2 Peter, 1:5-9
Gene Fuqua · Apr 15, 2007
1 & 2 Peter (2006-07), No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926023354054

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Let's look now at 2 Peter 1, verses 5-9. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence. And in your moral excellence, knowledge. And in your knowledge, self-control. And in your self-control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness. And in your godliness, brotherly kindness. and in your brotherly kindness love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins."

Peter wants us to have a true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, some of you today do not have this true knowledge, do they? People don't really, they have a religious experience, perhaps, or a They are involved in ceremonies that are religious, but they don't really have this true knowledge. They don't really know what a true Christian is, and they don't know who the true God is, and they don't know how to worship Him in spirit and truth.

So this true knowledge of the Lord is needed to overcome the doctrine and practice of false teachers. Most often we think of false teachers, when we think of them, we think of cults, those who deny the deity of Christ and the value of His precious blood. But we also need to think also of other false teachers, those who throw doubt on the Word of God. They have this higher criticism of the Word of God and they really think they know and they throw doubt on the scriptures, then there are those who are putting psychology in the church and using teachings that are not. They're extra-biblical, you might say. They're not just the word. They're trying to add to it.

So instead of encouraging people to know and love the Lord, they're encouraging them to know and love themselves, to develop self-esteem. We're not here to develop and find fulfillment. in the first man, Adam. That old creation. God is not remaking or patching up what we are in Adam. Isn't that good news? It is if you know yourself.

So, in verses 3 and 4, we have seen these provisions that we have in Christ. There is nothing for us to do but to believe His promises. This is the key to spiritual birth and spiritual growth in Christ, the last Adam. It's a wonderful place when we get to the place where we can quit focusing on self and start focusing on Christ and who he is and what he's done for us, what he's done for himself, for God the Father, the things that he's done to satisfy the righteous character of the Holy God. Paul says, for neither is circumcision anything or uncircumcision. In other words, being a Gentile or being a Jew is nothing. It's being a new creature, a new creation in Christ.

And so that's where we're starting from. That's where Peter's starting is from. He's already talked about in Peter, the first chapter, about us being born again out of corrupt seed, out of Adam, but of incorrupt. That's the Lord Jesus, by this incorruptible word. And so we're starting off, and Peter realizes that those he's talking about, those who's teaching here, and it's us too, that we are starting with this new nature. So we're not trying to build on the first Adam, and we're not in the Adam Improvement Society.

Let's get that straight. Now he says here, now for this very reason also, in other words, because of this, because of these things that we've seen in verses 3 and 4, Peter is saying that for this reason, that we have of this knowledge of Christ through His Word, through these promises, these precious promises, we are to apply diligence, to apply all diligence. Verse 5 is going to build on our understanding of the source of our assets.

These assets are the sum total benefits available to believers in Christ. The riches of the Lord's grace proceed from the cross. Paul tells us in Ephesians 1-7, in him we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Lord's riches, these assets of the Lord's grace come from the cross.

It's a wonderful place to get to the place where we realize the depth of the cross. So many believers today don't know that depth. They just hear salvation messages. I was brought up in a denominational church and a denominational college where the salvation message every Sunday. and pleading with people then afterwards to come down the aisle, you know, and you know, sing the hymn, you know, maybe 15 times, you know. So there was not the depth that comes.

And so once we're Christians, we want, if you're really as a babe, you want to desire that sincere mouth of the word, you want to grow and you want to get more and more and you want to find out the depths of what God has for us. And we learn that as we proceed on and see that we're crucified with Christ too, right? That He's done something brand new for us in His beloved Son. And then the riches of His glory proceed from the throne.

Philippians 4.19, For my God will supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So there's an unlimited supply of things available to supply our needs from the Lord, from His throne. And it's wonderful to know He's interceding for us. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. So the way we receive these benefits is to accept them by faith.

Think of it in terms of each Christian having a spiritual bank account. It's based on what each one deposits in the account. God has given us checks or promises, you might say, that need to be deposited. So all we need to do is assign the check and deposit them to our account.

How do you claim your promises from the Lord? How do you do that? I like to take and put a little stake beside the verse, make a little mark of a stake. You know, maybe you have your ways of doing it, and maybe you have a journal where you write down and claim promises from the Lord.

It's wonderful to begin and to keep record of these promises and see how the Lord fulfills and answers these claims that we make upon Him. Now, because Christ died for us, we have a number of assets, and they are found in the Word of God, and they can be claimed by faith. And so in verse three and four, Peter gives us the distinction and tells us that we have these assets. And he tells us the distinctions of these.

