

And then even if it is, there's a string attached. Oftentimes, how am I going to, am I going to become spoiled? Am I going to feel like that I am entitled to this now? We have to work on our own heart, and we have to work within the surroundings that God has placed us in. When Solomon writes, like a lily among thorns, so is my beloved. It's Christ saying to his church, you're the lily planted among thorns, and you are to blossom like a lily even though you are there with the thorns. It's just, well, I should be amongst other lilies.

Well, you're not. So what are you going to do? You're going to try to look like one of the thorns that you planted around? At the workplace, if you have nothing, you're saddled with rank unbelievers, not just decent unbelievers, but indecent ones, you're the lily among the thorns.

And you are either going to blossom and show it off, let your light shine that is, or you are going to succumb to your surroundings. And so we ask, what does Christ have to do to get me to cooperate? He saves us.

He sends the Holy Spirit through even other believers, through the body of Christ, which is the church. What do I have to do to fulfill my obligations? I've got to work. I've got to accept this and not be terrified from it. The sloth, the Bible has much to say about the sloth, and it is not a virtue. It is a liability.

It is something that every single one of us have to guard against. Verse 11, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. An entrance into the kingdom. Well, before I go on, let me just touch on this, going back to verse 10 a minute, where he mentions, make your call and election sure. There are those that I think take scripture and boil it down to the point where there's nothing left.

And they create these doctrines that they say are in the scripture that are not. You have been elected by God. That is true. But it is not just because God says, you know, I like you and I don't like him. I've called you to heaven, but I'm sending you to hell because I don't like you. It's not that way. They make it sound that way, believe it or not. From the foundations of the world, it has been ordained that you're elected.

Well, every election is based on information amongst intelligent people. And I am elected by Christ because I submitted to his invitation. I received it. I responded to it. I did not reject his invitation. And it is a calling. We are invited.

And once we receive it, our election is ours, as long as we want it. And this causes a lot of problems because many Christians, I find, many of us, I should say, are paranoid about our salvation. Why? I thought the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sins. Why am I paranoid when I hear about other believers who claim to be believers and reject Christ and become apostates?

Personally, I believe many of them were true believers. This is very difficult for some to take because somehow they think and they go screaming from the church, crying bloody murder. Somehow they suppose that once you're saved, you're always saved. If you preach anything against that, you are wrong and hurting someone.

How is that? You know, Judas Iscariot went out preaching the gospel, healing people. He was used by Christ just like all the others were. Well, they were never saved. Well, then how about you? Are you saved? You see how that undermines blessed assurance?

I don't need any of that. I don't need scholars to tell me any of that. When I came to Christ as an individual that never heard of these people, I was sure that Christ loved me, that He saved me, that I could be His as long as I want to, even if I wanted to, for all eternity. And it wasn't until years later, reading books and other things, that all these other ideas started coming into my head. I remember as a young Christian asking an older Christian, do you believe in once saved, always saved, as though this was so important?

And all it was was a distraction. Christ says to me, are you going to leave? Where else am I going to go? You have the words of life. I don't need all of those arguments. I need a simple faith. I need a faith that I can walk by.

I need a faith that is based on truth, and that will keep me busy all my life and bring fruit. And I have to point that out, because there may be some that want to hear these doctrines preached every time they see the word election, or the word sovereignty, or the word predestination. They want to hear some pet doctrine preached, and I don't do that.

I try not to do that. I just want to enjoy what Christ has left us in his word, and I think there's enough here to enjoy and keep me busy. And when I say keep me busy, I struggle with God often in prayer about why things are the way they are. Intellectually, I know why they are the way they are, but I don't like it.

And I just have to talk to him about these things, and he lets me talk to him, and then I'm up off my knees, and I'm off doing what I know I'm supposed to do as best I can do it. I don't find any system of faith on earth that can come close to this. When I came to Christ, it was because there's nothing like this.

There's no one like him. And I don't need anybody. Well, anyway, I do need people. I like to think I don't. But we all, we need each other.

No way around that. But I don't need folks to complicate the faith for me. And so I hope that you're not frightened by that. And I say this because just recently we just saw an author of a popular Christian book renounce the faith. I'm not going to say, well, he was never saved, because then that would jeopardize your salvation and my salvation. Then you're not. How do you know you're saved? Well, I know I'm saved because I know who I believe in. So I hope I didn't have a rant there.

It's very difficult to communicate these things thoroughly and in a short period of time get to the point and do it effectively without unnecessarily crushing or insulting someone. Well, let's go back. Verse 11, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Here is the assurance of the believer.

He's saying, if you're going to be short sighted and blind, you're going to lose your grip. You're supposed to enter in. Entrance has been supplied to you abundantly to the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's all we have time for on today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. You've been listening to Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia as he teaches through the book of Second Peter. If you'd like to listen to more messages from this series, or if you'd like more information about this program, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music or your favorite podcast app. What a great way to keep God's word with you wherever you go. We hope you'll tune in again next time as Pastor Rick continues studying through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.