Growing in the Gospel At Home
At the recent women's ministry "Growing in the Gospel" event, Megan, one of our members taught from 2 Peter 1:3-10 at a workshop. She encouraged the women to remember God's saving work and strive to live in a manner worthy of the calling they have received, even when they are at home. For many women, the home could be a place where they are either extra busy, or wish to just relax in their leisure. But in this private space, it is also important to care for their own walks with God.
I have the gift of forgetfulness. Just recently Mark and I watched a movie (of which I now can’t remember) and as the movie went on I had a vague idea that I knew what
was going to happen. It wasn’t until near the end that I realised I had seen the movie before and knew the ending! This has happened to me many times. I also notice it happens with reading books. I can re-enjoy classics as I forget details but know the overall plot! So I am forgetful.
But forgetfulness has a cost too. As we work our way through the Bible we often see the cost of forgetfulness in the lives of the Israelites. When we were working through Exodus at GBC this last year, did you notice how often they saw some great work of God…and then were grumbling in the next chapter? It’s as if these great lessons that God was teaching them kept failing to imprint themselves on their minds and hearts.
Friends, sadly this is the case with us so often. How often do we forget important spiritual realities that we have learned? How often have we forgotten God’s past faithfulness in the midst of our present crises? For the next few minutes, we want to consider the power of remembering as we look at 2 Peter 1:3-9. Specifically I want us to think about how remembering God’s work in salvation should fuel our work in growth resulting in assurance.
A summary of our passage is: Remembering God’s work should fuel our work confirming our calling.
Let's look at 2 Peter 1:3-9 to get some answers to our questions about forgetfulness. We’ll talk about this passage in three points:
Remembering God’s work (2 Pet 1:3-4)
Fuelling our work (2 Pet 1:4-9)
Confirming our calling (2 Pet 1:10-11)
REMEMBERING GOD’S WORK (2 PET 1:3-4)
"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by
which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them
you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption
that is in the world because of sinful desire."
(2 Pet 1:3-4)
These verses stack up for us what God has done in saving us. Let’s be sure to notice how first Peter presents God as active and us as passive. So, what has He done for us?
Firstly, 2 Peter 1:3 says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” He has granted to us as a gift absolutely everything we need both for life and godliness. So whatever we need to live and grow is all already ours as a gift.
How has He done this? Through the knowledge of Him who called us. Knowledge is more than intellectual knowledge here, it refers to an intimate and informed relationship that is the product of conversion to the gospel. Knowing God is not just knowing facts, but being in relationship with Him.
What is the purpose of this? He called us to His own glory and excellence. Calling biblically is an effectual work—He summoned us and drew us. So who is doing the work here as we think about our conversion? God is! He called us. Calling here is the same idea of election. He has elected us before the creation of the world to be his adopted children. And the purpose here is His own glory.
So He gifts everything we need through the knowledge of Christ for His glory. But Peter then circles around to consider another angle on the “all things” that we are given.
He has granted to us His precious and very great promises. Peter probably means that in Christ all the promises of the Old Testament about the new Covenant are true. God’s Word being written on our hearts, and truly knowing Him, and the gift of the Spirit.
And what is the result of that? He says that through these promises we become partakers in His divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Because of Christ's work, because we are united to Him, we actually partake of His divine nature. We are not divine ourselves, but we are indwelt by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ. This new nature allows us to escape from he corruption that was in us because of sinful desire. Now we can say no to the sin that entices us. We are set free from sinful desires, to desire and love the truth. These
are precious truths.
Let’s underline again, that the focus here is on God, not on us.
I grew up going to church every week. When I was about 12, I started thinking more seriously about God. I sensed God was real, but I didn’t know how to relate to Him. I remember praying a simple, silly prayer every night. I just repeated the same phrase over and over until I fell asleep—I love you and I love everyone in the whole wide world. I would just say it over and over. If something went well the next day, I would think, “Oh I must have said the prayer the right number of times last night!” My basic idea was that if I was good, God would give me good things. It was like I took the teaching of Santa Claus and applied it to God. What does the song say? It goes: "He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! O! You better watch out! You better not cry. You better be good I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town.”
Because of this belief, I had to make sure somehow that my good deeds outweighed my bad ones. I couldn’t actually acknowledge my sin, or I wouldn’t get what I wanted. I had Christianity all mixed up. Instead of seeing the seriousness of my sin, I had to cover it up. But without seeing my sin, I couldn’t see my need for a Saviour.
