Grace Fueled Growth (2 Peter 2:5-9)

And then we will pray and dive right into it. 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 is cleansed from his former sins. This is the word of the Lord. Father in heaven, I ask that you would come with us as we open your word, that you would help us to see the glorious truth of how you have called us, how you have equipped us, and how you encourage us.

And you would help us this morning to see the glorious truth of what it means to grow in you. That we would not approach these words with a feeling of dread or insufficiency, but we would see the excitement and joy that runs through them. As we, equipped by your grace, are fueled for growth, may we, as Peter instructs the church, not be ineffective or unfruitful. Help us not to be blind for getting the goodness of the gospel. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, my first response on reading this text several months ago, as I was thinking about where we were going to go and what we were going to do, my first thought was that here's a giant list, and I'm immediately in trouble, right? Because you've got a whole bunch of different things.

You can probably do like 8 to 10, maybe 12 sermons just from this list, and I'm thinking here we're going to be in 2 Peter, for maybe 2 years, just trying to get through these first verses. The majority of our text this morning consists of this list, and I want you to notice about the list, before we dive into what's being said in this text, is that it begins with faith, and it ends with love, and in between those 2 characteristics are 6 different things that likely will remind you of the fruit of the Spirit. So faith is the starting place. We end up in love, and this list feels maybe a little longer than it truly is, because Peter repeats himself with almost every part of the list, with virtue, knowledge, and with knowledge, self-control,

so he's saying everything in part twice. And here's the thing about lists, right? Lists can be difficult. So a few years ago, and I could probably look at my license and count backwards and tell you how long it was, I knew that my license was getting close to being renewed, and so sometime in February, my birthday is the 3rd, I pulled out my license and realized that my license had expired, which puts you in a whole different category. So I'm on the DMV website, right? And helpfully, they have prepared some lists of things that you need to bring if you are going to get or renew your driver's license. Renewing is far easier. They don't really talk about my situation, but it was also at the time where real ID was first becoming a thing, and so you need like a bunch of extra stuff. And so here I am

reading through this, trying to figure out, you know, because it's like, well, you need two things from list A if you only have one thing from list B, but if you have this from list A, you can only get stuff from list C, and it's all of these lists. And so I said, "You know what? It's just going to be easier if I bring everything on every list." So me and my file cabinet, right, headed to the DMV, and it's a bit of a nerve-wracking process in the Virginia DMV, at least the last time I was there, because there's this line that snakes around to a dragon lady who sits at a counter and tells you you didn't bring what you needed to bring, right? And so you spend an hour sitting there, hearing everybody

show up, and they go, "Here, I'm here to register my car." Well, fill a sale, you don't have a receipt, you don't have proof, go, go, come back another day, right? And so for an hour, you're sitting there, hearing all these, and then you get there, and you present what you need to do, and she pulls out her list, and you know you're in trouble. And thankfully, I think by the grace of God, and maybe through the help of a family member who was a current employee of that DMV, right, we managed to get through that we managed to get through the list portion. And when we come to lists, right, like the DMV list, it was really kind of non-negotiable. You've got to have it, and if you don't, you're out of luck. And so what happens

sometimes when we come to lists, what they do is they can cause fear or anxiety, right? We look at lists, and we go, I don't have A, B, C, and D. Like, I'm in a lot of trouble, right? I did terrible on brotherly love. I'm bad at self-control. My virtue is almost non-existent, and my knowledge is obscure. And when we come to lists like this, they can cause us fear and anxiety. Now, other lists, right, are a little bit negotiable. I see groceries like this. All right, so Rachel and I will share it between our phones with the grocery list, and I know it says Brussels sprouts, but mint chocolate chip ice cream is kind of the same thing, right? Like, you just substitute it, right? The list is negotiable, and you deal with it when we get home. And sometimes, right, we come to lists like this in the Bible,

and we see the same thing. Well, negotiable, right? I'm not very good at this, so maybe we just leave that one out. Now, some lists are sort of wishful, right? We may even call them wish lists. And so Amazon, my shopping cart on Amazon, is kind of like that for me. Like, every time I see something cool, or I think that I might need, or might be a good gift for someone, I just add it to my cart, and then periodically I look at my cart, it's like $8,000, and I go through the cart and go save for later, save for later, save for later, save for later, right? And so if you go down through my save for later items, it goes all the way back to before I was married to Rachel, and half the items

