All right, we're going to stay right there where Randy read in 2 Peter 1. The title of the message comes from verse 5, where it says, add to your faith. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge, adding to our faith. That's what I want to talk about. And what this is, it's an exhortation. An exhortation is an encouragement in light of God's word as empowered by the Holy Spirit, the commandments of Christ. It's an encouragement to obedience. Encouragement to the people of God who have been saved by the grace of God in Christ, who have been justified already. Justified meaning their sins are forgiven forever and ever based upon the blood of Christ. They stand righteous before God in Christ, His righteousness imputed. That speaks of the exchange of the gospel, the great exchange that Christ took my sins upon Himself as they were charged to His account, imputed to Him. He took those sins to the cross, shed His blood in full payment for my sins. They cannot be charged to me, they were charged to Christ. And I have His righteousness charged to me, His righteousness imputed. And then also it takes in mind that the fact that those who have been saved by grace, been justified, that they've been born again by the Spirit. They've been given a new spirit, a new life, a new knowledge, a new heart. They've been brought by God-given faith through the Holy Spirit to Christ for all of salvation. Now the exhortations of Scripture, that's who they're aimed at right there. They're not aimed at unbelievers. Now we all, for example, we want even unbelievers to try to be law-abiding citizens. Act like at least they have some sense, you know, when it comes to what's reality and what is not. We know that we're really challenged in these days about stuff like that. But we want them to. But these exhortations are to believers. And the reason I want to show you that, I'm going to begin at verse 5 and then I'm going to go back up into the chapter here. He says, and beside this, now the this there is a big word. Not because it has more letters than any other word, it doesn't. But what is this? Well, it's the facts of what he had stated before this, but let's go on first and I'll go back to that. And beside this, giving all diligence. Diligence means a determined effort, okay? And he says, add to your faith virtue. Now your faith, what is your faith? Well, we'll see in just a moment. But add to that virtue. What is virtue? The Greeks had the idea of virtue, they called it moral excellence. And that's a good term for it, moral excellence. And moral excellence in the life of a believer is not just what men and women call morality. Moral excellence in the life of a believer is that which is acceptable to God because of our standing with Him in Christ. and our state in this world as believers. Justified saints, as one man called them. I've got an article I'm going to put in next week's bulletin called, Every Believer is a Saint. Did you know that? What got me to think about this, I saw advertised on TV that somebody, some famous Hollywood director, is coming out with different movies of the saints. And of course they're going to pick certain ones, most of them probably not even believers, but you know how people think. You know, this is somebody who's shown courageous morality or something or died for their beliefs. A saint is a sinner saved by grace. A saint is a sanctified one. That's what that word saint comes from, sanctified. What does that mean? Set apart by God. And how are we set apart? Well, we were set apart before the foundation of the world when God chose us and gave us to Christ. That's election. God loved us with an everlasting love before the world began. Our names were written on the Lamb's book of life, the Lamb that was slain, the purpose to be slain before the foundation of the world. You realize that? If you're a believer, a truly a believer, your name was written there. And it's not that God took a notepad and an ink and wrote it down. It's just in his sovereign, unchangeable mind. And he gave us to Christ. He put all of the responsibility of our salvation on Christ. And Christ came and he fulfilled that responsibility in our stead. We were sanctified by him as our representative, our substitute, our surety, our redeemer, our life giver, our preserver, all of that, our intercessor. He's right now interceding for us at the right hand of the Father, pleading the merits of his righteousness on our behalf. so that we cannot be charged with our sins. We're righteous in God's sight. We cannot be condemned. So now, when we talk about moral excellency in the life of a believer, it has to be within that context. And if it's not, it's dead works. See, an unbeliever can do moral things in the eyes of men and women, but it's dead works. It's fruit unto death. A person can determine within him or herself that I'm going to try to be the best person I can be, and that'll save me. That's dead works. That's not virtue. Not in God's sight now. It may be virtue in the eyes of Socrates and Plato, but not before God. Am I making myself clear there? So when he says, add to your faith virtue, moral excellence, obedience unto God, and to virtue, knowledge. Knowledge has to do with the Scriptures and how it leads us to Christ. We need to become adept in the Scriptures. Every believer should do this, not just the preacher. I mean, I'm glad to study. Listen, you all, I've been blessed. I was telling Patricia, you know, I'm blessed to be here that I have the opportunity to sit and study the Word and bring it to you. But you need to do it too. It's called growth in grace and in knowledge of Christ. The more you know of Christ, what's gonna happen? The more your assurance grows. And the more your assurance grows, the more you are going to be diligent to be virtuous. Now what we have here in this first chapter of Peter, second Peter, is really a manual on exhortation, how it should be preached. We don't preach obedience without the gospel. because that wouldn't be virtuous. You see what I'm saying? If I just said, now you all straighten up and quit lying. Okay, well that's a good thing, but if I don't preach the gospel, what good's that gonna do you? That's like trying to run a