Now, first, the source. What is the source? His divine power. The basis. He has granted. He's granted. He's given. The scope. Everything. Everything. Everything that we need. what they are to be used for, life and Godliness. The means of the appropriation is through the knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and excellence, and the location are these precious and magnificent promises. Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, that's it. That's good. So that's it.

I guess what I was talking about a while ago is just, you know, if you want to just take heed as to what God has already done of those things that you believe. He promises to lead us in paths of righteousness for his namesake. I remember in college memorizing that verse in a song about him leading us in paths of righteousness. You know, he did that for me. He's done that for me. And I'm sure you can say the same. It's a path maybe that went various ways, maybe some pitfalls and falls and some failures. He leads us.

I think the fact that the Lord has brought us to the place of being able to see all these riches that we have in Christ, to be able to have these growth truths that we have been given, to have been brought in contact with those who understand the scriptures in a way to help us to get the depth of what Christ has for us. I just feel just so, we are just so blessed that we have these things that the Lord has given us. And so, Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness. Certainly that applies in the Kingdom, that verse, but the Lord certainly has shown us that it's His righteousness that He gives us, 1 Corinthians 1. Okay, he says here now, so the Word is a foundation and instrumentation for the production of the qualities of Christ that are to be produced in and through us. The character of Christ.

So he says, applying all diligence. Now this word applying is paraisphoro. I didn't put that in there, but it means applying. It means that our efforts follow the Lord's in working. Our efforts follow the Lord's in working. He works in us to will and do His good pleasure. So, this word diligence, spude, means eagerness, earnestness.

This conveys a note of urgency. Be eager to make every effort to do these things. We are to be earnest in applying what Peter is talking about here. So, not be half-hearted. Then he says, In your faith. Applying all diligence in your faith. Pistis. Your persuasion. Be persuaded. Moral conviction.

It refers to a moral conviction. Faith here means strong conviction. We should respond to these assets with strong conviction. Why can we be strongly convicted about it? Just what Nancy was just saying. Who He is. A God who will not lie. And we've seen so many things already been fulfilled in the Word, prophecies that's been fulfilled, especially concerning Israel. So many things we could go into there.

So we need to respond to these assets with a strong conviction of faith. And this is the end of human responsibility when we take on faith. Faith is simply resting on God's promises. It's a faith response to the promises of God that we need to have. Now, he says, in your faith supply, epikore aegio, to furnish beside, it means to fully supply.

The King James says add, and this makes it sound like we have something to add to our assets. There's nothing to be added to these resources. Our assets create a duty. We are stewards of this wealth and the Lord has entrusted to us these things. And it's because we have these riches that we have a responsibility to use the energy of faith to supply these things. So these qualities of life that we have a responsibility to manifest in our life are something that we need to supply. He's going to give us a list of things, as you've seen here.

Note that we start in faith and we end in love. Faith is the root and love is the crown. The ultimate development that Peter is going to lead us to is this agape love. This love that is good. You know, we pass from death to life because we love the brethren. So when we get to the place where we're loving brethren, what a blessing.

And that's where he wants us to come to. Think of this man, Peter. A man who was so self-willed and started out, you know, Simon, as we talked about last week, and what God did to develop this strong character, this rock-like character of Christ in him. And that's what he wants us to have.

Faith works outward to love. This is like dropping a stone in water and little circles come out from it automatically. We drop in the stone of faith, the stone of faith into the promises of the Word, And it creates this rippling effect of moral excellence and the following things. The faith response to the promises develop these things.

Paul says in 2 Philippians 2, 12 and 13, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. So now he's going to start and list these things.

First, we have moral excellence to be supplied. Moral excellence. This word in the King James is virtue. And I have to admit, this is the hardest word for me. It's been the hardest one and the one that I have really gone for years wondering, now what does that mean, virtue? But here we see in this New American Standard Upgraded, we have the word moral excellence. Now, the first step to spiritual growth is for this to be added, so we need to know what it is. It's a determination and moral courage or energy to live an excellent life.

How's that for a definition? I think of Paul. He said, Lord, what will you have me to do? Immediate response of what would you have me to do? So it's an eagerness to do and the energy to live. It's that motivation. 2 Peter 1, 2 and 3 says, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that His divine power has granted unto us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and excellence. That word excellence there in verse 3 is the same word. Arete.

