It is good to be back with you. I looked forward to it all week and the opportunity to minister the word. It's always fun to minister God's word and to be able to print what he says, present what he says to us, to each one of us. We are praying for you at peak. It's a challenge to go through things like this. And so I, I've been praying and I know our church has been praying as well. So if you will turn to second Peter, last week I did the first four verses of second Peter chapter one. I'm going to do five through nine this morning in seeing what God says to us. So second Peter, The first chapter, we'll be looking at verses five through nine. Let's begin with prayer. Father, we are thankful that as God, you work in our hearts. We're thankful for the mercies of the Lord. They're new every morning. And Lord, as we look into your word, teach, challenge, Encourage. Strengthen. Help us to grow in it. Use my mouth to minister Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. We live in a part of Colorado Springs that's called Sand Creek. So the soil in Sand Creek is sandy. And my wife wanted a garden. And I knew that if we were gonna have a decent garden, sandy soil wasn't gonna be it. So I got some timbers and built some four by eight raised garden beds. Six of them, four by eight. And then I went and bought sacks of soil and hauled them in and dumped them in there. I must have dumped 200 sacks of soil in there, but the rhubarb is about this high. It likes that soil. Strawberries, raspberries, and seasonal things like carrots and peas and tomatoes. We've enjoyed it. It's good to have a garden like that. If you want a good garden, you have to have good soil. You have to prepare it right for a good crop. And that's what Peter is talking about in 2 Peter 1. He says that God has given us, who know Christ as our Savior, good soil to grow in. So we can grow as God's people. First four verses, Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything. pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. I'll have to be careful not to get too enthused there. Okay. For by them he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. God has given us everything that we need to grow spiritually because He wants us to grow spiritually. He has designed us to be people that can partake of his nature, it says, not become God by any means, but become like God, grow to be more like Jesus Christ. That is God's desire for each one of us to be like Jesus Christ. And that's why it says everything in verse three, he has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. That's awesome. that God would do that for us. He loves us. He loves us enough that He wants us to be like Jesus Christ. Because that's His beloved Son. And He wants me, and He wants you to be just like Jesus. But how do we grow? What is it God wants us to do in order to grow, to be partakers of the divine nature. Well, we're told in Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13, to work out our salvation. That's not talking about earning it. That's talking about after we're saved, to work at the Christian life. God expects us to work. God expects us to strive against sin and to learn his word and to grow to be more like Jesus. That's his desire. That's his design in our lives. So spiritual growth is not automatic. I don't just sit back and let God grow me. I have to do something. And I have to do it all of my life. I have to work at it. Peter, at the end of this book, this little letter that he wrote in 318, says, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a command. We are to grow. We are to work at it. God has planted us. And God, in verses 5 through 7, God gives us some virtues that he wants to work at. so that we are fruitful Christians in our lives. He wants us to work at these things. So, five through seven gives seven things that we should be working on in our lives every day. Now, for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence. And in your moral 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. Now these are the things that we should be working on to grow in our lives. These are the things that God wants us to work on every day. John 15 says that Jesus is the vine. He told the disciples this, I am the vine. You are the branches. So He gives us the supplies that we need, but He expects us to grow and make fruit, to develop the fruit through our work spiritually. Oh, two things to remember. If you're not a Christian, this doesn't apply to you. This is for Christians. If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, this really won't make sense to you. So if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, I plead with you. The passage that Roland read this morning talked about who Jesus Christ is. He is our hope. He is the one that died for sins. He died to pay for your sins. And if you accept it, you will be saved. And then this passage does apply to you. If you do not accept it, your eternal destiny is hell. So I encourage you. I challenge you. I plead with you. If you don't know Jesus Christ, you need to trust Him. And once you do, then this applies to you. Also, remember that the ability to develop spiritual virtues is in you. Once you're a Christian, it's in you. You can grow. In fact, God wants you to grow. You can't say, I just don't know what to do. Well, I'll tell you what to do. I won't tell