Vision 4: Value #3—Transformational Growth

Good morning, and welcome to family worship with the church body of Eastern Hills. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus today.

If you are visiting with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to worship with Eastern Hills! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.

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Announcements

Every March and April, we take up the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. Each year, our giving to the North American Mission Board (commonly called “NAMB”) supports over 3,000 missionaries and missionary families serving throughout the U.S. and Canada. While 35% of NAMB’s funding comes from our gifts to the Cooperative Program, 50% of NAMB’s funding comes from this annual special offering.

Our goal this year as a church is $23,500. Given so far: $9,600. Just for scale, the national goal this year is $80M. Every dollar given goes to train and resource more than 3,000 missionaries and their families involved in church planting and compassion ministries who share the life-transforming gospel of Jesus Christ across the United States, Canada, and their territories. Troy & Chanel Gause are one such missionary family. Watch a snippet of their story:

Video: Troy & Chanel Gause #1

Opening

The mission of Eastern Hills Baptist Church is People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. We’re regular people, wanting to help one another and those outside of this church family experience and display the love of Jesus every single day. Since we’re regular people, we don’t do this perfectly, but this statement helps us keep our eyes on the goal of this church family.

This morning, we are looking at the third Core Value that we believe defines Eastern Hills Baptist Church right now, but also that we want to continue to display more and more in the future. This is because our Core Values are both informational and aspirational. They describe who we are, and who we want to be. Over the last two weeks, we’ve looked at our first two Core Values: AUTHENTIC FAMILY: We have fun and encourage each other in life’s ups and downs. and REAL TRUTH: We dig into Scripture for clarity in a confusing world. Last week, we saw that real truth gives us hope, it frees us to love, and it leads to growth. This leads directly to our third Core Value, TRANSFORMATIONAL GROWTH: We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together. Next week, we will consider PRACTICAL IMPACT: We seek to meet the needs of our neighbors wherever we find them.

Our passage last week was from 1 Peter chapter 1, and this week, we will be in Peter’s second epistle, but again in chapter 1. So please turn in your Bibles or your Bible apps to 2 Peter 1, and as you are able, please stand in honor of the declaration of the Word of God as I read verses 3 through 11:

2 Peter 1:3–11 CSB

3 His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, 7 godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

PRAYER (military action in Iran)

To start our consideration of Transformational Growth, I want to show you a picture. Here is a photo of little two-month old baby boy kicking back on a pillow, I’m guessing on his grandmother’s sofa. I think that’s a racecar on his onesie. Two-month olds are not particularly good at anything but lying there, eating, crying, and making messes in diapers and on spit-up cloths, so this baby is living the life right here. You can see it on his face.

But that baby didn’t stay that size, and eventually learned how to talk and walk and all kinds of other things. God designed him to grow, but also this little boy engaged in exploration and learned, sometimes with diligence, in order to mature and gain additional skills. He went from living on milk to eating solid foods to really enjoying a good steak or a bratwurst occasionally. And all along the way, the growth was evident not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

Eventually this little boy came to know Christ, and in a spiritual sense, was born again. God radically saved Him. He was immature: He was back on milk—the milk of real truth. But God gave him what he needed to grow. Through the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, the study of the Word of God, and the encouragement and wisdom of godly people all along the way, he grew spiritual. He’s not done growing spiritually, but he’s trusting the Lord and looking to Him for continued growth and maturity all the time, and he’s still walking alongside a bunch of other people who are maturing in their faith as well.

That picture was taken a little over 54 years ago. That baby is me.

Our lives are, in large part, defined by transformation. We don’t stay the same over time. In fact, we shouldn’t stay the same over time. And I mean that both physically and spiritually. If we were to simply stay the same, that would reflect a serious problem.

And in our focal passage from Peter this morning, we see that transformational growth is something that God not only intends, but calls us into. It’s not something that we do on our own, because apart from God’s work it couldn’t happen. However, we will also see that it’s not something that we have no responsibility for, as if we are merely passive observers of our transformation. And like we can look at me compared to that picture and know that I’ve grown physically, we should be able to look at my life and know that I’ve grown spiritually—not as a means of my salvation, but evidence of the reality of it. Transformational growth is divinely-powered, knowledge-driven, diligently pursued, and kingdom-confirming.

We begin where Peter did:

1: Transformational growth is divinely-powered.

