To Be Useful and Fruitful, Here's How, Part 3

I've heard people say, well, I love a lot, I just don't show it. That's a funny kind of love.

What if God did that? I love this world, but I just prefer not to show it. See, it doesn't make sense. Whether young or old, all of us are wired for productivity. Part of our human nature includes feeling needed, helpful, industrious. And when our productivity ceases, we begin to get fidgety.

If you've ever been sidelined because of poor health or the loss of a job, you can readily identify with that restless feeling that comes with idleness. Today on Insight for Living, we're looking at 2 Peter chapter 1. As we examine this passage together, Chuck Swindoll helps us understand what it truly means to be useful and fruitful. You and I, in living out the Christian life in order to enjoy purpose and usefulness, must be engaged in the diligence of application and obedience.

And if you want to live a life that is useful and fruitful, here is a wonderful place to start. These are the things that are worth your time and attention and effort. Applying all diligence, start with faith. See it in verse 5? Applying all diligence in your faith.

That's the first stop. This is the tap root of the Christian life. It is relying on what God says in his word. It is believing him against all odds. It is abandoning oneself to him, his will. It is relying on his strength.

It is drawing on his wisdom. Faith is foundational and it is the bottom line upon which we build the character traits that are described in the following verses. So we start with faith. Now add to that faith, second, moral excellence. At the root of the term is the idea of courage.

It is used in classical Greek for bravery and valor. Add to your faith courage to stand firm, to stand alone if necessary. Not aloof, but alone. In the midst of a world that is corrupt and driven by lust, you can become so aloof in Christ that you're out of touch.

Jesus deliberately left his disciples on the earth. He said, you stay in the world, just don't become a part of it. Add knowledge.

This is one of Peter's favorite words. For this very reason, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence, be sure to include knowledge. Practical knowledge. Knowing what to do in a given situation.

Common sense knowledge. Now get this, knowing how to apply the principles of the book of God to the will of God for your life. Number four, self-control. In your knowledge, add self-control. This is the ability to take a grip on yourself. Not allowing anything to master you, except the Lord himself. This is the ability to maintain a balanced life even, get this, even in areas where indulgence is overlooked by others. This is being able to put on the brakes, saying no not only to a second glance at the opposite sex but to a second helping at the table.

Whoops. Stopping when no one is looking as quickly as we stop when the world is watching. Add to your life self-control. Add to your self-control perseverance. Chrysostom calls perseverance the queen of the virtues. This is the word for steadfastness. Remaining clear headed in the midst of deadlines and distresses and even disaster. He is moving according to his sovereign purpose and will and it will work together for good. In the meantime, be steadfast.

Stay consistent when the answer is wait. Stay strong even though the illness won't leave. Stand firm in perseverance. We don't hear much about the perseverance of the saints, do we?

We don't hear much about that. It is one of these major virtues that will give us a life that is useful and fruitful. I suggest those of us given to impatience learn again the value of it. Perseverance, the queen of the virtues. Sixth, add to perseverance godliness. Now, this is one of my favorite words.

I say that because it is one of those words that is tossed around but it's not been thought through by most of us. This is authentic piety. Authentic. It works in two directions. First, one who has a right view of an attitude toward God. He correctly worships and he or she gives God his due.

Next, it works horizontally, one who has a right view toward fellow man, a genuine servant's heart, a giving spirit toward others. It is reverence toward God. It is respect for one another. That's godliness. We are not told to look godly. We are told to be godly. We are not told to look humble. We're told to be humble. Isn't it interesting?

We spend much more of our time looking than being. How will this look? What will people think?

How will they feel about me? Godliness is a deep inward soul-related attitude that works itself out in numerous ways. It has so little to do with the externals, so little. I have found no more petty thinking on this earth than petty thinking among Christians. Petty about what someone may wear or what someone may drive or where someone may live.

All the way through that petty talk and judgmental kind of attitude, it's excused because it's supposed to be wanting them to be godly, meaning according to my standard. Harsest kind of legalism is the requirement of externals to please what I expect in another person. Add to your perseverance, add to your self-control, to your faith, to your knowledge, to your moral excellence, add true godliness. A wonderful reverence and worship of the living God and a respect for and kind treatment of fellow man. How we need it? The church would become the largest magnet in the community if we could put together true godliness, carry it out. True godliness, authentic piety. Seven is brotherly kindness. So we've finally gotten to it.

We've been talking around it and now he mentions it. This is the word Philadelphia. Don't let that throw you off. It still means brotherly kindness. It includes the way we treat our fellow man, bearing one another's burdens, feeling another's joy and applauding it, celebrating it and grieving with another's sorrow and weeping with that person, making room for the other person's opinions and feelings and ideas and suggestions, seeing life through their lens, all part of brotherly love. L-O-V-E. L would be listening when they speak. O could represent overlooking their faults. V would be valuing them as a person.

And E would be expressing affection. I've heard people say, well, I love a lot, I just don't show it. That's a funny kind of love.

What if God did that? I love this world, but I just prefer not to show it. See, it doesn't make sense. A brotherly love, and it's the word for it, is a word of philosophy love, affectionate love, love that touches, love that reaches, love that lifts, brotherly kindness, and finally, Christian love. And in your brotherly kindness, Christian love, I think of it as an eight-step ladder, and it ends with agape. The best definition I've ever heard for this Christian love is seeking the highest good of the other person. Seeking the highest good of the other person. It doesn't mean you will always agree with that person, but it does mean you have in mind their best.

You will do whatever is best for the other person. What a list. The more I study it, the more I understand two things. First of all, why Peter mentions the need for divine power, verse 3, which has been granted to us, and second, why he exhorts all of us to apply all diligence. Not one of these things is automatic.

Not one. Now, if you look at the next verse, you'll see the purpose. He who lacks these, pardon me, verse 8, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, see, there's a process involved, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Isn't that great? That's a promise. If these things are at work in you, now we'll never arrive, but we're on the way, if this process is an increasing process, you will find that working on these eight areas will leave you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

That's a great promise. You wonder what to spend your time doing, what to work on in your life. There's a list worth following and no man has given you the list. It's a list from God. If you like memorizing scripture, I would suggest you start with verse 4 and connect it all the way down to verse 9 and make that a project for the next several weeks. Commit to memory what this passage is saying and it will give you a list to work on for the balance of your life. Verse 9, however, is the negative side. It's addressed to those who lack these qualities and are not involved in the process. However, he who lacks these qualities, verse 9 begins, is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former hands.

I was intrigued by that. I thought as I read the ninth verse, why would he mention blind and then turn right around and mention being short-sighted. Blind or short-sighted.

One man helps in answering that. The word he uses commonly means short-sighted. If one is blind, how can he be short-sighted? If Peter had this meaning in mind, he may mean that such a person is blind to heavenly things and engrossed in the earthly. He cannot see what is a far off but only what is near. Interesting, the word short-sighted is the term from which we get our word myopic or myopia. Webster says myopia is deficiency of foresight and discernment.

Now back to the quote. This makes excellent sense in view of the immorality and earthiness of false teachers but probably Peter was thinking of the other meaning of, and he mentions the Greek word, which means literally to blink to shut the eyes. Thus, the meaning is that such a person is blind because he blinks or willfully closes his eyes to the light.

Deliberately looks away from the graces of character to which the Christian is called when he comes to know Christ. That is very helpful in that he uses the word deliberately. I've done that, you have too. I've deliberately taken a second helping, that's rather obvious, so have you. I have deliberately taken a second look, I say to my shame. I have deliberately lusted in a moment of time, thank God, did not carry it out and so have you. I have deliberately lost control knowing at the time I should be patient and steadfast and I wasn't and I let panic seize me. I've even had my children correct me.

It's going to be okay, Dad, it's going to be all right. I know it. You know how you respond in great maturity. I know that. Then you look back and you realize you were short-sighted.

You were myopic and you know why? Well, that says it. You momentarily forgot that you have a nature that comes from God. You have promises, you've been purified from that life of out of control living. Draw on that power. Therefore, this is where it all leads.

I love this ending. Therefore, brethren, he says it again. You can't get away from diligence.

Be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and his choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you won't blow it. You won't stumble. Is that great?

Unfortunately, we will forget to practice it and we'll blow it. But as long as you live like verses 5 through 9, can you believe it? You will live without stumbling.

That's great. No one can give you power like that except the living God. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. You will go with great reward. You will go with the applause of heaven. Now, let's get something real clear. This is not a verse telling us unless we give supreme effort, we will not be saved.

Some have rendered verse 10 like that. To make your calling and election sure, you have to keep doing these things. No, it's because your calling and election are firm that you add your amen to that by living like this. You simply express your gratitude by living like this.

