Pastor Chuck Bradley

2 Peter 1:1-11

Adding More to Your Faith

We have a task! We have been told to build a spiritual house. We are pursuing our task diligently. God has laid out a foundation. Now we are to build on it.

Everything we receive from God comes to us on the basis of grace and faith. God moves toward us demonstrating His favor. We embrace God’s favor by placing our faith in His Word.

We have a solid foundation of grace and faith we build upon. God has placed three strong pillars upon that foundation. They are His Divine Power, His Dynamic Promises and we are His Delivered Partarkers of the Divine Nature.

We are to build around those columns of power and promises and embellish the Divine Nature (New Life) He has given to us.

So we add to our faith. We outfit our faith lavishly we the virtues described for us here. We are to come to this task diligently and give it an all out effort.

The diligence we place into the work is supported by His power. The faith by which we proceed in this work is predicated upon His promises. The virtue needed for this task is drawn from the Divine Nature of God within us.

We have addressed adding to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, and patience. We are to continue to build on to our spiritual house godliness, brotherly kindness and charity.

Add to your faith godliness…

1. Godliness, v. 6,7.

   1. Adam Clarke writes, “Piety towards God; a deep, reverential, religious fear; not only worshipping God with every becoming outward act, but adoring, loving, and magnifying him in the heart:”

   2. Eusebeia(Greek:εὐσέβεια, from eu meaning “well”, and sebomai meaning “reverence”, itself formed from seb meaning sacred awe and reverence especially in actions) is a Greek word abundantly used in Greek philosophy as well as in the New Testament, meaning inner piety, spiritual maturity, or godliness. The root seb- (σέβ) is connected to danger and flight, and thus the sense of reverence originally described a healthy fear of the gods.

   3. John MacArthur…”Godliness is a right attitude and response toward the true Creator God; a preoccupation from the heart with holy and sacred realities. It is respect for what is due to God, and is thus the highest of all virtues.” (MacArthur, J. 1 Timothy. page 163. Moody Press)

   4. Spurgeon:

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  • Godliness is the power which brings a man to God, and binds him to Him.

  • Godliness is that which creates repentance towards God, and faith in Him.

  • Godliness is the result of a great change of heart in reference to God and his character.

  • Godliness looks towards God, and mourns its distance from Him; godliness hastens to draw nigh, and rests not till it is at home with God.

  • Godliness makes a man like God. Godliness leads a man to love God, and to serve God; it brings the fear of God before his eyes, and the love of God into his heart.

  • Godliness leads to consecration, to sanctification, to concentration.

  • The godly man seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Mt 6:33-note), and expects other things to be added to him.

  • Godliness makes a man commune with God, and gives him a partnership with God in his glorious designs; and so it prepares him to dwell with God for ever.

Add to your faith brotherly kindness…

2. Brotherly Kindness, v.7 Phileo “Brotherly Love”

   1. Tertullian the early disciple wrote, “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Look!’ they say, ‘How they love one another!’ Look how they are prepared to die for one another.”‘

   2. (1Pe 1:22) Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren (philadelphia), see that ye love (agape) one another with a pure heart fervently:

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   3. Phileo love is the love of belonging, of friendship. It is a love we have for brothers because of our likenesses. It was this affectionate relationship in the early Church among Christian converts, in spite of their diverse status and varied backgrounds, that amazed the pagans. But brotherly kindness must be cultivated (diligently) for it entails difficult duties, such as a willingness to bear one another’s burdens and to forgive shortcomings and failures. The first five virtues pertain primarily to one’s inner life and his relationship to God. The last two relate to the outward life. Brotherly kindness is a fervent practical caring for others (1Jn 4:20, 21) and thus is closely linked with godliness. (1Jn 4:20) “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (1Jn 4:21) And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

Add to your faith Love…

3. Charity, v.7. “Godly Love” Agape

   1. Wuest: “Agape is a love that impels one to sacrifice one’s self for the benefit of the object loved…(it) speaks of a love which is awakened by a sense of value in the object loved, an apprehension of its preciousness.”

