Alright, let's turn to 2 Peter
chapter 1. Last week I did part 1 of this
message entitled, Bearing the Fruit of Faith. This is part
2 and we're going to go through these verses here. And I wanted
to I laid the foundation last week.
Let me just summarize that. As Peter has written in verse
one, 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. our Savior Jesus Christ or the
righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Now let
me let me put it in perspective for you and what we do when you
read scriptures like this you interpret scripture with scripture
but if I were to ask you this what is the foundation the ground
of all salvation? Well, the ground and foundation
of all salvation is Christ crucified and risen from the dead. It is
the glorious person of Christ, which brings forth his ability
to do what God requires for the salvation of his people. Who
is Jesus Christ? God manifest in the flesh. And as he said in the passage
that we read in John 15, he is the vine. He is the source. He is the power of all fruitfulness
in salvation. And so the ground of salvation
is the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And
that refers specifically to the merits of his obedience unto
death as the surety, the substitute, the redeemer of his people. It's
his righteousness imputed charged, accounted to us, that's the ground
of salvation. Now out of that comes the Holy
Spirit's work in the new birth, giving dead, spiritually dead
sinners spiritual life, giving us a new heart and bringing us
to faith in Christ, this like precious faith and that's the
foundation that He lays within us that brings us and causes
us to look to Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. And
so the issue here in this passage is the reality of that faith
that brings a sinner to Christ. And what is that faith? That's
the knowledge and the conviction of salvation by the grace of
God in Christ, knowing that I'm a sinner and that I have no hope
of salvation in myself. It's not based upon what I do,
it's not based upon what God enables me to do, it's based
totally upon Christ and His righteousness alone. And so I'm to view salvation,
if my faith is real, if it's God-given faith, Holy Spirit-worked
faith in me, then I realize that everything I have as far as salvation,
as far as a right relationship with God, As far as the fruitfulness
of salvation, everything I have, the blessings, the benefits,
everything that I have, I did not earn them and I did not deserve
them. Never do I do that. It's all
conditioned on and based on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
why he says in verse three of 2 Peter 1, according as his divine
power And you know, the Bible tells us that the divine power
of God is Christ crucified. Read 1 Corinthians chapter one.
According as his divine power, now listen to this, hath given
unto us, whatever he's talking about here, it's something that
God has given according to his power, not given because of your
power, not given because of my power or goodness, but given
all things given us, now what is he given? All things that
pertain unto life and godliness. In other words, everything that
pertains to salvation. Everything that gets us in a
right relationship with God and everything that causes us to
walk in that life is a free gift of God based on the righteousness
of Christ. And so how, and he says, he says,
all things, this is verse three, all things that pertain unto
life and godliness through the knowledge of Him. How do I realize
and experience these all things that pertain to life and godliness?
Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us, that's that
holy calling, that invincible calling of the Spirit through
the gospel, to glory and virtue. to all grace here, all glory
hereafter, all virtue, everything that's pleasing unto God. It's
pleasing because of Christ, not because we're, should we be sincere
in what we do in our attempts at obedience? Yes, but it's not
our sincerity that makes it virtuous. It's the grace of God in Christ.
And he says in verse four, whereby are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises. Now that's the promises of salvation,
the promises of blessing, all the promises of God are in Christ,
yea, and in him, amen, that by these, by these promises, as
we look at all the promises of God, you might be partakers,
partners, fellowshipers of the divine nature. in fellowship
with God Himself, the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the nature
of God. That's what that is. We're brought
into fellowship with God through Christ. And we realize that fellowship
through God-given faith in him. And that faith is in the promises
of God that are fulfilled and certified and assured in Christ. So we look to Christ as the author
and finisher of our faith. And then having escaped the corruption
that is in the world through lust, that's repentance. In other
words, when the Holy Spirit brings us to Christ, He brings us out
of the darkness of the world. And understand now that's the
darkness of the world's false religion, false ways of salvation,
repentance of dead works and idolatry. And then he begins
to exhort believers to do something. And here's what he says in verse
five, and beside this giving all diligence. Now he's talking
to believers and he's talking about a diligence. And this is,
first of all, a diligence in the faith of Christ. Putting
our faith into exercise. That's what he's talking about.