are no longer available or have been recalled because they were a danger to themselves and maybe to others. And sometimes we look at lists. It would be great if I could have self-control. It would be great if I could excel in love. It would be great if my knowledge was deep, but that's not for today. And we come to this list with a lot of experience in lists, physical lists in this world that maybe either make us anxious or we treat them as negotiable or maybe just kind of hope someday in the future. And so I want to talk to you about Peter's list, and we'll get there in a few minutes. And the question is, what kind of list do we have in verses 5 through 7? And this is important because if understood correctly or incorrectly, this can either

lead to an angry sort of toxic form of legalism that misses the entire point of the Gospel, or you go to the other side where we ignore everything so completely that it's almost as if there is no moral standard whatsoever. Right? Kind of like when we look at the rules and go, "That doesn't apply to me." And so before we can understand this text, I think we need to understand its connection to its context. And we talk about context, that's simply what surrounds it. So right, for example, if you are in our neighborhood and hear yelling, right, how you react to that depends on the context of that yelling. And so for us, like if you hear yelling, right, and it's the neighbors somewhere fighting, right, we're all outside kind of sweeping our grass trying to listen

into the fight. But 90% of the time, in our neighborhood at least, people are yelling at their dogs, and probably another 10% of the time they're yelling at their kids. So the yelling that happens, right, it's dependent upon context, right? Is the dog running away? Is the dog not not listening? Is the kid heading for the road? And so how we respond depends on what's going on around it. And I think there's two connections that we need to see in these verses that help us understand them a little more deeply. There's probably more, but I just want us to see two. And the first is in the very beginning, in 2 Peter 1:5, and before he gives us the list, he gives us the list that we see at the end of verse 5 and into 6 and 7. Right?

Peter gives us the why. He starts by saying, "For this very reason." Right? Peter doesn't just pull out a list, slap it on the table, and say, "Here you go." He starts with the foundation for why this list matters, what it does, where it's fueled from. And so he connects it back. The second thing is less of a direct connection and more of an explanation of what Peter has said previously. In 2 Peter 1:3, he says, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." And in those words, he's describing our transformation after being called by Christ. That we are brought to eternal life, and that we are transformed in our character and behavior to look more and more like him as we move through life. And the question is, what does godliness look like?

And part of what Peter is doing with this text, with this list, is he's answering what godliness looks like in the part of his people, right? People of faith, and of virtue, and of knowledge, and of steadfastness, and of self-control, and godliness, and brotherly love, and love. You might say, "Well, why is this connection ultimately very important?" I don't know how you charge your phone. One of the ways that I charge my phone is, next to our bed, I have on my side, on my nightstand, this little wireless charger, right? You just sort of slap your phone on there, and it connects to the back of the phone, and wirelessly charges, right? You don't have to worry about, you know, plugging anything in except that charger. And the way that I always know it's charging is, like, when I come in and set my phone down, you'll hear this little bing.

I go, "Oh! It's charging!" And then there's some times where I come in, and I put my phone on the charger, and I don't hear the little bing, I turn it around to get it in the right spot, and then it connects, and you hear the bing. And sometimes, I put my phone on the charger, and I don't hear anything, and it's placed correctly, and it's because either someone has stolen the cord, or the power brick to where it goes into the wall, right? Because everybody has stuff that needs to be plugged in. Nobody can keep track of them, including me, right? So we scavenge the ones we find plugged in. The problem is, if there's no connection to the source of the power, there can be no charging of the phone. Remember how we started by talking about lists?

If we lose connection to the fact that God has called us, transformed us, equipped us in verses 3 and 4, right, this list becomes really scary, or it becomes really optional, or it becomes sort of a cloudy future that maybe we would like to have. But when we find ourselves connected to the power that comes not through us, but by the call, the transformation, the empowering, and the encouragement to God, right, it changes how we see this list. When we think about where this comes from, it moves us from obligation to joy. And if this list is not connected to what's born of it, right, all of a sudden, we'll never have the strength to be able to do any of it. So our purpose this morning, not to look at every detail of this list, which as I said, I've