car without gas. So understand that. So he says, and to knowledge, temperance, what is temperance? It's control. A lot of people say self-control, but I wanna tell you something. Do we really control ourselves? We're Spirit controlled. Holy Spirit controlled. And the Spirit does it through His Word. I was talking to some of the guys last week. You know, when people talk about the work of the Spirit within us, never, never separate or judge the work of the Spirit within you apart from the Word of God. Somebody says, well, I just feel the Spirit. Well, that could be indigestion. You know? It's always, when the Spirit moves within us, when the Spirit inspires us, motivates us, it is always with the Word of God and never apart from it. It's never just a feeling. You walk into a religious service and somebody says, oh, I just feel the Spirit there. Well, I can tell you whether the Spirit was there or not, what was preached from that pulpit. Was it God's word or man's word? Was it salvation by his grace conditioned on Christ or salvation conditioned on man? You see, that's how you judge it now. He's the spirit of truth, he's the spirit of light. And so when we talk about things like knowledge, oh, I wanna, Paul said, oh, that I may know him. Well, Paul, didn't you already know him? Well, yeah, but he wants to know more. that what we want to do? I want to know more of Christ crucified, risen from the dead, the Lord my righteousness, the glory of his person, the power of his finished work. And so he says add to this virtue knowledge and then add to knowledge. Verse six, temperance. Temperance is control. Control ourselves. All right, how are we going to do that? By looking to God. Lord, I'm dependent upon you. Keep me from the evil one. every way. Keep me, hedge me about. The psalmist said, Lord don't let me be poor because I might steal, don't let me be rich because I might leave you. You can't think about it, that's what he's saying. Lord, engage my life, protect me, surround me, control me. That's what we pray. And we're to make a concerted effort, because he says, give all diligence. Somebody said, well, he does it without you. No, he doesn't. He works on us. He works within us. And so he says, temperance. And add to temperance, patience. That's endurance. Don't let me quit. Now we know, and we put this under the heading of the doctrine of perseverance. Perseverance in the faith. What is perseverance in the faith? Somebody said, well, it's just me trying to do better. Well, okay, we ought to try to do better. But perseverance in the faith is fixing our gaze, our eyes, our hearts upon Christ and his word. Don't let, don't get my, You remember Peter, you remember when Christ was approaching them on the storm and they were in the boat? Peter jumped out and he was walking toward him on the water. And what happened to Peter? What happened to him? You all remember? Took his eyes off Christ. And what happened to him? Like an anchor. Well that's us. If we take our eyes off Him, we're gonna sink. And that endurance, that patience, is a continual looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And that's what inspires us and exhorts us in obedience in all of these things. He says, add to patience godliness. What is godliness? Well, it's simply following God, striving to be like Christ, striving to love as He loved. striving to forgive as he forgave. All of these things, trying to honor God with our lives and our thoughts, our worship, all of that. And add to godliness, brotherly kindness. That's how we're to treat each other, with kindness. Not with meanness, not with vengeance, but kindness. Be kind. Is that enough? Do I need to go back to the Greek to show you what kindness is? No, you know what it is. Be kind one to another. And then to brotherly kindness, charity. Charity is love. Somebody said, well, he thought that charity was a better word for it because love is a giving thing. And that's true. You hear that in songs. And it is. here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And so he says in verse eight, he says, for if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know Christ? Well, there's fruit that comes with that. These things that we're listing here as far as the adding to our faith, they don't save us. I'm not going to be saved and accepted with God based upon my virtue. I'm going to be saved and accepted with God based upon the virtue of Christ. You see the difference? I want to be kind and charitable. I want to be forgiving. I want to be patient. All of these things. I want to be godly. But that's not going to save me. These are the fruits of having been saved by the grace of God. So let's go back to the very first verse here. In exhortations, the first thing that we need to do in preaching exhortations for how we ought to behave as brethren, you've got to lay the foundation of God's grace. And that's what Peter does, look at verse one. Simon Peter, a servant, now the word servant there, you might have heard the Greek word doulos, that's the bond servant of Christ. In other words, the idea here is not to be a forced slave who's serving against his or her will, but it's one whose debt has been paid to the law and serves his or her master because he or she loves him. And that's the position that God has put every child of God in when he brings us to faith in Christ. He gives us a will. Now, granted, there is another will within us, and it's the will of the flesh. And there's the battle. So what are we doing in any of these exhortations? We're fighting a warfare. That's true. There's what we want, and then there's what God wants. God's gonna have his way, I know that. But we fight the warfare, the good war of faith, against ourselves. And make no mistake about it, we've got enemies that we're without, but our own worst enemy is ourselves. We are. So he's a servant, he's an apostle, that's the one who was given the word of God directly from Christ, the apostle of Jesus Christ. Now look at this next line. To them that have obtained like precious faith. What does that mean? That means we believe the same gospel. It means we look to the same Christ, who is none other than God manifest in the flesh. If you're sitting here today, and