When I finally heard the gospel, and realised that God had done what I could not—both Jesus living the life I should have lived but didn’t, and dying the death that I deserved. I was set free from all of that—from trying to save myself. Sisters it is a glorious thing to know that in love God moved toward us while we were yet sinners, that he is sovereign over salvation. Why would He have chosen us? We don’t know, but we humbly receive.
You and I need to remember these things with wonder. To return to the joy of our salvation. Have you lost that sense of wonder? Do you find joy in your salvation? Have you shared your testimony lately? A good way to remember what God has done in your life is to share it with others. Sharing your testimony is just retelling what your life was like before you believed, how you heard the gospel, and how believing the gospel has changed you. It takes thought, so if you haven’t spent time thinking about it, it is worth your time! Telling of God’s work in your life is a great way to remember and be thankful. It is good to remember all that God has done to deliver us from sin and from the world, making us partakers of His Divine nature.
So that is where we begin here, by remembering God’s work.
WE SHOULD LET THIS FUEL OUR WORK (2 PET 1:5-9)
"For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and
virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with
steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly
affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is
blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins."
(2 Pet 1:5-9)
Don’t miss the “for this very reason” (2 Pet 1:5). It’s saying, “in light of all that”. Because of this, what should we do? What follows here is to “make every effort” to grow in a series of things. He begins with our faith, our trust in the gospel, what we talked about in the first point, and then 7 things we are to supplement this faith with, or “add to” our faith in the NIV which I read as a young Christian.
Before we look at those, notice in 2 Peter 1:8 the point of doing this is that it will keep us from being ineffective or unfruitful. We don’t want that! So how can we be effective and fruitful? By increasing in these 7 qualities. This list doesn’t have to be in this order. It’s a literary device here to say they should all be increasing. Virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love. Lets look at each of them very briefly.
Virtue. What is virtue? It means conforming to a standard of rightness. It means morality.We are to be growing in being moral, in doing what is right.
Knowledge. Proverbs says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It can’t mean just gaining knowledge for the sake of knowing. It means an ability to discern God’s will and orient your life towards it.
Self-control. A choice to control our emotions, thoughts, and behavior, resulting in freedom from being tossed around with every wave of idea or thought. To be in possession of your own mental and emotional and physical life.
Steadfastness. This means the ability to persevere in times of difficulty and trial. A long obedience in the same direction. Solidity, immovability.
Godliness. Striving to please God in every phase of life. Desiring to see Christlikeness increasingly displayed in our lives. This is repeated from 2 Peter 1:3 where it says He has given us everything we need for godliness.
Brotherly affection. Love for other believers manifested in things like kindness and friendliness and care.
Love. He ends with the greatest of the virtues. The glue which we need for all the other qualities mentioned. This love characterised Christians and made them stand apart from others.
Peter says that if we make every effort to add these qualities to our faith, and if they are increasing, then we can be sure we are not being ineffective or unfruitful in our faith. Douglas Moo in a commentary is helpful here: “Too many Christians are content simply with being Christians, happy simply to know they won't go to hell. But the true Christian never rests content with such a minimal (albeit important!) level of Christian experience. True 'knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ' (end of 2 Peter 1:8) should always spark the unquenchable desire to know Him better and better and to seek to use that knowledge in the service of others. Indeed, as Peter will suggest in this letter, one cannot be a true Christian without showing the effects of one's relationship with Christ in a renewed lifestyle.”
That is why Peter says there at the end of 2 Peter 1:9 that if a person doesn’t have these increasing qualities, then they are so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. He says he is so nearsighted that he is blind because he forgot that he had been saved!
If we stop and think about our problem with forgetfulness, it isn’t really a brain problem. The problem is really a lack of thoughtfulness. It is really a problem with laziness.
Just last week I was talking with a friend about spending time with God. She told me that ever since she had kids (about 17 years ago) she has not had regular times with God. She said she was disciplined in college, but it became legalistic. When she started having kids (she does have 4) in dealing with the difficulty of lack of sleep and not having control over her schedule she decided to live in “grace” and hasn’t had a consistent time in the the word or prayer. I can understand how she got to where she is, but I think it is a dangerous place to be. It leads to a forgetfulness that can sap the energy out of Christian growth.
