What You Need to Know About Spiritual Growth

Chapter one, beginning in verse five, listen to these words, as Peter writes to these believers that are scattered about now for this very reason, also applying all diligence. In your face, supply more excellence, and in your more 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 and short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. What do we need to know about spiritual growth? Listen to these words, the Apostle Paul from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, they're familiar words, but listen to them in light of this. For I do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. Become sober-minded as you want, and stop sinning for some of no knowledge of god. I speak this to your shame. This is a great concern for parents as they're raising children, especially they enter into their teenage years, is this issue of bad company corrupting good morals.

Great concern for us. How is it that relationships impacted your life when you stop and think about it? How have the relationships that you have helped to shape your character? How is it that the people that you're close to and you have a close relationship with? How have they shaped the character of your life? What is it about relationships that work so powerfully in producing change in our life and changing us so radically? We see this happen often. Person begins to remember the particular crowd and they become like that crowd. What is it about relationships that do that? This influence which is exerted through personal relationships is one of the most powerful forces that shape your character today and my character today and tomorrow.

And this is why your Heavenly Father wants you to get closer to his son but how do you do that? Well, in the first few verses that we looked at in this book, this letter that Peter wrote in the first four verses, Peter described our relationship with Christ. He talked about how we had become partakers of the divine nature because we have been united with Jesus Christ. And then in verses five through eleven, he tells us how to grow in this relationship and that's very important because it's the relationship that is going to change you. It's not the house rules. It's not the church rules. It's a relationship with Jesus Christ. We've been according to these first four verses we've been called by Christ.

Peter there puts it this way. We have been attracted to him by his glory and excellence. And then we have been empowered by God to respond to Christ and finally we've been given promises by Christ. Now he's going to exhort us to grow in this relationship. That this is going to be the most powerful influence of our lives is the way that we relate to Jesus Christ. Spirit of growth is absolutely impossible apart from a conscious, deliberate, continual pursuit of a deeper personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That is just the fact. Spirit of growth is impossible without a deliberate, conscious, continual pursuit of personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You will not drift towards spiritual maturity.

I can assure you. And neither will I. Now we want to look at this morning at what Peter says. He says he tells us three important things about spiritual growth and this whole matter of our relationship with Christ and how we grow in it. And the first thing is that spiritual growth requires diligent effort. Now this is shocking news to some people that it actually takes diligent effort to grow in the Christian life and to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. But it cannot be passive. Let go and let God is a phrase that comes out of the 12-step movement. Not the Bible. Now there is some truth to that. You can define that in such a way that that's very biblical. But that's not the typical way that the New Testament talks about spiritual growth.

The way the New Testament talks about spiritual growth is one that describes very active participation. You have to actively pursue the person of Jesus Christ in order to grow. And so the warning that Peter gives us here is that if you want to know Christ better, it's going to take a made up mind and a willingness to pay a price because it's going to be costly. That's exactly what he says in these verses. Notice first of all, he uses this phrase, applying all diligence. That phrase means this. It means to do one's best in attempting to accomplish something. It pictures exertion. It pictures energetic involvement. It implies a made up mind that you have to want it if you're going to experience it.

This is what Jesus told the church of Leo to see. That they were resting. That they were resting in the wrong thing. And so what he told them to diligently do is to pursue him. So it's going to take diligence. You're going to have to apply all diligence in order to experience what he's going to describe here. And then he uses this word supply. He uses it over and over again in this the series of qualities and characteristics that he says we should supply. What does that mean? We supply it. The Greek word accordion ghetto means it's from the word we get our word choreographer. A choreographer in terms of the Athenian drama clubs had to do with rich people who supplied these drama groups with all the money and supply and everything they need to do their art form.

And this was a really it was kind of a sign of prestige. It was like being the producer of a movie. And so these wealthy people would pour they would lavishly supply everything that was needed to carry these things on. And so Peter picks up on this word because he wants to he wants to communicate to us this. There must be a generous and costly provision. You see and notice this is you who are supplying these things. Now obviously he wants to drive home to their hearts and the spirit of God wants to drive home to our hearts. That this matter of growth is something that we have to be committed to and we have to be engaged in consciously. Now I think that when you hear this typically some people think well that sounds like legalism.

