If you would stand with me today as we read the Word of God, you're going to be in the book of 2 Peter. We're going to go from verse 1 through verse 11. In a sermon I've entitled, discipleship. Now my young 20s co-worker told me that nobody wants to take an L, and I was like, well, I understand, I guess.
He said anyone under 30 definitely gets that. And my wife did not, so she will beat me up for that later. So we are going to be in 2 Peter beginning in chapter 1 in verse 1. And the scripture says, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like and precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of our Lord, according as His divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this giving all diligence, add your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar often hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, as we come before you today, we pray that your word does the work. God, as much as any of us try to do, we are counting on you to meet with us. God, we work diligently to see you take effect in our lives, to see you work on different things, but Lord, it is you who does the work. But God, help us to do the part that you've given us to do. Help us to be faithful to obey. God, I pray that your word would be honored, that you would be exalted, and that somebody would leave here different than they came in.
In Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. You may be seated. You may be seated. You may be seated.
You may be seated. And, God, help us to see you take effect in all that we do. He did a great sermon on loving people sincerely where they are.
And this past week, we finished out the series by carrying out the great commission with passion. And I was so grateful to hear that sermon. But in an attempt to further bolster that idea, I want to talk about what happens after you get through the first step of discipleship. Namely, a lot of people talk about, they get saved and they get baptized.
What now? Now the Great Commission does not stop at seeing people saved and baptized, but teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And he says, and lo, I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
This is a very important detail. It's not just saved and baptized, but it's having people become like Christ, learning of him in many ways. And you know, that is what God is commanding the disciples to do. He's commanding them to go make disciples.
And they attempt to do this all the time. And actually, every epistle that you read, that's what they're doing. They are attempting to disciple you. They are attempting to change you more towards the image of Jesus Christ in what you are reading. That is the goal. And so today, I think this epistle in these first 11 verses give us six L's that we can see in discipleship.
In one sentence, I would say it like this. Discipleship is leading people to the Lord and teaching people to spend time learning, living, and loving for the sake of a lasting faith. That's what discipleship is. It's leading people to the Lord and teaching people to spend time learning, living, and loving for the sake of a lasting faith. Now, if you didn't catch all six L's, we're going to start with leading.
We're going to start with leading. So, 2 Peter 1, 1. It says, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, whenever someone is being discipled, there's always a teacher and a student. Disciple literally means learner or follower. That's what that is. So, when people are like, well, I'm a Christian, but I'm not a disciple, you're not a follower of Jesus?
That's a dangerous place to be. I think you misunderstood your terms there. But when we talk about making disciples, we're talking about there being a teacher, a leader, and a learner, a follower. And there's someone that helps lead you along the way. 2 Timothy says it this way. 2 Timothy 2, 2 says, and the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. You see, the apostles were led by Christ. They were discipled by him. They spent time with him.
They learned from him. And in doing so, God then gave them the job of being the initial disciplers. So, discipled people then turn and disciple people.
Now, in the giving of the Great Commission, God always had that intention. And unfortunately, a common mistake that people make is they attach the work of the ministry, whether that be evangelism or discipleship or the care for needs of people in the church, and they say, oh, that's the pastor's job. That's the church staff's job.
I don't need to do that. They do that. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that all of us play a role in that. If you were here last week, you heard Braden talk about how in Acts chapter 8, when evangelism was going on, when the church was growing, when it was bolstering, when persecution came in, in Acts chapter 8, the disciples, the apostles, stayed in Jerusalem, and the church that got scattered by the persecution went everywhere preaching the gospel. It wasn't the apostles. It was the church, interestingly enough.
Last week you heard that, but this has been the biblical model. It's for the whole church to do the work that God has given us. We are all disciples, and so God gives us the same mission that he gave his disciples.
And you can see this in places like Ephesians 4, 11, and 12. It says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints. So to build the saints up for the work of the ministry. He builds the saints up. They do those things so that the saints can do the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.