you what to do. Peter's already written it. God has given it to us. So what he says in verse five is he says, For this very reason, applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence. Some of your Bibles say virtue, honesty, decency, purity, fairness, righteousness, living in a godly manner. As Christians, we are to work on doing what is right because everybody's watching. They're watching you. You may not realize it, but if you have told them that you're a Christian, they're watching you like a hawk. But moral excellence also means that you do it when nobody's watching. You do it anyway because that's the thing a Christian does. is godly living, is choosing to do what is right, choosing to have honesty and decency and purity and fairness, whether anybody's watching you or not. Even when you're on your computer, nobody's around. What are you looking at? Oral excellence or integrity or honesty. Daniel chapter 1 says that as a teenager, Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself. That's integrity. That's moral excellence. That's what we want to be. We want to choose to do it even if mom and dad are not around, in his case, or even if I'm by myself or wherever I'm at. It doesn't really matter that much because nobody's watching. Yes, it does. Because God is watching. And if we're going to be like Jesus, we have to choose to do it all the time. Because I'm a Christian, not because somebody's watching. I want to choose moral excellence, integrity, honesty, doing what God wants me to do. Continuing on, the second thing, second virtue that God wants in us, besides plural excellence, is knowledge. Keep growing in God's Word. Learning more about God. Learning more about His Word. What God wants in your life and practicing it. Don't just read it and then say, oh, that's nice. I got my reading done for the day. What did God tell you to do in there? What does God say He wants from you? What does God say to do to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ? Whatever it says, do it. Don't just read it, do it. Because you're wasting time if you're not following what it says. God saved us to make us like Jesus. And to make us like Jesus, we have to follow the Word. We have to know what it says, we have to do what it says. Learning what God says about lying, about anger, about language that comes out of your mouth, about honesty, about faith. If God says it, do you think He'll do it? Well, I hope so. No. God always tells the truth. And every promise that's in Scripture, I expect God to keep. Because He's God. And because of that, I know He's going to keep His promises. Even those promises to Israel in the Old Testament. You think He's going to keep them? Oh, I kind of forgot about them. Yeah, they kind of strayed away from me, so I don't have to keep my promises. That's not my God. God will keep His promises. And what promises God gives to you in His Word, He will keep. Expect Him to keep it. But not in your time in His. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes you get frustrated. Lord, I thought you were going to do that. I'll do it, yes, but in my time, not yours. Because that's what's best. God does what's best for us to make us like Jesus. And sometimes that's challenging. But know God's Word. Live handling life according to God's instructions. Look at life from God's point of view. Always filter everything through Scripture. What does God say about that? Is it right or wrong? Should I be doing that or not? Get in the Word, find out, and follow it. Knowledge is important. So, moral excellence, knowledge. The next thing that he says is, in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control. I don't like that. That's hard, isn't it? Sometimes I find it hard. to be self-controlled, disciplined. He's especially talking about spiritual control. Proverbs 16.22 says, He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who captures a city. You can't accomplish things if you can't control yourself. And Proverbs 25-28 says, like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit. God says self-control. We are to be people of self-control. Now, this focuses on the pleasures of life. Self-control. One of the worst things about self-control is this. I walk my dogs twice a day. They don't let me out. Morning and evening. And 90% of the people walking down the street that I see are walking down the street, they don't know where they are. They could trip and fall. But they're on this thing all the time. Turned on my light. See? Can't even control that. Guys, what do you watch on this thing? So many people, so many guys are addicted to porn because it's so accessible. And you can do it so quickly and so quietly. Nobody will know. Oh yeah? What is that first one? Oh yeah. integrity, moral excellence, control yourself. You know, even half the pastors have trouble with porn. We have to be very careful with this. This is supposed to be a tool, not an enslaving thing. And yet we make it an enslaving thing. Don't let it control you. You control it. Be careful of it. Put controls on it if you need to. I've got three friends that I text every week. How's it been this week on your phone? What are you doing on your tablet? How is your laptop under your control? doing a godly thing like you should. Encourage one another. But it's not just guys. Gals, you have to be careful too, because it can get to women as well. So be careful about it. Self-control, which focuses on the pleasures of life. Don't go into excess. Don't go into sin. Be self-controlled. 