A Salvation Supplied and Applied: Part 4

Intro:

In our Christian faith, we have watched with horror breaking news about people we know personally or people we learned from and followed, turn away from walking with the Lord Jesus. The emotions flood over us in that time. We are angry. We are confused. We wonder how this could ever happen?

Most recently for me, the sinful failures of Steve Lawson was the one that truly sucker punched me. We was a wonderful expositor of the Word. He was a close friend of John Macarthur. I thought at one point that he could be a possible successor to Macarthur’s ministry when Dr. MacArthur retired.

Then news broke in Sept 2024 of a month long affair with a student at Master’s college in her 20’s. Since the emergence of this affair, Lawson admitted to the grievous sin, ended his many facets of Christian ministry, and is simply attending church, receiving biblical counseling and trying to make amends in his family.

In his last public statements, Lawson stated

“I am deeply broken that I have betrayed and deceived my wife, devastated my children, brought shame to the name of Christ, reproach upon His church, and harm to many ministries.

"I am growing in grace, reading and absorbing the Word of God, putting it into practice, praying, and meeting with other believers. I am involved in the life of the church, attending and participating in prayer meetings, Sunday school, the worship service, and taking communion weekly. I am being fed the Word in the mid-week Bible study. Please pray for my spiritual growth into Christlikeness as I follow Him moment by moment during this recovery season.”

I am thankful to read these words and I cannot make judgments from them about the spiritual heart condition of Steve Lawson.

What I can do is use this situation as an example to all of us in the body of Christ to continually live lives where we are examining our life to see if we are in the faith.

2 Corinthians 13:5 “5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”

Why do we examine?

-The reality of apostasy

Hebrews 6:4–6 “4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”

-The road to apostasy

When we lack spiritual growth, when our holiness and repentance is not being strengthened, then we are in danger of apostasy.

Hebrews 5:11–6:3 (NASB95) 11 Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. 1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do, if God permits.

Buist M Fanning writes:

Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews Suggested Paradigm

Their endurance through temptation will be the evidence of their vital connection to Christ. The writer asserts that their continuance in faith will demonstrate that they are members of God’s household, not that it will make it so in the future. Holding on to their confidence will reveal the reality they already have come to share in Christ, not what they will share. By continuing in faith, they demonstrate the work Christ has already begun and will certainly accomplish in them

The writer of Hebrews gives a stern warning against danger that falling away or apostasy of the Christian faith is the most severe and irreversible act a person can do in their life. This reality leads the Christian to heed the warning from the Scriptures to truly examine one’s faith in Christ.

We do so because there is always a need to evaluate health. We wear smart watches, we get physical exams, and we take our vehicles in for regular maintenance, all because we recognize the need to evaluate the heath of something and we submit that evaluation to opinion of the knowledge and experience of professionals in that field.

For the Christian, our evaluation comes in a different form that some drive up spiritual checkup. Our conclusion to our study of 2 Peter 1:1-11 is going to show us how we should have an EXAMINED SALVATION.

4. An Examined Salvation (vs 8-11)

A. The Tools To Confirm Our Faith

We begin today by looking at the tools that Scripture provide for us to evaluate the faith. Since we should be committed to the evaluation, we need to know the proper way to evaluate. If you go to a mechanic and he tells you to place your hands on the hood and pray and ask the Lord what is wrong mechanically with your vehicle, I would say immediately get in your car and speed away from such a person. He is not a mechanic.

In the same way, the role we have to evaluate our faith comes with the necessary tools to get the job done. Let’s look at the first tool…

1. Spiritual Fruit/Works (8-10)

Now Peter has already told us in last week’s verses that we play a role in the spiritual growth in salvation. We established the key idea that a person does not produce a work to generate salvation but they produce a work to verify a salvation. Therefore, the fruit of the Spirit are one of the tools that we use to examine if our faith is genuine.

2 Peter 1:8–10 “8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;”

Peter has just given us the cliff notes version of salvation verification with these two conditional statements in v 8-9. A conditional statement is a IF/THEN statement meaning IF _____ exists THEN _____is a true!

If …moral excellence…knowledge…godliness…self-control…love for brethren..love for all are visible in your life, not perfectly, but consistently, then you can use this tool as an evidence that you belong to Christ.