And so, As we look at this word, moral excellence, we think of it, you can think of it this way, as excelling in the moral will of God. In every area of our life, we are to seek those values and priorities and attitudes and goals, purposes and devotion, everything that is the moral will of God. So you think of the old Adamic man.

In Adam, man did not glorify God, does not glorify God. We see that in Romans 1. Man does not glorify God. He doesn't want to know God. So therefore, God gives him up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are unseemly. They don't want the truth. The natural man does not want the true knowledge of God.

And so remember the scripture says that if any man will do what it said, if any man will do my will, he will know. So is there that energy to do immediately? Like Paul said, Lord, what will you have me to do now? Do any of you have any thoughts on the word virtue that you'd like to share, that you've learned through the years of study and application of this verse? There's some wonderful thoughts that we have as we think of excellence.

I think of Abigail. Abigail. Here's a woman who had a wicked husband, and his name was Nabal. Remember, Nabal was asked by David's men to provide food. In fact, David wanted this man to provide food for his men. Nabal refused to. He railed on the messengers that came and asked for food. Well, then the servant of Nabal went to Abigail and told her what had happened. What did Abigail do? She was a woman of moral excellence. What did she do?

She prepared all kind of food. You look at that. amazing things she prepared and took to that army of men. Here was a woman of moral excellence. She made a decision. She was eager to do what was right. Rebecca, another woman, was virtuous. When the servant asked for a drink of water, she also offered water for the camels. She ran to get it. A woman of excellent character, a virtuous woman who can find. Where is she?

We have some in here, I know. But a person who is available with the energy and ready to do whatever your hand finds to do, do it heartily with your mind, as unto the Lord, not unto men, you know. And so many wonderful examples of women in scripture. I wish I could give you some of men. Well, we have Joseph. We have Joseph, don't we?

He turned. He made a moral decision when he had an opportunity to lay with Pharaoh's wife. Or was it Pharaoh Potiphar's wife? No. He ran. That's what the Scripture says. Flee youthful lust. He had predetermined a decision that I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to choose the excellent thing.

Are we getting anywhere with this word? I tell you what, you know what it is? It's not I. It's got to be Christ. That keeps it simple, doesn't it? Lord, today, you give me that motivation, that energy, that moral excellence. It's not me, but it's the new nature being seen. Let it be at work. Put off that old man today and put on the new man. That's our prayer, isn't it? Let Christ be manifest. His goodness. Do you have any thoughts on that, Brother Barn? It's a lot to think about, isn't it? One of the things I was looking at here, are in this translation you brought something out that's consistent with your belief? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. the knowledge, and in the knowledge of you, you know, self-control, etc. So, it's interesting, it's not just some general character, it's specifically a character of the Lord. That's good. It's the Lord's character. That's good. And three of these items, I've noticed, that are listed here of these I count them seven. Some commentaries refer to eight items, counting faith as the first thing. But three of them are fruit, the fruit of the spirit, you know, and not fruits, fruit, you know, and that speaks to the fact that, you know, they're all in a cluster and they come together. So, all right.

So, you know, I like Philippians 1, 10 and 11. And Paul says, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. That you may approve the things that are excellent. You know, today we have good things we can choose, or excellent things. What are we going to choose to do, you know? You know, if you've got a priority list, you want to put the ones first that are the excellent things, right? As believers, that's what we want.

And so there's so much in our environment that is contrary to that and fights against that. And it wants us, the environment, they want us to think about bad things, sex, thievery, murder, etc. So we need to think about those things who are excellent. And that's not easy for us. Our old nature, which we still have, still thinks on things that aren't excellent. It would think that way. But let the mind of Christ be in you, Paul says, you know, this mind. And so we need to have the mind of Christ if we're going to think about what is excellent.

So it's not going to be the newspaper and the television we're going to get these things from, for the most part. Sometimes they do have some excellent things, maybe on TV and in the newspaper, but, you know, we meditate on some of these things, you know, it can get in our thought life. Then you end up dreaming about it, right? Bad things.

Alright, notice that in this verse 3, the moral excellence is used to describe Christ. He's called us by His own glory and moral excellence. This excellence exists in Him, in Christ. So the object of a Christian life is to be a reflection of His excellences.

So in 1 Peter 2.9, Peter says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. So, the moral excellence is the fruit of faith. And we begin the Christian life by faith, and we are continued by faith. The just shall live by what? Faith.

