Thank you for directing your internet connection to the sermon audio page for Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You can learn more about ChristOPC by visiting our website at www.christopcatl.org. ChristOPC meets for worship each Sunday at 11 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. Sermon text this evening is 2 Peter 1. verses 5 through 7. I'll be reading verses 1 through 11 in order to gain the context for that. 2 Peter 1, beginning in verse 1, hear now the holy and inspired word of our God. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, Those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 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. 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. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Well, today is Reformation Sunday. It's the Sunday of the year closest to the day that marks the time when Martin Luther proverbially kicked off the Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. On October 31st of 1507, Martin Luther began teaching and leading the people of God in a different direction from whence they had been on. where he began to take the church back to the scriptures and through the scriptures to acknowledge the reality of the gospel, that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And as Luther began taking the church upon this charge and many others taking it up after him and clarifying even some of his own thoughts, and we laud Luther for that and we love Luther for that, We also need to remember in our history books that it did not take long for controversy to boil to the surface at Wittenberg. In fact, just a few years later, one of Martin Luther's closest friends and a man that he himself convinced to join into the gospel ministry, Johann Agricola, began teaching a radical contrast between the law of God and the gospel of God. And essentially what Agricola taught is that the only use that there could ever possibly be for the law of God is that it drives you to the cross of Jesus Christ such that from the moment of conversion on, you do not need God's law at all. You should not read it, you do not need to reflect upon it, and you need not have regular and often charges to obedience from it. In fact, in a moment of rather large rhetorical flair in one of his sermons, he most famously said, to the gallows with Moses. Of course, meaning that we should not deal with the Old Testament at all, at least in terms of the law. Well, this teaching that was going on in Wittenberg from one of Martin Luther's closest friends compelled him to, as luck would have it, or his fate would have it, or providence would have it, write a book. And that book is entitled Against the Antinomians. See, Agricola's view was essentially one that taught an antinomic word, a stance against the law of God that it was not important or vital for the Christian life. And Peter's teaching in that book against the antinomians I think runs parallel to Peter's concern in our passage this evening. Because here in 2 Peter 1, verses 5-7, the apostle drives us to the reality that even as we are saved by the power of God alone, and we are given all things that pertain to life and godliness by his power alone, it is nonetheless the case that Christians are to diligently pursue obedience to God. that we are to purposefully and diligently pursue godliness, to conform our lives to the confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, even while Martin Luther had taken the antinomian view to task almost 500 years ago, when his book was published in 1539, The reality we must recognize, brothers and sisters, is that view still continues in the church today. Perhaps not by means of an upfront confession, but at least in terms of how we act and how we often treat the grace and mercy and love of God as an excuse to treat sin lightly. as an excuse to not diligently pursue godliness in our lives, and even in its most extreme forms, to allow licentious living in our midst. But to that danger in our spiritual lives come these words from Peter. where Peter takes us to recognize that it is the very power of God that is at work in his church to cause you and to drive you to pursue godliness in your life today. That is the power of God that saves you and brings you to life in Christ that remains in you and works in you to make you Christ-like in your life today. that God, by the strength of His might, calls you and works in you to a diligent pursuit of godliness. And we'll see this divine power to work in this diligent pursuit of godliness in three ways this evening. First, in how it is rooted and built up in grace. Second, in how you were called to make every diligent efforts. And then third, eight virtues of the godly life. First, it's of most important order to take note of how Peter begins this section of his letter, because he has a very important phrase here, beginning verse five, for this very reason. For this very reason. What that phrase does is it joins together the teaching in verses 3 and 4 to what he says in verses 5 through 11. And what he's arguing there is that everything he's about to say is based upon and rooted in the reality of the preceding two verses. Or if you remember from just a few weeks ago, Peter made it crystal clear that everything you have and everything you are as a Christian is given to you by the power of God. Where Peter told us there, remember, that all things, all things that pertain to life and godliness have been given to you by his power through the knowledge of him who has called you to his own glory and excellence. Your salvation. The salvation that you have in Jesus Christ is not a work of your own hands. It is a work of God in you by the power of your spirits taking you to Christ and uniting you to Him so that you would trust and rest upon Him for your salvation. See, Peter's teaching in verses 3 and 4 is really parallel to Paul's teaching in Ephesians 2, isn't it? Or Paul told us there in Ephesians chapter 2. That apart from God, we are all dead in our trespasses and our sins. But God, with the love with which he has loved us, because he is a God of love, did what? Made us alive together with Christ. And Paul tells us there that this is not of your own doings. It is not a result of works, so that none may boast. There is no sense in the Christian life where the works of our hands can make us right with God, where the works of our hands can earn our way into heaven. We can't do enough good things to outweigh the bad things, and therefore, on the scales of proverbial justice, we earn the way into God's favor. No, our salvation must be given to us in God's power. And so when Peter is beginning his instruction here is to say, for this very reason, he is driving home once again the reality that you are who you are as a Christian because of God's power. And now as he transitions from that point in verses 3 and 4 to the point that he's making in verses 5 through 7, he wants you to recognize that who you are in Christ by the power of God and how you live in Christ by the power of God are not two separate questions. That how you live is to match who you are and who you are is to match how you live. that your life is to match your confession. In fact, did we not confess in our confession of faith a short while ago from the Westminster Confession how our good works and how our acts in our life adorn the gospel of Jesus Christ? That's what Peter is saying here as well. Who you are in Christ and how you live in Christ by the power of God, those two questions go together. They're inseparable. You can't treat them apart from the other. In fact, the language Peter uses here, I think, makes that very clear. Maybe you noticed it when we read it a few moments ago, but some of the terms Peter uses in verses 3 and 4, he revisits in verses 5 through 7. Or in verse 3, Peter told us that God's divine power has given us godliness. And then notice in verse 6, he continues to tell us that we need to continue making every effort to grow in godliness. And then he told us in verse 4, or in verse 3 again, how he has called us to himself by his own glory and moral excellence. And then in verse five, how we should make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue. And that word virtue is the exact same word to describe Christ's moral excellence in verse three. See, Peter is saying here, that as you have been by the power of the Spirit raised to new life in Christ, so your life is to be Christ-like, to adorn yourselves with your Savior, that you are to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, as the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4. But as he calls you, to adorn your life with this godliness and the power of God, what does that mean for how you pursue that godly life today? See, there's a potential problem in our own spiritual lives. When we think about how God is all-powerful, and it is the all-powerful God that is at work in us to will and to do his good pleasure, that we therefore conclude we don't need to work at all. that we therefore conclude that Christian life is effortless, it's easy, it doesn't need to be pursued diligently in this seeking after godliness. But notice what Peter says here second, that for the very reason that in the power of God you're made like Christ, you are then therefore to, what does he say? Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. And then later on in verse 10, he says, therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. Notice Peter's use of all here. The same word for every in verse five is the word for all and verse three. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and precisely because of that reality, Peter says, you are to make every effort to pursue that godliness in your lives. You see, Peter's logic here is saying to you, Christian, that the reality of God's work in you in no way diminishes the reality that you are to be diligent in the pursuit of godliness in your life. It does not remove the obligation upon the Christian to desire, to long for, and to work for a life of holiness and righteousness. Make every effort, he says. But you make this effort even within the power of God. You see, by joining together verses three and four and verses five through seven in the way that Peter does here, we're meant to confess together that God remains at work in the life of Christians even beyond the moment of our salvation. That God's power is at work in us to save us and his power is also at work in us to sanctify us and to make us more godly. And this should give us great confidence and encouragement to make every effort to godliness. because it is the power of God who is at work in us and driving us to this life. So what does it look like to make every effort to pursue this diligent godliness? Well, it looks like doing everything you can to turn away from the world. to shun sin, to repent of sin, and then making every effort to pursue after the pattern of life that God has called you to live in His Word. It means that whatever you need to do to order your life according to the holiness and righteousness of God, you make the effort to do it. If there is something that is regularly leading you to the temptation to sin and stumbling, you remove it. If there is something that is drawing your heart away from affection for God, you do away with it. And contrary-wise, if there's something that drives you to God, that fans into flame affection for the Lord, you pursue it. And this is especially seen, I