I don't know if you saw 60 Minutes, but we usually tape it on Sunday evening then we watch it when we get home from the evening service. There was a particular philanthropist who lives in Louisiana who got our vote for the night. It was a wonderful story. Here is a man who has an enormous amount of money. His heart has gone out to those who are underprivileged. And here he is in Louisiana whose heart goes out to those knowing that the great majority of them are dropping out of high school. They're not even finishing a secondary schooling.

And he gathered them together. He picked and chose his way into a group and he told them his plan was to take this amount of money and to apply it to their education. Stay in high school, stay at it and I'll provide your college entrance. I'll provide your room and board.

I'll provide whatever is necessary. I'll fund your education. It seemed too good to be true. And what was interesting is when they interviewed the students later on and talked about their motivation.

In fact at the very end they showed a banquet they had in his honor and they were singing that you are the wind beneath my wings. You're the one that made it possible for us to get here. And you know they don't have to work real hard in college to make it possible to get the money. They've got the money.

They've been chosen. They're a part of the group that has been given a college education. And out of gratitude, out of sheer thankfulness, they give themselves with all diligence to their studies. And what a change it's made in their lives. That's what this is about. We don't apply all diligence so that God will someday say, Well, I see that your good works outnumber your bad works.

That's not true of most of us. I see that you have earned your way in. Enter.

No. We enter out of the gift of eternal life and with it come the joy and rewards of living for him while we were on this earth. This brings me to a couple of points I want to make quickly now. Number one, living a useful life on earth begins with salvation and requires all diligence. Living a useful life on earth begins with salvation and it requires all diligence.

Once you have the gift, then you get at it. You get to work. You apply it in the power of the Holy Spirit in light of the promises and you spend your day doing that which is useful and productive. Here's a second thought. Leaving a fruitful life at death results in motivation and guarantees rewards. Leaving a fruitful life on earth at death results in motivation and guarantees rewards. Listen to this verse.

I reminded myself of it this past week. Hebrews 6 10, God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and instilled ministering to the saints. Isn't that a good promise? God won't forget. And when the record is written and we stand before him, he will give those rewards out of grace to people who are undeserving of even being there.

To say nothing of a few crowns that we will instantly cast at his feet in gratitude. I want to pause for a moment and have you think about where you're going in your life and ask yourself, is it really useful? Is it really fruitful? Is it really worth all the effort?

Or is it a systematic waste of time? Let's bow together, shall we? You're absolutely certain that Christ lives in your life?

You're real sure you've got that taproot set? That there is a growth process that comes from the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ? Are you sure you've got that settled? Forget about all the church attendance and all the stuff you do for God and all the things you've given away and all this moral life you're working hard to live. As important as all that may be, it won't replace basic salvation. To know Jesus Christ is to be freed from a nature that has controlled you and to be given a nature that can literally revolutionize your existence. That makes life useful.

Now perhaps I'm speaking mainly to Christians. Let me just ask about the diligence. You're diligent even when nobody's looking.

You're diligent even when no one else will know. Faith, self-control, knowledge, brotherly kindness, Christian love. Our Father, we are needy and weak individuals when together we feel strong and we feel bolstered and we feel encouraged but how quickly the presence of night and the coolness of the evening and the absence of friends could bring us back to the way we were. Enable us to carry with us that which is useful and fruitful. Make us faithful when nobody is around. Cause our diligence to flourish when there is no one to see, no one to notice and affirm. Thank you Father for salvation that comes as a gift through Jesus Christ and we rest our case on it.

Thank you that that is sure. May our lives be lived authentically for the glory of Christ. In his name we pray.

Amen. Thank you Father for salvation that comes as a gift through Jesus Christ and we rest our case on it and we rest our case on it and we rest our case on it and we rest our case on it. Your gift of any amount will be channeled into providing insight for living to someone who's ready to hear the truth of God's word and by giving you'll be a blessing to that listener in a way that someone once blessed you. To give a donation today call us.

If you're listening in the United States call 800-772-8888. Finally we received an encouraging comment from someone who said, perhaps tongue in cheek, great sermon Chuck you stepped all over my toes. May God help me to become a better example of Christ to those who know me. Well that made us smile because we know that messages like today's spur all of us on to good works. And you know it's your donation that allows us to deliver these truth filled programs. So give us a call. If you're listening in the United States the number is 800-772-8888 or you can give a donation online at insight.org. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us next time when Chuck Swindoll continues his study in Second Peter called conquering through conflict on insight for living. The preceding message to be useful and fruitful. Here's how was copyrighted in 1989 1990 2011 and 2023 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2023 by Charles R Swindoll Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.