   2. F.B. Meyer writes, “We are to imitate God’s love in Christ. The love that gives, that counts no cost too great, and, in sacrificing itself for others, offers all to God, and does all for His sake. Such was the love of Jesus–sweet to God, as the scent of fields of new-mown grass in June; and this must be our model.”

   3. Barclay: Agape is the word for Christian love. Agape is not passion with its ebb and flow, its flicker and its flame; nor is it an easy-going and indulgent sentimentalism. And it is not an easy thing to acquire or a light thing to exercise. Agape is undefeatable goodwill; it is the attitude towards others which, no matter what they do, will never feel bitterness and will always seek their highest good. There is a love which seeks to possess; there is a love which softens and enervates; there is a love which withdraws a man from the battle; there is a love which shuts its eyes to faults and to ways which end in ruin. But Christian love will always seek the highest good of others and will accept all the difficulties, all the problems and all the toil which search involves.

4. Fruitful in the knowledge of Christ..v.8,9

   1. Our desire is to be fruitful, fruitful in love, brotherly love, godliness, patience, temperance, and knowledge. So we are diligently putting forth an effort to make our faith work.

   2. John Calvin wrote, that doing these things “you will at length prove that Christ is really known by you, if ye be endued with virtue, temperance, and the other endowments. For the knowledge of Christ is an efficacious thing and a living root, which brings forth fruit.”

   3. Wuest adds that these things are our “natural and rightful possesion” as Christians. This is your life. This is how we ought to be described.

   4. If these things are in us and are abounding, increasing, then we are not useless or “out of work.” Or like money gaining no interest. We are not like a field that is laying fallow or abadoned. In other words, “unproductive..” When Jesus saw the people idle. “(Mat 20:3) And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

   5. We want our lives to be fruitful. We want our church to be fruitful. Then we must add these things to our life. Using the analogy of the house, we must adorned our house beautifully and lavishly with these qualitites. As it takes hard work to build a house we must work hard to build our Christian life in God’s power.

5. Plan for growing a church:

In growing a healthy, fruit-bearing church, try this plan.

Plant three rows of squash:

• Squash gossip.
• Squash criticism.
• Squash indifference.

Plant seven rows of peas:

• Prayer
• Promptness
• Perseverance
• Politeness
• Preparedness
• Purity
• Patience

Plant seven heads of lettuce:

• Let us be unselfish and loyal.
• Let us be faithful to duty.
• Let us search the Scriptures.
• Let us not be weary in well-doing.
• Let us be obedient in all things.
• Let us be truthful.
• Let us love one another.

No garden is complete without turnips:

• Turn up for church.
• Turn up for meetings, in prayer, and Bible study.
• Turn up with a smile, even when things are difficult.
• Turn up with determination to do your best in God’s service.

Let’s endeavor to have a fruitful life. A fruitful church. A Fruitful year for God.

• Pray that God help us have these qualities.

• Study the principlesin God’s Word that illustrate these qualitites in others lives.

• Put these principles into practice in our lives.

Adding to Our Faith

2 Peter 1:3-11

 

When we get saved God doesn’t remodel the old life. He builds an entirely new one. We have a new foundation. Faith and Grace. We have a new framework. God’s Divine Power, His Dynamic Promises and new nature as a Delivered Partaker of the Divine Nature. (2Co 5:17) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

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   1. Now God wants us to add on the doors and the cabinets and the pictures, etc.

   2. But even these are placed on a framework provided by God.

   3. Our diligence to do this work is dependent on the divine power God supplies. 2 Peter 1:3, 5

   4. Our faith to proceed along amid trying times is dependent on His dynamic promises. v. 4,5

   5. Our virtue, excellence that we begin the work with is hinged upon the new nature, the Divine Nature that we have become partakers to. v.4,5

Now we are to continue building. The work is not done. As a matter of fact, the work is never done. If we stop building, we stop growing spiritually. To stop working on these things in our life is tantamount to “lacking” these things in our life. (2 Peter 1:9) There is always water pouring out of the bottom of the bucket so we need to keep filling it from the top. We are always expending spiritual energy to resist temptation and to serve others so we need to add new energy.