If you or I feel like we are not growing, what if we started by repenting of the fact that we are not making every effort to grow. Spending time with God is worth our effort, our repentance, and our planning. We should be making effort.
The effort will take different forms in different life seasons. Mothers of infants and toddlers are going to have to be creative, for e.g. using nursing times and listening to music. Many of us simply need to go to bed earlier and set the alarm to get up earlier before the little ones do. Those of us who are single need to grab ahold of more free time to read, memorise, meditate and pray. Whatever your situation, make every effort as you steward your time and energy to grow in godliness.
If we want to grow in godliness, we have to plug into our electric source. We have to charge by spending time with our Creator. What can you do this week to revive, or begin daily habits of recharging?
Have you been making effort to produce fruit from your faith? As you think of the areas
Peter lists, which ones could you pray about and make effort to grow in? Virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love? Pick one and pray and make some effort to increase in that quality!
Well, we talked about remembering God’s work in us, and how that fuels our work.
CONFIRMING OUR CALLING (2 PET 1:10-11)
"Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election,
for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be
richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ."
(2 Pet 1:10-11)
Remembering God’s work fuels our work…to what end? Here, Peter interestingly says, “Therefore”, i.e., in light of this…we should be diligent to confirm our calling and election. These are synonyms, biblically calling doesn’t mean what work we do…the way we often use the word. As above it refers to our salvation. He is talking about our assurance of salvation. We are saved by trusting in Christ, but we are sure that we have truly trusted in Christ by the fruit of our lives.
This is an important point. The person who is not growing in Christ, who has no interest in God’s people or in God’s glory should not have much confidence that they are truly a
believer. Peter wants us to have confidence, he just ties it to our growth in godliness. If we practise these qualities, he says, we will never fall and be richly provided with an entrance to the eternal kingdom.
So the idea here is that we are either moving towards godliness or away from godliness. There is no stagnation.
This is the great dynamic tension. On the one hand God is sovereign over your salvation. He does the work to save us. On the other hand, we respond with effort and work. We grow in grace. We don’t take His work lightly, or trample on His grace. We respond in active work. Making every effort. Being diligent. We have to hold both in tension. The Bible does. We should not mix them up. We don’t work for salvation. We work as a response of our salvation.
Listen to Doug Moo here: “Contemporary application of this basic concern is obvious and straight-forward. As in Peter's days, the church contains many people who fail in various ways to display the kind of godly behavior that God wants of us. Such a lackadaisical attitude toward godliness can infect even the most dedicated believer. We find it so easy to presume on God's grace by becoming satisfied with simply 'being saved'. Many Christians begin slipping into the attitude expressed by the French skeptic Voltaire, 'God will forgive; that's his job.' Peter wants to sound a clear warning against this spiritual slackness.”
How often do we have a lackadaisical attitude toward godliness? Does spiritual slackness describe your state? The good news is that you don’t have to stay there. You don’t have to hide. God knows your state! You just have to acknowledge it before Him and ask for help. He wants to help you.
I think one of the keys to growing in godliness is repenting. We can repent of not caring about our godliness. Instead of feeling bad about our lack of effort, or our lack of growth in this list of qualities, we can repent. Repentance should be a common daily act instead of something we do once in a while when we do some really bad thing. What if we went to bed asking God to reveal any sin we have committed or omitted, and repent. What if we woke up and ask God to search our hearts and reveal any unclean way in us. We don’t need to be perfect Christians, we need to be repentant Christians. Are you in the habit of repenting?
Our diligence will keep us from falling. Our diligence will prove that God has so worked in us that we want to live for Him and grow in godliness. The godliness He says in verse 2 Peter 1:3 that He has given us the power for, the godliness that we pursue because of His work, this godliness will give us confidence that He has richly provided an entrance into his eternal kingdom. His gracious power supplies what He demands. And so as we strive for godliness, we rest in His grace that is so abundant that we have all we need in order to grow.
We should conclude.
Remembering God’s work should fuel our work confirming our calling.
I told you at the beginning I have the gift of forgetting things. It is useful when it comes to books and movies that you want to enjoy afresh for the nth time. But ladies, forgetting is a spiritual hazard. Let God’s word call you afresh to remember, to fuel your effort, and to give you a great assurance of your relationship