In fact that feels like legalism. That feels oppressive to me that you're telling me I actually have to do something in order to grow spiritually. I have to be diligent. I have to count the cost. I have to actually invest my life in this. Absolutely. But doesn't God do it all? Isn't it just a matter of what God does in me? Well the fact is what the New Testament teaches is that in fact the Old Testament teaches this as well is that God grace demands as it enables. We saw this last week. We talked about Titus chapter 2. The grace of God has appeared to all men that bring salvation. Teaching us to deny ungodliness and fleshly desires of this world and to live godly, soberly, and righteously in this age.

Grace teaches us. The fact that God is the source of everything teaches us. When we understand what Christ has done on the cross it teaches us to live godly and soberly, righteousnessly in this age. So if I'm not moving towards that it means I'm not being taught by grace. Maybe I'm totally distorting in this understanding grace. So Peter wants them to understand this. Now the question then becomes what do I supply? If I must diligently and work hard at supplying these things and what is it exactly that I am to supply? What's going on here? Why is it going to be costly to me? Well the list is given to us here in verses 5 through 7. The fact is if you've read any ancient literature like if you read any philosophers of Peter's day, any stoic philosophy, for example, they had what they called moral advances and they were the same kinds of things.

List of things that you should develop in your life and your character. So what's the difference here? It's kind of like our New Year's resolutions. Is that all this is that Peter is giving us here? Is this the kind of character development that you simply do by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Determining this is the kind of person you're going to become. Well there's a huge difference because this is not by unaided effort. It's not that God has given you something now. It's up to you to develop it. But this is the fruit of our being partakers of the divine nature in this context. What does that mean becoming partakers of the divine nature? It means that we are united with Christ. The Christ lives in us.

We receive them by faith. He comes to take a residence in us and he begins to influence our lives. And so as we are partakers and the word partakers, by the way, is the word coin and ea. Fellowship. As we fellowship with Christ, as we experience the life of Christ in us, we are to supply these things. In other words, this is what we're to get from the relationship. When you develop a relationship with a person, do you ever think about, well, how is this relationship going to affect me? What is it going to be like to develop a close relationship to this person? I've had some friends over the years, some very close friends. One of my closest friends in high school ended up being murdered because he had murdered somebody else.

He was a drug dealer. You know, he had a certain influence on me in my freshman year in sophomore year in high school. And he wasn't, he hadn't committed any murders then. But I got to tell you, he was headed in that direction. But I didn't think a thing about the kind of influence he was going to be on me. And usually we don't. But what Peter is saying is, your relationship with Christ is one in which you should say, how do I want Christ to influence me? What do I want this relationship to produce in my life? And Peter guides us. We are to add these things through the personal influence of Jesus Christ. This is how he wants to influence us. We can be assured of that. How does Christ want to impact your life?

You know, you've probably had those experiences where someone develops a relationship with you. They pursue and they develop a friendship with you because they want something from you. They want to produce certain effects in your life. Well, Christ wants to produce certain effects in your life as well. And Peter says, we ought to be aware of it. And this is, these are the very qualities that we can consciously and deliberately pursue. Now, human effort is absolutely inadequate, but it is indispensable. You're that? Human effort is inadequate, but it is absolutely indispensable. There must be human effort. If somebody thinks that sovereign grace means that God does it all and you don't do anything, they don't understand sovereign grace, do you have to?

We don't believe in decisionalism, which is a pinnacle. Charles Spiny basically believed and taught and practiced that people have it in them to turn to Christ on their own. And all you have to do is learn how to sell them the package. You just need the right methods to get them to turn to Christ. They have it in them to turn to Christ. But the Bible says that we don't in ourselves. We will not turn to Christ apart from the work of the Spirit. But don't think that does not mean that that means that there is no effort on our part, that we do nothing. Did you did you choose Christ? Yes, you chose Christ because he chose you. And if he hadn't chosen, you wouldn't have chosen him. Did you decide for Christ?

