Father, we look to you, thankful that we get to gather here on a final Sunday of 2023. And uh Set our sites. toward what you might have for us this next New Year. And Lord, we look expectantly. Not knowing exactly or precisely what it might be that will be there waiting for us.
But we know that you are great god and king Have established plans for us that you go before us in all things, and so we stride confidently. Into the next step of our lives. We pray, Lord, that you would bless us. Uh we have come through 2023. and some with uh loads of baggage.
with heavy hearts, some with challenges, hoping that 2024 elicits things that may be different in their lives. Others hoping to parlay the joys forward. But Lord, we ask that you would bless us, whatever our story, whatever our narrative is. We pray that as we move forward that you would be a God of healing in the lives of people who are carrying broken bodies into 2024. That you would be a god of Comfort to those who are carrying burdens into 2024, that you'd be a God of strength and hope to those who feel depleted and worn down.
Lord, we just pray that you would be a. Great restorer. of our hearts, of our bodies, of our lives. We pray, Lord, that you would bless us. We ask that unequivocally, unashamedly.
You are the God who longs to give good gifts to your children. And so we seek you for those. We're not presumptuous of what they are. But we would ask, Lord, that you might grant us. Just a wonderful sense of your presence as we move forward.
In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. You'll pardon my cough. I am suffering from the Salt Lake air quality this morning. As maybe a few of you are as well.
I don't know. But it's down in my. Chest apparently. All right.
Well, my name is Brian. If you're our guest, I'm the lead pastor here. We've been studying the book of Ephesians, and we're not going to go there this morning. We're actually going to do a little bit of a one-off message, and then we'll get back into Ephesians next week. But I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to 2 Peter.
Chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. Eagle-eyed. As you see, that eye, that was a picture of my eyes this morning when I woke up, bleary-eyed from last now. I was looking at eagle's vision.
I don't know, you may know or you may not know, but an eagle can see. 340 degrees.
So there's only this little 20 degrees straight back that an eagle can't see. Um if an eagle Was at 10 stories high. An eagle can see an ant from 10 stories. Up. I thought George Costanza and Seinfeld, when he squinted, had good vision.
That's nothing compared to an eagle. Eagle has 25 or 24 vision, so what you and I see naturally at five feet away, an eagle would see with that detail at 20 feet away. It sees an array of colors that we don't see, it can see ultraviolet light.
So if an animal that it's hunting pees or bleeds, it can see the trail and follow the trail. And so it has this extraordinary capacity for sight. Where would I get eagle-eyed from? I'll show you in the text in just a moment. The same place that I would get this idea.
I wear these glasses now. If you were here and I was preaching a year and a half ago, two years ago, I didn't wear these, and they're not a fashion statement, just so you know. They're of necessity, and the necessity is that if I put verses up here and I don't want to turn around and I have a monitor in the back and I want to be able to see anything in the back, I was preaching about two years ago, and I'm like, why is it? Can't read what's going on back there. And I realized it's because I'm getting old.
And so I got these progressive lenses now, right, that helped me see because naturally, as I get a little bit older, I'm becoming more near-sighted. I can see things better close up. But signs on the road and so forth, there's a problem.
Now, you may or may not know this. But if you went back like I think it was 30 years ago or so The uh rates Of clinical myopia, clinical nearsightedness, the rates in children. Mm-hmm. We're like 12, 17%, that's the difference. It was 17% less than it is now 30 years later.
So people in in ophthalmology have identified it as like an epidemic with children. That children are are born reared and as they move toward adolescence at an incredible rate such that they have suggested that almost that most people, if the rates continue, most people by twenty fifty will be nearsighted. Because myopia has become like an epidemic.
So they're asking the question, why? Clinically, why are children becoming myopic in the literal sense of their vision? What is it that's causing that? And what they have determined is that it's It'd be kind of easy to blame it on technology and screens and everything like that, but the screens are actually not the direct cause, it doesn't seem like. Yeah.
Um ophthalmologists have long thought that um Reading as a child, ex excessive reading could cause that, stuff like that. But what they found is it's not so much the reading, and it's not so much the screens. But it is What the screens take you away from. Which is fascinating. What c what helps a child not be nearsighted physically.
Playing outside. Playing outside. And it's because their eyes have to adapt to the natural sunlight. It shapes the eye the retina. shapes the lens.
And now, as they adapt, they begin to look also in the far distance at the horizon. They take in the light, and so we live in a day and age where, I mean, when some of you grew up. Uh those of you who might be a little Older. Say that in a non-offensive way. Mature saint, how's that?
You mature saints remember that when you got home from school till supper, you played outside. This is kind of what you did. Right? But now that's often not what happens. And a lot of time is spent indoors.
A lot of time is spent in front of a screen.
So it's not so much the screen itself as it is that which you are taken away from.
Okay. that was allowing the eyes to naturally adapt and naturally turn away from being naturally nearsighted. I think there's a striking parallel. In this text, and I'll show you that in a moment, but I just want you to think about spiritual nearsightedness for a moment. When you spend your life So to speak, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically cooped up.