When we’re talking about physical transformation, especially the transformation of growth, we often don’t think about the fact that it is God who has made that growth possible. We chalk it up to “nature,” but who made nature? God did. And when we come to faith in Christ, according to Peter, He gives us everything we need to grow:

2 Peter 1:3–4 CSB

This is the first step of transformational growth: believing the Gospel and surrendering to Jesus as Lord. Before I start working through this passage, I want to make that clear: The Bible tells us that apart from faith in Christ, we are spiritually dead because of our sins:

Ephesians 2:1–3 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

Dead things don’t grow. They don’t get stronger: they decay. They don’t get bigger: they shrivel. So the beginning of transformational growth is having our entire existence transformed by God from being dead to being alive through believing in Christ. Paul continued:

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

The work of salvation is all God’s work. Apart from His sending His Son Jesus as one of us to take our place on the cross, taking the righteous wrath that we deserve because of our sins on Himself, we could never be spiritually transformed. God saves us. We don’t save ourselves. We give up—surrendering in faith to the work that He’s already done. We are brought from death to life through faith in Jesus.

And Peter tells us that when we are saved by His power, Jesus gives us “everything required for life and godliness.” When we are saved, we are given all that we need, because we are given spiritual life. We are given the Holy Spirit, God Himself, dwelling in us. Does this mean that we instantly go from dead to spiritually mature? No. It means that all the resources are available for transformational growth to take place. There’s nothing necessary that we lack.

Jim Shaddix and Daniel Akin put this well when they write in their commentary on 2 Peter:

“God wants us to know that He didn’t save us and then say, “Now, knock yourself out!” or “Good luck out there!”

Instead, writes Peter, by calling us according to “His own glory and goodness,” He has given us “very great and precious promises.” And through those promises, Peter says that we will “share in the divine nature,” and that we will escape “the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.”

What does this mean? It means that because of His divine moral excellence (His “glory” and His “goodness”), Jesus has made incredible promises to us about the results of His work in our lives. Consider just a few of these:

1 Peter 2:9 CSB

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

2 Corinthians 3:18 CSB

18 We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

1 John 3:2 CSB

2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.

This is what Peter means when he says that we will “share in the divine nature:” we will be like Christ—not divine, but morally perfect. In one sense, this points to our future perfection in Christ. However, for Peter there is a “now-and-not-yet” image in view here: we are not made morally perfect in this life, but even here, if we are in Christ, then we are no longer left to our own devices for dealing with the corruption of our flesh—our sin. We can only be made godly by being in Christ. Only God can make people godly.

Philippians 2:13 CSB

13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

Transformational growth is divinely-powered.

If He has given us everything that we need, then how is that provision applied? Peter tells us that it’s through knowing Christ.

2: Transformational growth is knowledge-driven.

This Core Value of Transformational Growth is about the spiritual process called sanctification. And while it is true that everything required for our sanctification is provided by Christ according to His divine power, our sanctification is not a one-and-done kind of thing. Instead, we thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together. Verses 3 and 4 again:

2 Peter 1:3–4 CSB

We receive everything required to live a godly life through the knowledge of Christ—not the knowledge ABOUT Christ—the knowledge OF Him. And the reality is that this knowledge is something that deepens over time as we walk with Him. It’s an active participation in knowing Jesus more deeply—It’s intimacy with Jesus.

Let me try to illustrate this. Melanie and I met in 1988. At that point, we “knew” each other. However, as our relationship deepened through time spent together and conversations, the idea of us “knowing” each other deepened as well. Then we were married, and living with one another created another depth of the knowledge of each other. And even now, we’re still kind of getting to know each other in a continuous way because we’re experiencing life together… we’re still on the journey, and so still growing in our knowledge. And I can predict pretty accurately what Mel will do in a given situation—however, I don’t know her perfectly, because I still get some predictions wrong.

Likewise, as we walk with Christ, we come to know Him more and more. And as we know Him more and more, we should be becoming more and more like Him. We should begin to think more and more like Him. We should begin to act more and more like Him. Paul said that this is “being renewed in knowledge according to the image of our Creator” in Colossians 3:10: BILL: 3:10B

Colossians 3:10 CSB

10b You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

Last week, our focal passage was 1 Peter 1. In verses 14 through 16 of that passage, we saw that Peter called us to not be conformed to our previous desires, but to be holy because God is holy:

1 Peter 1:14–16 CSB

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. 15 But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.