That's what we need. We need all the people to do all the work. And I know it's all the people, because if you were to go four verses lower, it talks about the benefit that every joint supplies. It's not just the pastor-teachers. It's every piece of the congregation being involved, getting into the work, and doing the discipleship. Now, if you're going to do discipleship, you need to know what that is.
That is, one, leading. That's what we're talking about. Just as the pastor should not be the only one witnessing, they should not be the only ones discipling, counseling, and caring for the needs of the church. And now maybe you're not equipped to do all those things to their fullest extent, and it's okay to admit when you're in over your head on some things. As a matter of fact, we'd prefer when you're in over your head on some things to say that. But may I say, we have so much more with the wisdom of God than we think we do. We have so much more with the Word of God than we think we do.
You'd be amazed with how the wisdom of God is even greater than the wisdom of men. Now, as we continue through, what you'll see is, I feel, at our church, we are very blessed in this. I see many people who go, they help, they do different parts of the work of the ministry, they care for one another, they help raise up and disciple one another, they go out and they share the gospel. Praise God, you guys are telling other people about Jesus Christ.
It's a beautiful thing. But, I'm sure that's not everyone. I'm sure there's someone in here who says, I've been a Christian for many years, or I've known of Christ, or I've been doing these different things, and maybe I haven't spent my time helping anyone else grow, not purposefully. And sometimes you can kind of help disciple people on accident. I remember Cam was talking about how he learned to pray. He learned to pray by another guy in the congregation, just pulling him over and saying, hey, come pray with me. That's a beautiful thing.
That's a beautiful thing. Now, we're going to go back to our key text, 2 Peter 1-1. It says, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained, like precious faith, through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
In this epistle, as he's trying to disciple the people, what he's saying is, he comes in explaining himself in this way. He calls himself Simon Peter. Now, if you're familiar with your Bible at all, Simon Peter is a name that you know.
It's kind of a household name. Now, what you also may recognize is he gets called Simon when he does things not so well half the time, and he gets called Peter when he does things really well, when he's stable, when he's the rock, if that makes sense. But he names himself both, and I think this is really telling. He calls himself Simon Peter here.
Now, obviously there's some things about, you know, there's a lot of Simons and there's things, but there's, it's also been a trope in the Scriptures for a reason. And he calls himself both. He also gives himself both titles. He says, I am a servant and an apostle.
That's a beautiful thing. So Peter comes in being one who has successfully done things for the Lord and also royally stuck his foot in his mouth. I mean, he has really high highs and really low lows, and he just keeps following after Jesus, and it's a beautiful thing.
And if we're honest, we have sometimes really high highs and really low lows. But he comes in great humility. Announcing himself first is a servant.
The word is doulos. It actually would be better translated slave. He is a slave of God is how he defines himself. He's not someone who has an option. He's someone who's saying, I have to do this.
My master says so. But he also wants to do this. And he comes as an apostle.
Now, if you're not familiar what that word technically means is a sent one. It's somebody who's on a mission. Someone gave them a job to do, and they're going to do it. What job were the apostles given to do?
The Great Commission. Every time he comes and tells you I'm an apostle, he's saying this is me doing my job in the Great Commission. This is why I can turn to this passage and say this is discipleship. This is what he's doing. Now, is just writing letters the only part of discipleship?
Obviously not. But that's what he's doing here. Now, Peter was a man on a mission. He was a man on God's mission, in fact. And he became, the apostles became, the prototypes for disciplers.
Now, he also talks about his audience when we go back to the text. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained a like and precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. The audience is Christians. His disciplees are people who have come. They know the faith. They are in the faith. And he says, great. I have words for you.
I have things to help you. And those who have obtained a like and precious faith. Now, it gives a very important distinction with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. The fact that this is in the first verse is very important. Because when he goes and he starts discipling you and he tells you all these things you ought to be doing, what he doesn't want you to think is you're doing these things to earn your salvation.
Because you're not. You cannot earn your way to heaven. There is nothing good enough you can do to get to heaven. We have a righteousness that is not our own.