Absolutely. Because he decided for you. But you made a decision to believe on him, didn't you? We'll hear these testimonies today as God worked in lives in such different ways. But there came a moment. The Spirit of God's influence, God's influence on their life and the work of the Spirit in their heart caused them to make a decision to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to follow Him. So what we're going to see in this passage is that we must continually, and that's the impact of the language here, that we must continually be adding to the faith that God has given to us certain qualities. But I want you to notice, first of all, in the text, look at the verses, look at verse five, and notice this.

Now for this very reason, also applying all diligence in your faith, you don't supply the faith. God has given you faith. Ephesians 2 says, or by grace of your faith through faith, and that, not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. God's given you faith to the work of the Spirit. But the faith of God has given to you, you must add these things too. You must supply these things. Peter said, that's the language that he used. You must, you must lavishly supply these things. So this initial acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ and turning the Christ, taking hold of Christ, responding to Christ's invitation to come to Him, this being drawn to Him through His glory and excellence. It's a work that results from the work of the Spirit in your heart, but now you must add to this faith that God has given you these things.

But then I want you to notice something, that in the flow of things, he says, in your faith, and if you notice, the very last thing is love. Now this is significant. In fact, the idea here is that the ultimate goal and target of faith is to be worked out in love. Now I know that because it says it many times in the New Testament, they're in Revelation chapter 5 or 6 for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. The way faith is manifested among us in our lives is through love, love for God and love for His people. And so the object is, isn't simply to get somebody to believe the facts of the gospel, or even in a moment of time to trust Christ for their salvation and forgiveness and eternal life.

But it is that the Spirit of God would produce a faith that results in a work, a life characterized by the work of love, faith working through love. Now let's see how He develops and there is a development here. In fact, it's kind of like this. There's a sense in which these things are put within one another. It's almost like concentric circles. To faith, we add this and then notice, first of all, He says, in faith, we add moral excellence, in your moral excellence, knowledge, in your knowledge, self-control, and so forth. It reminds me of teacher training material, when teachers are trained about the classroom and how to teach the subjects and be an effective teacher is one of the things that all of that pedagogical literature talks about is, you must have an atmosphere of discipline if there's any learning that's going to take place.

If you want to teach, you have to have order in the classroom, right? In fact, some of the teachers in our schools today, their biggest struggle, is simply to find order to create discipline and atmosphere which learning can take place. Well, the same thing is true here in the sense that within these things, then, we add the next thing that he mentions. And notice how he does this. Firstly, he says, in your faith, supply moral excellence. It's the same word that's used back in verse three of Jesus Christ. The thing that draws us to Christ is his excellence. Now, the word means when something is what it was meant to be. If you have a knife, it was created to cut. If you have a horse, it was as far as we're concerned, created to ride.

Or if you have an airplane, it was created to fly. So when a thing is what it was designed to be, when it functions well, that means it has excellence. Now, in this case, when we talk about the excellence in man, there's a big difference. There's a big difference in an excellent dog and an excellent man or woman. Because dogs weren't created in the image of God, and you were in the purpose for dogs and horses and skunks, it's completely different than the purpose that God created man for. Why did he create you? And how could you tell what excellence in man is? Well, you were created in the image of God. You were made for fellowship with God. You were made to reflect who he really is to mirror his image in this world and the way you live.

And so when a person is mirroring who God truly is, the character of God, that person is an excellent person. There's more excellence. Jesus Christ had more excellence. He was man par excellence. He was the perfect man because he reflected perfectly who God actually is. And a man acts in a moral way when he's unfaithful to his wife. He's not an excellent man. He's not demonstrating excellence. He doesn't reflect who God really is. So moral excellence flows out of this. The God is created in a certain way for a certain purpose to be in his image. And so Peter says, in your faith, add moral excellence. Consciously, desire to grow in what God has created you to be, to be a worshiper of the living God.