1 Timothy 4, verses 7 and 8 says, have nothing to do with worldly fables, fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise of the present life also for the life to come. Self-control is important. Paul talks about it. Peter talks about it. It's from the Holy Spirit. He is the author of Scripture. He says we have to be controlled people. If anybody in this world is going to have self-control, it needs to be Christians. The world needs to see that. And this is Peter's last letter. Peter is about to be crucified, a martyr for Jesus Christ. And what is one of the things that he tells us? He says, beloved, be self-controlled. It's so important in this world. We need it. We need it. Don't let compromise destroy you spiritually. Be careful. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 says this is a will of God, your sanctification. What is sanctification? Holiness. What is God's will for you? Holiness. That is that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. Now that vessel is not talking about your cell phone, that's talking about yourself. Okay? Not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God, and that no one violate the rights and take advantage of his brother or sister in the matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all these things, just as we also told you previously and warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but for holiness, sanctification. God wants us to be a holy people, be a people that are self-controlled, a people that have knowledge of Him. Excuse me. A people that are virtuous. So self-control focuses on the pleasures of life. There's nothing wrong with them, if you use them rightly. But they can destroy you spiritually. They can mess you up. They can make you where you don't want to do the right thing. Sidetrack you off of God. So if I'm having troubles, how do I overcome it? How do I break the addictions? Get in God's Word. I have found one of the best ways, especially if it's porn addiction, one of the best ways is fall in love with your lover, Jesus Christ. He is our betrothed, right? Do you love Him? Fall in love with Him again. Get in the Word every morning and read a chapter about Him. John is about Jesus. Every morning, read a chapter of John. What does it tell you about Christ? Focus on Him. Fall in love deeply, deeply, deeply with Him. Hebrews. is about Jesus Christ. Read a chapter every day of Hebrews. Soak in Him instead of that addiction. Fall in love with Him over and over again, deeper and deeper. John, Hebrews, Ephesians, Isaiah 40-66. They talk a lot about Jesus. Get your mind. on your lover, on Jesus. That's great for self-control. That's really a good way to set our mind in the right way, in the right places, and get it out of the trash, out of the garbage. All right, back to verse 5. It says, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, Perseverance. D-N-A-S says perseverance. That is patience. Staying under control. Kind of like self-control. But hanging in there. Doing what God wants us to do. Following Him. James 1 says, 2-5, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives it to us generously. You want to be wise? Ask for it. You want to be wise spiritually? Dig for it. God says, I'll give it to you, but you have to dig for it. I don't just let you lazily ask for it and I slap it on you. God says, make the effort. Grow in it. Keep at it. So patience or perseverance focuses on the stresses, the pressures of life, whereas self-control is more on the pleasures of life. So God says, I want you to be self-controlled in the pleasures of life. I want you to hang in there in the pressures of life. Do you have pressures? Sure we do. God gives us pressures because pressure The stresses, the perseverance is where we grow. You don't grow when you're just sitting there. I have a granddaughter with a two-year-old horse. And some people are saying, don't do anything with him until he grows up. You know, he's got to develop his muscles. And other people are saying, no, no, you got to work with him to develop those muscles. I'm not a horse person. I just listen. You know, but if you're going to develop muscles, you have to work them, right? You have to exercise them. You have to work hard at it. If you want perseverance, if you want patience, God is going to work on you. And if you pray for patience, Oh, wow. That's scary. Because God is going to work. He's going to give you patience. But it's going to take a lot of struggle. Because patience comes through trials that we have. And when we have them, God gives us the strength to go through them. The temptations of sin. Living life with other people. No pressure there, huh? Living life, I'm sure my wife says, yeah, I live with you. There's pressures. Yeah. Because sometimes, pretty good guy. But you know what? I know it's shocking, but I can be a jerk. Yeah, I know. That's a shock. But yes, we can. And when we do, it's hard on other people. So they have to have patience too. I'm glad my wife's been patient with me for a long time. I'm so thankful. At least she hasn't killed me yet. So, I think there's still hope. But we want to be patient people. We want to hang in there. We want to do what pleases