Peter is writing to those who have believed in Jesus for their salvation. He's not announcing good works or as a requirement for salvation. He's not encouraging people just to be more moral. There's going to be a lot of moral people who go to hell.
That just is what it is. There's going to be a lot of people who tried to just live right and said, but I don't need that Jesus guy. And they will not go to heaven. Because the standard for heaven is not good. It's perfect. And if you're not perfect, you need someone who is.
A.W. Tozer is quoted as saying the only sin that Jesus ever had was ours and the only righteousness we can ever have is his. The only way someone can be right with God is if they've been saved by faith in Jesus Christ and him alone. The reason is because God's standard is perfection. And I don't know about you, but I have not met that standard.
Well, I do know about you. The Bible tells me. For all of sin and come short, the glory of God.
All right, we all don't make it. So, the beautiful thing then is that Jesus offers you his perfection. That's the beauty of the gospel. It's Jesus who lived perfectly, who suffered, who took your place, and said, I'll give you my righteousness and I'll take your sin.
I'll take your punishment. So Peter, as the discipler, seeks to direct people, not to himself, but to the Lord. That brings us to the second L, Lord. So you've got a leader that directs people to the Lord. 2 Peter 1 2. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and our Lord Jesus. Jesus our Lord.
Either way. In these common introductory words, which you will find in almost every epistle, grace and peace. Grace and peace. Why do they always say that? Well, they say it because grace is a common Greek greeting and peace is the common Jewish greeting. He's greeting everyone. Now, if I were to talk to someone who's older and someone who's younger, if you're older, I will say, hi, hello, nice to meet you.
If you're younger, I'm probably gonna say, hey, what's up? We greet people differently based upon the culture they're in. We just do. And so, he's saying grace and peace. This is a welcome blessing, a welcome greeting to all who hear. Because the beautiful thing in the church is we are all a little bit different.
God did not make us one color, one nation, one tongue. We all can have access to Jesus Christ. But Peter takes both of these greetings and notes that they have a source. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus. Jesus our Lord.
I always put that backwards. Now, what he does is he says that because true grace and true peace only come from who? From God. From Jesus Christ and what he did. Now, I've gotta explain maybe some of these terms.
We hear terms and we use terms, but Christians have a language we speak that we don't always define for everyone. And in case anyone is not familiar, grace is unmerited favor. It's something you are given that you did not earn. That's it.
I've heard people use the acrostic. They say grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. That's a beautiful way to look at it. But it's specifically through the knowledge of Christ. This is not an impersonal knowing either. It's not saying I have an intellectual knowledge of the facts, therefore, I'm saved. It is an intimate communion together. It is a relationship that you now have with Jesus Christ. When you have a relationship with Christ, you can receive grace for sin and peace with God. Ephesians 2 8 through 9, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God and not of works lest any man should boast. And in Romans 5 1 and 2, I love this passage.
It says, therefore being justified by faith, justified means declared righteous, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So you have a leading in discipleship. You lead in a direction we're leading to the Lord.
We're saying this is the one you look after. It's the same thing as when Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ, right? What are we leading them to the Lord to do? What are they about to do? Well, they're going to start with learning. They're going to start with learning.
That's what it says. The truths and practices of the Christian life. That's a lot of what they're learning. So 2 Peter 1 3, according as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. You know one of the first things you learn as a Christian is, I can't rely on me.
I have to rely on him. It is him who is sufficient, not myself. We learn to rely on God's sufficiency. Peter's saying that this divine power has given us all that we need for life and godliness. Now some people think the phrase his divine power is just a Jewish way of saying God, but either way God has given you all that you need for life and godliness. It is saying that God has given you all you need to have salvation, life, and godliness, righteous living. In other words, you have the power from the one who has divine power to obey God now if you are a Christian. You can please God now that you have faith, and you can do what he tells you to do. Now are you going to do that perfectly?