This God desire you to be a worshiper, absolutely. Not just to come here and sing songs. Worship is much broader than that. Worship is all of life. Worship is everything that you do. If you do it for the glory of God, it's worship. And that's what God created you for. That's what Jesus said. God seeks worshippers who will worship him and spirit it in truth. Because that's what you were made for. That's when you will come to excellence, when you become a worshiper of the living God in your life, in your thought life, in everything about you. Well, how can this excellence be acquired? Well, we are told quite clearly how it's acquired. This excellence is acquired through personal and continuous encounter with the Father's Son in the Spirit by faith.

That's what second Corinthians chapter 318 says. As we gaze into his face, we are changed from glory to glory. We become more and more an excellent person. That is, we become what we were designed to be. Worshipers of the living and true God. The reason we have problems worshipping is that we don't see God. I mean, we live so much of our lives unconscious of who God is and how He's involved in our lives. Interesting, as I talk to different people, when they get, we talked about their testimony, is how God had His hand upon them in their life before they came to faith, that He kept them from being destroyed because He had plans. But they didn't see His hand. They didn't see His activity. They didn't know it was the living God who kept them from destruction.

But He was there. But what happens is, is when we see God, when our eyes are open to Him, we worship Him. It's the normal reaction of the person of faith. If Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah goes into the temple on the Lord's day and He sees the Lord, high and lifted up. The presence of God fills that temple. Isaiah is struck and all He can do is worship this God and offer Himself in service. That's what always happens. The Bible says, this is how you grow an excellence. He's become a worshiper because that's who you are. That's what you were created for. And it's a terrible thing to waste something that's been created for a good purpose. It's terrible to take a precise tool that was created for a very particular purpose and use it as a hammer because you can't find anything else to hammer with.

That's kind of how we are. Your body was created to be an instrument of worship of the living God, that the work you do, that the relationships you have, that the things you're involved in are all to be done in acknowledgement and worship of the living God who created you for his good purposes. Then he goes on and he says, and in your moral character, your moral excellence, supply knowledge, supply knowledge. Now knowledge is a practical understanding of the will of God. Like this is one of the themes of this book. You may not notice it, but you'll see again and again when he talks about the perfect knowledge, the full knowledge, the excellent knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, how that affects us.

Well, it's interesting how this works in the Bible. Here's a simple principle that's used throughout the scripture and that is this. This cycle is constantly going on in the person of faith who's responding to the revelation of God. It begins by a practical grasp of truth as God reveals it. In fact, this happens in people's life. This is where sometimes God initiates his work in a person's life. They begin to notice God's revelation in nature. They begin to notice and they're stunned by simply God's revealing himself in his creation. When a word of God comes to us and we begin to have a practical grasp of truth. The one I mean by that is that we see the implications. The implications of who God is in Christ Jesus who he has revealed himself to be is obedience, trust, worship, hope, and when we obey the implications of those things, in other words, we come to understand something of God's revelation and we obey it results in a personal acquaintance.

Now this principle, this principle, this cycle that goes on, this is how growth takes place, a practical grasp of truth, obedience to the implications of that truth, and then a growing intimacy of relationship. I can show you, let me show you one place because you don't look convinced actually, but it turns into Colossians 1. In Colossians 1, Paul's giving thanks for these people that he's never met. He's certainly gotten a report about them and he's writing them a letter to encourage them and to warn them about some things and he begins by giving thanks for them. And he tells them how he's been praying for them since he first heard of them coming to faith in Christ. These are young believers and they face some pretty serious difficulties.

And so he tells them in verse 9 for this reason since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled, notice this, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spirits or wisdom and understanding. That phrase to be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spirits or wisdom and understanding is exactly what I mean by a practical grasp of truth. To be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spirits or wisdom and understanding means you understand the truth and you understand its implications for your life. But notice what he goes on to say. This is the first step that they would come to have a practical grasp of truth. And then he says in verse 11, strengthen with all power according to the glorious might for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience joyously giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in life.

For he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. You notice in verse 10, in verse 9 he says that you, I pray that you would come to have a knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. First part of verse 10 he's talking about responding to that in obedience, bearing fruit, which is responding to the will of God. And the result is the end of verse 10 is the knowledge of God. Now if you compare those two things, if you look at the end of verse 9 and then the end of verse 10, notice the difference between the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And the knowledge of God, north of differences in the text, it's simply the difference between knowing the one of God and knowing God.