you do not believe that Jesus was God in human flesh without sin, then I can tell you you're not worshiping the same Christ that I'm worshiping. Because that's who He is. If you're here this morning and you're worshiping a Christ who tries to save everybody, but millions or multitudes perish in hell for whom he died, we're not worshiping the same Christ. The Bible says his name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. Emmanuel, God with us. And this is something we've obtained. In other words, it wasn't in us naturally. It's a gift from God. By grace are you saved. Through faith, that and not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We obtained it. Paul talked about obtaining salvation. It's a gift from God. He says, like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. You may have this in your concordance, but literally what this says, through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. There's the ground of it all. The ground of our salvation, the ground of our justification is not our virtue or our patience or our endurance. That's the fruit. The ground of it is the righteousness of Christ, which is His righteousness imputed to us, charged to us, freely given to us. It's the merit of His whole work of being our surety and our substitute and our redeemer. It's the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, which we are made of God in Him. It has nothing to do with our works. or our efforts or our decisions. It's totally what Christ, God manifest in the flesh, did for his people in his obedience unto death. And that's how we obtain like precious faith. Even our faith is the fruit of what he accomplished in his death on the cross. Even our repentance is the fruit of what he accomplished and finished. And that has to be firmly established in our minds and our hearts before we could ever be virtuous before God. We have to have, I was preaching this on television last week. I'm recording a television program. We who are saved by grace have a fixation. And our fixation is on Jesus Christ, the glory of his person and the power of his finished work. My heart is fixed. The writer of Hebrews said, it's a good thing that the heart be established, firmly ensconced in grace so that we can't be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. Over the years that I've preached, I've seen people get tossed to and fro with all kinds of junk. But thank God, thank God, that he kept us fixed on Christ. And if we are fixed on Christ, give glory to God. God forbid that I should boast, save in the cross. And so he says in verse two, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. The knowledge of his grace and that peace that is made between God and us, think about that. That's to be multiplied. In other words, growing in grace and in knowledge of Christ. And what that does is that gives us the assurance of faith. What is the assurance of faith? Does that mean, well, I never have any doubts? Well, if it does, you don't have any assurance. Does it mean that my faith is perfect and I never have any misgivings? Do I ever complain? Do you ever complain? You know what a complaint is in the Bible? Ultimately, your complaint is against God. You do know that, don't you? Whatever you're complaining about. I complain about my back. Well, God's given it to me for some purpose, and it's for His glory and for my good. I really believe that. I'm not going crazy now. I believe that. I wish He'd take it away. Maybe He will. Maybe He won't. His will be done. I'm doing a little bit better, obviously, but I still like to sit up here. But the thing about it is, this thing of being ensconced in the knowledge of Christ, that's what gives us that fixation. And that's what gives us that assurance by looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Assurance does not come from looking within. Let me put it this way. Godly assurance does not come from looking within. It comes from looking outside of ourselves to Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. But now look at verse three. Now this is what this all means. That establishes our hearts with grace and gives us the foundation whereby God produces within us, and it's Him doing the producing, all these virtues and this knowledge and this fruit to exhort us. Look at verse three. According as His divine power, that means ability, God's ability, hath given unto us, there's the gift, all things, how many things are all things? All things, that pertain unto life, spiritual, eternal life, and godliness, which is described over here beginning at verse five. That's what that is. Virtue, endurance, all of that. Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory. Some translations say by glory. What is it? Called us unto glory. To salvation. That glorifies God and virtue. Now there you go. That virtue that we've been called to comes out of the things that God has given us freely and fully in and by the glorious person in the finished work of Christ. We already have it. It's there. Paul told Timothy the same thing in another word. He said that the man of God may be thoroughly or throughly furnished unto all good works. Paul wrote about it in Ephesians 2.10, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. See this virtue, this knowledge, he's adding to our faith. You know, it's kind of like he says in verse, look at verse five again, he says, and beside this, another way of putting it is on this very account, on this very account, give all diligence. On what account? Well, the fact that God has given us all things already, we didn't have to earn them, we don't deserve them. He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And so he says, add to your faith. What that literally means is use it or employ what you already have. When he says adding to your faith, he's not saying add to your salvation. there's a lot of people who believe you do add to your salvation. You get saved and then you add your works in order to earn your rewards or to make sure that you don't lose it. No, these additions are cultivating and using the things that God has already given us in Christ. Doesn't the scripture say in Ephesians 1-3 that he's blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus? So he's not saying add to your faith virtue. In other words, virtue is something that's missing and you gotta add it. No. Virtue is something God has called you to. Him that called us to glory and virtue. Look at verse four. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. What are those promises? They are the promises of salvation, eternal life, and every benefit and blessing of it that we receive in Christ Jesus. For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him, amen. See, the gospel is the preaching of the terms of a covenant of promise. And thank God, none of those promises are conditioned on our doing, our dying. You say, well, doesn't it say make a diligent effort? Yeah, you got a mind, you got a brain, I hope you do. And we're to determine these things, but where are we gonna get the supply of them? Because if we don't have Christ, we don't have any of these things. Just like I said before, if you determine in your mind that you're going to be a virtuous person, my friend, without being saved by the grace of God and given all things in Christ that pertain to glory and virtue, it's all dead works. It's all fruit unto death. It's evil in the sight of God. That's why people hate the gospel we preach. Because it unveils that dark cover of human morality in the way of work salvation to be evil. So he says that by these promises, now how do we get these promises? The Holy Spirit reveals these promises in the preaching of the gospel. Now look at the next line, verse four, that by these, these promises, you might be made partakers of the divine nature. having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Now, what is it to be a partaker of the divine nature? Well, boy, I tell you what, I have heard some wild things about this in the past several years. I heard a man say that means that God, when we're born again, he creates within us a divine nature. a divine nature, now get this, a divine nature that cannot sin and cannot be contaminated. Now when you hear something like that, if you don't understand the heresy of it, I hope at least it'll give you pause to think. Say, wait a minute, what am I hearing? First of all, when we're born again by the Spirit, The Holy Spirit does enter into us and resides within us by the Word of God written on our hearts. But He doesn't make us divine. What is divinity? It's not candy you eat. The nature of divinity is the nature of God. So when we're born again, we're not turned into God. God doesn't make a human deity. That's heresy. We're not turned into gods. Now, we have a power, a life that comes from God, but we're still human. We're just made spiritual and given life. What is the divine nature? It's the nature of the Father, the nature of the Son, the nature of the Holy Spirit. I had a fellow tell me that definition. that God creates within us a divine nature, the first thing I told him, I said, hold on. If something is by nature divine, it cannot be created. It has no beginning, it has no end. And he just said, well, you can argue better than I can. Well, what does the word partaker mean here? It means fellowship. It means that we participate It's the same word that John used in 1 John 1 when he said, we have fellowship with the Father and the Son. And that's what this means, that when the Holy Spirit reveals those promises to us in the preaching of the gospel and brings us into fellowship, or brings us to know and believe in Christ, we are at the same time brought into fellowship with the divine nature, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have fellowship with God through Christ. And the Spirit reveals that to us. That's what that means. And we escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. That is all the false religion, all the dead works, all the ungodliness that is in it, we escape it. God brings us to faith in Christ and repentance of good works. And so he says now beside this, he says add to your faith. What is our faith? He just explained it in these first four verses. Salvation by the grace of God. And supply, that's what it means, supply that which God has given you, virtue, knowledge, knowledge, temperance, temperance, patience, patience, godliness, godliness, brotherly kindness, and a brotherly kindness charity. And 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. Now he says in verse nine, but he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Now commentators take two different views of that. First of all, it's not saying that a person who lacketh these things has lost their salvation because that's impossible. If God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, we can't lose it. It's a gift from God. Christ will not let us lose it. He keeps us. But most people, most commentators say this is talking about a believer who has lost sight of what's really important. And that can happen. He says he's blind and cannot see afar off. He doesn't see the end picture. He's lost sight of it. It's like he's living for the present. And if that's the case, he can be exhorted. He or she can be exhorted to be brought back to bring godly sorrow over sin. And he'd forgotten, he's lost sight of the fact that Christ has purged him. Now other commentators say it's talking about a false professor who claims to be a Christian, claims that Christ died for his sins, but he's just fooling himself. So that's the only two interpretations of that that would fit with the gospel. Any notion that is talking about a believer losing his salvation denies the gospel, denies the power of God in his salvation. So he says in verse 10, let me conclude with this. Wherefore, the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall, and the entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly and to the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He's not talking about works-based assurance there. But he's talking about those things which would continually drive us to look to Christ alone for our complete salvation and our assurance of salvation that would be used by the Spirit to inspire us and motivate us to virtue and all those things that come with it as children of God seeking to glorify and honor our Savior and to be more like Him.