If you would, turn in your Bibles
to the book of 2 Peter. We're going to look for a few
minutes this afternoon in the first chapter of 2 Peter, verses
2 through 11. This is a very practical passage
from Peter concerning sanctification. And he gives us some homework
as Christians. characteristics or qualities,
attributes that we're supposed to add to our faith. And these
seven things are key for us as Christians, and I thought we'd
go over them this afternoon. So he gives us some homework
in 2 Peter 1, and this is in verses 2 through 11. Let's read
it first, and then I've got it divided into three parts of this
passage that I'll tell you about. In verse 2, Grace and peace be
multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus
our Lord, according to as his divine power hath given unto
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 exceedingly
great and precious promises that by these you may be partakers
of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add
to your faith, now count seven of them, 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 off,
and 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. The
way I've divided this passage is in three parts. Verses two
through four show us that these things we're supposed to add
to our faith are not just by our efforts. You know, so many
people, I think, believe that even the ones that believe in
grace They know that salvation is a grace, but then they think
that we're to go to work on our own after that point. Sanctification
is all our doing. God saves us and then it's up
to us to sanctify ourselves, not so. And this verses two through
four prove that it's God's power, his promises and so forth that
even permit us to add these seven things to faith. So we can't
forget that. Then in verses five through seven,
The seven attributes themselves that we'll go through and see
what the seven are all about. And then finally, very key to
this is in verses eight through 11, he tells us the results of
doing this and the results of not doing this. It's very key.
So let's start off in verses two through four with the fact
that God gives us the ability to add these traits to ourselves. It is not our own ability. In
verses, we see that it's from grace and peace in verse two. He starts this off the way he
starts off so many of his letters. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
So everything springs from grace and peace. Then he says in verse
three that all things according to as his divine power hath given
unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through
the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
So, this is all done through the true knowledge, this is epic
gnosis, so it's true knowledge, he adds the epi onto gnosis,
and this is stemming from our regeneration the pastor was talking
about this morning, through the true knowledge of God and of
Jesus our Lord. In verse three, he states that
it's from the divine power. And this is so key because the
divine power has given unto us all things. This is in the perfect
tense in the Greek, so it's a done deal. His divine power hath given
us all things leading to life and godliness. Now notice that
godliness is one of the seven things he's gonna talk about.
So everything that leads to life and godliness is given to us
through his power. So there's no doubt about that.
It's through the knowledge of him who called us to his own
glory and virtue. There's the second. Virtue is
in this list of seven also. So he's called us to glory and
virtue, his virtue. And then he tells us in the following
verses that virtue is one of the things we're supposed to
add to our faith. In verse four, whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises. So we've got his power
to draw on, and now we've got his promises to use throughout
the word of God to get to the point we need to get. And this
is in the perfect tense also, our given. His promises have
been given to us, exceeding great and precious promises, that by
these ye may be partakers, that's koinonos, of the divine nature. Not that we're going to be gods,
like some people believe, but we're going to be partakers in
some way of the divine nature here on earth. if we do these
things in this passage by his promises. Having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust. So Peter has set
the stage here for what he wants to give us for homework. And
that is that God's power and God's promises and what he has
done for us through the Lord Jesus and through true knowledge
of him is the basis for how we are to add to our faith. So in
verses five through seven, let's go through the seven things that
we are to add to our faith. I think it's probably significant
the order in which we have them. You see that love, agape, is
the very last of these, and you know that most of the writers
of the New Testament, certainly John and here Peter, are holding
agape as the top of the pinnacle of the fruit of the Spirit. And
notice the the similarity also to the fruit of the spirit. These
seven things are not the same things in the fruit of the spirit,
but they have a lot of common things. So the seven things are,
and it would be probably good for us to memorize these in our
lives, virtue, knowledge, self-control, that's what temperance really
means, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity. And just
think what our lives would really be like if we had these seven
qualities. I don't think anything would
be missing if we had them. All right, having exerted all
diligence, now here's the thing about it. We believe that it's
God's power that is gonna do this. We believe it's his promises
we draw on, but he does tell us that we are to exert a lot
of energy in this. It's not something that we just
lay back on the couch and they just come to us. So part of the
admonition here is exerting all diligence. We are to spend some
energy on this. This word means earnestness,
eagerness, zeal, or effort. It takes energy to be sanctified. God works through means, and
he chooses for us to show a little desire in this sanctification. Now, we are to add, and that's
what he is saying throughout this whole passage. The Greek
word does mean add, supply, give, provide, or support. And faith
is the basis of this whole thing. Add to your faith. As we all
know in studying the word, faith itself is the gift of God, right? It's nothing we drum up on our
own, it is the gift of God in regeneration and in conversion,
so that is the starting point. All right, let's go through the
seven words and we'll turn to a few passages of scripture just
to let scripture comment on scripture, on these words. Virtue is our
retake. It is moral goodness. We've already
seen it mentioned of God himself. And it is the first thing mentioned
that we are to add to our faith. I've thought about this a lot. And if I had made the list, I
probably would have put knowledge first and then virtue. But he
didn't. He put virtue first. And that's
so significant that really As new Christians or old Christians,
the first thing we need to give attention to is adding virtue
to our faith. Let's look at some of the passages.