Now Peter classifies these works, albeit using a double negative, as fruitful and useful. Producing fruit for the kingdom is simply a way of saying that your spiritual life is healthy. Jesus used similar language with those religious leaders of his day as a way of condemnation.

Jesus stated,

Matthew 7:15–20 NASB95

15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.

Paul reiterates a similar point in Colossians 1:10

“10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;”

And finally, go back to the book of Hebrews again, and let’s look at the illustration that the writer used to follow up the words we read earlier about apostates,

Hebrews 6:7–11 “7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

Now notice how the writer first illustrates that those who fall away received the same gift of rain like the fruitful field but what came forth was not good produce from good health, but signs of deadness and corruption.

Our good works then help the Christian evaluate the heart motivations of serving Christ or serving self. There is always a good moralist out there who will do good works to serve self, but that wains. In the end, the selfless, fruit producing church goer is a a genuine believer in Jesus Christ, if they pursue and continue in good works.

Not only can we evaluate our faith in Christ by the fruit we produce but we can evaluate by the fruit we continually produce. An apple tree that bears good apples one season but then produces none after that is still an unhealthy tree. A healthy tree bears good fruit continually and increasingly. A judge of genuine faith is when you are not just demonstrating these qualities but these godly qualities are consistently and increasing. Your bible study improves. Your service of others improve. Your dying to self improves. Your longing for Christ in you grows.

2. Spiritual Authorities (12)

Notice with me a second way to evaluate your faith. The second way is to look to the church. Your spiritual authorities in the church and your spiritual family serve to validate, as best as we can, the genuineness of your faith. Notice Peter’s words in v 12

2 Peter 1:12 “12 Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you.”

As a spiritual authority, what is Peter doing here for the churches? He is speaking with authority in helping these churches see the observable godliness in their own lives and ministries. We are not judges in the manner that we make some supernatural verdict of a person’s faith, but we are fruit inspectors, as some before me have called it, whereby we observe so that others exam.

Now envision you go into a Kroger and you start picking up each piece of fruit. You are tapping the melons, you are smelling the oranges. You spend hours in the produce section until someone from that dept comes and asks you what you are doing. You tell them you are inspecting the fruit in the store. What will be there response?

They will think you are insane and may call for medical attention. See, they did not ask you for help and they do not recognize you as some authority to carry out such a task.

What about the body of Christ? We are the standard of living to one anther but Jesus is! He is the standard of godliness that our lives are measured by. The church serves to evaluate faith based not on the perfections of Christ, but on his life lived out in the life of each believer.

If we are genuine Christians, we would invite and appreciate such evaluation and accountability in the body of Christ. If we recognize the reality of apostasy, then we can be comfortable with the church speaking into our lives so we can “make certain that our calling and election is sure.”

Ask someone in the church, “inspect my fruits.” Ok, that sounds strange to say… but seriously, do you see godly qualities in my life. Give them time to answer you honestly and be willing to accept their honesty as a work of the Spirit in your life.

Here is why we need this…

2 Peter 1:9 “9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”

A person who is in the church may be blind to some significant realities of their lives. The observable fruits are not there, but they are moving along acting as if everything is ok. Others in the church help people see that they may be suffering for a blindness, even though they thought they could see.

V 9 is challenging verse to interpret but I think this is the best way to understand Peter’s words. First, this verse is the opposite of the fruitful Christian and so this verse spells out the verdict of a fruitless tree. There is no reason to divorce such a thought from the rest of Scripture. Peter’s imagery he uses here are three fold:

blindness, short-sightedness, and forgetfulness.

All three of these words speak of tragic negative results of an evaluation. Two have to do with our sight and one with the mind. Based on Peter’s wording, it appears he is speaking of those who perhaps once produced but now they are fruitless. They once demonstrated an illumination but now the spark of godliness as gone out! They cannot currently see spiritually what is in front of them, they cannot see the future realities of God’s kingdom because they are literally squinting to see what is in front of them, and they have forgetten the past graces that they confessed to believe in like cleansing and forgiveness.

Peter is describing what Jesus descrbied in the parable of the soils…Let’s look at Matthew 13

Matthew 13:1–10 “1 That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea. 2 And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach. 3 And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 “Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. 6 “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8 “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. 9 “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Now only one of these scenarios described by our Lord is a good and lasting spiritual encouragement. The good soil yielded a good crop over time. The other 3 examples all are unfortunate results of spiritual lostness. One scenario represents one who never comes to faith for the gospel is snatched away. The others two examples display an immediate confession of faith only to eventually apostasize from the confession of faith they once held to.