Okay. Now, in your moral excellence, knowledge. Knowing is what this means. And it's not just plain facts, but it's knowing a person. The Lord Jesus Himself. Knowing Him. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." John 17, 3. So, it's true spiritual knowledge and understanding of Him. So, we can have a lot of knowledge, you know, like the Pharisees. They had a lot of knowledge, the Word, but when the person came, Christ, they didn't know Him.

And then he says, in your knowledge, self-control, in Kratia. This speaks of self-control in particular over sensual desires, ability to control what our sense is like or want. Self-control is shown in setting aside our wants if they interfere with the purpose of God in our lives. The more we understand the things of the Lord, the more we will desire to have a life of self-control. Now, this is not the old self with control. This is the new self that we're talking about. We're not saying the old self has got to have a do list and add these things and have, you know, no, it doesn't work that way.

The King James for this word self-control says temperance. And so this word speaks of a holding back cantonets, which means holding back. This is the same word that in the list of words describing the fruit of the spirit, as I've already mentioned, that we had one. This is one of those words. Peter is not talking about our walk here, but he's talking about this heart in the walk.

You know, we have the control that causes us to not make provision for the flesh, to provide for it. Scripture says not to make provision for the flesh, to provide for those things that are ungodly. So, there's that control right there. Don't do that.

So, and there's many other things that we have in the Scriptures that would help us to have this control. So, we have this control when we have the knowledge of the Lord that He gives us through staying in the Word. And so, the Scripture says, a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Okay, don't be a companion of fools, you know. You're going to be destroyed. So, you can see this in the life of some young people that get involved in this kind of thing.

I knew a Christian in Florida when I worked in the Florida Bible Institute in Titusville area. This man, he kept playing around with his old friends, even though a professed Christian as I understand. He kept on around these alcoholics, and one night they went down a railroad track in their car, acting silly and foolish.

I don't know if he was driving or not, but they all got out, and this guy jumped into the water there. It was a pond. It wasn't deep enough, and it broke his neck. You know, he just kept on, and he was just really a nuisance to his wife, the way he would do, you know, because he would take his child out with him and drive when he was drunk. and such things, but the Lord took him home.

And I think he really was a believer, possibly, and but he just was a companion of fools. So no control over this drinking. OK, any thoughts you have on that? OK, Jack, did you have something? All right, you keep me straight, brother. came to my mind. I have come across a number of Christian women who don't understand the concept of not being. And.

What a friend of mine terms what they often do evangelistic dating where they date an unbeliever thinking, Well, you know, I'll tell you about the Lord. And they end up falling in love and they get married and it's a disaster often. And sometimes the Lord is gracious and the husband gets saved. But it, you know, they'll say, Well, you can't control who you fall in love with.

Well, this is the answer to that. That's good self control that, you know, when you're walking in the spirit, you wouldn't know. That's good, that's good. And a multitude of counselors is safety. And so many of these young girls, and could be fellows too, they will not listen to the counsel of godly people that tell them to stay out of this relationship. But we see that the Lord can use this for a Christian to really discipline them and get them back on the right track. But they're going to go through a lot of trials and troubles. in the process of that.

Yes. Virtue. Okay. All right. I moved too quickly. I knew we could have spent the whole period on virtue. I'm sure. Yes. Well, You know, this is talking about Christ being manifest in our bodies. I think, you know, the whole thing, the whole it's all it's, you know, and so when you start with. When you start with virtue, I guess the way I talked about, when I talked about virtue, I was probably talking and putting a little self-control in there when I was using that word, wasn't I? Talking about different things.

Yes, do you have a follow-up? I was going to say, your answer is just right on, because ultimately what it's like to see the singular fruit of the Spirit. Here are the different aspects of the way it looks, but it's a singular fruit. And the very life of Christ lived out in the believer is a singular life. It has these aspects to it. And so there is a sense in which there's kind of an overlapping. Why an overlapping? Because it's the singular life of Christ. That's good.

And what we see, like, I mean, when I think of Joseph, we see him and what he did that was excellent. But what we see is self-control, you know, but really control. Yes. You know, like, so he said, it's like a spectrum of light, or what do we call these things? Prisms. And so you look at it, you see, you start off with white, and then when it gets broken down, you see all these colors.