struggled since trying to plan out our journey through 2 Peter together. But I want to sort of zoom out and look at this text as a whole. And I want us to try to see sort of three big lessons about this life that is marked by faith, and virtue, and knowledge, and steadfastness, and godliness, and self-control, and brotherly love, ending ultimately in love. I want us to sort of see the big picture in this. So Peter is teaching us, or in some cases, for the first time, or in other cases, if you've been a Christian, he's reminding you of some very important things. First of all, he's reminding you of this, that Christians are supposed to grow. Christians are supposed to grow, right? This is not a checklist, but a picture of growing in Christ. Now that's not to say any of these are optional extras, but what happens, right, if we

view this as a checklist, right, we'll still all be stuck back at number one, right? I'm still working on faith. I can't do virtue yet, because I haven't got faith figured out. And so if this is a checklist, all of us are stuck at the very beginning. Sorry, right, no self-control this week. Sorry, brother, no brotherly love, right? We're not to that place on the list yet. Think about a tree, right? And the tree goes, "Sorry, I can't worry about the leaves. It's trunk week." We have a little tree that we got in a pot, and I think it's been planted about three different places in the yard. But watching it grow is remarkable, because it doesn't just grow up, right? It grows down into its roots. And it doesn't just get taller, but it gets fuller.

And more lush and more green. And the picture of this text is not just one part of your Christian life growing, but all of your Christian life growing. Just like the fruit of the Spirit is a description of a singular fruit bought in by the power of God with all of these peace, patience, loveliness, gentleness, kindness, and self-control as a descriptor of the fruit. So in Peter's list is a picture of what growth looks like in the Christian life. And every one of these characteristics is connected and intertwined and impossible to separate from the other. And third, notice what Peter says in verse 8. "For if these qualities are yours and increasing, are growing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." All the qualities of growth bearing fruit in our life.

The second thing I want us to see is that the pursuit of this growth is joyful. Now, I don't say easy or simple, and that there will never be any difficulties or setbacks or problems, but what Peter is doing in this text, and it's so remarkable, because this text is not meant to be like a heavy burden tied around your shoulders, but rather an energizing picture of generous joy as you pour into your spiritual life through the grace and the power of God. Let's take a look at how Peter paints a picture of joyful growth, and he does so in verse 1, chapter 1, verse 5. He says, "For this very reason, make every effort," and then he said, "your faith." And so he starts by this, by talking about the source of our growth. And he says that the source of our growth is not found in our plan, in our self-discipline, or in a system,

but rather in the power that is brought to us by the transforming work of Jesus Christ. And growth is not because we are good, but because God has changed everything. And I love this picture. If you read through Acts, what you find, and specifically Acts chapter five, there's been controversy. The apostles are before the sea, and Adrian, they're let out. They go back to preaching. They're brought back in. They're warned not to teach. And at the end of the chapter, it says this: "That they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor at the name." Right? And I look at that and go, "Why? How do you rejoice?" When everybody's against you and they're throwing you in jail, and they're making accusations, and they're threatening to put you to death, they're rejoicing because their hope and their strength is not in themselves, but it's in God,

and the opposition is showing them what God has done in their life and is continuing to do. And what Peter is saying is that we rejoice because at the heart of this growth is not our strength, but God's. The second thing he says in verse five is he talks about the eagerness of our growth. And he says this, make every effort, make haste, chase this down, the idea of eagerness or devotedness. Right, it's like the difference talking to your kids about something they need and have to do that's chores, right? Nobody likes to do chores. Even as adults, sometimes we get frustrated by chores. And then on the other side saying, "Hey, let's go get ice cream." Right? We're always ready for ice cream. Like some of you very specifically are always ready for ice cream. All the time.

A very different reaction to say, "Hey, let's do a bunch of dishes and let's go get ice cream." Right? And you can see it. So there's an ice cream truck in the summertime that comes through our neighborhood about the same time. And it's always a little frustrating because the ice cream lady doesn't take any form of debit card. And so like you have to plan ahead and then you plan ahead and they don't show and you spend the cash. You got out at the ATM for something else and then she comes through the very next day. But if you watch, specifically, definitely not me, but when you have cash and the ice cream truck comes, you can hear them coming. It's like, "Let's go get ice cream." Right? We're going to run for the ice cream.

Right? Because she's going to get away before we can get our ice cream. The picture here when Peter says, "Make every effort" is not this sort of grudging, "Oh no, I've got to do this." But it's like here, God has put something in front of you that's wonderful and He's strengthened you by His grace. And we run, as Hebrews says, with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. Third, we see the generosity of our growth. The word here Peter uses is "supplement." He says, "Make every effort to supplement." And in Greek, these are two words that are put together. And the underlying idea of the first word is supplying something that is needed. And then when you add the second part of the word, it intensifies this supply. And it is a picture of sort of lavish support of something that is in front of you.