We are building on a foundation of grace and faith. Grace is God’s favor to us. We are building on a faith. God moves with grace toward us when we exercise faith in Him. (Heb 11:6) “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

The framework is solid. We have God’s divine power. God’s Dynamic Promises and we are Delivered Partakers of a new nature. Everything we nail to the framework or add to the framework is solidly placed for eternity.

It is a work that must be carried out with diligence therefore it necessitates Divine Power. It is a work that proceeds by faith therefore it is crafted upon God’s Dynamic Promises. It is a work requiring virtue, moral courage and excellence so it is stabilized upon the new nature we possess having been delivered from corruption and made partakers of the divine nature.

So we continue to add to this structure of spirituality we call the Christian life. “Add” meaning to lavishly outfit our life with…

We are to lavishly outfit our virtuous life with…

1. Knowledge, 2 Peter 1:5

   1. True wisdom, by which your faith will be increased, and your courage directed, and preserved from degenerating into rashness. Adam Clarke

   2. practical discrimination of good and evil; intelligent appreciation of what is the will of God in each detail of practice. JFB

   3. 2 Peter 3:18

   4. Lehman Strauss in his devotional studies on Galatians and Ephesians points out that human philosophy says….”know thyself.” However, Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3). To know oneself is important. But the greatest thing in all the world is to know God personally and to know that one shall live with God forever. God and eternal life are the summits of knowledge. It is better to know that one shall never die, than to know all there is about oneself and then lose that knowledge at death.

   5. (Php 3:8) Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

2. Temperance, 2 Peter 1:6

   1. Self-control; holding the passions and desires in hand. See 1Co_9:25.

   2. (Pro 25:16) Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

   3. The Greeks believed there were four states of self-control.

      1. Passion has been entirely subjugated to reason.

      2. Reason is entirely subjugated to passion.

      3. Reason fights passion, but passion prevails.

      4. Reason fights passion, but reason prevails. The Self controlled life.

   4. What we are hoping for is a Spirit controlled life. We know that the flesh fights against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. We yield to the Holy Spirit. (Gal 5:1617) This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

   5. Our self control comes from God control.

3. Patience, 2 Peter 1:6

   1. Steadfastness, called the queen of virtues.

   2. Cicero defines it as “the voluntary and daily suffering of hard and difficult things, for the sake of honor and usefulness.”

   3. “It is not that the righteous man must be without feeling, although he must patiently bear the things which afflict him; but it is true virtue when a man deeply feels the things he toils against, but nevertheless despises sorrows for the sake of God.” Didymus of Alexandria

   4. “Patience isn’t just to accept and endure; there is always a forward look to it.” William Barclay. Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. (Heb 12:2) “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

   5. The great New England preacher Phillips Brooks was noted for his poise and quiet manner. At times, however, even he suffered moments of frustration and irritability. One day a friend saw him feverishly pacing the floor like a caged lion. “What’s the trouble, Mr. brooks?” he asked. “The trouble is that I’m in a hurry, but God isn’t!” Haven’t we felt the same way many times?
   6. Hebrews 12:1 tells us to “run with endurance” the race set before us. George Matheson wrote, “We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet there is a patience that I believe to be harder — the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: it is the power to work under stress; to have a great weight at your heart and still run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily tasks. It is a Christ-like thing! The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in the sickbed but in the street.” To wait is hard, to do it with “good courage” is harder! Our Daily Bread, April 8.

We ought to continually seek to add more virtues to our faith. We have a solid foundation to work with. We can trust in God’s promises, depend on God’s power and know that this is possible because we are new creatures.

So add to your faith virtue, moral excellence. And lavishly outfit that virtue with knowledge. Learn more about God and his Word. Add to that knowledge temperance or self control and to self control patience or steadfastness.

