They were gifted but not fruitful.
That should alarm all of us. Wait a minute. I can have a gift from God and be unfruitful? Sure you can. You bury it.
Tarnish it by exposing it to things it should never be exposed to. They were enthusiastic but ineffective. You mean I can have all this zeal singing songs and really do nothing with my faith after that? That was many of them in Corinth.
They were saved but still problematic. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2nd Peter.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in 2nd Peter chapter 1 as he continues his message pertaining to life. Sin is just beating the mess out of them. Temptation. Daily. They fail.
Daily. And Satan says you're worthless. It's proof you're not saved. The fruit of the Spirit is self-controlled and you don't have it. Jesus responds with just this, I will not throw you out. Argument over. Romans chapter 8, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
It won't stick. The blood of the Lamb. This is the precious promise that Peter's talking about. He says who are not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit because they're born again. Doesn't mean sinless. It means that they hate sin. The flesh loves it.
Flesh loves to indulge itself. God's truth is a dividing force. That's why when Jesus said don't think I came to bring peace, I came to bring a sword. His truth is going to divide. You believe that.
Well I don't. Division. It could be a husband and wife. It could be two friends. It doesn't matter.
It could be a mother and a child, a father and a child, doesn't matter. You line up with Christ or you're divided. That is the idea. And the end of God's truth, the end of it, at the end of it, it's not wisdom.
That's part that's in there. That's the goal of philosophers and man, to understand man, to gain wisdom. At the end of God's truth is holiness, is purity, is the world with no more pain or sorrow or doubt or fear or anything that hurts, no more cowardice.
Everything that is rotten is gone. This is the first step and this life is just that. It is a step, the first one. The second one comes when we breathe our last or are taken up in a rapture. God's word.
It forces us to choose, not to integrate, not to say, wait, you know what, you've got some good... And many men have done this. They've advanced in their learning and they started looking into other religions to see what they could glean and have become heretics in so doing it. Thinking that they're broadening their horizons, expanding their knowledge, they are knowledge of things that is wrong. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. It is through God's word. That's it. How many churches don't want to touch this stuff?
Why not? Partakers of divine nature. Well, we're born in sin with an endemic nature. We are born like Adam, just man without the Holy Spirit after the fall.
We shall be resurrected like Christ. By natural birth, we are born sinners. Psalm 51 verse 5, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and my sin, my mother conceived me in sin. But there's more to the story because of our godly nation.
Listen to what Isaiah says. I've read this verse so many times and I was reading it the other day in my devotions and it just took new life for me. For our transgressions are multiplied before you and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us. And as for our iniquities, we know them.
You get that? The prophet says, let's not play games here with God. And yet, the prophet goes on to say in a few chapters later, God will look on this, on the one who has a contrite heart, on the things that matter to God. That's the one that receives the mercy. So these two natures, they war against each other.
We know that. The scriptures, just read Romans chapter 7, you get a full dose there. He says, having escaped here in verse 4, the corruption that is in the world through lust. Well, believers receive salvation and instruction if we like. 2 Timothy chapter 3, all scripture is breathed by God. That is the proper use of the Greek, how it was penned by Paul.
It is breathed by God. Without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is just a book, just like Adam was just a lump of clay until God breathed into Adam and gave him life and Adam became a living being. And he was formed and fashioned without sin. All scriptures given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, for instruction in righteousness.
I get it from scripture that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Now, those who do not believe in the Bible, they have flashes of what is good and what is decent and wholesome. It's just disconnected from God and therefore highly problematic.
What makes it problematic for us, of course, is the sinful nature that won't go away in this life. He mentions here about escaping the lust, having escaped the corruption that is in this world through lust. Lust is a corrupting element. Nothing matters to lust but indulgence, not satisfaction. It cannot be satisfied. It can be full for a while and then the urges come back again.
It is insatiable and we all have it in some form. Verse 5, for also, for this reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue to virtue knowledge. But also for this reason, God's instruction, the salvation that we have. Growth in Christ, it needs knowledge. You need knowledge to grow in Christ. It's not one of the, I don't know of anything in life where you just know it.
As far as crafts, skills go, you have to develop them and be taught or teach yourself. But in Christ, it is the knowledge of Christ that comes through the Holy Spirit. And so he's going to now give us the components of our faith. The church in Corinth, the church that I would not have wanted to attend. If I had a church in another state and someone came from the church in Corinth, I'd have my eye on them because there was a lot of problems there and that's what people do. They bring their problems if they don't get them fixed into the next church and can corrupt it if not careful. What if you were a pastor of the church at Philadelphia and someone from the church at Laodicea has moved to your area? The church that Jesus said, you're nauseating. You're making me sick the way you carry about in my name. Or the church at Sardis, you got a name that you're alive but I say you're dead. Or how about Thyatira and Pergamos that were harboring heretics and sexual immorality and then they want to come to the church at Philadelphia. They're going to bring that with them, most of them. This is a problem to this day.