You see, this is how faith is built. Faith isn't believing the unbelievable. That's not a Christian concept believing the unbelievable. That's not faith. What faith is, is trusting in the will of God because you have learned something about the character of God. As you grow in your understanding of the character of God, you have a greater ability to trust the will of God. And so when the will of God comes to you and it's something that you may not want to hear, it may really upset the apple card. It may really cause you to have to rethink a lot of things and maybe change your life if you understand the character of God. If you have faith in the character of God, then you will accept and embrace and believe the will of God.

And notice out of this moral excellence, then can grow knowledge as you worship God as you become someone who's entering in and pursuing this relationship with God and coming to understand him in his character, both in your experience and in the word of God as he's revealed to you, then you can add knowledge, practical knowledge, understanding the will of God, growing in your understanding of what it is that God wants you to do and he'll motivate you to obedience. See, some people so separate them from the person of God and really from the word of God and all they hear are the commandments that come through preaching or through confrontation of one kind or another and they don't have it in their heart to obey those commands.

And the reason is, is they're not hearing them from the person. That's the key. It's coming to know the person and when the person of God who you've come to have deep confidence and communicates his will to you, you embrace that will because you have embraced the person. That's what's difficult about living at arms linked from God and trying to live the Christian life. You can't do it. It won't work. And so Peter says, supply in your moral excellence, supply knowledge. And then he goes on, he says, in your knowledge, supply self-control. Wow, self-control. Notice this, the self-control flows out of knowledge. And knowledge is simply, and you could say in a negative way, it's just being, if the opposite being mastered by your lusts and passions and appetites that flow from the flesh.

Now, Galatians 5.16 says, this comes from the work of the spirit in your life. As you draw closer to Christ, the spirit of God produces in your heart the power to manifest self-control. But you have to decide. You have to exercise self-control. You have to supply it in the power of the spirit to knowledge, which is added to moral excellence. And knowledge, by the way, is a simple difficult principle. Knowledge that does not produce self-control is worthless. According to 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 3, James says, the demons believe and shatter. They have knowledge about God. It doesn't change them. It doesn't produce obedience. It produces rebellion. That kind of knowledge is worthless. Knowledge that produces obedience and self-control in our lives.

It's what's valuable. And then he goes on and he says in your self-control, supply perseverance. Perseverance is staying under pressure, continuing in faith and love towards God when there are obstacles, when there's opposition, when there are difficulties, and you're struggling with boredom, and you're struggling with a nitten grid of life, you persevere in the faith. You persevere in these things. You persevere in moral excellence and knowledge and self-control. James says there's no more reliable test of faith as perseverance. Perseverance, and this is why you really can't tell. A person can come to profess Christ, but it takes time before you can actually tell if that faith that they profess is justifying faith because you have to see a life of perseverance.

That doesn't mean it won't be fits and starts and failures and fallings and all kinds of things, but they'll always come back. They always come back to faithful obedience to Christ. And so he says we are to add to our self-control perseverance. This is based, the writer Hebrew says, on knowing the promises of God, being controlled by the promises of God. And the Bible says that God supplies us with difficult times and obstacles and trials in order to grow our faith and change our character. And then he says in your perseverance, add godliness. Godliness simply means giving God what he deserves. Giving God what he deserves. What does he deserve? If I would ask you personally, if I were just calling you by yourself and said to you, do you think you're giving God what he deserves in your life?

Are you giving him what he deserves? That's what godliness means. Is it is it true? Are you giving him what he deserves? That you were creating his image. You were created to be a worshiper. You were created for a fruitful, productive life that gives glory to God. Are you giving him what he deserves? He deserves fear. Not fear of punishment as a believer, but fear like Abraham when he offered up Isaac. Isaac feared losing his fellowship with God more than he feared losing his own son. You can hear that story about the boy who started his grandpa and he said, I would really like you to teach me how to pray, grandpa, and they're sitting out by the river. And he says, you really want to know? He says, yeah, and I know you know how to pray.