And your world is small. You tend to not be able to see things very clearly. But as you get out and as you look and you see the glory of God, as you experience life and get a look at the horizons of life, as you open up your life and you engage the glory of God and see a vision. of his wonder, it tends to form aspects. Of how you see things.
And what happens is there's a kind of spiritual sight that emerges where you begin to be able to have the capacity quite. Literally in how you form your days. to see a bigger vision. A bigger goal, and then orchestrate your daily habits according to a bigger vision and a bigger goal. But if you're spiritually nearsighted, If you're spiritually limited, if you spiritually drive your life right off the hood, if the tyranny of the urgent and the immediacy of the moment is what drives everything for you, then what happens is you end up getting down the road feeling like you've wasted.
portions of your life. Because you haven't put the chips on the table, so to speak. You haven't laid down the foundational blocks for something greater. This is actually a major, major issue. with people right now in from about 18 to 30.
It's a really significant issue. And it is that oftentimes the first thought is. The immediate, what can I do right now that will allow me to have success as quickly as I possibly can, or to have financial freedom as quickly as I possibly can, or to have the kind of relationship I'd want as quickly as I possibly can. And we long, and it's born out of the fact it's not necessarily their fault initially, it's that the world they've grown up in is a microwave world where everything is immediate. And so the most natural thing is, what can I have and how can I have it in the immediacy?
Not thinking through sometimes the idea that deferred gratification ends up being a road to success in the broader contours of life.
So I want to think about that a little bit with you, and I want you to look with me in 2 Peter. Chapter 1. And I'm going to read our whole text for this morning. I had it in scripture reading, but I'm going to read it because I want to start in verse 9, and then we'll come back and we'll work our way through the text.
So, if you have a Bible, you can grab one. Bible's in front of you on the racks, but follow me if you would. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence. By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them.
You may become partakers of the divine nature. having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful Desire 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 near-sighted. that he is blind. The Greek actually reads this way, that he is blind. Being nearsighted. He's blind.
That is, he can't see spiritually speaking in his life. She can't see spiritually speaking in her life. because she has developed the ability, or maybe the inability we should say, to see further than off the hood of the car. As she's going throughout life, as he's going throughout life, they don't see the consequences of their daily habituations. And they don't process.
How important And crucial it is. to have a kind of cumulative effect. That only Right habituation can yield a human person by the nature of what it means for you to be a human person. That is to say, I cannot, through a type of strong effort. Immediate resolve and desire simply actualize a particular kind of character in my life today or tomorrow.
It's impossible for me to do that. My character just is what it is based upon a story that sits behind me of the habituated actions, attitudes, dispositions, and relationships that I have formed over a period of time. That doesn't mean that I'm left now. That I can't form my character. It just means that my character moving forward is formed.
But it is formed slowly. It is formed over time. That is to say that if I were to think today about the kind of thing person I'd like to be in December, now we're on to something. But if I want to think today about the kind of person I'd like to be tomorrow, I'm going to overshoot my skis.
So I have to recognize that character gets formed progressively over time, and that's kind of what this text is all about. But what happens in our lives is that we get limited, we become blinded, being nearsighted, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
So. I want to think with you about how we get to a place where we can, in our spiritual lives, as it were, be eagle-eyed. Rather than be nearsighted as we look to this new year.
Now, you have a sheet and a little bookmark that's there with you. And I'm gonna come back to this at the end of the message and ask you to think about something with me as it relates to this.
So just kind of hold on to that until we get toward the end. But along the way, I'm gonna give you four different sort of points. That works through this text. The first is that we see the equipment to be eagle-eyed at the very beginning of the text.
Now, I want you to go back to verse 1. of 2 Peter. CHAPTER I SIMEON PETER, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of our Lord, of Jesus our Lord. And then you have.
His divine power has granted to us. The question is, is the his Is that a reference To God, in sort of a general way? Is it a reference to the Father? Is it a reference to Jesus? And I think it's important to note that Peter starts off making a very strong claim.
At the beginning here about the deity of Jesus. The the previous referent in verse two is of Jesus our Lord. And so it seems pretty clear that the his as we follow through verse three and four is a reference to Christ. Christ's Divine Power. Has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
That is, our equipment. To be able. to have our character transformed in such a way, That when we get up in the morning, we're the kind of person that doesn't just look off the hood, but we're the kind of person. who resonates with the reality. That we may have to defer particular things to be able to engage today so that it is a kind of building block for tomorrow and the next day and the day after, to be the kind of person that thinks.
That. Yeah. that thinks that way. We have a source in Christ to be able to do that.
Now, this will become a little more clear as we work our way through the text. He's granted to us all things that pertain to life. and godliness and if you have a new international version it'll say that he's he's granted us everything pertaining to a godly life And what the New International Version has done is taken these two terms and used them in what's called a hendiadis, where it's two terms that are referring to sort of one concept. And that may well be the case. Whether you take it as two or whether you take it as one, it's pretty clear that it's saying he has granted us everything for a new spiritual life and.