What do we do? We'll preach the word because the word washes, it regenerates and they'll either not like it and leave or they will start being refreshed and made strong, not because of the people so much as the word of God working through his people. But here, these components of faith. Corinth lacked no spiritual gift, we are told. But many were carnal and immature in that church. Just read the first Corinthian letter. The first nine chapters are dealing with correcting them. They were gifted but not fruitful.
That should alarm all of us. Wait a minute, I can have a gift from God and be unfruitful? Sure you can. You bury it.
You tarnish it by exposing it to things it should never be exposed to. They were enthusiastic but ineffective. You mean I can have all this zeal singing songs and really do nothing with my faith after that? That was many of them in Corinth. They were saved but still problematic.
In other words, they were a headache to other people. They were not helping the cause of the gospel, they were hurting it. Even though they were gifted, enthusiastic and saved.
These are lessons for us. Jesus said I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. John's gospel chapter 15 verse 16. And so these components here that Peter lists are largely missing or were missing in the lives of those in Corinth and many today.
Here's something Dr. James Orr, well I should just say James Orr, because anyway, he's now with the Lord, a very scholastic man. He says I shudder when I hear people talk about this unrelated to commitment. He's talking about the Holy Spirit. People think that they can have power of the Holy Spirit without living holy lives.
Doesn't mean perfect lives. It just means you have a filter and when something is wrong, you don't pretend that it's okay, that it's acceptable, that it's something you can somehow work into the faith. Oh the culture is doing it, let's us Christians follow them.
Any fad that comes out is usually our indication to go the other way, to stand against it with a reason for the hope that is in us with meekness and respect. Giving all diligence, Peter says here in verse 5. The life in Christ is serious.
It can be intense. It should have intense moments when faced with the enemy and the flesh, the world, and ourselves, though the flesh is ourselves, the flesh, the world, and Satan. But a sense of holiness should produce a sense of diligence, hard work.
Action, you might say. Psalm or Proverbs 18 verse 9. He who is slothful at his work is a brother to him who is a great destroyer.
Revelations, we read about the destroyer as being destroyed. I don't want to help the enemy's causes. There are times when through weakness I will.
There's never, never something that I have signed off on. To embark on the Christian life without hard work is to be fruitless. He says add to your faith virtue.
Put this in your backpack. Load up with this virtue. Again, we had it in verse 3.
We get it here again in verse 5 twice. It is that word for valor, brave living by truth, faith, and love in that order. Because what love do you have if you don't have truth? The world has forms of love, but it's not agape love. And if you have truth but no trust in God, then the truth is meaningless.
So you really cannot get to exercise love. Truth, faith, and love. It has to flow that way. A higher life, a higher behavior, a higher outlook. That's what we pursue. Colossians 3, Paul said this, if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. You older saints, maybe you've been walking with the Lord for years and you feel like, you know, the Bible is really rhetoric. It has a lot of high things it says, but they really cannot be achieved. Yeah, well you go with that, Ray, if you want. I disagree. I look at men like Caleb.
Maybe I'll do a topical on this. Caleb said, give me that mountain. Now I started out as a Christian looking at verses like that.
Clauses in verses, yes. I like that. I want that.
It's right. It's from God. And then set out to do them and meet with so much failure. But if it weren't for those verses appealing to me, I don't think God could have used me much more. I think if I had the attitude which, yeah, go try to take that mountain. You'll go try to cast out. They have iron chariots up in that area.
They have better armies than us. I think if I had the attitude when I came to scriptures saying, well, you know, that's just too hard to do, I'll just settle for the things I like. I don't think God would have used me much more. And so if you are an older saint and you've been exposed to the scripture for many decades and you've stepped out and now you feel stepped on and so you've downsized your zeal because it's too painful to stay zealous and be defeated, I encourage you to retain that zeal.
Set your mind on high things. Don't be knocked out of the fight. Why are we ever surprised that Satan attacks us? I mean, could you imagine troops out in the field being surprised? They're being, you know, artilleries coming their way?
Why would we do that? Now, I have to add, when I am under attack, I get angry and I have to be careful because if I'm not, that anger will be directed at God because in His sovereignty, He has allowed this and I don't like that He has done it. And so, I have to look for virtue, for valor, whatever I'm faced with. That's the way it is. And anything less is disaster. And it will add up.
It will affect other people. You know, would you, there's only one lamb that could lead me into battle. That is the Lamb of God who is the Lion of Judah. He's a lion again. He is the Lion of God who is the Lion of Israel. He's a lion against his enemies. He's a lamb for his people.
And if you were to tell me any other lamb could lead me into battle, I'm not going. So, to virtue, add to virtue. What else does virtue get? It gets knowledge or else it's misdirected.
Your valor is misdirected like the world. The world has some very brave and courageous people in it who are also not right with Christ. We learn what God says is true and good and we act on it. We are called to increase knowledge, to be useful in His causes.
Ignorant worship brings no glory to God. This word for knowledge here is gnosis. That is to learn by effort through study, through experience, through contact. As opposed to another Greek word that Peter did not use, oida, which means effortless knowledge, perception. You got it.
You didn't have to do anything. Oh, I see that. Here, it is the, when he says, to your virtue, knowledge, he's saying, work, you have to labor for this type of knowledge. Verse 6, to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance, to perseverance, godliness.