Would you teach me how to pray? So it takes the boy out in the river and he puts his head under the water and holds him there. Pretty soon the kids flailing and fighting and everything and he finally pulls him up. And he said, why didn't you do that? Well, that's your first lesson in prayer. When you desire God as much as you desire the breath that you were craving for, you'll learn how to pray. You know the truth to that, isn't it? Why don't you pray? You don't want, you don't want God that bad, that's why. That's why we don't pray. It's because we don't desire him or something from him. We don't crave it. When we give God what he deserves, we give him faith and we give him fear. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

When we realize that to lose God is to lose everything. What I need is more than anything in life is this God who's entered into relationship with me. This Jesus Christ has come to live within me. When I realize that, everything else becomes secondary. That's what Jesus said. Seek He first to keep him in God and His righteousness and then all these things will be added into you. You can just keep this priority straight. If we can add godliness, he says you're on your way to being fruitful and useful in the kingdom of God. And then he says, and to this godliness, add furtherly kindness. In a sense, this is needed to balance godliness because sometimes people's idea of godliness is very morose and gloomy and severe and negative and sullen.

That's why we had monasticism. That's why some people practice a kind of Christianity that makes them always have a long face and always put off by people who aren't perfect. And that's what happened Martin Luther. He finally became put off with himself because he was so simple. But he says to this godliness, add brotherly kindness and brotherly kindness is just taking delight in people. It's actually liking to be around people, the people of God, loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. Philadelphia, that's the word, that's the Greek word, love of the brothers. Actually enjoying being with them. It doesn't, it doesn't put you out to be around the same. You love the fellowship with God's people.

Well, how do we do that? Well, the Bible says we bear one of those burdens when people are suffering. We enter into this suffering and we help bear their burdens. We guide the spirit given unity that he's given to the church, which is an incredibly precious thing. And all of us who've been saved for anything to find, it's like when the unity of the spirit is damaged because of sin in our lives, sinful attitudes towards fellow believers. And we regard that. We are to pursue and supply brotherly kindness, develop in that. And that means to, you know, go out and go move beyond your little area of security and reach out to other believers, get to know brothers and sisters in Christ, learn to love the saints.

That's what he's saying, develop in this way. And then he says, finally, and to this brotherly kindness, add love, agape. The agape is the word that's used in the Testament. It's the primary word for the love of God for people. It's not the only word. He uses filial, he uses other words, but it's the primary word. The reason is it's the word that's used to describe Calvary love in John 3, 16, Romans 5, 18, many other places. It's the word that's used of God's great demonstration of his love in Christ Jesus. It is a self-sacrificing love. It's a love that's not based upon the object. It isn't because you love somebody because you're attracted to them, but love is bought out of the heart because you value them in Christ.

And it is a kind of love that is willing to sacrifice itself. That's what he wants from us towards one another. He says, this is how people will know that we are his disciples and we have love for one another. Men are never going to believe. People are never going to believe that God is love unless they see it in the lives of his followers, of his people. It's just never going to happen. Now, I hope that you grasp this reality that Peter is giving us here, that spiritual growth requires diligent effort. We really can't be passive. We have to be thoughtful, diligent, purposeful if we're going to grow in the Christian life. Now, the second thing he says, which is important, that spiritual growth involves fruitful knowledge.

Notice in verses 8 and 9, he says, for if these qualities that he's just listed for us are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unpurple in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who rocks these qualities is blind and shortsighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Here are the benefits. Notice in verse 8, you have the benefits of this growth, the spiritual growth, and the benefits are we grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. And there are two conditions that have to be true in our life in order for this to take place. The first is that these qualities must already be in your life. Now, there was these that could be growing qualities in our life as we grow in our relationship with Christ.

This is why God wants you to supply these things because He wants you to know His Son and He wants His Son to be known through you. This is the truth that you are really a particle of the divine nature, that you really have the faith in Christ. These are yours. In fact, He uses the word here, the word that's unless these are yours, which is kind of an unusual expression. It wouldn't be the normal word that you'd use, but it has to do with something that already exists. If these things already exist in your life and if these things are multiplying, if there is spiritual growth, and lack of spiritual growth is a sign of spiritual death, and if these things are growing in you, you will have these consequences, verse 9.