A spiritual life that has a particular pathos and ethos to it, a way, a passion. and an ethic, a way of being. In the world, where the intangibles take on a kind of presence that we have, that is a life that's characterized by particular things, namely the things that he's going to articulate in just a minute. But a godly life. The realization that comes with that, we have been given because of the divine power of Christ.
Who called us to his own glory and excellence.
Now This last part. Actualized by Christ's calling of us to a vision of his majesty and moral excellence. Here's what I want you to think about. When he says this. His glory And his His excellence, his His um Arete is goodness.
His virtue in that sense. What he's saying? is that Christ in His divine power has given us a vision of his kind of life.
So when I read through the scripture, I texturize And we're to texturize. A vision for what a life could be like in this world. We're to texturize it with what we see Jesus being like.
So, one of the reasons, obviously, I hope why we're all here for the coming of Christ was to rescue us from our sins. That's actually where this text that we're going to talk through in verse 9 will conclude itself. Remembering that you were cleansed from your former sins. But don't miss the fact. That Jesus could have zapped down Died a sinless sacrifice.
Risen from the dead been gone and it all could have happened in a day. Two days, three days. But instead he comes and he lives. And he lives a life of full obedience to the law. And he models a way of relating.
Right? To us. It's actually one of the interesting gifts, and this isn't to endorse all the theology of it or anything, but the show, The Chosen, one of the things that is kind of fun about it. is it does give you a sort of sense of like, hey, wait a minute. Jesus was a normal person in one sense.
With like Laughter in engagement. and sadness And like the the normative things, disappointments with different people in relationship. And that you learn. How? By reading the text of Scripture in the Gospels, to be with people who disappoint you.
Peter disappoints him. He learns how to be. The sons of thunder say things that make him go, have you even been listening at all? Thomas doubts and yet he condescends to his doubt. He engages people who are weak and faithless, who should know better.
He has religious leaders that he's engaged again and again and again, most of whom continue to live in their self-righteous piety despite repeated lessons and parables to the contrary. And so he's living, and we get to see what it's like for someone to live with a kind of moral excellence in this dynamic. And our job is to look at our world. And they say, wait a minute.
Now I'm with someone. Who acts this way? I spend my time at the office with someone who relates this way. I have this tendency in my life. I'm raising these nutjobs who are acting in these ways.
And my job then, and your job is to look and say. Not as simple quite as what would Jesus do, but I like the way that Dallas Willard used to phrase it. What would Jesus do if he were me? And when I asked that last part, It reframes it a bit. What would Jesus do if right now he were to zap into this situation.
And he had my story. He had my woundedness. He had my challenges. He came to this moment feeling the collected sort of weight of my soul. What would he do?
If he were me, In this moment.
Now, to frame your life that way is to see a vision of His Majesty. But it's also to see a vision of his moral excellence and to say, how could I be, can I be like that in this moment?
So this is setting up for us.
Something. That he's going to get to here in just a minute. As he speaks here about his divine power that has granted us. all things that pertain to life and gosh, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence. And one final comment about this word knowledge, because you see knowledge three times in this text.
And the bookends of it are the same term, and in the middle it's a different term. But a related one. They both have the root word gnosis. We get a word like Gnostic from that. Gnosis, to know.
Knowledge. But Uh you'll sometimes see a word with a little prefix epi, epi gnosis. And that's what you have on in the first and third of these. Epinosis.
Now, The words can be used interchangeably to some degree, but The little phrase epi means upon, and you have this idea of knowledge upon, and what most scholars look at and see is when epinosis is used. it may or may not be completely distinct from Gnosis, but if it is distinct, If it is nuanced, which it looks like in this text it is a little bit, it's sort of. Almost like zeroed in. and specified It's a kind of knowledge here that we want to see is not so much knowledge in the broadest sense of growing in the knowledge of God at large. He'll talk about that in the second use.
But a kind of knowledge that is zeroed in and predicated upon Jesus and what he has done for us. And to look at Christ and to say, what is our knowledge that is built upon Him? What do we know? When we look at Christ. What do we know when we see him enfleshed?
What do we know from the way he lived? What do we know from seeing his glory among us?
so to speak, in the Incarnation. In verse four. We see the essence. of being eagle-eyed. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who's called us to His own glory and excellence, by which.
By which, out of his excellent majesty, his glorious character, he has granted to us what? His precious. And very great. promises now Keep a finger there. Let your eyes go over.
to chapter 3, 2 Peter verse 13.
Okay. But according to his Promise. We are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness Now 2 Peter is largely about leaning into the trusted revelation of God in Christ, So that you're secured from buying into the teaching of false teachers. as you look forward To the day of the Lord coming.
So you're resting on the gospel, and you're resting on the word of God that comes up at the end of chapter one. Over against chapter 2, the false teachers that are trying to lead you astray as you look forward to the second coming of Christ, chapter 3. What I want you to see is Peter has used what's called an inclusio. Think of it like bookends in literature. He starts off and he references these promises that are going to give you something.