Okay, so I've learned something about Jesus Christ and then I get in my truck and there you are on the road doing what you do, getting in my way. We all chuckle because we know that there are just things that set us off. We know better. We have the knowledge.
It's not enough. Know-it-alls, for example, who don't know it all, because if they did know it all, they'd know that nobody likes them being a know-it-all, but they don't know that. Self-control does not tell them how much we hate what they're doing in a very mean way. Knowledge, Solomon had vast amounts of knowledge, but his personal life was engulfed with spiritual scandal. 1 Kings 11, for it was so when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not loyal to Yahweh, his God, as was the heart of his father David. You see the contrast. You see a contrast between a Caleb and a David. They had their mistakes.
They recovered, but they did not turn away. Solomon tolerated the wickedness that was around him. He helped it along, and this is the report we get about him, because he began to think, well, the Bible is really not all that. Is that what was happening with Solomon?
Did he say, I tried it and it didn't work? Is your faith experience-based or faith-based? Faith, again, has an experience within it that is unseen and is more real than anything because it is eternal.
It comes from God's throne. When those disciples saw the risen God, there was no going back. When they saw Christ risen, no going back for them. But even before that, that faith that was invested in them was busy at work in those three dark days of, probably the darkest days of their lives.
Solomon failed to add self-control to his knowledge, and that's what happened to him. It is evident of the Spirit's work when we pursue self-control, which is better judgment, of course. Ruth, again, chapter 2, and she said, please, let me glean and gather, Ruth speaking, after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came, has continued, from morning until now, though she rested a little while in the house.
This was a report given to Boaz about Ruth. She came and she continued from morning until now. Now here's the self-control, though she rested for a little while.
Instead of being thick-headed, I've got to get more, I've got to get more, she had a common sense enough to get out of the sun and take a break. Self-control, add to that perseverance or patience. Patience.
What do you say about it? It's elusive as anything. It's easier to catch a butterfly than it is patience sometimes, because it's one thing that no one helps you with. Can any, when someone says calm down, that just pours gasoline on it.
No, I won't calm down. Romans 8, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life, and it is peace. If you believe that, then you have an internal system that begins to work in the midst of troubles. And we could go on with the scripture verses. He says, to perseverance godliness, which is Christ's likeness. Godliness, Christ's likeness, is supposed to be helpful to yourselves and others too. In verse 7, he says, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. The word for brotherly kindness is Philadelphia.
It's made of two Greek words, brother and philo, which is a form of love. It's a lesser love than agape. It's a good love. It's a very important love, but it's not as high as agape. What Peter is saying is, you need to be kind to one another with this brotherly kindness, but it's not good enough. It's not good enough that we Christians is not enough that we have brotherly kindness. You must have agape with it. So the second word, love, here is agape. And so what he is saying in verse 7, to your philo, your lower love, which is good and necessary, add to that a higher love.
He's just pouring it out on them. Now they understood the Greek. When the letter was written, they got it.
They got it. They didn't have to have a Greek-English concordance like we do. Love is known by what it does or does not do. And to brotherly kindness, love, a love that doesn't pick and choose.
Well, and let me correct that or qualify it. Our love is to pick and choose. It is to pick Jesus Christ. It is to choose his way. That is agape love. Not pick and choose who I'm going to love and when I'm going to love them. We are to love even our enemies. What does that mean? It means spiritually we have their interests at heart.
Any of you Christians here don't answer, please. Struggle with a biting tongue. You snide with other Christians even. You get your little remark in and you scurry off before they can really bust you upside your head. You take these cheap shots at people.
You're critical of everyone. How do you fight that? Well, I have found that there is a protocol, a spiritual protocol against that. If you pray for the people that you're so quick to criticize and snap at, including maybe you've got a family member that they grate on you, pray for them. You find out what happens if you can keep that up.
Maybe it won't work that same day. You keep at it in genuine prayer. This is how we love our enemy. You got somebody at work that's a bully or just a, if you weren't a Christian, you would hate their guts.
You have to pray for them, for their soul. Verse 8, for if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If these things are yours and abound, if they break loose, if they're not just pent up inside as a theory. What things? Diligence added to faith.
Not enough to have faith. You've got to add something to it. Virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, super love. What else?
What should he be saying? Go seek out your enemies and destroy them? That's not Christianity.
Unfortunately, with a search warrant, I don't think you can find some of these qualities in some that profess Christ. That's a tragedy. He says you will neither be barren nor unfruitful. Growth is work. It takes time.
It takes exposure to the elements. That is Christian growth. We're no different from the grape on the vine in that sense. In the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, here's a surprise, maybe for some. Christianity is Christ. That's what Christianity is. We are his body.
We are joined to him inseparably. Peter hits this knowledge of God in 2 Peter 1, 2, verse 3, knowledge of him called by glory and virtue. And here, verse 8, knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, you can reference Jeremiah 9, 23, 24.
If you want something to boast in, there it is. 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 2 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 YouTube channel, 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-24 09:17:33 / 2024-03-24 09:27:03 / 10