Effective and Productive (2)

What do you want most from your Christian walk as you enter into adulthood?

As a Pastor and a father, my desire for all young people is to have the tools you need to face all the circumstances you’ll face in this life. And trust me, there are going to be a lot of things that you’ll face as you grow older.

One of the strongest structures in the world is a pyramid It’s strong because the each layer of the base is wider that the one on top. Today we are going to construct a triangle that will represent our pyramid from a few verses in 2 Peter 1...

I’m going to need your help in defining some of these words with me.

2 Peter 1:5–7 ESV

5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

Pyramid with 8 qualities - talk through each and what they mean and how we get them.

Faith (pistis) - belief, not seen, trust,

Virtue/Goodness (arete) - right action and motives, good deeds, How do we know something is good?

Knowledge (gnosis) - what kind? knowledge of God, scripture, what Jesus taught and did.

Self-control (egkrateia) - requires some effort. Being disciplined.

Steadfastness (hypomone)- knowing what to do and sticking it out. running that extra distance, lifting that extra weight. pushing through tiredness, frustration

Godliness (eusebeia)- being like Christ, holy, seeing the world through God’s eyes, mercy, grace

Brotherly affection (philadelphia)- this is like love, but directed toward others. Do you know someone like this?

Love (agape) - this is a godly love, a love like God loves. A sacrificial love

Does anyone know what it says in the two verses before and after?

2 Peter 1:3–4 ESV

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

It is through God’s divine power that we have all the things we need to pursue and add these 7 things to our faith. It is also through that divine power that these thing become power in our own lives to resist sin and resist temptation.

Here is what the two verses after say...

2 Peter 1:8–9 ESV

8 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. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

If you commit to making these qualities part of your life and commit to them increasing in your life, you will be effective and fruitful. That word for fruitful also means productive. We can be effective and productive with this knowledge and faith we have in Jesus.

Nearsighted means we can only see what is up close. We lack the vision to be able to see in the distance. It’s seeing in the distance that helps us with hope for the future. When we only see what is right in front of us we can get discouraged and overwhelmed.