Philippians 4.8. These are some other passages
that use the same word. Philippians 4.8 says, Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things
are just, Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue,
that's a retake, and if there be any praise, think on these
things. So there's a good comment on
virtue right there. That's maybe the components of
virtue right there. Honesty, just, purity, loveliness,
good report, Those are some of the components of virtue. First
Peter 2.9 has the word. But ye are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should
show forth the praises. That's actually the word. I don't
know why the King James translated praises. It's erite, excellencies
or virtues. of him who hath called you out
of darkness into his marvelous light. And then back to where
our passages that we're studying, 2 Peter 1.3, as we pointed out,
according to as his divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue. So he's called us
to virtue, and that's the first thing he mentions. The second
thing is knowledge. And as we know, this is gnosis. It's so key as Christians for
us to gather or add to our faith and virtue knowledge. And the
way we do that is through study of the Word of God. And it needs
to be a little more said than that, that we need to study the
Word of God to add knowledge. The third word is temperance.
And the best translation of that is self-control. It comes from
the Greek word ekration, and kratos is strength. So it's really
a control of strength, or it's a controlled strength. Vine had,
I thought, a very good definition of self-control. The various
powers bestowed by God upon man are capable of abuse. The right
use demands the controlling power of the will under the operation
of the Spirit of God. So God has given us a lot of
desires in our nature, and to control them to His use, to the
godly use of them, is what self-control is all about. Let's look at some
of the passages that have that word. Acts 24, 25. And this is when Paul is reasoning
with Felix. And as he reasoned of righteousness,
temperance, there's the word, and judgment to come, Felix trembled
and answered, go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient
season, I will call for thee. So he trembled when Paul was
preaching to him about self-control because he knew he didn't have
any of it and he needed the Lord. So that's the word. Galatians
5.23. And this is in the list of the
fruit of the spirit, meekness, temperance. So that's the self-control. It's a fruit of the spirit. 1
Corinthians 7, 9. And this passage is concerning
sexual self-control. 1 Corinthians 7, 9. But if they cannot contain, that's
the word there, if they cannot have self-control, let them marry,
for it is better to marry than to burn. Then 1 Corinthians 9.25,
this is an interesting passage, because it's talking about athletes.
You know, athletes have to exercise self-control to get where they
want to go. So this is exactly what he's
talking about. And every man that striveth for
the mastery is temperate in all things, has self-control. Now
they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we, an incorruptible. So he's making the connection
there between athletes and Christians. And Titus 1.8. Just a minute, Titus has left my Bible. Titus 1.8, but a lover, this
is the qualifications of a bishop or elder, but a lover of hospitality,
a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate. So an elder
or pastor needs to have self-control. So, we've added to our faith
virtue and to our virtue knowledge. And to our knowledge, since we
know what's right and wrong, self-control, and then What happens
if you really exercise self-control like we should? You develop patience. And patience is the next one,
hupomone, to abide under, the word literally means. Patience,
and there's too many passages, of course, to go through that.
This is a word that's very popular in the New Testament. Patience
grows from trials. It's self-control that leads
to patience. It's waiting for the right time
and the correct use of our desires and our powers. So if we exercise
self-control, we will learn patience. The next word is godliness. I've
got a few scriptures to look at for godliness. This is the
word Eusebian, and the first passage is 2 Timothy 3.5. having a form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof, from such turn away." These are false
prophets. They've got a form of godliness,
but it's not real. But if we're adding these true
virtues, it'll be true godliness, not something that's just flaunted
to other people. 2 Peter 1.3, we've already mentioned
the fact that in the passage we're studying, he mentions that
Divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life
and godliness. That's the same word. And then
2 Peter 3, 11. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
all holy conversation and godliness? Acts 10, 2 and 7. Now we're going to look at a
few people that will help us to understand what godliness
is. Cornelius was a godly person.