When we bring our lives under the control of the Holy Spirit, then, we grow and mature as Christian and see the spiritual progress we desire.

Being Diligent in Your Faith

2 Peter 1:5-11

In the Christian life there must be a steady moral advance. “The Christian life must not be an initial spasm followed by a chronic inertia.: Quoted by James Moffatt

That is really the subject we are talking about. Will our Christian life be average or amazing? Ho Hum or Hallelujah? We are often content to let things just stay as they are “inertia,” rather than do the hard work to make the changes we need to go forward.

We saw last week that God desires for us a life that is fruitful. Think about it the only inert fruit tree is a dead fruit tree. Even when the look dormant, internally they are prepare to bud.

We need to build a good foundation. That is Grace and Faith. Everything comes to us from God by Grace and through faith. Eph. 2:89

On top of that foundation, we place a framework. 1. God’s Divine Power
2.God’s Dynamic Promises 3. God’s Delivered Partakers

Now that we have built a framework on the foundation, we can add some things to it. Our text says, “and beside this,” which means for this very reason. For the reasons previously stated we should do more. We should add some things. This is our “finish work.” When you build a house, you put in the foundation. You put up the framework and the walls, the roof. But then comes the finish work. You need doors and cabinets, trim, etc.

Most of the time, the work that goes on inside of the house takes much longer than the work that goes on outside of the house. So it requires diligence.

1.Diligence: 2 Peter 1:5 “Giving all diligence”
(a)“Giving” introducing side by side or at the same time. We are to bring alongside into our relationship with God every ounce of determination we can muster.
(b)“All Diligence”
i.(2Co 8:7) Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.
ii.Thayer: earnestness in accomplishing, promoting, or striving after anything.
(c)“Add”
i.In ancient Greece, there were lavish choruses or choirs. These choirs would have benefactors who would supply them (out of their own pocket) with all of theirs needs. It was very expensive and they would perform several times a year. These benefactors were called “choregoi.” “Epichoregein” means to equip and outfit any one or anything. But it carries the idea to equip lavishly. It can mean to equip an army or in our case to equip the soul.
ii.The Linguistic Key to the N.T. Says, “to provide more than was expected or could be demanded.”
iii.We should make an earnest and diligent effort to provide and add more than is expected and demanded for our faith to grow and mature.
(d)How shall we operate with such diligence? How can we make such a sustained effort that our growth doesn’t stagnate or go along in spasms. God’s power. Remember our “framework?” We have God’s Divine Power on which we can rely.

2.Faith: 2 Peter 1:5 “Add to your faith”
(a)Faith is the conviction that what Jesus says is true. It is understood that we have faith and that we are to add to it.
(b)We commit ourselves to his promises and launch ourselves forward to meet His demands.
(c)The finish work we put into the house is suspended upon the framework. If we have faith, it hangs upon His Word. Our trust is nailed to His Dynamic Promises. Our strength is attached to His Divine Power.
(d)Faith in God makes great optimists. Over in Burma, Judson was lying in a foul jail with 32 lbs. of chains on his ankles, his feet bound to a bamboo pole. A fellow prisoner said, “Dr. Judson, what about the prospect of the conversion of the heathen?”, with a sneer on his face. His instant reply was, “The prospects are just as bright as the promises of God.”
(e)Our faith doesn’t rest on our faith or my situation. I don’t have faith for the sake of faith. I have faith because His promises proof true. My faith doesn’t work because I have faith. It works because it rest on His promises.
(f)During an especially trying time in the work of the China Inland Mission, Hudson Taylor wrote to his wife, “We have twenty-five cents–and all the promises of God!