In last week’s sermon, I said that it is precisely because God is holy that we are able to be holy at all. While His work in our lives through His Spirit is what empowers us to have that “family resemblance” to Him as His children, intimacy with Him is what drives us to actually know what holiness looks like. And while we are each called to this process individually, there’s a collective idea behind it as well, according to Peter:

1 Peter 2:4–5 CSB

4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

We are each the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3, 6), but we are together the spiritual house of Christ. We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together. We’re on this journey with one another, and as a result, we should be encouraging one another and building each other up, because we are all on the same path together:

1 Thessalonians 5:11 CSB

11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.

So Jesus divinely empowers our spiritual growth, and knowing Him drives it. But what does this look like in practice? Peter gives us a list of virtues to pursue with diligence:

3: Transformational growth is diligently pursued.

This part of the passage seems almost paradoxical: It’s Jesus who gives us everything that we need for life and godliness by His divine power, and it’s knowing Jesus intimately that drives our growth. But then Peter tells us that because of this, there are things we are to do:

2 Peter 1:5–7 CSB

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

It is clear here that for Peter our sanctification is not something that we just sit back and let passively happen to us. He says that it is exactly BECAUSE of what Christ has done that we are to “make every effort to supplement” our faith with these other virtues. So Christ has done all that is necessary for us to have godly lives, and so we are to work at having godly lives? Yep. Literally, we are to expend energy in developing these virtues in our lives of faith.

The thing that we need to make clear right here is that this is NOT Peter saying that our salvation is earned by our works. Instead, he is saying that our salvation should be depicted or described by our works. Salvation comes first, and then godly living should flow from our salvation, not the other way around. I’ll make this a little more clear in my last point.

Some scholars refer to verses 5-7 the “ladder of faith,” and have each “rung” lead to the next, but this isn’t necessary. There are some ways that this is useful, for example, knowledge is knowing what is right, self-control is doing what is right, endurance is continuing to do what is right for a long time.

However, this does have its pitfalls: We shouldn’t see it as having to master each “rung” before moving on to the next one, as if we have to develop enough knowledge before striving to be self-controlled, and then figure out how to be self-controlled before we strive to have endurance in doing so.

Plus, we shouldn’t see this as a complete list of virtues that we should strive to display. There are a several other lists of Christian virtues in Scripture, and while there is definitely overlap, they don’t match completely. This list has goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. Colossians 3 says that we should put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, forgiveness, love, peace, and gratitude. And Galatians 5 says that the fruit of the Spirit’s work in our lives is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Even these three lists combined are not exhaustive.

I think that the biggest thing to take note of in this passage in 2 Peter is that faith is foundational, because it is necessary for the others. Then, we are to build upon that faith five virtues that are all more personal to us, and two that are others-focused: brotherly affection and love. Love comes last as the highest of the Christian virtues:

Colossians 3:14 CSB

14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

1 Corinthians 13:13 CSB

13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.

Faith and love are juxtaposed with one another in other passages as well:

Galatians 5:6 CSB

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love.

1 Timothy 1:5 CSB

5 Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

However, just because this list isn’t complete doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider each term.

First, Peter says that we should supplement our faith with goodness. Goodness is moral excellence. We have a perfect model of goodness in Christ, who “called us by His own glory and goodness.” (v. 3)

Next, Peter calls us to add knowledge. This is a different word for knowledge than in both verse 3 or verse 8 (which are the same to each other). Knowledge in verses 3 and 8 is more formational because of its intimacy, and knowledge in verse 5 is more informational: practical understanding or wisdom. We could call this spiritual learning.

Third, we see that self-control is to be added. The idea here is to control our passions instead of being controlled by our passions. Again, this is only possible through the work of the Spirit in us (and is a fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5).

Fourth, Peter commends endurance to us. Endurance, according to James, is the produce of having our faith tested through experiencing trials, and leads to maturity:

James 1:2–4 CSB

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

Christ has given us everything required for life and godliness, however, godliness is the fifth term in Peter’s list in verse 6. Simply put, this is living a life that is pleasing to God, a pious life (but not in the negative way it’s often used today). We have been given what is required, but we are called to appropriate it.

Sixth is the first of the two others-focused virtues, brotherly affection. Two weeks ago, we considered our Core Virtue of Authentic Family, and we saw that in the church we are to be devoted, generous, joyful, and sincere in how we relate to one another. Brotherly affection captures this well. We’re in this transformational growth process of learning to be more like Jesus together.