These are the consequences of not adding these things, and therefore the opposite of the consequences of adding them. Now, notice what He says. Here are the consequences, and take a little personal inventory for a moment. Listen to these words. For He who lacks these qualities. In other words, these aren't growing things in your life. The person who lacks these things is blind, short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. We have a neighbor, a farmer there that has a dog named Murphy. He says, I want to figure this out. He says, we're those big red long-haired dogs, Spangles, Irish Cedar. He's an Irish Cedar, and he's blind. He just became blind about a month ago, got into some poison, and it ended up blinding him, but he still runs around.

He just smells his way, but he's blind. You can't see where he's going. Well, one morning, I hadn't forgotten that he was blind, because he comes over to our house and marks his territory continually. And so he came over one morning as very early as I said, and they're reading the just-fun light. And I look out there, and there he is, marking everything up in thin air. And so I go to the door, and I yell at him. Get out of here, and I smack my hands, and I didn't. I forgot all about him being blind. And he was like a ball in a pinball machine. He was hitting the table, hitting the chair, running to the wall. He didn't know where he goes, because he couldn't see a thing. He was blind. Peter says, if you're not experiencing spirits of growth, if you're not consciously pursuing growth in your relationship with Christ, you are going to experience a kind of spirits of blindness.

And if you notice it's a double blindness, because he says there, you are blind and shortsighted. Well, how can you be shortsighted and blind? How is that possible? You're blind or you're shortsighted, but you couldn't be both, could you? Well, the word shortsighted actually means it's from a word that means to blick. The idea, I think, to Peter is giving us this. They're blind because they close their eyes. They refuse to look. You've been given eyes to see, and he was to hear it hard to believe, but are you exercising? Are you looking? Are you opening your eyes? Are you growing in the faith? Are you growing in your relationship with Christ? He says, if you don't, you're going to be running into walls.

It's Christian life gets incredibly difficult. Nothing really works right because you don't see the hand of God in it. The believers' eyes are open and are adding these qualities, even though it has very difficult things happen to them. They can have some horrible things happen. And yet because their eyes are open, they understand that they are under the mighty hand of God. That what they're going through is not outside the control of this God who has revealed Himself in His Word and in His Son. It's just like He worked in the life of His Son through pain and suffering and hardship and opposition and disappointment and abandonment. He sometimes works in the same way in our life. If we have our eyes closed and we don't see, it feels like we've had a brick wall.

That's why we ask the questions, why we've got to allow it. But if our eyes are open, we can say, I hate this. But I know that my Redeemer lives and I know my Redeemer has His hand over me and that even in this great difficulty, this great disappointment, this situation in my life that I would never chose it. And I hate the experience itself and yet I know that the living God is going to lead me through this. And I don't have to be like a blind dog running in every direction, running up against walls. And then the last thing he says to wrap this up is, he says, spiritual growth results in sure-footed progress. That's the terminology he uses here in verses 10-11. He uses an expression that speaks of a horse that is sure-footed.

If you've ever read a horse that's not sure-footed, for example, if you ever hunted on a horse, my dad used to go hunting a lot. He loved to hunt and he had a horse, had a tenancy walker that he used to hunt with. And the thing about that horse that he loved was he was sure-footed. Because if you get on a horse that's not sure-footed and you get into rough country, you can really have a lot of problems. Well, Pierre pulls a term that speaks of a horse having been sure-footed. And listen to what he says, therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. You will never stumble. My cousin who ropes, team ropes with his son, about a year ago was riding his- where they were in a roping event and he was riding this thing as fast as it would go, going after a calf, and the horse stumbled and end over in and through and forward.

He's two years old and I am. Can you imagine what it feels like to fall at my age? I gotta say it hurts. Really bad. And he fell headlong and that horse with end over it. He said, what it was like was this horse was running as fast as it could and all of a sudden the horse was gone. Yet no sensation of what happened except the horse was gone. And he was still going the same speed. Well, that's the idea of this stumbling. He said, if you add these things to your life, be diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. How do you do that by adding these things to your life? By growing in your relationship with Christ, that's how you can make certain his calling and choosing you. It will be experiential to you.