3.Virtue: 2 Peter 1:5 “Add to your faith virtue”
(a)Virtue in Greek times meant “a god-given power to perform heroic deeds…the quality by which one stands out as being excellent. It came to mean right behavior. Some would call it moral courage and excellence.
(b)We want our lives to have virtue. Not be Ho-Hum, but Hallelujah. Not be average, but amazing.
(c)What will we draw upon in order to have such moral courage and excellence in life? We draw upon God’s nature.
(d)We have been delivered from the old corruptible nature. We have been given a new nature in Jesus Christ. We are dead to our old desires and awakened to new and Godly desires.
(e)We can live a life of moral virtue and excellence due entirely to God’s inner working in our life.
(f)Historians Will and Ariel Durant observed in their summary volume, The Lessons of History, that “there never has been a significant example of morality apart from belief in God.”

4.New Building. When we get saved God doesn’t remodel the old life. He builds an entirely new one. We have a new foundation. We have a new framework. (2Co 5:17) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
(a)Now God wants us to add on the doors and the cabinets and the pictures, etc.
(b)But even these are placed on a framework provided by God.
(c)Our diligence to do this work is dependent on the divine power God supplies.
(d)Our faith to proceed along amid trying times is dependent on His dynamic promises.
(e)Our virtue, excellence that we begin the work with is hinged upon the new nature, the Divine Nature that we have become partakers to.

Becoming a Fruitful Christian

Text: 2 Peter 1:1-11

2 Peter sets forth two important goals for the Christian.

1. That we be fruitful although stated in the negative in verse 8.

2. That we never fall in verse 10.

I am sure that we all hope that 2010 will be a fruitful year. Spiritually we would like to draw closer to the Lord and see our life bring forth spiritual fruit.

The question is, How do we get there?

1. The Foundation. 2 Peter 1:1,2. Everything to be strong must be built on the proper foundation. A blessed life, a fruitful life must have a good foundation. A tree to yield the maximum amount of fruit must have the right soul and nutrients. Our life is built upon grace and faith. Eph. 2:8,9

   1. Grace – God’s favor given to us although we don’t deserve it. 1Co 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”

   2. Faith – Trust, confidence and reliance on God and His Word. According to 2 Thess. 2:13 faith is “belief of the truth:” Faith is “Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Assurance and conviction of the truth.

   3. So we have a strong belief that God has acted toward us to show favor and love to us and He does so in such a way to make our lives fruitful and blessed.

2. The Framework. 2 Peter 1:3-4.

   1. Divine Power. 2 Peter 1:3. God’s uses His power tools to work in our lives.

      1. In Eph. 1:18,19 Paul prays “that you may know (three things) 1. what is the hope to which he has called you, 2. what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and 3. what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ.” God is interested in working in our lives in a powerful manner.

      2. Eph 3:20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

      3. That power gives us all things that pertain to life an godliness, v.3. We are lacking the power, (the source for making changes and building a life). We don’t lack the resources. We just need to take the tools God has given us and use them.

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   2. Dynamic Promises. 2 Peter 1:4 We can build a fruitful life knowing that gives us the power, but also because God has given us His promise. We have God Word. He promises us eternal life. He promises us forgiveness of sin. He promises us freedom from sins dominion. He promises to never leave us nor forsake us. He promises to deliver us from temptation.

      1. 2Co 1:20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

      2. 2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

      3. 1Jn 2:25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.

      4. How do I know that I can have a frutful life? How do I know that my life can be anything, but average? How do I know that I just won’t fall into sin again and fail? I have God’s promise that He will give me power and help. He will be with me. He won’t leave me. His promises are great and precious.

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   3. Delivered Partaker. 2 Peter 1:4 God has made us partakers in His very nature. We have escaped or been delivered from our own corrupt nature and have been changed and given a new nature. Our corrupt nature was inclined toward sin our new nature is inclined toward godliness.

      1. Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

      2. 2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

We beginning a new year. We are hoping for the best. Hoping to be better Christians, better parents, better spouses, better people. What will propel our spiritual life from average to amazing. From ho-hum to hallelujah. First, start out on the right foundation –Grace and Faith. Secondly, Build on the proper framework. God’s Power, God’s Promises, God’s New Nature He has given us.

I am new to blogging so this entry will be brief as I get things up and rolling.  The blog will contain info about our ministry, what it is like to be a bi-vocational pastor and general activities in which I am involved.