2 Peter: Effective and Faithul Fruit

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. 2 Peter 1 5-7 says to make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and add to perseverance godliness, and to godliness mutual affection, and to mutual affection love. In today's message, Pastor Rich reminds us that all of these qualities are directly tied to our attitudes and our affections. We cannot develop these qualities through personal willpower.

It's not about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. No, only Christ can work such change in us. As we know and remember the riches of His grace, He transforms our attitudes and our affections so that we can live fully for Him, not out of duty, but from a free and grateful heart.

Let's listen in. Would you please turn in your copy of the scripture to 2 Peter 1 verses 3-10. 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. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. Father, as we enter into this portion of our worship service together, God, we pray that as Pastor Rich opens your word to us, through your spirit, through the hearing of your word, the teaching of your word, we would be more conformed to the image of your son Jesus Christ. Specifically, Lord, through this series that we would be people who remember.

We would live as people who remember. Remember everything you've done. Remember your precious and very great promises that may keep us from being unfruitful or ineffective in the work that you have called us to do. We pray that this time would glorify you, it would benefit us as people who remember. And it's in your son's name we pray. Amen. Good morning, church.

Glad to see you are here. You are living as people who remember because you remember we're supposed to be here this morning. So the series is in 2 Peter, the text that Chris just read. We're going through the whole letter of 2 Peter. And there's a mini sub-series within this and it's verses 3 through 15 and that sub-series in this letter is called Get Stirred Up. Get Stirred Up. It's the idea of get stirred up from a slumber, to wake up. You don't slumber through your Christian walk. Get stirred up, he says.

Look what he says in verse 13. I think it right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder. We need to be living as people who remember because if we forget who we are, if we forget what God has done, these wonderful things we just sang about. And I need my bottle of water up here this morning because I was singing so hard, I'm like, I'm losing my voice. That's great singing. It's great music.

Great message in the music. That is a wonderful way to remember who God is and what he's done and that's what we need to constantly be doing because we tend to forget. We do. We tend to forget. So Peter is calling us constantly to remember and he knows that he's going to be leaving the scene pretty soon and he wants to make sure that God's people have plenty of reminders in their lives so that we remember who God is, what he's done in Christ and who we are in Christ.

Because if we forget who we are in Christ, then we're not going to be living like we're in Christ, missing our identity. And so we're going to be looking at verses 8 to 9, 8 and 9 today, which comes right on the heels of 5, 6 and 7. I know you know that, but 5, 6 and 7 is that stair step of spiritual growth. That's what we're going to be talking about today is spiritual growth, the discipline of spiritual growth. And that's that stair step in 5, 6 and 7. And if we are engaging in spiritual growth, and there is a responsibility on our part for that.

It is by the grace of God and we need to understand that, but there is a part that I have of spiritual discipline in the process of spiritual growth. That's what we're looking at today. And so today, the title of today's message is Effective and Fruitful. Let's look again at verses 5, 6 and 7.

For this very reason, now, here's Dwight down on the front row, contacts this king, for what very reason? All of his great and very precious promises, or precious and very great promises, all of them. The redemption that is ours in Jesus. Here it is, what God did for our salvation in Christ. For this very reason, verse 5, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

You see what forgetting does. You see in that text, the discipline, the spiritual discipline of spiritual growth. So in verses 5 to 7, what we just read, these qualities of verses 5 to 7 are directly tied to your attitudes and your affections, which are informed by knowing and remembering our riches in Christ, the riches of his grace. Do you know the riches of his grace? You should read Ephesians 1 to 3 over and over and over again.

What are the riches of his grace? Notice in these verses, he's not talking about actions, he's not talking about duties. He's talking about qualities, your state of being as one who is in Christ. He says if these qualities are yours, in other words, they characterize your life, they characterize your walk, not only are they yours, but they're increasing. You are growing, they are abounding, they're multiplying, these qualities are multiplying. That requires our, first of all, remembering, and secondly, our discipline in remembering and exercising these qualities. Building, developing these qualities in our life. We cannot build these qualities if we're not remembering.

And you can't remember them if you don't first know them. They're increasing, they're multiplying, they're abounding. It's a continual development, it's spiritual progress in the Christian's life. Because God has a goal for us, Romans 8 29, we've been predestined to be what?

Conformed to the image of his son. Did you know that's God's will for you? How many of you have been looking for God's will? I'm going to tell you God's will right now.

It is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That's the work that God is doing in you. Philippians 1 6, he who began a good work in you will what? Complete it.

He will continue it, he will complete it. You will one day look in character, you will look just like Jesus Christ. That's God's plan for you, it's his will for you. In the book of Colossians, Paul talks to the people at the church at Colossae, he says, as a pastor teacher, as a shepherd, it is my role to bring you to completeness, to bring you to maturity, every one of you. The assumption of spiritual growth and maturity for every follower of Jesus Christ. In fact, as Jesus was talking in Matthew chapters 5 and 6, he said, if you love your enemies, pray for those who persecute, he says, then you will be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.

That's a pretty high bar, isn't it? And it's a word for maturity, it's the purpose for which you were designed. God made you for this. This is his will for you, so it is the assumption. So as we continue in this, we're talking about a useful and productive faith.

Let me ask you a question right now. If you were to ask yourself, evaluate your own faith right now, ask yourself this question, is my faith useful and productive? Or am I just kind of coasting? Or am I still trying to figure out what it's all about? If you're in Christ, we are called to a useful and productive faith. I want to talk, first of all, about a biblical assumption. When the Bible refers to a believer, one who is in Christ, a committed follower of Jesus Christ, there is an assumption that goes with that. And the assumption is this, is that the follower of Jesus is growing spiritually. The biblical assumption is that the follower of Jesus is growing spiritually.

Say, Rich, where do you get that? Well, look what he says here in verse 8. Look at verse 8 again with me. He says, if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful. The natural expectation is that one who is following Jesus is in fact becoming more like Jesus. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in Him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on Weekdays at 10 a.m.