For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. You get the play on words here in verse 11. He says, I want you to supply these things to your life. Because if you do, then Christ will abundantly supply these things to you and your entrance, this entrance into the kingdom of heaven. That is a vivid metaphor. I gotta tell you what he's talking about here is a practice that wasn't common, but it was well known. And that was when a man went from a small city, especially a wall city to participate in the Olympic Games, and he was a winner, and he won the crown. When he came home, they would give him an abundance entrance into the city.

You know how they do it? They would knock a hole in the wall, and they would frame it, and they would put his name over that entrance, and that became his entrance into the city. And he used this metaphor to say that as you lived the Christian life, and as you grow in your relationship with Christ and you become fruitful, instead of becoming unfruitful and unusable, you'll become fruitful and useful in the kingdom of God. And he said, it's going to be a glorious day when you enter into the kingdom. It's like Christ busting a hole through the wall of the kingdom, and there is your name, and you enter in with abundance with your head up. As John says, not pulling back in shame, saying, oh no, Christ has come.

Christ has come. How would you feel today if Christ came? Would it be a glorious truth to you to run into the presence of God and say, oh, I've been waiting on you. I've been waiting for this day, so I've been serving you. It's why I've been growing in my relationship with Christ because I couldn't wait for this day for I enter into your presence. Is it going to be a joy to enter into the presence of Christ? You need to really ask yourself that question. Dave Beckman, a friend of mine uses this illustration often. He asked people if you were, he used to use it as a scissor. I don't know the earnings scissors anymore, but he said that if you were at the scissor and you were up at the at the food bar and you're standing there filling your plate and all of a sudden you Jesus walked through the door.

What would you do? Would you hide behind the food bar? Would you stand still? Or would you run to him? What would you do? Jesus says he wants to give you, Peter says Jesus wants to give you an abundant entrance into his kingdom. He wants you to add these things because he wants a relationship with you. Jesus isn't hard up for friends and I'm not saying to you today, please feel sorry for Jesus. You know, he really wants good friends. Please be good friends with Jesus. I don't want to tell you he does what relationship with you. He does want you to experience what it's like to have Jesus as your friend. Jesus is what a friend of sinners and we all qualify and he wants to be your friend. If you heard today and you've never even had a relationship with Christ, I can tell you the Bible says that Jesus has provided a way for you to have a relationship with him.

He's a friend of sinners. He's a friend of those who are alienated from God because of sin, because of the fall, because of our alienation and he has provided a way that you can come to him because he's died for sinners. He was buried and resurrected. He paid for our sins. He removed this distance so that all we have to do to come to the Father has come to Christ, to take hold of Christ, to enter into relationship with Jesus Christ. Let's pray. I, Father, how grateful we are that you have brought us into a living and real and very personal relationship with Christ. I want to confess to you for myself and for all of us who are here, who are believers, that we so often take that relationship without any seriousness at all, that we are so much more concerned about what people think of us about human relationships and human situations than we do about our relationship with you.

And we neglect. We neglect the relationship that has come about supernaturally through the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit. And we live as though it's no big deal to be a friend of Jesus. But I pray today that you would, through the Holy Spirit's work, shake us to our foundations and cause us to wake up. That we wouldn't waste our life on trivial things in this world. That the things the world counts to be so important. And yet, how do they in any way advance the kingdom of God? So God to want to do our jobs, to live our lives, to relate to our neighbors, to do our ministry, to do everything in life in such a way that you would be glorified. And we could do it out of relationship with you, that would change everything about us.

The way we work, the way we treat people, the way we pay our bills, the way we use the resources you put in our hands. Please give us a hungering and the first thing up to you. Help us to crave you. The way we are drowning person craves breath. We pray to you to draw us to you today. Help us to take you seriously, in your word, seriously Father. And to thoughtfully and consciously and deliberately think about these things and think about the implications for our lives. Please be glorified in us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.