He says in verse five, beside this. Literally, that means on
this very account. And I made this point last week
and I want to emphasize it. He's not talking about filling
in something that we provide or bringing ourselves that God
has left out when he said beside this. In other words, it's not
that God brings you so far, now you've got to add the rest. That's
not what it means. And I'll tell you about that
word add in a minute. He says add to your faith. Beside
this means working with what we already have. That's what
it's talking about. on this account, on this very
account, because we are saved by the grace of God, because
we are kept by the grace of God, because we are preserved and
will be brought to glory by the grace of God in Christ. In other
words, whatever he's going to say after this, it's not an exhortation
for us to do anything in order to earn God's favor or to merit
God's favor. It's not to make ourselves saved
or more saved. It's not even to make ourselves
righteous. We're already righteous in Christ.
It's his right. The only righteousness we have
before God is the imputed righteousness of Christ. Now we have life given
within all things that pertain to life and godliness, all things
that bring us to glory and virtue. But we already have everything
we need, everything that God requires to save us, to preserve
us, and to bring us to glory. And when he says, beside this,
he means now you work with what God has given you. You work on
this very account. He says, and beside this, beside
this, what is this? It's all grace here, all glory
hereafter. I'm not working to make myself
righteous in such a way as to attain or maintain God's favor. I'm already righteous. I work
in order to be righteous in the sense that I want to be like
Christ, but that's not my, listen, that's not my righteousness before
God. All based on the merits of Christ,
all things that pertain to Life in God is not anything added
to the merits of Christ's righteousness, nor anything to compete or rival
his righteousness. It's the evidence of spiritual
life born out of his righteousness. And from this position and this
standing, he says, living in the state of grace, in other
words, seeking to make my life reflect my standing, my blessedness,
my position that I already have by the grace of God in Christ,
having been washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness,
fully justified. And listen to me, for this reason,
for this reason, no true believer has any reason to fear or to
avoid the exhortations of scripture, the commandments of the Lord.
Any passage that speaks of obedience or diligence or what we should
do. If we really know Christ, we should have no problem with
that at all. Because we know it's not our
obedience, it's not our diligence, it's not our works or our efforts
that save us. or make us more saved or make
us righteous. They're not even, our works don't
even sanctify us. We're set apart by the grace
of God in Christ. So he says, giving all diligence. Now look, look at the verse five. He says, beside this, giving
all diligence. That means consciously and eagerly
making every effort. Now, last week I made this point. It is God. who puts within his
children a desire, a longing to please him and to follow his
word. We read it last week in Jeremiah
31, Ezekiel 36, where he talks about how he will give us a new
heart, how he will cause us to walk in his statues. He gives
us the spirit to fight against the flesh. Yes, we have evil
desires. We have sinful desires. We have
for the remaining a power, and contamination of the flesh. Nothing
we do, even our best efforts, will measure up to the righteousness
of the law that can only be found in Christ. But God has put within
us a desire. He said, I'll give you a new
heart, a new desire, a new spirit. That's God-given. When we talk
about good works, some people say there are no good works.
Some people say that good works save us. Neither one's true.