Acts 10.2, talking about Cornelius, a devout
man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much
alms to the people and prayed to God always. So devout here
means godly. And then verse 7, And when the
angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of
his household servants and a devout soldier of them that waited on
him continually. That's the same word. Acts 22.12. And one Ananias, a devout man. So Ananias was godly. And 2 Peter
2.9. The Lord knoweth how to deliver
the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under
the day of judgment to be punished. That's a significant verse in
light of what we're studying because our Lord knows how to
deliver the godly out of temptations, to rescue us when it gets to
be too much. 2 Timothy 3.12, a few more here
on godliness. Yea, and all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Titus 2.12. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly in this present world. So there's the negative and the
positive. And finally, 1 Timothy 3.16. final verse to look at because
this wraps it all up and it talks about the mystery of godliness. Now the Lord appeased himself,
whoops, that's the wrong one, 1 Timothy 3, 16. And without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
That's the whole synopsis of godliness in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we are to add to our godliness,
brotherly kindness. Philadelphia. Love of the brethren. Let's look at some other passages
that use that word. Romans 12, 10. Be kindly affection one to another
with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another. First
Thessalonians 4.9. Isn't it interesting that as
we're getting to the top of this pinnacle, if it is really built
that way, we're now to brotherly kindness and the final step is
going to be to love. First Thessalonians 4.9. But as touching brotherly love,
you need not that I write unto you, for you yourselves are taught
of God to love one another. Hebrews 13.1. Let brotherly love continue.
1 Peter 1.22. Seeing you have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure
heart fervently. And then 1 Peter 3.8. Finally, be ye all of one mind,
having compassion one of another, love as brethren. That's it there. Be pitiful, be courteous. So we have added to our faith
virtue, to our virtue knowledge, to knowledge, self-temperance,
or self-control, then patience, godliness, brotherly kindness,
and finally love, agape. And as you know, that's throughout
the New Testament. We won't look at any scriptures
with that word. That's the top of everything
that we can do and be as Christians is to exhibit love. Now, I think
that probably one of the most interesting parts of this passage
is verses eight through 11. We'll end up talking about that. Because he gives the results
of doing this homework and the results of not doing it. The
three results of doing it, and we'll read in detail, are fruit,
We'll have some fruit as Christians. The second is we'll have assurance
of our salvation. And if you ever yourself or talk
to others, Christians who are lacking assurance of their salvation,
this is a wonderful passage to read to them because this homework
leads to assurance of salvation. It's not that we're working our
way into God's favor. It's not that for sure, but it's
just that we are staying in the knowledge of the forgiveness
of sins because working on all these things, we're constantly
in the word and constantly walking with the Lord. And then the third
thing is a rich entrance into heaven. So the first thing is
fruit. And he says it in a negative
way. What he says is, let me get back
to the passage. For if these things be in you
and abound, not only are they just supposed to be in us, they're
supposed to be abounding, they make you that ye shall neither
be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, we're not gonna
just be people who spout knowledge, but we are going to be fruitful.
We're not going to be barren. The next thing is verse 9. And this is the passage that
talks about assurance of salvation. But he that lacks these things
is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he
was purged from his old sins. I think that's such a neat verse
in the New Testament because it tells us that as Christians
we can become blind. And the second word is muopon. It's the word we get myopic from,
short-sighted. So we could become blind and
short-sighted if we're not doing this homework, having forgotten
our forgiveness. Because we let the world pile
in on us and we start forgetting Our sins are forgiven and of
course that leads to doubting salvation. Then verse 10 is the famous verse
where he says, wherefore the rather brethren give diligence,
and here's that word again, we're supposed to spend some energy
on this, to make your calling and election sure. For if you
do these things, you shall never fall." So that's the second thing
about it. The third thing is that we will
not fall, which is also part of the assurance of salvation.
We know that a true Christian will never lose salvation. The positive side of that is
that we're making our calling in elections sure by working
on these attributes. And that's the way we're supposed
to make our calling in elections sure. Doing things, we will never
fall. There's a double negative here,
ume. You will never, certainly never fall. Finally, verse 11. For so an entrance shall be ministered
unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. So that is, this word for abundant
is plusios. It means rich or well-to-do.
We'll have a rich entrance into the kingdom. So I thought that that was an
excellent passage that Peter gives us about the homework we're
supposed to be working on as Christians. And these seven things
that we could do well to meditate on once in a while during the
day of the things we are to add to our faith.