Climbing the Ladder of Faith
Notes
Transcript
Learning to Play
Learning to Play
I took lessons to learn to play guitar when I was in middle school. I remember that I started with single one note songs. Classics like Mary Had A Little Lamb and Bah Bah Black Sheep. I was taught scales that I was supposed to practice, that would give me muscle memory for where those notes were and increase my dexterity. After that I learned simple one note songs I started to learn songs that used the major chords. Multiple strings strummed together that created a fuller sounding note made up of the individual strings acting in concert.
Today I can play the guitar, but honestly not very well. I didn’t spend the time on some of those steps that I should have spent more time on; things like practicing scales were kind of boring to me, and playing songs like Mary Had A Little Lamb was lame from the perspective of a 12 year old. I learned some songs that I thought were cool that used only some of the more simple chords. As a result, I never have progressed past the point of being just and OK guitar player.
This morning as we open our Bibles to 2 Peter Chapter 1 we are going to look at the process of sanctification.
The New Hampshire Baptist Confession of 1833 which of all of the historical confessions is probably the easiest confession for me to confirm defines sanctification like this:
We believe that sanctification is the process by which according to the will of God, we are made partakers of his holiness; that it is a progressive work; that it is begun in regeneration; and that it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the continual use of the appointed means-especially the Word of God, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer.
To put it more succinctly: Sanctification is the process whereby a christian becomes more and more like Christ as he or she matures in the faith.
While you are turning to 2 Peter 1:5-8, I will tell you that this passage has been called The Ladder of Faith and it is list of the progressive steps in sanctification. It begins with faith and culminates in love. So follow with me as I read:
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This mornings message is entitles Climbing the Ladder of Faith
Pray
Add It Up
Add It Up
In 2 Peter 1:5 do you see the word add? add to your faith virtue. In Athens Greece there were drama festivals in which a rich person called the chorēgos paid the expenses for the chorus. He was a lot like a producer in movies and television today. He along with the poet and the state got credit for putting on plays. It was pretty expensive, but wealthy chorēgi competed with their equipment and training of the choruses. Michael Green’s commentary on this passage says that
The word came to mean generous and costly co-operation
So as we read through this progression of sanctification that we find in 2 Peter we read this word translated and ἐπιχορηγέω (epichorēgeō) epi meaning on and choregos meaning generous and costly cooperation
And so it is with our sanctification that it isn’t a work we do on our own, nor is it a work only of the Holy Spirit, It is a work done in cooperation with the Holy Spirit and often with great personal cost and effort.
The Progression
The Progression
We are going to spend our time, this morning, looking through the progression of sanctification. It’s going to flow a little differently as we step through this list. And we have to start at the beginning...
Faith
Faith
The foundation is faith.
But, to clarify, to have faith is to have complete trust and reliance. The question of faith isn’t a matter of sanctification it is a mater of salvation. If you don’t have faith, if you don’t trust and rely on the work of Christ to save you from the consequence of your sin then you aren’t Christian, you aren’t ‘of’ the faith.
The Scala Sancta are a set of 28 steps that lead to the church on St. Lawrence in Rome. The tradition for these steps is that they were relocated from Pontius Pilates praetorium in Jerusalem, and that these were the steps Jesus had to climb on his way up to be tried by Pilate. They were relocated to Rome and the claim was that if you climbed these steps on your knees you be able to reduce your time in purgatory after death, a place that Catholicism teaches is where souls go prior to heaven to finish paying for their sins. I will state clearly now, we have no such teaching and deny that such a place exists, our bible tells us in 2 Cor 5:8
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
If we are absent from the body, our Bible says we are present with the Lord.
A priest by the name of Martin Luther climbed these steps on his knees and while climbing Habbakkuk 2:4
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: But the just shall live by his faith.
It was coming back to this biblical truth, that ‘the just live by faith’ that the protestant revolution began…It’s foundational and tragic that so many throughout history, who called themselves Christians had lost this understanding. Christians become christians by repenting of their sins and putting their faith in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. As Ephesians 2:9 states
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
But we are to add to this faith, virtue. The roman concept of virtue, or excellence was to perform the function for which something is intended. A knife that has attained excellence is a knife that can perform the job of cutting, a cup that has attained excellence is a cup that has the ability to hold water.
There is an age old question, what is the meaning of life. That isn’t something that follower of Christ should need to wonder. Isa 43:7 tells us
7 Even every one that is called by my name: For I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
We have been created for the glory of God and the Christian life that has obtained virtue or excellence, that is fulfilling his purpose is that life which is giving glory to God.
Knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is to be added to virtue. Knowledge here isn’t talking about book smarts or trivia, it is practical knowledge. Wisdom. And it is knowledge of the truth.