Bible says, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good work, which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. And what did Christ say about
the fruit of the vine in John 15? He says, he's the vine, we're
the branches. And we bear fruit, we don't produce
fruit, we don't make fruit, we bear it because of the life that's
in the vine, the grace and the power and the goodness and the
life that's in the vine. And he said it this way, he said,
you've got to abide in me, you've got to believe in me, rest in
me for all wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
Because without me, you can do nothing. And the Bible says,
indicates, we read this in Galatians 2, where it's Christ who works
in us, it's God who works in us to do his good pleasure and
will. That doesn't mean we're not involved in it, doesn't mean
like we're ventriloquist dummies or something like that, but he
puts within us this desire to obey him, to follow him, to express
our faith and our love in him. When James says faith without
works is dead, he's not saying we're saved by works. He's just
simply saying this, if you claim to be a believer, but there's
no fruit of works, whatever he's talking about, that's a dead
claim. In other words, it's more than
just lip service. So he says here in 2 Peter 1,
5, giving all diligence in this life as a sinner saved by grace,
as a born again person with a new heart, a new creation in Christ. Think about it. We're to seek
to obey him, motivated by grace, love, and gratitude, bringing
forth fruit unto God. What Paul called in Romans chapter
seven, the newness of the spirit, as opposed to legalism, the oldness
of the letter. And then we realize this, in
this life, now think about this, In this life, as a sinner saved
by grace, as a born again person, God does not immediately or even
gradually take away our sinful desires. No, he doesn't. Our life on earth is a continual
daily warfare of the spirit against the flesh. And it's a warfare
we would all lose if it weren't for God's power and grace to
save us to the uttermost by Jesus Christ. We'd lose it. We cannot
attain the perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ,
not even with our best acts of diligence and efforts. If it
weren't for Christ's righteousness imputed to us, we would have
no righteousness at all. And our works and our efforts
to follow and obey him do not make us righteous and do not
even contribute to the righteousness by which we're justified before
God. Our works and efforts do not sanctify. I know I'm repeating
this, but this is important. People need to understand this. Think about this. Our works and
our efforts do not sanctify us or make us holy, but our works
and our efforts are sanctified by Christ in two ways. Now listen
to this. Number one, the works of the
most moral and sincere believers are all yet imperfect, yet they're
persons. Our persons are accepted with
God through Christ our mediator, the Lord our righteousness. And
they are all cleansed. Even our works are cleansed and
presented to God as washed and accepted in the blood of Christ.
Over in 1 Peter chapter two and verse five, he talks about our sacrifices of praise. Let me just read that to you.
He says, you also, this is 1 Peter 2, I think I said 2 Peter, but
it's 1 Peter 2 and verse five. He says, you also as lively or
living stones, that means people who have spiritual life, are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, a separated
priesthood. Now, why is our priesthood separated?
Because we have full access to God by the blood of Jesus Christ. And he says, for what? To offer
up spiritual sacrifices. Now, what are those spiritual
sacrifices? We're not bringing lambs. We're not killing animals. Our spiritual sacrifices is our
praise, our worship, our attempts to obey God. And this is acceptable
to God. God accepts them. But how? Look at it, by Jesus Christ. You see that? So, Are these works
evidence of salvation? Now let me, I'm not trying to
split hairs here and I'm not trying to confuse you. But are
these works, when we talk about works, works of kindness he's
gonna talk about, works of patience and works of love and charity,
are these works evidence of our salvation? The answer is no,
they're not. It takes the one evidence of
salvation to shine forth on these works for us to know if they're
the fruit of faith. Now, how do you know that? Well, because unbelievers can
perform acts of charity, acts of kindness, even acts of self-sacrifice,
but their works are not accepted before God. Why? Because they
have to be accepted in Christ, and they deny Christ if they're
unbelievers. And the verse that I always go
to for that is Matthew 5, 16, which says, let your light so
shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father, which is in heaven. A work, an act of obedience,
can only be declared good in light of the gospel that we believe.
So the one evidence of salvation is our faith in Christ. I believe
in him. I rest in him. I trust in him
for all righteousness, all life, all godliness. That's the one
evidence of salvation. But here's the question. This
is the question that James was asking. And James, do I really
believe that? Am I really a believer? Is that
just lip service? Is it just an empty profession? Or does it mean something? So
our works are sanctified. They're set apart, how? By the
grace of God in Christ. And then secondly, they're produced
within us by the Holy Spirit and motivated by grace, love,
and gratitude. Now, if I do an act of kindness,
you can't see my motive, can you? In other words, just that
act of kindness doesn't evidence that I'm a saved person. Unbelievers
can do that, but my motive is the motive of grace, love, and
gratitude. Now, how do you know that? The
gospel that I believe, the gospel that I profess, the light that
shines forth. You see, the light there in Matthew
5, 16 is not the good works, it's the gospel, it's the light
of Christ. If you do an act of kindness and somebody sees you
do it, and they come up to you and say, well, I know you're
saved because you gave to charity. What's the first thing that you,
a believer, want them to know? My friend, that's not my salvation.
