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. This is part three of a message titled Effective and Fruitful Faith.
It was first preached on June 11, 2023 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Your salvation in Christ is like going down to North Point Dodge Ram, right? You get this shiny new truck.
It's got all the accessories on it. You take it in, you park it in the garage. You're so proud of that thing. The next day, you've lost the key fob.
You have no idea where it is. So now, the only thing you're doing is every Sunday, you push it out of the garage, you call the neighbors around, you polish that thing up, you celebrate that thing, you talk about how wonderful it is. And then you push it back in the garage and the rest of the week.
It just sits there. Is that what we do with our walk with God? Let me ask you this question. Is the only time you consider and engage and evaluate your walk with God is Sunday morning? If that's the case, listen to me. You're drifting. You're drifting. You're pushing that shiny new Dodge truck out of the garage and you're polishing it up, you're celebrating it, you're talking about it, you're singing its praises.
But when we're done, you push it back in the garage and you go on with the rest of your week and don't even give a thought about it. I love Jeff Wuder's class this morning. A jealous love for God.
It was so good. Very, very powerful. This is what God wants from us, what He desires from us. When we truly know Him for who He is, we're not going to drift.
What does He say here? Verse 9, look at verse 9, for whoever lacks these qualities, again, the qualities of verses 5, 6, and 7, whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. That's spiritual atrophy.
You lack these qualities. You become ineffective. You become useless in your faith. Your faith becomes useless to you. It's just something you have, but it really doesn't make a difference in your life. Who wants that?
Nobody's got time for that. That's when going to church becomes a drudgery. Nearsighted. He says nearsighted and blind.
In other words, you see dimly. You are out of focus. You've lost track of your history. You've lost track of your status in Christ. You've lost track of those precious and very great promises. You've lost track of the fact that you have experienced the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Spirit.
You've lost track of that. And what becomes of you? Here's a couple of things that might become true of you. You work hard at spiritual service to overcome guilt and redeem yourself. That's a place we tend to go because it's a natural human way of thinking. When I've lost track of the gospel of grace, I tend to drift toward having to redeem myself. It's idolatry.
You cannot redeem yourself. Or, if you become nearsighted and blind, your pursuits, your daily pursuits, your weekly pursuits are more about the here and now, and you're more preoccupied with self-gratification or immediate gratification. This is where, if anybody was in Jeff Wooder's class, they're going to think, you guys are comparing notes. Know this, Jeff prayed that his teaching and the message this morning would be hand in glove, and God's answering that prayer. I love it when God does that. He does that with the music all the time.
The music that we sing goes hand in glove with what we're learning from the Word of God. Are you nearsighted and blind? Are you becoming blind in your faith, where you lose sight of what God has done, of who you are in Christ? You've lost sight of the goal.
And when you lose sight of the goal, you lose motivation. Not only nearsighted and blind, as he says, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins, forgetful, you lose sight of the goodness of God. Are you here this morning questioning the goodness of God? If you are in Christ, if you're not in Christ, you may be one who's questioning the goodness of God. I'm here to report to you, God is good, and to invite you taste and see that the Lord is good. But if you are in Christ, is it possible that you have lost sight of, you have forgotten the goodness of God?
All that he's done for me in Christ. Unfortunately, we're very, very prone to do that. When we lose sight of the goodness of God, what we do then is we start walking in circles.
Just in this light. We've lost our reference point, so we're walking in circles. And walking in those circles, we become passion-driven. And when I become passion-driven, I'm a slave to my passions because I'm looking to work or people or things to define me and to affirm me when I lose sight of the goodness of God. I love what Tim Keller said, every time we sin, we impugn the goodness of God. So true.
Here's the sad part, if I could put it in this illustration. When I lose track, when I forget the goodness of God, here's what happens. I'm a millionaire living like a pauper when I lose track of God's goodness. This is what Peter is saying, this is why you need to remember.
Remember the precious and very great promises of God, of the redemption that is ours in Christ. Here's an example from Scripture, here's what it looks like. Remember the Apostle Paul wrote two letters, probably three, at least three, to the Corinthian church. The Corinthian church had a lot of problems. And he wrote to them, and the reason why they were having so many problems in the church is because they were comparing themselves with each other. And what does comparison lead to? Division.
Always. Comparison leads to division. And that's why he's writing these letters, one of the main reasons he's writing these letters to the church. So here's what he writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and we'll quote verses 1 and 3, because he's writing to them, now he's writing to them as believers, as brothers and sisters in Christ, but they've got all this division, they've got these, they're slapping labels on themselves. I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, well I am of Christ.
Right? Those are the real spiritual. They're comparing themselves with each other, and that's causing division. What does Paul write to them? He says, listen to this, but I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh?
And here it is, behaving only in a human way. What's he saying there? If I am in Christ, I am a new creation. I have his precious and very great promises.
I have his spirit indwelling me. And if I'm going to act with comparison and division like that, I am completely forgetting who I am in Christ, what he's done for me, and the grace that he's lavished upon me. In other words, what Paul is saying to the church at Corinth is, your behavior is utterly incongruous with your union with Christ and your identity in Christ.
That's what he's saying. I had to write to you as people in the flesh, people who are not thinking spiritually, but you're simply acting like unregenerate people. That's sad, isn't it? We can do that. We often do. This is why Peter is calling us to live as people who remember. Remember who we are in Christ, what Christ has done for us. When you become near-sighted and forgetful, you become self-focused. You become self-sufficient. You demand on having things my way, and I will do it my way. And what you end up doing is you're living for the dot instead of the line.
Let me explain what I mean. In light of eternity, you are a spirit. You have a body. Because you proceed from God as one created by God, you are an eternal spirit. Are you with me on this?
Some of you are like, whoa. But it's true. You're not a body who has a spirit. You are a spirit.
You have a body. Why do I say that? Because that current body that you inhabit will one day cease.
Your spirit will not. All right, that's the introduction. Now, let's take eternity. Let's take God's perspective of time. We can't do that because we're not infinite like He is.
We're created beings. We had a beginning. So take from that wall, from that big column to that wall over there. Let that line represent all of time. Long before eternity before you and eternity after you. Now put your life on that line. 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.