A lot of human wisdom today is based in lies. Those who have rejected God have fled to theoretical science as a harbor from the notion that there is a God, who they must answer to, for their thoughts and their actions. But the science that they call upon to defend their rejection of God isn’t science but rather theory. Just a guess that can’t be proven. It, itself is faith, but not in God, instead it is faith in the imaginations of men.
There is a quote that has been requoted in one form or another for decades if not centuries. I like Guy Finley’s version
What is true never fears investigation, what is false…fears everything.
We are to add to our faith knowledge, but true knowledge. This isn’t denominational knowledge or tradition, or preference…this is the knowledge that once the claim to knowledge is made, you can open the word of God and support that claim of knowledge using scripture, and scripture taken in context.
Anything that we cannot find chapter and verse for is not the knowledge of God it is the wisdom of man
Temperance (Self Control)
Temperance (Self Control)
Temperance means Self Control, and it is a governing of ones self according to the godly knowledge we have acquired. Romans 6:18 reads
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
So as Christians we are no longer in the bondage of sin but are made free to be the servants of righteousness. We now have the means to resist temptation
Patience (Endurance)
Patience (Endurance)
Then we add to that patience or endurance and as Christians we can withstand hardships and difficulties.
In Philippians 4:13 Paul speaks to his ability to be hungry and suffer and he says
13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Paul says that he can endure whatever comes his way by the grace of Christ.
There is a common expression, and you have likely heard some version of it:
Don't pray for God to teach you patience–you won't like what he'll put you through to learn it!
And it may be that many Christians are hung up in their Christian growth because they refuse to put in the effort, to add to their self control, patience.
In Aristotle’s writings patience and self-control are contrasted
‘Self-control’, says Aristotle, ‘is concerned with pleasures … and endurance with sorrows; for the man who can endure and put up with hardships, he is the real example of endurance.’
Godliness (Piety)
Godliness (Piety)
The first 4 items on this list seem to be entirely inward focused.
Godliness added at this point, what we might call piety comes at an interesting place on the list. We could say of someone who is pious that they are religious. But what is religion without virture. What is religion with out knowledge, what is religion without patience and endurance. That form of religion is cultish and ineffective in anything other than propping itself up at the expense of the adherents.
Paul is instructing Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:3-6 of how a servant should behave towards their believing masters. Along the way he gives a strong rebuke to those who would pick up the trappings of religion but to do so without the teaching of our Lord being foundational in that religion:
3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
So many have come to see the religion of Christ as a place to fulfill personal ambition and Paul warns to stay away from those people.
And how can we identify those people. These are those in verse 4 who promote envy, strife, railings (meaning slander) and evil surmising. Surmisings means to have an opinion based upon scant evidence, and so evil surmisings means to have a bad opinion based upon scant evidence. If we look a the beginning of verse 4 our bible says that these are those who are proud, knowing nothing. Unfortunately I think we would not have to look far to find preachers and entire churches that don’t just exhibit these behaviors but are defined by them.
Brotherly Kindness
Brotherly Kindness
To our godliness we are to add brotherly kindness. You know this word in Greek because there is a city in Pennsylvania named after it. φιλαδελφία (philadelphia) … The City of Brotherly Love. In the broader sense of the word, it would mean an affection towards an ‘in-group’ but in the New Testament it is used to mean the affection that Christians have for other believers.
This is such a strong imperative that in 1 Jn 4:20 we read
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
Many people claim that they can be fruit inspectors, examining the actions of other believers and concluding the state o their spirituality, I would argue that they could look for this one quality…love for other Christians…and it alone can tell you more about someones faith than any other quality. In no uncertain or negotiable terms, if you do not love your brothers and sisters in Christ, you do not love God.
Charity (Love)
Charity (Love)
And then at the pinnacle of sanctification we arrive at Love. In the King James Version we read the word charity here, it’s a hold over from the Latin caritas meaning christian love.
In the Greek this is the word ἀγάπη (agapē). Agape differs from Philadelphia (brotherly love) as agape love is a much deeper love. It is love that hasn’t been earned and is based upon the inherent value of the one being loved, and that value being the value that God has placed upon a person. This is the kind of self-sacrificing love that we read about when we read of in John 15:13
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
and this is what we read of in 1 Cor 13:13. The Corinthians were squabbling about spiritual gifts, all of which at some point were going to pass away but he says that charity, or love never fails in v8 and concludes in v13
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Abound
Abound
Let me close with what we find in v8 of our passage this morning. 2 Peter 1:8
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s not just that we should have these reached these points of Christian maturity. Faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. We should abound in these things, growing stronger and stronger in them as we continue our walk with Christ.
Verse 9 concludes gives us a warning from which we will conclude
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Pray