No. But most of that is because we chose not to along the way, because that old flesh gets in and we choose that. One of the most important things every Christian needs to learn, and relearn by the way, because we don't just learn things once.
It's like we learn and there's a giant hole back here that everything falls out of. What we learn and relearn is that God is our sufficiency. He is the way that our fears are quelled. He is the one that secures our hope. He is the one that empowers our life. This is even more clearly seen in that this knowledge calls us to glory and virtue.
This is an endless life and a righteous life. This passage shows the paradox as well of scripture, because he says you were called to glory and virtue. But at the same time, he says I've given you the power to do it. So you have the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.
God has called us to it, but he encourages you to play an active role. People are called of God and then given the power to live out their faith. Now what this doesn't mean is in your Bible somewhere in fourth Genesis, it tells you whether to buy a Ford or a Chevy, okay?
It's not, that's not what he's saying. He's not saying every decision you will ever make is written in your Bible somewhere in the fine print. What he is saying is that in order to be saved and live a godly life, everything you need to know is right here.
We learn as well about fundamental changes that happen within us. 2 Peter 1.4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. In this we're given exceeding great promises. What are these promises?
How do we know them? You know, if only God would put like a letter together and just tell us what they are. It'd be really nice if there was a collection of books somewhere that just said what what God had for us. Oh, oh, he wrote a book.
Okay, great. But how do you know what the promises are if you don't read it? How do you know what God has for you? How do you know what he's saying?
I have these incredible, beautiful things that you can take to the bank if you never open it up to figure out what they are. As we keep going, we see that one change that happens is we become partakers of the divine nature. We learn about this, that we change in our nature.
This statement is not one that will happen eventually. You become a partaker of the divine nature as soon as you accept Christ. As soon as you become a believer, you become a partaker in the divine nature. Because you go from a nature of corruption to God's nature working in you and through you.
It's a beautiful thing. In this partaking of Christ, we become indwelt by the Spirit of God, and we are escaped from the corruption of the world. Now, our ultimate escape maybe isn't yet, but God starts changing us, molding us, making us what we ought to be, leaning into what he is. Now, when our nature changes, that includes a turn from sin, okay? A turn from sin.
You cannot have a changed nature and never have a change in your day-to-day living. You can't say, I'm exactly who I was before I got saved, nothing changed, because then you didn't have a change of nature. We can't continue on sinning the same way. We have the power to live for God now, and not just for our sins like we used to. And even the things that we thought were good, we were doing without faith in God, and so they weren't really that good either. And so Paul noted something similar to this with his critics, because Paul preached a gospel of grace, and he said, come, it's free, he did the work, you don't have to earn it.
But what people heard when he said that is, you mean I can live however I want? And Paul has to take a step back and say, that's not what I said. Romans 6, 1 and 2, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
God forbid. If you're truly changed on the inside, if you realize how wicked and awful you've been, and you need a Savior, your first response shouldn't be, let me get my ticket punched to heaven so I can live like the devil and still go to heaven. It should be, God forgive me a sinner. God forgive me because I'm wrong.
Let me change to be the way you want me to be. He says, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? When you get saved, what you're saying is, I'm dead to the old me, I'm dead to the sinful nature, and I'm living to Christ. Now we also learn that the Christian life is a diligent life. 2 Peter 1, 5, it says, and beside this, giving all diligence.
We're just going to stop there for now. Although God works all things, God works within us, and he tells us then to give all diligence for our own growth. God is not saying, yes, I'm going to do it, just sit there and wait for it to happen. God is saying, go work your legs and I'll change you while you do it. If you think that you're going to magically become like Jesus by sitting in a room by yourself and never doing anything, never interacting, never following what Jesus did or taught, you are sorely mistaken. That's not what it means.
God is not honored by saying, well, God will make me grow in this, or only God can make me do it, but you're not actually trying. You know what's interesting? I have five children, by the way. Most of you probably know that, but with one of my five children, I have a son, he's four, and his name is Benji. Benji likes to go places with me, but Benji is not old enough that he can do many things on his own. And not because he can't, but because he doesn't want to.