God. Now, in the United States, it's pretty easy. The church here has it pretty easy. We don't have all the pressures that a lot of places have. But what if they come? What are you going to do? You're going to stand firm in the pressures of life for the Lord. All right. Again, moral excellence in your moral excellence knowledge, in your knowledge self-control, in your self-control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness. God says, I want you to work on godliness, being like Jesus Christ, being reverent, being a person that worships with reverence. So that when we sing the songs, we aren't just singing the songs and saying, oh, that's a nice tune. It's singing to Jesus. It's focusing on Him while we're singing. I'm sure that the songs that are chosen are chosen to go with a theme and to focus us on Christ. Whoever picks the songs makes an effort to do that. And we should focus on our Lord. Focus on Him every day. Keeping God and His desires in our focus all the time. That's godliness. Living above petty things. Like that guy that cuts in front of you when you're driving down the street. You know, Academy Boulevard's one of the prime places, right? Oh, man, three lanes each way, and all the people that whip in and out. You ever get frustrated? Live above the petty. Follow the Lord. God says, I want you to strive to live like me, to be like me, to be like my son. That's His desire is Jesus Christ. The next one is brotherly kindness. Being nice to one another. Loving one another. Caring for one another. Brotherly kindness. Love for others. Romans 12.10 says, Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor. What did Christ do? while He was here on earth. He focused on other people all the time. And that's our challenge too. That's a virtue that God wants us to work on, is to love one another. Ephesians 4.32 says, be kind to one another. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another. Oh, wait a minute. That's hard. We talked about that in Sunday school. When Jesus said, We are to forgive 70 times 7. Does that mean 490 and I'm done? You just had your last forgiveness. No, it means all the time. If it was only 490 in my marriage, I'd be in trouble. A long time ago. We have to forgive and love and care for one another. You know those people that when they walk in the room, it seems like the lights have turned down? Oh, there He is again. Okay, Lord, You're going to have to give me the grace to love this guy. Yes, He will. Is that the guy He's talking about when it says brotherly love? Yes, it is. Because a lot of people are easy to love, and it's like, that's no big deal. But God is saying, I want you to love the ones that are hard to love, too. the ones that are a challenge to love. Love one another. The world is woefully short in this area. And it's declining, especially in the election year. Show them how to love one another. Show them what love looks like. And who's going to do it if the church doesn't? They need to see love. And it comes from the church. It comes from you and me. And then that last one at the end of verse 7. In your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. This isn't brotherly love. This is sacrificial love. This is agape love. This is the love that Jesus Christ showed us on the cross. When He went to the cross and paid for my sins. I didn't deserve it. I'm that guy that He should have said, oh, not you again. Just go away. The only thing I deserve is hell. And yet Jesus Christ went to the cross for me. Jesus Christ went to the cross for you. And because of that and because of salvation, we have the ability through Him to have sacrificial love. And God says, I expect you to be working on growing in sacrificial love. Wow, that's a challenge. It's not easy. But it's doing the highest good for others, even when it costs you. If you want a good definition, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and it'll be in verses 4 through 8. I won't turn there. I won't read it. You can do that afterwards. It's a great passage. It's a challenging passage when you read through, especially those verses 4 through the first part of 8. It's there. That's the virtues that God says, I want you to work on. From the time you're saved until the time that you graduate from heaven, to heaven, you never get to arrive until you're there. Yet you keep working on it, whether you're 16 or 116. If you know Jesus Christ is your savior, you work on it. It's a challenge to do so, but that's what God says He wants us to do. And in verses 8 and 9, these are scary to me. Because it says, if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. but he who lacks these qualities." And it's like, whoa, wait a minute. I don't want to be useless for the Lord. I don't care what my age. If I live to be 100, which I hope I don't, I want to still be working on these things so that I can be useful to the Lord, so that I am fruitful for the Lord. My desire is to be fruitful. My desire is to be useful. When I retired from the pastorate, one of the things that I said is, Lord, please give me opportunities to preach. Thank you. I enjoy presenting God's Word. That's a gift that God has given me and a passion that He's given me. And when I retired, it's like I don't want to quit. And thankfully, I haven't. I do a lot of preaching. I do a lot of teaching. Especially at peak where I'm an