believe, brothers and sisters, in the diligent pursuit of the means of grace. where God's Word and sacraments and prayer are God's means for you to grow in godliness in this life. A God-given, God-enabled, and God-empowered means for you to grow in your godliness. Where do you go to learn God's will for your life? What it means to live a righteous and godly life, but to go to the Word of God? To read how God would have you to live. And as you read how God would have you to live, He also takes you to the promises of how you gain that life through the power of God and the Spirit applying Christ to you and raising you from spiritual death to spiritual life. And as you read of the life you are called to live in Christ, it drives you to your knees to confess Christ as your own and go before the throne of God in heaven and petition Him for all the spiritual power we need to live a godly life today. And in the sacraments, in baptism, and in the Lord's Supper, and baptism as we reflect upon it and even as we will see it here in just a few weeks' time. It tells us who we are as the people of God. Raised to new life in Him. Washed away our old sins. The pattern of sinful life even broken in us by the power of the Spirit. It marks you as the object of God's affection. Because it identifies you as the very people of God Himself. that He is your God and that you are His people. And in the Lord's Supper, we are taken to see the love of God and the work of His Son, whose body was broken, whose flesh was pierced and blood spilt, that He might bear the penalty for our sins and make us right with God. And it tells us through this meal of the communion that we have with God because of Christ, how we truly are made right with him. And so as we partake of these means of grace, as we ponder his word, as we petition in prayer, and as we partake of the sacraments, we are nourished by the power of God to the diligent pursuit of godliness and righteousness. And so, beloved, if you ever find yourself in your Christian life, waning in your desire to diligently pursue the pathway that God has set before His people in His Word, then draw your attention to the means of grace. Read of it in His Word. Petition God in prayer and see it and taste it in the sacrament. But what does this godly life look like? How does Peter, or what does Peter want you to understand? about what this godly life is meant to look like for the Christian. Well, he doesn't leave it up to your imagination because in the rest of verse 5 and all the way down through verse 7, Peter gives us eight virtues of the godly life, eight positive characteristics that we as Christians are meant to conform our ethical lives to. But before we consider each of these eight virtues of the Christian life, I want you to note two things as we begin. First, I want you to note that this is not a comprehensive list. There are far more things that the Bible calls us to in terms of our life of holiness than these eight virtues. There's additional ones, aren't there? Another virtue list like Romans 5 or Galatians 5 and the fruit of the Spirit. And there's even more in Peter's other virtue list in 1 Peter 3 in verse 8. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list. Just a few examples of what aren't here. Holiness is not mentioned. Righteousness is not mentioned. Hope is not mentioned. Humility is not mentioned. And are we to conclude that because those things aren't mentioned that they're unimportant? Certainly not. Was not humility the climactic points of Peter's virtue list back in 1 Peter 3, verse 8? It would be odd if he now, when he's writing 2 Peter, simply wanted to disregard humility all together. No, he's not trying to give us a comprehensive list, but he is trying to give us an idea of what the godly life looks like. It's not comprehensive, but second of all, in terms of this particular list, There's a danger when we read this list that we think what Peter is trying to give us is a sort of stair-stepping approach to greater godliness in our life. A sort of approach, what you are supposed to do as a Christian is figure out one virtue and then you can level up and advance to the next virtue. as if you are to take faith, and then once you've finished up with faith, you add to it virtue. And once you've finished up with virtue, you add to it knowledge. And once you finish up with knowledge, then you can add to it self-control and so on and so forth. Well, I don't think that's what Peter has in mind here. And part of the reason why I think that is if we argue in that way, the list itself becomes a little bit nonsensical, doesn't it? How can you really have faith without knowledge? But if this is really just a stairway unto greater righteousness, then knowledge would be multiple steps removed away from faith. or godliness. Is godliness given to you by the power of God and the Spirit of God and union with Christ at the moment of salvation or is it something you eventually work your way unto much later on in your Christian life? And how does this then compare with verse 3 where Peter said there that God's 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 moral excellency. No, Peter is not trying to give us a stair-step model to the Christian life where you finish one thing and then move on to the next. In fact, I would say not only is that nonsensical, it's also not pastoral. Because there would be an issue where someone could make the argument and say, well, you know what? I'm still working on faith, and so I guess I don't actually have to pursue godly virtues. I'm still working on faith, and so I don't need to pursue godliness. I'm still working on knowledge. I don't need to have affection for the body of Christ or even love for God at all. Well, if that's not what Peter's