And he gets to the end, and before he has his final words, he references the promise ultimately of a new heaven and a new earth. And it's as though he's saying, You're secured in this life by these promises of God, namely the salvation that he's granted that will be cashed out in the new heaven and new earth. In light of that, I want to show you how you could develop character, live a perseverant life, relying upon the word of God, trusting him over against false teachers as you look forward to the second coming. And that's 2 Peter in a nutshell.
So he's bookended it, this inclusio literarily, with this idea of these promises. By which he's granted us his precious promises and very great promises, so that through them. Two things may come to you. Two results from engagement with his promises.
So that as I lean into the fact that he secured a salvation for me that'll be cashed out at the end. What kinds of results What kind of results can I anticipate?
Now the first one Seems to be a much misunderstood one.
so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.
Now this text has been interpreted in various ways. depending upon certain theological traditions. our own Utah culture here. Has tended to translate, or not translate, but to interpret this as the idea that you and I. could participate in the divine nature in such a way that you one day could become a god.
That is to say that you And God, Heavenly Father, are of the same species but are differently degreed within that species.
Now that is an ah historical Understanding of scripture. Meaning that even when you understand a doctrine called theosis in the Greek Orthodox tradition, they're not thinking. Of an ontological kind of meaning that your being actually becomes deified in. Being. In that way, that's more their teaching is more of a mystical participation in some way in the divine nature, but not where you're ontologically transformed, where you go from being.
Human. Two divine in the sense of being deified ontologically. But this text is is read that way in the broader culture here. Even within Greek Orthodoxy, it seems to be largely misunderstood. And how do we know that, by the way?
Well, when you see the use of the term, Paul, it's used four times. Peter uses it here a couple times in 2 Peter. And then Paul uses it a couple of times. In Acts 17, 29, he uses it. In Romans chapter 1, verse 20, he uses it.
He's speaking... And it looks like in the usage, especially the Acts usage, he's talking at Mars Hill, the Areopagus, and he's speaking to what we call a Hellenized crowd.
Now what does that word mean when I say Hellenized? Hellenize just means Greek culture. Greek culture.
Okay?
So he's speaking to people who, whether or not they are ethnically. Greek, they are culturally Greek.
So you have like Hellenized Jews. You'd have Hellenized people from North Africa. Because the Greek philosophy. Culture System of life had a kind of pervasiveness, right?
So we can call somebody an Italian. American. Right? And when you get to the second generation of that Italian American, they're about the the most Italian they are usually is they like rigatone. You know?
But they're American very much culturally. And America has its own kind of culture. If you doubt it, travel. Travel. Go somewhere.
And wait and when somebody says you're so American, they don't mean it as a compliment.
Okay, it has a kind of air about it in some way.
So there's this kind of way of being. The term looks like, in its other uses, even that it's probably a little bit geared towards a. Hellenized culture in the use in Greek culture of divine.
Now the significance of that really shows up in the context here.
So if I go back to verse 3. I see that it is through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory. And excellence, the moral, the arete, the virtue, which has a rich heritage, by the way, in Aristotelian philosophy that would predate this text.
So the the idea of virtue for Aristotle is a key term. Where he understands this as the central piece of the good life in that sense, to develop a life of arete. There's an entire branch of ethics called Eretaic ethics that is this idea of how you build a life of virtue that has this intrinsic quality. It's not so much focused on what you do in a moment, but focused on the kind of person you are, irrespective of the circumstances that are around you in that moment. And Aristotle attempted to build a whole thing.
Theory of virtue around that. That carried through with a pretty robust tradition through the medieval period with St. Thomas Aquinas and others that built this erotic ethics. It's the idea of a character-logical way of being. He uses that term, and then when you get down to the list of virtues, you see the word virtue in verse 5.
Well, there you've got the same term show up. Arete. And what we see contextually is that to participate in the divine nature. Is not about some kind of you becoming a God or some type of transfer and shift in your ontological being or essence, but rather to participate in the divine nature is to look like God. That is to say, to take on the character-logical attributes.
of God. It's to look at Jesus and say, You mean The one who was referred to as God in verse 1. Who were told, get a vision of his moral excellence through the knowledge of him.
Now you could participate in the divine. Yes, because you can say, what does it look like for me? To put on Christ In this moment. That's to participate in the divine Nature. This is what part of my job is, and your job is in our lives.
What would Jesus do in this moment if he would he snap at him? Would he roll his eyes? Would he become cynical? Would he be disgusted? Would you walk away going, here we go again?
What would he do? And to be that kind of person then. is to be one who is putting on as it were. Looking like participating in, in activity with the Divine. nature.
That's the first result. The second is the inverse of that. having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
So the opposite of Looking like Jesus is to engage in the world. And he's saying, if you're living according to the promise of eternal life, and you're living according to the promise of that future new heaven, new earth, and you're living in that kind of space, then as you happen to life, what kind of disposition will you have?
Well, you'll have one that'll look like. God in Christ And you'll be putting away the corruption.