elder. It's a joy. I want to be fruitful. I want to be useful. And it says, if these qualities are yours and increasing, God says, I expect you to work on these things all the time. Any of them that you're lacking in? Don't look at somebody else. Say, yeah, you're kind of short on that self-control thing. Well, you're kind of short on that love thing. No, this is you, OK? Not your partner, not your kids, not your mom and dad. You. You evaluate and say, I need to work on this area. And they're always there. We never arrive. Again, until we're in heaven, we don't arrive. But God is looking for these things in your life. He wants us to pay attention. He wants them increasing all the time. And that's why Peter wrote these down here, is because he's He says at the very end of this letter, grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and here's where you work on it. This is one of the areas that you work on is make sure that these things are in your life so that you are useful and fruitful to the Lord. Verse nine says, he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted. And I'm not blind, but I am short-sighted. If I take these off, I can still see you, but I can't see your eyes. You're kind of a little bit blurry. So I'm glad I have glasses, but he's not talking about glasses. He's talking about spiritually, short-sighted. You aren't looking beyond the end of your nose. He says, I don't want you to stumble around spiritually. He says, I want you to work on your spiritual life all the time. I want you to keep at it. 2 Corinthians 4, verses 3 and 4, even if the gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The unsaved are blind. They can't see. They can't understand. until God gives them the ability, enlightens them to understand. But we can stumble around like we're blind. We cannot bother to read the Word or just read it and check it off and not pay attention to what it says. God's Word has been given to us to instruct us how to be like Jesus. As I said last week, I marvel at Peter. Because Peter as a disciple, oh man, big mouth. I hope his feet weren't big because he was always sticking them in his mouth. And he was always saying the dumb thing or doing the dumb thing. And yet, when he wrote this, it's like, wow! What has God done in the life of this man? And if he did it in Peter's life, he can do it in mine. And if he did it in Peter's life, he can do it in your life. That's why this is written. That's why the Spirit had Him write this is so that we would apply these virtues in our lives so that we would be fruitful for the Lord and useful for the Lord. I encourage you, dig into them. And the things that you find deficit in, dig into it. and start following it because it's important for us to be not short-sighted, but looking ahead at what God wants us to do and following it. I'm thankful for a God that has done that for us. I don't want to walk around squinting spiritually, tripping over things because I'm not paying attention. Do I ever do it? Yeah, there are times. And the Lord says, hey, you're getting deficit in this area. I want you to start working on it. Let Him do it. And work on those things. We can be forgetful, it says. He who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Oh Lord, I don't want to forget. I don't want to be like before I was saved. I don't want to have that blindness or that emptiness or that lack of understanding about God. A passion for Him. I love the richness of salvation. I love the richness of being able to serve Him. I enjoy being able to get up in front of you and saying what God's Word says. This is what God says. It is awesome. Because if they would have told me in high school that I was going to get up in front of the class, I would have run. And then God says, I'm going to have you up in front of the church. It's like, what? Yes, He does. I'm fruitful, not because of me, but because of Him. And it's because I work on these things. Not perfection by any means. But I challenge you. God has planted you in fertile soil. God has given us virtues that He wants us to work on so that we're faithful, fruitful, useful to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, God can use you. God will use you for His glory. He's planted you. for that very reason. Work on these things. We're planted by the river of life. Drink deeply. Work on producing what God blesses. What is like Jesus Christ. Fall in love with Him every day more and more. When my wife and I got married, I thought I was in love. But it's been almost 58 years, and it's like, wow, I can't get enough of her. That's what it is with Jesus. And we are going to have that for eternity. Fall in love with Him over and over and over. Get into the Word. And if you struggle with any addictions or just Not wanting to do it. Just get in there. Read through the book of John. Read through Hebrews. And say, wow, this is who my Jesus is. Love Him. He died that we might have it all because He loves us. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we are thankful for your word, for all that it shows and all it says and all it does in our hearts and our lives. Keep us mindful of these things that you say you want us to work on on a daily basis. Lord, when we find ourselves deficient, may we dive in and may you grow us in these areas that we might be fruitful children of the King, in whose name we pray.