point is, what is his point? Well, I believe his point here is to drive home an interconnectedness between all of these virtues. In fact, the verb translated as to supplement here has the basic idea of one thing supplying the needs for the other thing, such that the two things become one together. It's an interconnectedness of virtues of the godly life where all of them together work to give you a coherent picture of who you are in Christ. Kind of a silly analogy comes to mind with this. A few years ago, when Luke turned two years old, my mom gave him a pup tent. You know these pup tents, they have the little poles and you put them together on the ends and you push them up and it pups up to form this tent. Well, after a few times of seeing Kelly and I put this tent together, Luke decided it was time to do it himself. And he did a fairly good job. He went to every corner and he placed all the poles in the right slots and where they're meant to go. But as he drew his attention to every individual slot, each time he undid the other one. You see, his attention to the individuals meant that he wasn't actually able to do the whole. By not having them all interconnected and working together, while he was successful at one thing, he failed at the thing he was trying to do. They had to be connected together in order for the tent to be set up. And so also here, in Peter's list, he's not telling you to do one thing and then do the other thing and then do the other thing. He's telling you that all of this belongs together as a coherent picture of a godly life in Christ. In this sense, the order that Peter lists these things here is not significant. It's irrelevant. And it's irrelevant except, I believe, at two points. where Peter begins and where Peter ends, with faith and with love. Or with these two attributes, Peter bookends the Christian life in a fashion comparable to what Paul says in Galatians 5 verse 6, that neither circumcision or uncircumcision amounts for anything. but only faith working through love. And so briefly, what are these attributes? Peter here calls you to live a life of faith. Faith is something that is granted to you by the power of the Spirit and the principal acts of saving faith are resting and receiving Christ as your own. And as I mentioned, it's important that Peter does start with this particular attribute because does not the author of Hebrews tell us that without faith, it is impossible to please God? Without the heart of faith, Nothing else in terms of the virtues is going to matter. Because unless Christ is laid hold of and rested upon by spirit-wrought faith, then there is no sense where someone can pursue a truly virtuous life in God, or a truly virtuous life before God. And so Peter begins with the call to faith. with faithfulness and resting upon Christ as the principal virtue for the Christian life. But this life and this faith and this faith which is in the person justified, the means by which we are justified in our union with God and Christ is not alone in the life of the person who is justified, is it? No, as the Apostle James tells us, faith is not a dead faith, but it is a faith that is shown through its works. And so with faith, we also have connected with it virtue. Virtue of moral excellence, which earlier on Christ attributed to attributed to Christ himself. And so we're thinking about the call to virtue here. It's a call to pattern our lives after Christ's life. It's a call to pursue likeness unto God in every facet and every category of our lives as parents and children, as employees and employers, as everything in every facet of everyone's life to pursue moral excellency. And with this moral excellency, we also have knowledge connected to it. And this knowledge is likely twofold. It's knowledge both of who God is and what he has done for us in Christ, but also knowledge that is revealed to us in his word about how we therefore are called to live. In fact, the Psalmist in Psalm 119 in verse 8, I think asks this in a very important manner. Places the question before his people, asking in verse 8, if I can open to it momentarily, asking in verse 8, Psalm 119 in verse 9, how can you keep a man, or how can a young man keep his way pure? and then answers that question in the second half of the verse by guarding it according to your word. To supplement virtue with knowledge and faith together is to increase in our knowledge of who God is and to increase in our knowledge of his words. And with knowledge is also self-control. And later on in Peter's letter, he contrasts this virtue with the false teaching of the false prophets, where the false teachers and the false prophets are those who would pursue sensuality in chapter 2, verse 3, who pursue after the comforts of this world in chapter 2, verse 10. But this is not to be so for you. You are to have restraint in terms of worldly desires. You are to be one who, as Peter has just said, has escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. As you have faith and virtue and knowledge and self-control, interconnected with this is endurance or steadfastness. It is not just that you are to have these things at a single moment, at the moment of your salvation, or even in a brief period of time, but it is meant to be a whole-of-life thing to endure in the pursuit of faith, to endure in the pursuit of virtue, and to endure in the pursuit of knowing God, and to endure in the pursuit of self-control. The perseverance of the saints is an important doctrine for the Reformed Church where God, by His power, keeps the saints. And the saints, in God's power, continue to endure through all trials and persecutions. And with endurance also comes godliness. Godliness where we are to be more like our Creator, our sustainer and our