Not just enough, but going above and beyond, right? Something bigger than you can imagine. And the interesting thing about this is in the world at Paul's time, when you were doing a theatrical performance, and you had your actors and your choir together to perform, these are paid for by patrons. And so it was the funding of public performances paid for by patrons, and they would give the necessary resources to bring this joy and this experience to the community. And what Paul is saying is just like these guys fund this wonderful display of the arts with great generosity, so when we add these things together, right, it's not like, "Well, how? What's like the lowest limit?" But rather, it's a pouring out of the resources that God has given us in an overwhelming manner because it is so wonderful.

And what we see next is that the joyful instruction challenges our thinking and changes our perspective. Listen to what Peter says, "For if these qualities are yours," that big list, "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." And this joyful instruction of a patron helping something that he loves, of this picture of eagerness, of chasing this down, of this overflowing from the strength and grace of God, comes to this place where Peter says, "I want to challenge your thinking, and I want to change your perspective." I want you to see and to understand and to know, and we started with a Scripture that sort of illustrated this point this morning as we read together.

There is no coasting, and there is no retiring in the Christian life. We have all been in those places where things have been difficult for so long. We are just going to kind of stop for a minute and let ourselves coast along the picture of the Christian life. That Paul is instructing us here with, and he is challenging us to understand, or Peter is instructing us to understand, that there is no coasting or retiring. This is something we earnestly pursue through God's grace from the moment we are transformed until the moment we meet Him in person. See, there is the idea in our world, and I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea physically. We can do enough and then we can relax. We can do some more and get to a certain place and relax.

And in our physical lives, that's not a bad idea, but spiritually, it ends up costing us more than we ever realize. And so Peter is saying here, keep going. Keep growing. Growing closer to Christ. Because if these qualities are yours and are increasing, if you're moving forward, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Christ. And then, right, he challenges us and changes our perspective. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins, right? Notice the contrast. He goes from unfruitful, right? Not bearing fruit, something which takes a long time. And he says you will bear fruit if these things are increasing in your life. But then, on the other hand, he said if they're not there, you're only looking at the same term.

You're so nearsighted, so closely focused that you have forgotten about the future. And what Paul is trying to do is help us to expand our perspective from the immediate to the greater, understanding that fruit sometimes takes time. What he says is there are some who are so focused on what is directly in front of them, they don't see anything else. And part of what he's doing here is he's encouraging us. Because maybe we read through this list like I do and go, "Man, still have some work to do in virtue. Still have some work to do in knowledge. Don't even get me started on self-control and steadfastness and brotherly love." But right, if you lift your eyes from what's right here, and you begin to look back on the trajectory through which you've come, as one of my friends is so fond of saying, right, "Pre-Jesus," insert your name here, right?

You see how far you came, Jesus Brandon, or "Pre-Jesus you." And so part of what Peter is doing is he's challenging our perspective for those who are discouraged, saying, "I'm struggling." And he's saying, "First of all, expand your picture of power to the grace and the power of God, but also look at how far he has brought me," right? Grace, we sing it sometimes, right? "Grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will bring me home." But also, he's causing us to lift our eyes from whatever is distracting us, whatever we're chasing after, that immediate, that desire for the right now. We're not very good at long-term things very often. I ordered some stuff from Amazon like two weeks ago, last snowstorm. Supposed to be here today, right? I'm looking at it yesterday going,

"Well, it could have been on the truck on Saturday, right? Sitting right there in the distribution center." And I'm frustrated that it took two weeks. Like, my grandpa would be appalled, right? Because he probably would have had to go on and mine the stuff, put it together, and then ship it home, right? Because my perspective is so immediate and so short-sighted. And he's saying, "Church, stop looking at the immediate, and look at the big picture, that God by His grace has saved you, and He is growing you, and He is calling you to joyfully join Him in pursuing this growth so that you and the kingdom of God will be effective and bear much fruit." Let's pray. Father in heaven, lift our eyes from our immediate struggles and worries and desires to you. Help us to see your grace, to see how you empower us, to join you with joy in pursuing godliness and righteousness, that we would not be unfruitful. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.