Who helps a spiritually blind person know they are blind? The Spirit uses those with spiritual heath to help the blind see their blindness and leads them to point to the One who can truly restore their sight who is the Lord Jesus.

Friends, I would urge you to such an evaluation because spiritual honesty is a necessary virtue we all need. Such honesty and transparency will lead to life but an arrogant ignorance about your spiritual condition will only lead you to death.

In our CG this week, Josh was telling us about a podcast where a guy said, (I am paraphrasing Josh, who was paraphrasing a podcaster) who said, those calvinist always want people to doubt their salvation.” This is the farthest from the truth. We instead believe that you can have full assurance in your salvation if you honestly look to see the work of the Spirit in your life.

1 John 3:18–21 NASB95

18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 19 We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him 20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;

B. The Promises To Confirm Our Faith (10-11)

2 Peter 1:10–11 “10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”

The command to test or verify one’s faith comes in v. 10 when Peter says “make certain” but notice in v 10-11 the abundance of promises that given to remind the reader that while tools mentioned above are necessary, our confidence in our salvation is built on the character of God’s faithfulness towards his people.

Let’s briefly look at 6 promises

1.Our Election/ Our Preservation

It is the promise of election that should drive our confidence.

Romans 8:29–30 “29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

When did God begin a good work in You? I would argue according to Romans 8 that his work in you was when he predestined you to salvation before the foundation of the world. When you come to faith in Christ and you begin to understand that your salvation is a product of a love set upon you before the foundation of the world, it gives you hope and confidence in the powerful and loving character of God. Inseparable from the doctrine of election is preservation. In v 10, Peter says that as we practice these virtues, we will never stumble. It sounds like from this reading that the act of obedience keeps us from stumbling, which is partially not wrong. Our obedience keeps our minds and hearts focused on the kingdom way and yet our obedience and the practice of godliness is supplied by the Lord’s power.

Jude 24 “24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,”

2.Our Calling/ Our Growth

Secondly, there is the promise of his calling and his spiritual growth in His people.

John 10:27–29 “27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Your calling is the shepherd inviting you to follow him and your following him is the faith given and the growth that you experience as a sheep of his sheepfold.

Philippians 1:6 “6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

3.Our Entrance/ Our Dwelling

2 Peter 1:11 “11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”

The eternal kingdom belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ where he has been appointed as the Son to rule and reign for all eternity. It is His Kingdom that exists forever and by his death and resurrection, he has supplied for you abundantly access. You do not enter by the skin of your teeth, as some say, but by a measure of abundance because of the grace we have in Christ. The way to heaven is a narrow way but the entrance is wide and abundant because it is supplied by the glorious power and grace of Jesus Christ.

This gives us confidence that if we trust in Him alone, if we display a life of godliness whereby we fight against sin and grow in holiness, then we are promised that we will be with him where he is. That is why I included the words Dwelling in addition to entrance. Jesus provides a place in heaven with him where we dwell securely for all eternity.

John 14:1–6 “1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4 “And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

With the Lord Jesus in this eternal place, we can find rest in Him to dwell for eternity. Jesus uses this metaphor of a dwelling place to speak to our humanness where we find comfort in the place where we lay our heads. We relax when we walk through the door of our personal dwelling places, our homes. We experience the greatest comforts when we are at home.

Now consider an eternity of comforts in the presence of Jesus Christ. If we take it literally, then the new heaven and new earth will be much like what we have today only perfect. Its fun to imagine a new world like ours now, but without sin, without murder, without rebellion against God. I would love to imagine the beauty of this earth and this universe exponentially multiplied in a new eternal home for us with Christ at the center.

Whatever it will be, it will be a place of rest from sin, Satan and death where Jesus Christ is King.

These promises give us great confidence if you test and examine yourselves and see that Christ has changed you. This never means you are looking for perfect, because you will never find that in yourself. What you are looking for is a heart that seeks God, a life that is continually being changed by his spirit, and a hope that is unwavering.

Let me summarize with Matthew 6:33 “

33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”