Pursuing a life in the truth

One thing people are obsessed with are trying to “figure out” their personality. There is the Meyers-Briggs or Enneagram that are more “scientific”, there are astrological month that people say tells you about your personality, or people will take a “which Hogwarts character are you?” type of test. Each of these are an attempt to do something, tell us “what type of person ARE you?”

But I think this is a bad question to ask. Because often we use this to say, “well, I’m just not a people person” so that we don’t have to try and talk to people. Or, “I’m just someone who tells it like it is” so that when we badmouth people we can pretend it is a “personality trait”, or many other things. Not that it is bad to find out where we are now, but where we are now should not mean that we are ALWAYS like that.

God has called us to grow, to learn where our weaknesses are and seek to improve on them. But we are often told that we should just “be ourselves”, but all of us have flaws!

Peter in this section is talking about spiritual virtues and how they help us to pursue a life of truth.

Stacking spiritual virtues

Peter starts by saying “for this very reason”. What do we do with a therefore? We need to look backwards. What were the two important things we talked about last week. God’s DIVINE POWER and God’s PRECIOUS PROMISES.

-God’s power has been us everything needed for godliness through the knowledge of Jesus. Our sanctification.

-God’s promises encourages us because we know that God has saved us. Our justification.

Christian virtue is the expression of God’s grace on our lives

Now, since we know we have escaped corruption in the world, we are to grow in spiritual virtues.

Peter says they are to “make every effort” to build these virtues.

-It is vitally important

-It deserves our attention

And if you see the flow, it seems like a chain that builds on it. You gain one virtue then work on another, and so on. This is called a sorites: “an argument consisting of propositions so arranged that the predicate of any one forms the subject of the next and the conclusion unites the subject of the first proposition with the predicate of the last”

When you read it it seems as if there is a logical progression from one to the other. But that isn’t really the point, what it is providing is the idea is that virtue builds on virtue. You may consider that if you build the virtue of patience that it helps you to learn because you aren’t as distracted. We can’t miss out on one because it will have an affect on another.

What does seem significant is that Peter starts with faith and ends with love. “Faith is the root of all virtues, and love is the goal of the Christian life.”

Faith is belief turned to action

I had a teacher in college and he had a saying that I have said here before. Stated belief + actual practice = Actual belief

What this means is that what we believe will be backed up by what we do, because each one of us has practices that don’t line up with what we say we believe. Therefore, what we are to do is say “I believe in God’s power and His promises…therefore I will seek to attain these virtues.

-Christian belief can’t be separated from Christian growth.

Trusting God is the root of Christian growth.

Goodness is the expression of faith towards our neighbor

Goodness is literally “moral excellence” it is how we treat our neighbor which should line up with what Jesus has told us to do.

Knowledge is the hunger to grow in the knowledge of Christ

This means not just believing in Jesus, but to have a relationship with Him so that we can learn the will of His Father for us. This also includes what we learn from God’s Word.

Self-control is restraint from dangerous habits

We all have desires that can be difficult to control. What we say, what we eat, what we drink, what we look at, what we watch, how we spend our time. We all know habits we can start to build that if we don’t keep control of them they will enslave us, we won’t be able to resist them.

-In Peter’s time there we a growing number of wealthy people who were obese.

We live in a prosperous place where we can enjoy anything we want, where people celebrate not having self-control. We should be people who can show restraint.

Endurance is to not take the easy route when the hard route is better

Peter will talk later about those who scoffed at Christians for believing that Jesus would come again, people continue to do that. It can be easy when we are ridiculed to give in, to lose our faith, to think we don’t have enough strength. But we are called to persevere to the very end.

We are called to stand firm in our commitment to Jesus even when it is hard.

Godliness is to live a life that pleases God

We should desire to obey God because we know that it pleases Him, it also means we are aware of what He desires for us.

Sometimes you listen to your parents or teachers not because you agree with them but because you know if you do what they ask it will make them happy. God always has a reason, but we should desire to please Him even when we don’t understand.

Brotherly affection is to have generosity towards fellow believers

Love is a virtue, not an emotion

Love is the greatest virtue we can seek to attain and can only be found fully in Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:4–13 “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.”

2 Notes on Building Virtue

Spiritual Growth is built through a process, not a crises

We see that our “knowledge” of God isn’t just learning some facts, it profoundly changes our life. And in practicing these virtues we both prove what we believe but also grow in knowing God.

Process helps us to be prepared for crises, crises doesn’t build a process

-When you watch movies sometimes you see these characters who “become a new person” through an experience. But you can go through a crises situation and come back and do the same exact things you used to do.

-Because the truth is…who you are in crises is often just who you are in real life just ramped up.

If we are lacking then there is some part of our knowledge of God then we often find ourselves:

-Blind to the truth and believing lies others tell us

-Unable to see what challenges may come before us

-Forget what we believe when we need it

Building these qualities help us to not be “useless or unfruitful”. That is, we have an active faith, and we have a faith that grows fruit in our lives.

-This allows for our knowledge of Jesus to not be unfruitful, but full of life

-We can have knowledge about God that is unfruitful

The other issue of seeing growth in crises is then we only think we need to practice them in “serious” situations. But Peter says we shouldn’t be “blind and shortsighted” where we “forget the cleansing from his past sins”.

-We should always remember the benefits of being saved in Christ

-Our lives should be an expression of gratefulness towards God for our salvation. If we go back to our former way of life we are acting as if God hasn’t saved us.

“Those who treasure being forgiven live in a way that pleases God”

Practicing virtue will lead to God’s promises

To practice these virtues is for us to “confirm our calling and election”

-Calling is God’s choice to save us in Christ by His grace. It is our call to follow Christ.

This means that God never changes His mind about us, there is nothing we could ever do that would change the way He sees us as His children.

Last week I gave an analogy of training for the Olympics.

Why is this so important? Because if we “make every effort” then we know we will “never stumble”

-Two important things:

1. “Make every effort” doesn’t mean “do everything perfectly”, it means we make it a high priority

2. “Never stumble” doesn’t mean “never get tripped up”, it means that by practicing the virtues we will avoid any dangerous errors in our ways that would lead us to forsake God or abandon our faith.

In the end we believe that God will hold us by His power and promises, therefore we are given the freedom to live by faith.

We have been given salvation, all we need to do is act like it. If we claim to be a Christian then we shouldn’t contradict this with our actions.

This last verse could be said “for this this way, your entrance will be richly provided for” - Like a runner that has a party waiting at the end of the finish line.

We enter into an eternal kingdom, one that lasts forever.