No, sir. Christ is mine. You want them
to see the light. And so such works are not our
righteousness before God. They're not our holiness, not
our sanctification. They're the fruit of faith in
Christ, who is our righteousness. I'm not just splitting hairs
here now, this is important. And thirdly, their goal, the
goal of such works is the glory of God and not ourselves. In
other words, we're not doing these, and I'll say this, we
still have sinful self to deal with, don't we? Whenever we do
an act of kindness, we have an unholy desire to get credit for
it, and we have to fight it. But because we want people to
know that this is not our righteousness, not our holiness, not our salvation,
we have in mind the glory of God. Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father. I don't want to draw attention
to me, I want to draw attention to Christ. I want you to look
to Christ. If I preach a good message, And
you're gonna thank me for it, that's okay. But you understand
where it come from, don't you? It come from him. And so fourthly,
these acts are guided by God's word and not the traditions of
men, the standards of men or the appearances of men. Well,
go back to 2 Peter 5. He says, add to your faith virtue. You know what that word add means?
It means to use abundantly. It means to employ abundance.
It doesn't mean add what's missing. It means use what's there. That's
what it means. It's talking to the one who is
thoroughly furnished unto God for good works. Having been thoroughly
furnished unto all good works, let's work with what we have
from the Lord. So he says, in your faith add
the faith that God gives his people. that excludes anything
we do as forming any part of the cause of the ground of our
salvation. That faith that excludes any
notion of us earning God's favor and blessings. We have, we possess
all spiritual graces from God. We have the fruit of the Spirit.
Now use it, cultivate it, grow in grace and knowledge. Salvation
can never be taken away. And here's what he mentions.
He said, look at it. He says, verse five, add to your faith
virtue. is virtue? The Greeks would define
virtue as moral excellence, but this can only be that which belongs
to the child of God. This is a specific kind of virtue. This is a sanctified virtue,
a virtue that is set apart by God from the from mere human
morality. It's much, much more than what
people by nature call morality or sincerity or religion or charity. It's a moral excellence that's
founded upon and motivated by and aimed toward the glory of
God in salvation by his grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the gospel virtue. It's that which is done by God-given
faith in Christ, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. It's not the situation of saying,
well, he did his part, now we do ours. No, we're just simply
living unto him, living out of him. That's right. He's the vine. We're the branches. The branches
bear fruit. That's all we're doing. And we're
to be conscious of it. It's not something, well, just
sit down and let it happen. He says give diligence to do
this. I want to be aware of this. And
whenever I fall short in every area of obedience when it comes
to the standard of righteousness, I want to be convicted by the
Spirit to realize again, to be reminded that this is not my
righteousness or my holiness. But I don't want to be left there.
Go on to look to Christ. I want to be driven to look to
Christ. Listen to what he says, verse six. He says, or verse
five, add to virtue knowledge. Knowledge of what? Well, growth
and grace and knowledge of Christ. I want to know more of him, whom
to know his life eternal. It's what Peter says over in
2 Peter 3. I know this, the more I know
of Christ and his word, The more I will be assured and the security
of my salvation by the grace of God through his righteousness
imputed to me, and the more I will be inspired to be diligent in
seeking to please him and obey him. Knowledge of him. He says
in verse six, add to knowledge temperance. What is temperance?
It's discipline. Some people say, well, it's self-control. But I want you to think about
something. Do you really control yourself?
I don't. Oh, I'd make a diligent effort
in it, see. But it's the Spirit who controls
us. If God removed His Spirit from
us, which He said He wouldn't in John 14 and John 15, He said
He'll abide with you, He'll never go away. If God removes His Spirit
from us, where would we be? We'd be out of control. Maybe
even in a religious way. So I don't call it self-control.
I call it spirit control. Now most people, when they think
about temperance, they think about drinking alcohol. And that's
true. I mean, we should be temperate.
That means to be moderate. That means don't let things control
us. And that's what it means. So
drunkenness is a sin. If we drink alcoholic beverages,
we should be temperate. But it refers to the whole Christian
life. It refers to our eating, everything.