Redeemer, to model our lives after God himself and to increase in the knowledge of God. And therefore, as we increase in the knowledge of God, increase our character likeness unto God. And then lastly. With two final virtues which belong together, brotherly affection and love. We know these two belong together because every time Peter talks about brotherly affection, he also talks about love. Do you remember what Peter said back in 1 Peter 1, verse 22? That having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. And do you remember what we read a short while ago from 1 John 4? how God is love. And how anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And as even John continues there in that chapter, do you remember how he concluded his discourse on love? It's how your love for God is expressed in your love for the brotherhood. If you ever want to have a helpful gauge on whether or not you are loving God well, you can ask yourself this question. Am I loving Christ's church well? Because the love that you have for one another is going to be expressive of the love that you have for God. Because the church of Jesus Christ is the beloved of God. And so here, God, through the Apostle Peter, calls you to the heights of virtues and brotherly affection and love. Does not the Apostle Paul boil down the Christian life to three things, faith, hope, and love? And the greatest of these is love. And does not Jesus himself summarize the whole teaching of the law of God as love God and love your neighbor? You see Peter here. is calling us to the diligent pursuit of godliness, to make every effort in our Christian lives to pursue these things, to fan into flames the love of God and love for one another that He has already given us. But if you're anything like me, and I pray you're not, Then as you read through each of these virtues, if we put on little blinders and only look at ourselves in the mirror, it leads to a brief moment of despair. Because as I think of Peter's call to faith, I'm reminded of all the times that I'm not as faithful as I need to be. I'm reminded of all the times I have to pray that prayer, I believe, help my unbelief. As I hear of virtue, I'm reminded of all the times I'm not virtuous. of knowledge, all the things that I have yet to know about who God is and how infrequently I pursue that knowledge as I ought. Of self-control, the frequency with which I give in to the temptation to sin. For endurance, I'm reminded of all the times when the world encroaches in upon me and I grow anxious and frustrated and worrisome about the things in this life. When I consider godliness, I'm reminded about how much I have yet to grow in godliness. For brotherly affection, how I don't always love Christ's church well. And for love, how I don't often love God as much as I ought. But if I had only these blinders, and only those blinders, I would be driven to utter despair. But as I read each of these virtues, and as I follow through with each stroke of the pen that Peter makes, it becomes more and more clear to me that the picture he is writing about and the person he is writing about is Christ Himself. Because it takes us to consider the Son of God who came into the world and who, by His precious and very great promises, brought us to Himself. Who was faithful unto everything and fully obedient even unto the law of God. And it takes us to our Savior, who was perfectly virtuous, who had all moral excellency, and perfectly kept the entire law of God. It takes us to our Savior who is all-knowing and who came as the end-time prophet to make known to us the weight of our sin, the reality of salvation in Him, and how therefore we ought to live. It takes me to a Savior who is perfect in self-control. who even as he was tempted by Satan himself, did not give in to his woeful desires, and who even as he was hanging on the cross, could have called down the legions of angels, refused to do so out of obedience to his Father. It reminds me of my Savior who endured to the very end. Who was steadfast throughout his life. of my Savior who is godly because He is God, and who loves His people with perfect brotherly affection as the firstborn among many brothers, and who loves His church, His bride, with a love that goes beyond anything we could ever imagine. whose love for you is expressed in how he came into the world to die for you. For what greater love is there than this, that one would lay down his life for his friends? As we see all of these virtues of the godly life that Peter calls us to diligently pursue, every single one of them takes us to consider more and more deeply the reality of who our Savior is. Who our Savior is is the perfectly faithful one, the most virtuous one, the all-knowing One who is perfect in self-control and endurance and godliness and affection and love. And as such, we begin to see anew who we are in Him. And how by the power of His Spirit, it is likeness unto Christ that we are granted. And now in the power of the Spirit, it is likeness unto Christ that we pursue. You see, this is not a list of moralisms. This is a list that tells us about our Savior and one that tells us about who you are in Him and that therefore how you live as He would have you to live. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you work in your people by your power even now continuing to sow greater love and affection and godliness and endurance and self-control and knowledge and virtue and faith in all of us, and that it is you who works in us in the strength of your might to will and to do according to your good pleasure. We pray that you would work mightily within us by your power. Unite us to Christ, or cause us to confess Christ even more and rest upon him even more in our lives, we pray in his name, amen.