And what I find is, we get in the car, we get ready to go, and I'm like, alright guys, everybody got a seat belt on? And Benji's like, I can't do it. And then I'll be like, Benji, try. And so he'll like, Benji, try. Like, you're not trying. He's like, yes I am.
Yeah, like that. But he'll say, you know what, I can't do it. And eventually I get sick of waiting, and I'm like, Henry, please help him. I can't.
I can't listen to this anymore. Or, we gotta go. Or sometimes we'll just sit there, and I'm like, alright, we'll figure it out. Do it. If you need actual help, we'll help you, but you need to try.
You need to see if you can do it. And it's the same way. Sometimes people have this bad idea of what it looks like to try to live godly.
They say, well, I said the first thing right, and then I just said what I thought. And it's like, well, did you try to be patient? Did you try to look at them through God's eyes? Did you try to, like, yeah.
How hard did you try? One of my favorite stories about that, I've got a friend. That's the danger of being my friend. Anyway, I've got a friend, and he was starting to kind of not do things the way he should. He just wasn't living for Jesus the way he used to, and we tried to talk to him about it. I asked him about it. I tried to encourage him, and he's like, yeah, I know.
I know. And then finally, he was doing something with another friend of ours, a mutual friend, and he brought it up, too. And my friend's like, you know, I'm trying. And my second friend said, could you try harder? And that was so convicting for him because he had to sit there and think, am I actually trying as hard as I can?
Am I working diligently at making this different? And his answer was no. And after that day, he started to make some of those changes.
I talked to that guy for weeks. Hurt my soul. But I was really glad he was making those changes.
It was good. Now, the other thing that's worth noting, it has always been God's intention for his creation to work with him. Okay? Does God need you to do things? Not in the slightest. But he wants you to be involved.
Here's an example. Genesis 2 15. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden in Eden to dress it and keep it. You telling me God couldn't make the garden just, you know, prune at the right time?
No. He purposefully put the creation he had made and said, I want you to take care of it. This is before the fall, by the way. Work is a good thing. It's not a bad thing.
I know sometimes we feel like work is a bad thing. And I blame Adam for that. Maybe and Eve. Anyway. Mostly Adam. So, mostly Eve. Anyway.
I'm just kidding. I know it's Adam's fault. But God didn't really need him to do that. But God wanted him to be a part of the process. God wanted him to be doing something.
In Luke, think about this. Why does God use angels? God obviously knows how to speak. Why does he use angels to give us messages?
Because he wants them to be a part of his process. Luke 1 18 and 19. And Zechariah said unto the angel, whereby shall I know this? For I'm an old man and my wife is well stricken in years. It's a good thing he was in the temple and she wasn't.
Because there would have been a stick. They went ahh. And the angel answering said unto him, I'm Gabriel that stands in the presence of God. And I'm sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad tidings. Why does God use angels?
Or let's go another route. How about in the New Testament in the book of Acts? Because we like Acts.
We've been there a lot. Acts chapter 10 verse 3 through 5. And he saw a vision. This is Cornelius. And evidently it was about the ninth hour of the day and the angel of God coming in to him and saying unto him, Cornelius.
Yeah. And when he looked on him he was afraid. By the way, if you ever look at a biblical description of angels, there's a good reason to be afraid.
Okay. They're not like little babies with like, it's not what it is. There's good reason to be afraid. And when he looked on him he was afraid. He said, what is it Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are come up as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon whose surname is Peter and he will tell you what you need to do.
The angels already there delivering a message. Why doesn't he just deliver the message of salvation? Because God intends for us to do that. God intends for you to take a part in what he has started. The same is true as a whole with our Christian life. The disciple of Christ is empowered to live a righteous life. A God-honoring life.
He just has to continually choose to commit himself to it instead of doing what he may feel is good or easy or convenient at the moment. And a lot of times, if we're honest, good, easy or convenient win. I just don't feel like it. I'm tired. They're being mean.
