Faith Made Manifest

If You Stagnant, You Stank

When I was in high school, I had an incredibly engaging AP US History teaching. Everybody just called him Vance and he was very . . . enthusiastic. He always pushed his students to grow, learn, and do better. To the extent that people couldn’t sit in the front row of his classroom because he had this tendency to flip the front row of desks over in an effort to encourage us onward. And Vance had a phrase he said a lot, wasn’t really well refined or eloquent, but it got the point across and it was printed and posted on the door to his classroom. It was something to the effect of “if you stagnant, you stank.” The first time he explained this phrase he asked us to think about a river. As long as the water continues to move forward it is clean and clear, but if it stops and gets caught somewhere and stops moving - things start to grow in the water and it starts to stink. He applied that to us as students saying that once we started to get satisfied and complacent with where we were academically, we would begin to stink.

And what I want to suggest today is that many of us, many of us Christians in the word and many of us Christians gathered here today, are stagnant and complacent in our faith. Are you satisfied with where you’re at? Do any of these statements hit closer to home than you’d like?

“I go to my little church in an elementary school on Sunday mornings and we do our worship and that’s good enough for me.”

“I have my group that I go to every once in a while and that’s fine.”

“I listen to my little devotion once a day, most days, and that’s good enough.”

“I give my $15 every week, I don’t even really notice it’s gone, and that fulfills my obligation to give.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, none of us should ever be satisfied to stop where we’re at in regards to our relationship with Christ. Our attitude should always be how can I grow the church more, how can I advance my discipleship more, how can I support the spreading of the Gospel better? If we are satisfied and content with where we are, our faith will stagnate, and we will start to stink.

So Nearsighted That He is Blind

And it shouldn’t make us feel any better about it, but misery does love company, and Peter is pushing Christians about this exact thing in our faith today. He says “supplement your faith with virtue.” Peter is encouraging Christians to strengthen their faith by doing good things. Those good things should be strengthened by a growing understanding. That understanding should be supported by self-control. Self-control is supported by steadfastness and loyalty. Steadfastness is supported by godliness. And goodliness is supported by brotherly love - by having a community that pushes you forward. Peter even goes so far as to say that “whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that his is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”

The Eternal Vine

But Peter also reminds the people he is writing to where it all comes from. He writes that God’s divine power “has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness,” through the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It’s a metaphor that gets used in the Bible a few times, the metaphor of a vine and its branches. The vine is the source of life and even if the branches miss an opportunity for growth, they are still save because their life is coming from the vine. Even as he encourages Christians to step forward, to grow and progress, he reminds them that their life comes from Christ, a vine that will never wither or fade or fail to provide. Sometimes as branches from the vine, Christians experience pruning - bad things being cut off from us or even good things being cut off to make room for better growth - and those kinds of experiences hurt, and experiencing the storms and the struggles of the world are unpleasant for the branches, but as long as they are connected to the vine they are never along, and they will never die, they will never go without the life and sustenance they need.

You Have What You Need

I would proclaim the same to you this morning. Do not mishear me, each and every one of us should constantly strive to supplement our faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, and brotherly love - but when we fail to do so, we are still loved and forgiven by God our heavenly Father for the sake of Jesus Christ His only Son who died for our sake.

To continue with the vine metaphor - we can hide ourselves from the sun, deprive ourselves of water, and refuse to reach further out into the world - and we will fail to grow by doing so both as individuals and as the church, but we will not die. Because our connection to the vine, our connection to Jesus does not depend on us or on what we do. We receive life and forgiveness and salvation in His name for His sake.

Application

But we don’t want to be the branches that barely extend from the vine. We are called to so much more. We are not called just to survive, but to thrive in our faith. So I challenge you, take stock of your faith. Take note of where you are today in your worship, in your devotion, in your giving, in your study, in your virtue, and in your proclamation - and take the next step. For our God is not a god of the dead and the stagnant, but God of the living and the thriving! Amen.