Exercising, we ought to be temperate. Even in Ephesians chapter five,
verse 18, Paul mentions about alcohol. He says, don't be drunk
with wine, but be controlled by the spirit. So add temperance,
we're to be diligent there. Verse six, he says, add to temperance
patience. What is patience? It's endurance. Perseverance in the faith. That's
what that means. Under the trials of life, especially.
We're under a trial right now. And it's a tough trial. And we
whine like spoiled brats, you know. It's kind of like realizing
that we've taken for granted a lot of things, haven't we?
And we were spoiled. But he's saying here, endure
these trials. Now, we know it's by the grace
of God we endure. We know that if left to ourselves,
we wouldn't endure. That means persevere. It's kind
of like the same exhortation that Paul gave in Philippians
chapter 2. when he says, work out your own
salvation, and he says, for it is God that worketh in us to
do both his good pleasure and his will. So it's only by God's
grace and power that we endure, but we're to be diligent in that.
He says in verse six, add to temperance patience and to patience
godliness. What is godliness? Well, it's
seeking to be like God, to obey God, to be like Christ. To be
minded as he is minded, as revealed in his word. We have the mind
of Christ. What does that mean? His mind's
right here written in this word. Go by this word. We don't have
to be afraid of anything that's godly. Anything, what does he
say over here? He said he's already given us
all things that pertain to life and godliness. And yet he's already
given it to us. So we're to make a concerted
effort in these areas, not to be saved, not to be righteous,
but because we already are. And then he says in verse seven,
add to godliness, brotherly kindness. Well, you know what that is,
that's just simply being kind to one another. We don't need
a 300 page dissertation on that, we know better. Ephesians 4.32,
be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, That means trying to understand
each other. You said somebody makes you mad.
Well, yeah, we'll get mad and we'll want to get even and all
of that. But try to understand where they're coming from. Maybe
they've got some problems you don't realize. Maybe they're
going through some trial that you don't know. But be kind,
be tenderhearted, forgiving one another. This issue of forgiveness
is a big thing in the kingdom of God. Bible says, let's forgive
one another as we have been forgiven. And how have I been forgiven?
Unconditionally, based on the blood of Christ. Even the forgiveness
of sins. And me realizing that and knowing
that, see, the more I grow in the knowledge of how God has
forgiven me unconditionally through the blood of Christ, that I'm
to make a diligent effort to forgive you, to forgive others
in that way. That's a fruit of faith, you
see. It's not in us naturally. He
says, forgiving one another, Ephesians 4.32, forgiving one
another, even as God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven you. He says,
verse seven, add to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly
kindness, charity. And that charity is that brotherly
love, godly love, in the truth, to stand with each other and
to help each other in times of need in the gospel. Remember
what John wrote in 1 John 3. Well, let me just read it to
you. So in 1 John 3, listen to this. Talks about evidence, you know,
when people say, well, is that an evidence of salvation? You're
making it a work? No, it's evidence of life, evidence
of being born again, evidence of believing. Look at verse 13
of 1 John 3. Marvel not my brethren, if the
world hates you, the world will reject you because of what you
believe. Not because of acts of charity,
not because of giving money to the poor, but the world will
reject you because of what you believe. Because what you believe
reveals what they believe to be false. What we believe in
the gospel reveals that other churches where this gospel is
not preached, that they're lost. Now think about it. And they'll
hate you for that. That doesn't mean they'll smack
you upside the head or anything like that. Maybe somebody will,
but they won't be around you. They won't talk religion with
you. But verse 14, he says, but we know that we have passed from
death into life because we love the brethren. We have that like
precious faith that Peter spoke of. obtained through the righteousness
of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We love the brethren.
He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. And so Peter
says, be diligent to work out of this grace, work out of the
power of God, to love one another, to be charitable, to be kind
and all of these things. Now, beginning at verse nine,
he deals with the fruitfulness that we have in the knowledge
of Christ. We'll deal with that, and then he goes on to talk about
the answer that we need concerning assurance, and I'll deal with
that in coming messages. May the Lord bless his word to
our hearts.