I shouldn't be treated that way. We can make a lot of excuses for why we don't do what God says. But ultimately the decision is we didn't want to. Now what are things that we are to diligently do? He says with all diligence and then we stopped. We're going back to 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 5. He says with all diligence add to your faith virtue.
We're gonna stop there. In connection with the previous section, look at the word add. The word add means to supply or give generously.
Again, our job. Add to your faith virtue. Supply generously.
Give diligent work. It is the believer's job to be actively, generously, diligently growing in all ways that we're talking about today beginning with virtue. Now I read a commentary on this and they said what it is is this is like a benefactor has come in and he's given an incredible sum of money to run a play. And what it's like is he's giving all this money to run the place so that the actors can be paid, so the musicians can be paid, so everything can come together.
They can all do their work to have one right play. That make sense? God has abundantly given to you everything that you need for life and godliness. So much so that he's now saying go fulfill your role in the play.
Go do it. So we have to add to our faith virtue. We got past add finally.
There you go. Learn to add to our faith virtue. What is virtue? Virtue is moral excellence. Once one of the first things you'll notice when you read the scriptures is God's version of good is not necessarily my version of good. All as righteous as God it is is not as righteous as I am. And I'm assuming you came to that conclusion by the fact that you got saved and realized you didn't measure up. So one of the first things you do is you begin to get God's mind on what's good and what's bad. You begin to say okay God what am I supposed to do? How should I really be? What is right and wrong?
How do I do these things? So we get on God's page. Now this is not just a mind thing. If something in the Christian life that God wants to teach you it's not only supposed to come into your head it's supposed to come out through your life. Okay and we'll talk about that more but one of the first things we need is we need to see sin the way God does. We need to see what's actually righteous the way God does. If you claim something is righteous and God says it's not you're wrong. That's it.
He's not okay. Perfection isn't wrong. Isaiah 55 8 9 says for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. And this goes into the idea of teaching the nations to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded thee.
Now obviously like we said if it's in your mind it'll come out to your life. Next thing you learn you learn the teachings of God. It says add to your virtue knowledge in verse 5.
Add to your virtue knowledge. As a Christian as we get our virtues realigned as we start to understand what God says is good what God says is right as we get washed and renewed in our mind in God's ways we grow in our knowledge of him. It's incredible thing that happens when you get saved and you start reading your Bible again.
You're like man I actually understand some of this. It's a beautiful thing. And our ability to spiritually discern and wisely handle situations grows immensely. When I understand what God values and I attempt to live that out and I grow in my knowledge of scripture and what's going on in God's world and what his plans are and how it all works together. That's where Proverbs 9 10 comes in. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
That's where wisdom comes from. And the knowledge of the holy is understanding. You see our general understandings of across the scripture ever growing as a disciple has the ability to learn much in scripture even just in this passage of scripture the Christian learns of God's efficiency.
We learn about the change in our nature. We learned that we have to seek moral excellence and a general and a particular knowledge of God. As disciples we can do this in several ways. Attending church you hear someone who spent hours studying a passage saying hey this is what God is saying to you.
Unless you spent those same hours studying that passage it might be good for you to hear it. Or maybe reading and studying the scriptures on your own though it's a beautiful thing to do. It's an important thing to do.
It's a commanded thing to do. Meditating on God's Word. Retaining God's instruction through memorization. These are all things you should be doing in this learning phase that we're talking about. By the way the learning phase is ever going. You should never say well I memorized 10 verses I'm done. I'm reading a book by a guy who memorized 35 books of the Bible.
And I'm sitting there going that's incredible. I just want to I want to start with one. I want to start with one. But you also have other opportunities. You have opportunities to learn here. We have things like LBI. We have things like 242.
We have things like all kinds of things. And if you don't learn if you don't make the effort to learn whose fault is it? So we go from learning to living because obviously what comes in the mind has to come out through the body.