And finally, we have love—agape—the kind of love that God Himself has shown to us in Christ. This love is self-sacrificing because it’s origin is its agent (God) instead of its object (us). So we should love others because God has loved unlovable us, not because others are particularly lovable.

There’s a responsibility for us to pursue these virtues. There’s no escaping that from a language point-of-view. However, as we have already said this morning, we wouldn’t develop these virtues at all apart from what Christ has already given us by His divine power through our relationship with Him. You could say that this is the “now” part of our sharing in the divine nature: we are to reflect these qualities because Christ possesses them all. We are striving to be like Jesus, even as He is the one at work to make us like Him.

As we pursue and grow in these virtues, what difference does this make? Peter tells us that it’s about fruitfulness, assurance, and the evidence of our salvation.

4: Transformational growth is kingdom-confirming.

The last point that we find in this passage on transformational growth in 2 Peter is that it is what I’ve decided to call “kingdom-confirming.” What I mean by that is that the transformation in our lives by the work of Christ’s divine power through our knowledge of Him, and assimilated in our lives through our diligent pursuit, is evidence of our having been transferred into the kingdom of God. Again, our we cannot read this next passage as us earning or even keeping our salvation through having the virtues in verses 5 through 7. Instead, having those virtues in increasing measure is a form of identification of us as followers of Jesus. Peter continues:

2 Peter 1:8–11 CSB

8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

The knowledge of Jesus—the intimate relationship that we have with Him—should bear fruit. That fruit should look like the virtues we just saw in verses 5-7 (as well as others). The point is not that we have the virtues for their own sake. The phrase “in increasing measure” really could be taken to say “in abounding” or “overflowing” measure. It would be a shame for us to be “useless” or “unfruitful” in displaying the beauty of what we’ve been given by Christ in our salvation. And these two words are associated directly with how we act in other places in Scripture:

James 2:20 CSB

20 Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?

Titus 3:14 CSB

14 Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works for pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.

Verse 9 should give us pause. The person who lacks the virtues Peter says is “blind and shortsighted,” meaning that the person is so focused on what’s right in front of him—his own desires, instead of the plans that God has for him—that he has “forgotten” the work of the gospel. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t “remember” it—it means that he’s living a life of ignorance to it, like he just doesn’t care. This is a scary place to be, brothers and sisters. This person might not be lost, but he looks like he is.

Verse 10 speaks to that situation, because it calls us again to “make every effort...” this time in the confirming of our calling and election (together referring to our salvation). To “confirm” our election is to “verify” it, or to “make certain” that we have it. It’s simple: Christian calling and Christian living go together. Paul said it this way:

Philippians 2:12 CSB

12 Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

At best, the person who is not growing in Christian virtue will struggle with assurance. If there is zero godly growth at all being borne in our lives, then how can we have confidence that we have been given “everything required for life and godliness?” The only reason we would NOT have been given such resource is if we aren’t actually saved. Again, this isn’t about earning our salvation, but nurturing our assurance of it. If we are growing in the virtues of the Christian life, then we will not stumble into a lack of confidence. We certainly will all stumble from time to time (James 3:2), but the fruit of Christ’s transformational work in our lives will keep us from fear that we are actually lost.

Verse 11 tells us that if we really are saved (“In this way”), then we really will enter the eternal kingdom of Christ.

Closing

We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together. We are in a process together that has been empowered by Christ and is driven by our relationship with Him. We are to be diligent to grow in that relationship, both individually and collectively, growing to be more and more like Him. That growth should be manifested in how we live, and if it is, we can have confidence assurance of the hope of salvation that we cling to. This is what transformational growth is all about: growing up in our salvation. Just like there would be something really wrong if I looked the same 54 years later as I did in that picture I showed at the beginning, we should be concerned if we look exactly the same years down the road of our walk of faith as we did before we ever came to know Christ.

And here’s the thing: If we’re lost, we need Jesus. Even if we’ve been “playing” Christian for years. I don’t say any of this this morning to scare you. If you don’t know Christ, surrender right now, believing the gospel.

Baptism

Church membership

Prayer

Giving

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Ex 19, Lk 22, Job 37, 2 Cor 7)

Pastor’s Study canceled tonight. Come and hear Amanda and Amelia at 4:15.

Prayer Meeting for our Week of Prayer.

Instructions for guests

Benediction

1 Peter 3:8–9 CSB

8 Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, 9 not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing.

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