Yeah, so any other thoughts you had, Jack? Well, virtue in this old world has one meaning, and virtue, as far as what Paul's talking about here, Yes, that's good. It's the Lord himself. Yeah, the world has a different opinion of virtue. And yes, any other thoughts there? Okay. Say that again. Some of us older folks didn't hear you. Madonna, does she? Oh, let's don't talk about that. The structure of this passage, and I hope I don't steal anything from the way you're headed, but the structure of the passage shows the moral virtue as the broad scope concept.

And in each one of these, it's almost like those, I don't know, but those Russian dolls that stack inside of one another. You know, the nesting dolls. And in your knowledge, and in yourself, and inside of each one of these, you're going to also see a balance of this building on a concept that is that strong foundation of virtue. Yes, and Randy said, you know, it's like the Russian dolls that, you know, you start off with this larger doll and then inside is this smaller doll and then inside that's another smaller doll and keep on with it. So one leads to the other. So it's, you know, it becomes simple for us and we need to make it simple. And I think the Lord, you know, the testimony of the Lord is sure to make him wise and simple.

What does he want? He wants the life of his son to be manifest in and through us. And it's not like that we can have a do list. And, you know, today I'm going to do this, this and this. No, you know, it's being led by the Spirit of God in dependence upon him every moment that Christ can be manifest. And we're kind of breaking things down.

And, you know, the reason I think Peter has gone into such details on this is because of these false teachers who will seek to distort the truth of God's Word and speak, and such people, they get believers to follow them sometimes. They do. I had a Jehovah Witness guy come to me, an old young man, probably around 16, and another young man about 18 a few weeks ago, and I think one of those may have been born again, because he gave a testimony that it sounded like he was born again. But I think he got deceived into that organization, but I'm not sure. But this can happen because they don't really know what the organization is teaching. And so that can happen.

So, OK, we're we've taken down to now. Let's go, if we can, on to perseverance. OK. What? Yes. All these things we're talking about here, spiritual or also physical? Well, we are, yeah, okay, yeah, we're spiritual. We are talking, I think, of the spiritual man, the new man who is spiritual. Not the carnal man.

They certainly, as a spiritual, can affect the physical. You know, if I do not control myself and I make provision for the flesh, it's going to affect my physical. And I, you know, I could become sick by getting involved with those things which are physical. So it does affect the physical, I think, sometimes, in some of these things, yes.

Well, this is an exhortation. Yes. And so when you look at any time you see an exhortation, the red light goes on. That's talking about our condition based on our position, right? Our position, that's our blessing, our position. This is an urging towards our position being expressed in our daily condition.

Very good. OK, so these things do affect the condition. That's true. Okay, so now from self-control, this work, now we go to perseverance. Monet means Monet. It sounds like somebody's name, right? Okay, Monique. Monet means to remain and hopote means under.

So it's ability to carry the load without collapse. It speaks of endurance and consistency. This refers to enduring under trouble, trial, and persecution. Anybody here have trouble with those things? Oh my. Tribulation works what? Patience. You ever had anybody to pray for you that you would have patience? Don't let them do it. Because it's going to take some tribulation to make you patient. You've heard of the patience of Job.

Okay, well, patience is learned when you have have this control that we were just talking about, this control. So we are empowered by the Lord and His motivations. Let's be sure that we stay on track with that. The sin nature is not in control. This is the kind of thing that the Lord works in and through us, this patience.

It's the ability here to wait You know, that's when the hardest thing is to wait. Great words of wisdom is, you know, learn to be patient and waiting for because you may spend a lot of your time waiting in lines and waiting for certain things to happen.

So false teachers would say that knowledge liberates from the obligation of morality. And so We need to realize here that maybe Peter's taking a jab at these false teachers concerning these things, especially when we think of knowledge. I should have brought that in up there concerning knowledge. I think that when he talks about knowledge, this true knowledge of the Lord, Some teachers were teaching evidently that you can just be free to do anything you want to be, but that's not true. We are to manifest the life of Christ and not to be out there because Christ has made us free. It doesn't leave us free to be able to go and sin.

Isn't it interesting to you that, thinking back, we keep going back to some of these things, that knowledge came after moral excellence? Did you ever think about that? It's an interesting thing. What do we do today with our children? We want to give them a lot of knowledge first, but maybe not teaching those moral excellent things, those things of the Lord. And so there needs to be that foundation of moral excellence first. And so it seems to be a missing ingredient in today's educational system to put knowledge before moral excellence.