Second Peter 1 6. And add to knowledge temperance. Living a self-controlled life. When you understand moral excellence. What God has. What is right. What is wrong.
How to go about it. And your knowledge increases. You get the wisdom of how to do things. Then you need to learn to control yourself.
You need to be self-controlled. Because you can know what's right and not be doing what's right. You can know what's right and not be putting in the effort to be what's right. If you want a good picture of what the what someone is who knows a lot but doesn't do the right things. Let's just go ahead and open to the book of Corinthians.
Okay. The way they're described in 1st Corinthians 8 1. He says, now touching things offered to idols we know that we all have knowledge.
But knowledge puffeth up. You know one of the one things that they had in spades in the Corinthian Church? They knew a lot. They know that an idol is nothing. They know that they're not doing anything wrong when they eat meat offered to idols. They know that they can do these things. And they're like, we're fine. Why are you getting on to us about stuff? Why do they care? They're just wrong.
I don't have to care what they think. I know better. You should temper your knowledge with your love. That's what he says. He says, knowledge puffs up.
Charity builds up. You can know things. But how does it affect your life?
So you need that self-control piece. You know who else is a great example of having knowledge and no self-control? Simon Peter. The guy who's writing to you.
Think about this. Jesus, who do men say that I the Son of Man am? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Well done, Peter. Because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father from heaven. And then as he keeps going, Jesus says, and by the way guys, I'm gonna die.
And I'm gonna rise again. And Peter goes and he grabs Jesus and he says, well he rebukes him. He doesn't say not so, Lord, here. But he rebukes him. And he says, be it far from the Lord, this shall not be unto thee. No, God, you're wrong.
Wow. The wisdom to the self-control line went whoo. You see, God doesn't want us just to know better. He wants us to do better. He wants us to follow him in his example, too.
2 Peter 1.6, an ad to temperance, patience. Learning to walk and wait patiently in self-control. By the way, this is hard.
This is really hard. Do you want to know what really makes you work on patience? Other people. You're like, my Christian life would be so easy if it was just me in this room and I didn't have to deal with anyone else. But Sharon, she...
I don't know, I'm not talking about a specific Sharon, okay? Anyway, the point is, when you deal with people, God grows you in patience. And you need to grow in patience. Almost no one can get under your skin faster than someone who ought to know better and does something dumb.
It's really quick. It happens when my kids do something and I'm like, you know better than that. Like, I'm like super annoyed when you've got a Christian who does something to you and you're like, you ought to know better than that.
Like, what is going on? It can get under your skin very fast. And by the way, we all have different temperaments, different things that we like and we don't like. And you may find my voice grating on your soul. I tend to believe that everybody in this room has an invisible tattoo that says EGR for someone else.
And EGR means extra grace required. I might be the perfect storm of everything you hate in a person, but Jesus loves me. And so, we might as well learn to get along and you learn to have patience with me. Because I'm not going to be a perfect person and neither are you. And so, it's learning, living in self-control, living in patience. Think about Jesus. And I have to get going.
I am not anywhere near as far as I need to be right now. The perfect sinless Son of God spent years with sinners, knowing their thoughts, knowing the things they said under their breath. And how patient has He been with us? We got to keep moving. 2 Peter 1 6, and to patience godliness.
This is correct living both vertically and horizontally. When you've learned God's morals, when you've grown in your knowledge of Him, when you've got some self-control, you've learned to be patient, by extension this creates godliness. When you know what's right, you're doing what's right, you're controlling yourself, you're being patient, you are living in a godly manner.
It is happening. Now, we don't stay there very long. We have to get back into it on a regular basis. But we grow to the right and proper example of Jesus Christ. We get the opportunity to live out our faith in good times and in bad and around all kinds of people. However, God is not just concerned with what we know and with what we act like. If we leave love out of the equation, we're going to be just like the Pharisees.
Because they knew more than everyone, because they did more than everyone, but they didn't love anyone. So there's living, there's learning, there's living, there's loving. 2 Peter 1.7, and to godliness brotherly kindness. This is the Philadelphia base word.