Now, the English is a little misleading here. It says sinful desire, others say evil desire, and they're interpreting something for you because sinful is not in the Greek text. Evil is not in the Greek text. All the Greek text actually says is the corruption that is in the world because of desire.
So here's and this is significant to note. It's not that desire is inherently wrong. But listen carefully. Please. Even What can feel like a neutral thing.
Like I would suggest to you even a good thing. Um, I think working hard. is a really good thing. We're going to do a Better Man series to capture recording again for the international ministry in February and March. The focus of that is how a man excels at God's work.
So we're going to talk about the value and the proper place of work in different ways. Working hard is a really good and a really wonderful thing. But if you get that desire and it is unhindered. Unchecked. Unrestrained.
What happens to it? It begins to be pervasive. It begins to pollute everything in your life.
Now you literally live to work. Your sexual desire, in and of itself, Is not somehow an awful thing. It's a gift from God to you. To be used, exemplified in the right heterosexual, monogamous, committed, covenantal context. But If it's unrestrained.
If it's unrest, it begins to obsess your life.
So desire.
Well in and of itself isn't the problem. Unmitigated? Undeterred? unrestrained desire does become a problem. Like, if who doesn't like food here?
I'm a big fan of it. Right? A big fan of it. But you gotta admit, we live in a weird like the f Like, it's a weird world where the food network exists. I mean, it really is.
It's a weird world. where we would have a whole network. toward the pleasure and delicacy of what, for millennia, was seen as sustenance. was seen as fuel for the body. to be able to survive.
And now we have the food network. And we see food which is often feasting in the Bible, so I don't want to poo-poo a good potluck. But understand. We've kind of taken it to the next level.
Now food is not fuel. Food is almost always Feasting. Food is almost always a tool of pleasure that works its way back. To the point now that if we use it just as fuel, we feel a sense of disappointment. It wasn't all that good.
Anymore.
So we've taken desire and just let it run rampant in so many ways. And he says: here's what happens: there's a natural entropy with that. There's an entropy. That's corruption. There's a way that your life falls apart with unrestrained desire.
Let me give you an extra biblical qu quote from Plato. Plato said, Philosophy sees that the most dreadful thing about the imprisonment is the fact that it is caused by the lusts of the flesh.
so that the prisoner is the chief assistant in his own imprisonment. I love that last line. The prisoner uh is the chief assistant. In his own imprisonment. Like, think about addiction.
This is what addiction does. Unrestrained desire for immediate gratification ends up creating a prison. in which you live. An addict is one whose character in that particular realm. is constrained by repetitive, habituated, immediate gratification.
And now they're not capable in the moment to just stop. They're not. Right? I I I love Gerald May. who spent a lot of time in addiction.
wrote, if you want to know if you're an if you're addicted to something, Just try stopping it and see what happens. Just try stopping it and see what happens. And what you will find. Is that You're able the first day to do it. And then the next day and all of a sudden, you become a bear of a person.
because this mechanism has been used to keep you imprisoned And now you're bumping up against the walls of the prison of your own making. The Bible speaks to us about this. But each Person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire, his own. Desire. is producing the prison.
Then desire when? It has conceived. gives birth to sin, and sin when it's fully grown. Gives forth death. It's not that desire is the problem, but unmitigated.
Unrestrained desire. ends up forming a kind of prison for us. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey. It's passions. Look at that last phrase though.
To make you obey its passions. I find that fascinating. See, if you act a particular way towards me and I say, it makes me so mad when you do that. I'm incorrect and I'm using you as a scapegoat for my moral sin. As though now I had no choice in the matter but to get angry.
Now, here's a truth though. It is technically the case. That my character made me get angry at you. That is to say, the way that I responded was likely formed long before that moment. My ability in that moment was restrained by a character.
That now I need to happen to in a way to bludgeon my own character, to beat my own character into submission. Because when sin is reigning... in my mortal body. What happens? It makes me...
A slave to its passion. Do you see the power of that verse of Scripture for your habits? That you can cause. Through bad habits Sin to rule your body so that in a moment, what happens? You will obey.
You'll obey according to everything you've put up. In that moment, to that moment in your life. This is why character formation is so essential. This is why the daily disciplines that you form are vital. This is why you cannot come to 2024 with just some loose concept of New Year's resolution.
You need to come, and you need to have an honest assessment of the kind of person you want to become. And you need to then think, what does it mean for me to happen to daily rhythms? that would have a kind of cumulative, habituated effect in producing a particular way of being. In the world, So that I can six months from now be happening to my family in a different way. I can be happening to my job in a different way.
I can be happening to my own thought life in a different way. I can be happening to each day a different way. And you'll find it, materialize, but you won't find it by the force of your will tomorrow. You will find it by habituating, habituate, habituate, habituate, habituate, habituate. little pieces.
Along the way that begin to build.
Now, look at verse 5 through 7.
Now, beginning of verse 8 with me. Woo! For this very reason, That is, so that you could have the essence of an eagle-eyed life. Make every effort. And I just want you to note the verbs, you don't see them here in English, but in Greek they're plural, and that's actually quite important.