So in your perseverance, godliness. OK, this means to worship and this word Sebia. The whole word is Eusebia and Sebia means to worship and you means well or right. The idea here is to recognize where true values lie. And so it's a reverence toward God in our lives. The spirit of God brings us into a life of godliness. And so it's a desire that God himself will be in control of our life.

I think of David's word where he said, help Lord for the godly man ceases and the faithful fail. What does the godly man cease to do? ceases to pray, he ceases to get into God's Word, he doesn't give priorities to God's Word, he doesn't make that excellent choice, that moral excellent choice of the Word of God first, and so many things along that line.

So, then he says, in your godliness, brotherly kindness. We see this word in the Greek, I like to say Philadelphia, I can't say the Greek word very easily. Philadelphia speaks of fraternal affection. Affection for the brethren and sister. When one says brotherly love, it puts it into a male context, but this is not the idea. It's family love he's talking about here. A brother-sister relationship. How are you getting along with other believers? That would be a question for each one of us, you know.

Romans 12.10, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. This is that same word, Philadelphia. Give preference to one another in honor. Then he says, in your brotherly kindness, love. Get down to agape. This is a love, this affection, this genuine love that we see as revealed in Christ toward us, and God the Father's love. This love stands at the heart of Christian maturity, and it's a necessary quality for Christian leadership and servanthood.

Colossians 3.14, Paul says, Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, love. Love edifies, builds up. So we can see a description of this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13, 1-8, which you're very familiar with.

It's a wonderful thing and a good opportunity for us to review what it is to go over these things. I think when you see it, it's something that we are not in the flesh. Love is patient, kind, not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecoming, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account wrong suffered, and does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails.

Can you do those things? Not in our own strength, not by might nor by power, but by God's Spirit working in and through us these things. And then he says here, for these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you want to have a fruitful life? I do. Do you want to have true knowledge of the Lord Jesus? I do. I'm sure you do. So these virtues need to be in us and abounding, he's saying. Increasing. Come into existence. And so things should not be stagnant for us. We should be developing. You know, Paul, you know, he indicated he had not arrived yet. You know, he wasn't perfect himself, but he was still learning. You know, he didn't he he's learned certain things, but he didn't say that he arrived. He's learning.

And so this word, the word useless here, it says, Argos, inactive, unemployed, by implication, lazy, useless. Some people can just sit in a chair, I mean, we can all sit in a chair and relax, but some people have a habit of not redeeming the time, and we need to redeem the time and use what time we have that we be active in applying these things that he's mentioned here.

So faith response to the promises triggers these qualities and produces, that produces fruitfulness. Herein is the Father glorified that you do what? Bear much fruit. And so, and it's good to know that we can still bear fruit in old age. That's what he wants from us. So the ministry of the Spirit of Christ within energizes us. And He produces the power. You shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you, He says. So He empowers us to these qualities, for these qualities to be produced in us. So we need to be diligent in cooperating with Him, with the Spirit as He works in us. Then he says, for he who lacks his qualities is blind or short-sighted. And you can read these notes. We're not going to have time to go through all of these things, but there's some good thoughts that come out here in the Greek. If you lack these, you're blind. It's myopia.

It's, you know, just seeing things that are at hand, you know, involved with the details of life that are right at hand, not having you turn to these values and views. That's what he would like for us to see, not be short-sighted, but to be able to have God's mind and view about things. Paul said, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking those things which are above. And that's what should be our goal each day, to seek those things that will be God's mind, set your mind on the things above, not on things on the earth.

Then he says here, having forgotten his purification, cleansing from his former sins. The Weiss translation is interesting, for he to whom these things are not, not for, I'm sorry again, for he to whom these things are not present is blind, being short-sighted, having taken forgiveness of the cleansing of his old sins. forgetfulness, forgetfulness, yes, forgetfulness of the cleansing of his old sins. So a person really that does not have these qualities will forget that he's saved, may lose the assurance of his salvation.

So do we have a faith response to God's Word? That's the thing. Do we really love His Word? Do we appreciate His Word? And that's how we can make our calling and election sure. And Peter says in 2 Peter 1.10, Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.

Let's thank the Lord. Father, we just thank You that we can Look at Your Word in this short time, all these verses that are so magnificently pointing to Your beloved Son. Father, we realize our total inadequacies of ourselves and our old selves. But we thank You, Lord, that we can put off that old man today, put on the new, and look to You, Lord, to guide us and direct us by Your Spirit into the manifestation and the revealing of Your Son in and through us. this precious treasure. We thank you for this time now in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.