Fileto is where it comes from. It's this concept that in this right living you have to gain a care for other people. You have to gain a care for someone else. One of the things that had always stuck with me is Christ's compassion for people. I'm going to skip a couple verses guys in the back, I'm sorry.
We're going to go to Mark 1.41. In Mark 1.41 you get this story of a leper. And the leper comes to Jesus and he says, Lord if you're willing I can be made clean.
And Jesus response is I will be thou clean. And he touches him, which is incredible for a leper. There's the reason this matters so much to me. There's, this is going to sound dumb, there's a musical. It's called His Story. And it's all about the life of Jesus. And in this musical this leper has a song.
It's called Willing. And as he's going through he's talking about all the parts of his life he's missing out on. His family that he can't see anymore, his job that he can't do. He sees his wife from afar and she can't even recognize him because so many parts of his body are falling off. And he is sitting there and he hears of a miracle man who's coming. He hears of someone who can heal the leper and he says I have to go. This is the how he finishes his song. He says he sees me, he walks toward me, I fall down in his glory, his glory filling my lungs I can barely breathe.
Lord if you're willing you can make me clean. And Jesus touches the man and says I'm willing, be cleansed. Do you have compassion on those around you?
Do you compare, do you care about what they're going through? If you're ever going to be like Jesus and you have no brotherly kindness, you're gonna end up a whole lot more like a Pharisee than like Jesus. By the way it has to grow from just brotherly kindness to absolute charity.
That's the last part. 1st 2nd Peter 1 7 and from brotherly kindness to charity. And as we begin to care for our neighbor we must grow not only into I care for you but I will give up things for you. I will sacrifice for you. I will give you if we're gonna be like Jesus up to the point of my life.
I will give up all for you. This is the agape love. It's sacrificial love. And by the way it is the top of the Christian ethic.
Nothing touches that. Nothing touches that because Jesus said this. Matthew 22 37 to 39. Jesus said unto him and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love God love people you'll do the whole law. So unfortunate that one of the things we are not good at is loving people.
Now these are written in order for a reason. If you attempt to love with not without understanding what God's morals are you're gonna love someone straight to hell. You're gonna say hey by the way I'm just loving them I don't want to be mean to them I don't want to say anything that's gonna hurt their feelings. Sometimes people need their feelings hurt. Sometimes people need to hear something that is actually going to help them make a change.
If you have a family member who is a drug addict and you say don't ever change we love you. You are going to be the reason they die someday. You have to understand what God loves, what God hates, how to go about things in wisdom, how to live out the right way because if you're living wrong why would I listen to you anyway and then you need to love people. That's what being a disciple is. You lead others to the Lord so that they can learn to learn they can live and they can love.
And if they do those things by the way they'll last and I'm gonna be finishing up very quickly. Second Peter 1 8 says for if you do these things if these things be in you and abound so it's not just I did them once it's not just if you do these things if these things being you abound they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're gonna keep going second Peter 1 9 but he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Is that you? Have you given up on learning or living or loving? Are you even a Christian or do you need to get right with him? By the way we're gonna do the Lord's Supper here in a few minutes. You need to start looking into yourself and saying am I right with God right now and if you're not do not take it. The early church said people died from taking it unworthily.
Check your heart get right with God and then take it. God's willing and able to forgive you he's longing to forgive you but will you choose to turn back to him. Second Peter 1 10 11 wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do those things you shall never fall. For so an entrant shall be ministered unto you abundantly into an everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're gonna move our way into the conclusion. Friends as we prepare to take communion today I want you to make sure your heart is right before the Lord.
We talked about why it's such a big deal. If you need to repent of sin I want you to repent of sin. If you need to be saved then come be saved. Don't let people stop you don't let anything else. Why go to hell because I was worried someone was going to think something about me. We're gonna have men and women up front and while we're doing the invitation I'm gonna have you guys come up you can grab the bread the drink and we're gonna go from there. If you'd stand with me today.