Because you never do your life in isolation. We'll talk a little more about that in a moment. To supplement, I don't like that translation, I'll come back and tell you why. Your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities, characteristics are yours and are increasing, Increasing, they keep it from being ineffective on fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Um This the the the the the literature here Is what's called a a a sorite is the word, s-or-r-i-t-e, a sorite. And a sorite is a a kind of literary structure. Think of it like a ladder. where there's something stated. And then it's restated and then built upon, and then that's restated and built upon, and that's restated and built upon, and that's restated and built upon, and that's restated and built upon.
So you have this kind of laddered structure. I've given it graphically sort of like this, where you see it sort of move like stairs or steps. One to the next to the next, but it has this restating, this restaurant. If you got this, get this. If you got that, get this.
If you got that, get this. If you got that, get this. If you got that, get this. And it builds and builds and builds.
So Peter's using the structure. And don't overinterpret this. If you look and go, oh, so before I get self-control. I have to have knowledge, and then before I get knowledge, I have to have this sort of arete, this virtue or goodness. And before I have that, I have to have.
It's not this kind of thing where it's a logical flow that's built. It's just a literary style to bring these eight virtues together.
However, having said that, I do think there's something significant. And I think the significant piece comes when you look at virtues in Scripture and you'll see things like, now abides faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love, right? It's not by accident that he concludes with love. It's also not by accident that he begins with faith.
And so you start, and faith here is not the faith, as in like the set of doctrine. Faith here is the idea of the subjective belief structure of your life. What it means for you. to lean into the knowledge of God in Christ. and to trust him.
and have that orientation. And so there's a kind of movement here that moves from that. Ends in love, and he just throws these virtues. And there's different virtue lists in the New Testament. But each list doesn't have the same virtues.
You'll see there's some that are common that show up. But the idea is to give a sampling Of the kinds of things that would make for a life that you would look like him, participate in the divine nature, that you would stay away from the corruption. Of the world where unmitigated desire causes a kind of entropic effect. in and through your life.
So just think real quick. We'll just, I'm not going to spend much time zipping down through these. I mentioned I didn't care for the English translation supplement. Part of it is this. Let's say it this way, but because supplement makes me think that something is missing in the first, So I've got to have something added to it in the second to sort of make the first full.
And I'm not sure that is what the intent is at all. I'm not sure that's the way the word should be used. Um the word That that is used there for supplement, actually, it's a kind of an odd origin to the word. an earlier uh break usage. But in earlier Greek usage, it was used for the theater.
In the theater, you would have someone who was a benefactor. Who would pay? for the play to happen. Right? The word, its core word is corregeo.
Think of a word we get in theater from that: choreography. Right. But it was somebody who would basically flip the bill. for the play to be able to go on. And to be on the stage.
And so the word had the idea of one who was generous in giving. And as the language moved forward, it morphed just into the idea of generously giving to something. And he uses this word here because the idea is that you're going to say, Okay. I believe and I trust in the Lord. And I'm going to point myself toward, in this case, the second.
step, if you will, or the second virtue that's mentioned, which is I put vir he translates as a virtue, arete, goodness. And I'm going to say, what would it mean for me? to give myself generously to the mission. Of adding to my life, supplying to my life, goodness. What would it mean for me?
To say, I have resourcing a month, I have time. I have talents, I have energies, I have relationships, I have social capital. And I am going to orchestrate my daily life to develop and habituate. goodness or virtue. I'm going to orchestrate my life to develop Knowledge.
There is the word gnosis. What's that mean? It means to add a kind of Understanding of God to your life. To read. To study.
To engage. Our discipleship ministry here is predicated on this. The idea that you would get yourself in a frame of reference wherein you are through structured, habituated daily encounter Adding knowledge to your life.
So that you're giving yourself to that. To generously give yourself to it means you'll orchestrate your life and your time. The currencies of your life, you see. To that end. Self-control.
How significant is that in a world where we don't enkratia is the Greek word. The opposite of this is a word called akratia. It's the same middle, krati. Same idea, control. If you have akratia, it means you're weak-willed.
It means that you've lost power over your own life. The defenses are down and you're overcome easily. by things. You lack determination. But if you are self-controlled, You're in.
Power, Kratia. You're in. Control. of your life. This is a virt this is what helps desire.
Not become sinful. This is what helps you say no when you're a workaholic. This is what helps you say no. when you are given to sexual desire. This is what helps you say no.
When you are tempted towards an unrestrained exercise of your temperament towards others. Temperance. being in self-control. Steadfast. Uh hupamone is the word.
Let me read to you Romans. Five. Three No. Romans 5.3 through 5. This is another list, and you find hupomone, the word for steadfast here.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings and it's using the same type of sorite structure, this ladder. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. That's the word for steadfast here, same Greek word. And endurance produces character. And character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts.
Through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Look back at your text. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement with your faith, trusting the Lord with virtue, goodness of character. With knowledge that is being taught, understanding, engaging in disciplines of reading and study, so you can grow in understanding who God is. With self-control.
understanding how to be in possession of your own will. It was self-control stead with steadfastness, endurance. Perseverance, the ability to press through suffering while retaining a sense of self. and steadfastness with Godliness. One comment about the word godliness here.
It does have to do with a Godward life, but I want you to understand it in a particular framework the hearers would have understood it. because of its use outside of the Bible. Its use outside of the Bible. was essentially the idea of duty. In response or with regard to proper authority.
So a soldier had Eusebia, He had a kind of Duty. in response to the authority of a commanding officer. A servant to his master. in those days. An employee.
To a boss, a child, to a father or a mother. The idea was to the proper authority in your life, you would have an orientation of submissive respect. to them.
So the word you see here is godliness. is really not just broadly character logical. But it's actually a little more narrow than that. And it's zeroed in and focused on whether or not I'm willing to say. Yes to God.
as an authority when I say No to the world. in that way.
So to be godly in this chain with brotherly affection.
Okay. Philadelphia, and if you've ever been there, it's not the city of brotherly love. I have spent lots of time in Philadelphia. And it is a rather grouchy place to be. But nonetheless Outside of having a wonderful football team who will win the Super Bowl this year, let's close in prayer.
Philadelphia Is this the term means uh Adelphos brother? Phileto love, the love of brothers.
Now here's what I want you to note. The term is only known. In familial relationships. In the New Testament, it's just about family.
Now, the New Testament will extend that. out from blood family. To blood bought. Family. It'll extend it out.
So here's what you need to know when he says this. And this this this tends to upset people. And it wouldn't be a fun sermon if I didn't upset someone. When you um think about your life and the orchestration of your life. I I know almost all of us intuitively go like this.
I think about, and I hope you do start in a sense in the economization of life with your own soul. I hope you do. I'll often ask people in my office, As they're going through things in their lives, what's the most important commodity in your life, in your home?
Okay. And invariably It's usually Well, my my wife and my children and I and I stop and say, No. It's actually not. It's your own soul. Because if you don't tend to your own soul, you have nothing to give your wife and children.
If you don't tend to your own soul, you have nothing to give your husband and your children. If you're a ten-year-old soul, you have nothing to give your mom and dad. Like it's it it is your soul first. That's not selfish. That's just wise.
In fact, that's the only thing in there you control.
Okay. You don't control anything. You can try to control it, but you don't control anything else.
So you start here. But invariably, if I say, what are the circles of importance in your life? It goes something like this.
Sol. My family, and by family you mean my the people in my house. Yeah, you got like my church. Maybe, or you got my job and church are sort of kind of in there together somewhere, you know. And maybe my extended family gets thrown in there, you know.
Yeah. I would challenge you. To look in page through scripture. And you'll find something that'll surprise you. You will find Not a kind of negation of your biological family at all.
You'll find that you should prize, support, engage, teach, train, lean into, cultivate the healthiest biological family you possibly can. But here's what you'll find. that the church is actually first family. In scripture. And that may surprise you.
That isn't a denouncing of your biological family. But it is an understanding That Jesus looks and says, Who's my mother and my brothers and my sisters and my father? Who is it? Those who believe. He says.
When you see Scripture, the Philadelphia turns itself to this community. And it sees you as part of a family of God. Right? So I sometimes have found families who find it virtuous to insulate themselves. and to wall themselves off.
in some way. From the church. Subtly, they're going to take care of this, and then they'll, if time's off, then they'll, if they, and here's what they're missing. They're missing. All the aunts and uncles They're missing all the cousins.
They're missing all the second mothers and fathers. They're missing all the grandparents that are available within the context of the local community. Instead of seeing family, church. See Care for my soul, and and move within the family of God. And you move your family within the family of God.
And you let that family seep in. And you have these brotherly, sisterly, Philejo-ridden relationships. But you got to cultivate for that. We do in our discipleship groups an annual growth plan. And for people who do it, one of the weird parts of it is it says, what friendships will I cultivate this next year?
And then next to it, it says, in the most non-friendship-oriented thing you've ever seen, it says, quantifiable goal. But here's the thing. What do you how do you think you'd cultivate a friendship? By not? Setting aside time and space to do it?
By not saying Hey, Sally, I'm going after Sally. I'm going after. Billy Bot! And we're going to become tight. And I'm going to pursue.
And so once a month, I'm going to get together to do this. And I'm going to text them once a week. How would a relationship happen? Would it just just be just click? It's just we just click.
That's not how it happens. It happens because you point your life. your resources, your time and your energy toward it. Brotherly affection, sisterly affection, and then it culminates with agape love. That you would live a kind of selfless oriented life.
Pouring yourself out.
So that's the sort of the latter of these, right? Let me give you a little Aristotle. The greatest virtues are necessarily those which are most useful to others, since virtue is the faculty of conferring benefits. I like that. In other words, the best virtues are those things I have within me, he says, that end up benefiting you because they reside in me.
That is, that by my presence your life is better. Because your my life is better because of you, because of virtue that you have cultivated.
Now, if you like to read productivity. uh literature, some people do, leadership kind of literature. I advertise this. We have all of our interns read this, and I've advertised this book before. Because if you have an interest at all, In that area, this book, What's Best Next, is the best thing you can possibly read.
I'm convinced of it. By getting Matt Perman. I want to give you a quote from Matt. He said, Hence, the overarching principle of the Christian life is that we are here to serve the glory of God. We are to be in this world not for what we can get out of it, but for what we can give.
According to the Bible, a truly productive life is lived in service to others. Being productive is not about seeking personal peace and affluence because God made us for greater. Golfs. It's about being out in that way.
So, with that in view, real quick. Cool. The effects of being eagle-eyed. And I'm just going to put all three of them up here for you because they're right here in this last two verses. Verse 8.
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective.
So, one of the effects. of having the kind of life that you've cultivated to look down the road and habituate certain things now. is that you'll actually be Effective. Which is different than being efficient. Efficient is you do things.
In a rapid time, effective is you do the right things. Right? You do the right things.
So you're going to do the right things in the right way. That's what makes for effectiveness. or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, having a life that matters. that impacts people. that shapes others.
Fruitful. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind, blind being nearsighted, as we said when we began, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. I love this last point. One of the effects is that you remember you were cleansed. The fact that you remember that you were cleansed.
is so important. And here's why. Because you're going to go, and if you took this message seriously in this final little exercise we'll do seriously, you're going to go and you're going to go to Mom and go, man, I'm going to work to cultivate A, B, and C. Great. You go do it.
And next day, I'm going to go call it for A, B, and C. Go, go do it.
Next day, A, B, Z, I'm gonna go do it. And then you're going to find out. That you are doing these things in a world. that doesn't really care. You're doing them in a world that doesn't like.
that you would cultivate those things. And then those nut jobs that you call your biological family. Who live with you in that house? They're not really getting up thinking about all that you're cultivating. They're thinking about all the things you have not yet cultivated.
And so they would like this to be different, something else to change in your life. And you're going to feel like, man. You don't even know all the things I've been doing. For like three days I've been cultivating. Give me a break?
You get offended. You upset. This ain't working. It's a waste of time. I can't do that.
I've done it three days. You think I can do this? Our pastor says it's going to take six months for me to be a different person. How depressing is that? I can't do it.
Here's what you're going to do. In that moment. You're going to say, but I remembered how he closed his message. And he said, You need to remember. That God's grace came to you.
That God's grace washed you clean. And it did that so that you could rehearse that over your own life and over the lives of the people who might be frustrating you around you. And that you could preach that gospel to yourself. both about your own life and about your attitude towards them. And that you would have a disposition of grace towards them and a disposition of self-compassion towards you, knowing that he loves you.
and longs for you to press forward. in these virtues. and the cultivation of a life oriented Toward him.
So here's what I want you to do. Listen to John Piper, and I'm going to give you a response time. I love this quote, aimless, unproductive Christians contradict the creative, purposeful, powerful, merciful God we love. I love that. Thank you.
You are here, still breathing. For reasons. And that's not putting weight and pressure on you. It's to say. You be?
You will always be who you are. My question for you 2024 is, who are you going to be? That's the question. Who are you going to be?
So you have a sheet. And you have a little bookmark. Grab it for just a second. Sheet and a bookmark. Yeah.
This sheet has on one side and the other, and I'm going to credit Len Robinson. With the development of these pieces with the requisite scripture here. 32 different characters, characteristics. Right? That was titled, and I love the title he gave, Our Loving Gift for Our Giving God.
Okay. What are we going to give to the Lord this year? By way of ourself and our character, and there's 32 on each side, I challenge you, look through these. and pick out two of them. And just pick out two of them and highlight them and say, this year, this is, you can't give all 32.
It's just impossible.
Some of them he already got. That's good. Keep going. I mean, I'm looking at these, like, some of y'all are really dependable.
Some of you are really punctual. That's great.
Some of you make us think that we're all on your time. Maybe you ought to think about punctuality.
Some of you are determined, some of you aren't.
Some of you are filled with discretion.
Some of you never looked that up in the dictionary. And so what you want to do is look at these and go now. What are two? that I could say I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm going to strategize. In my life, to work on these two.
Then highlight them on this little bookmark here and slide it in your Bible or slide it in somewhere that you'll remember. And Throughout the year, Process. How am I going to work on these? What am I going to do? And begin to strategize in your life for a life where you happen to virtue, but don't happen to it ambiguously.
There's no point in us having a little motivational chat to go, yeah, I'm going to change my. What are you going to change? What are you going to change? You get up tomorrow. What is something you will do differently tomorrow?
to qualitatively change In one or two of these ways? What are things that you will do? What I want you to do is take this, we're going to sing a couple songs. You can sing if you want. You can stand if you want.
You can sit if you want. That's fine. But you take some time, look that over, and process. And before you leave here, have a couple picked out. Think through a plan, and then join us as we worship in these last couple of songs.
Father, thank you for our time, and I pray your blessing upon us as we consider how we can happen to 2024. In Jesus' name, amen.
