Add To Your Faith Charity
Add To Your Faith • Sermon • Submitted
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4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
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.
Not being diligent and adding to our faith things God defines here is a cause of unfruitfulness.
Complacency, in the Christian life, brings numbness
Not going forward brings a backsliding spirit in our life
The christian life is a race - move forward, grow, excel, fight
Godliness = God likeness
Brotherly kindness
Charity = Offering ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of others
There is a call to every child of God to be a bright witness, understanding the vital message and being available at all times to share the message.
God has the right to ask you to share your testimony every time He gives you an opportunity; are you ready to share your testimony of His grace and salvation in your life.
27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
There is a mystery that God wants to reveal - Christ in you
That’s the great mystery that needs to be known in this world
God is building a spiritual message in you that He want to show the world!
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
There is a work that has been happening in you, right?
The Gospel message is the same, but your testimony is how that worked specifically in your life
Charity is the desire to increase in ability to share your personal testimony of how God has worked in your life.
The bright witness for Christ is instant in season and out of season
His love for Christ makes him ready to talk about his Saviour
His love for others who are in Christ encourages him to show that love.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Love produces bold proclamation
Do you remember times that you have to tell someone about your Saviour
As our love deepens for Christ, our desire to share Christ with others should strengthen.
As our love deepens for Christ, our desire to fellowship with the believers should strengthen.
If we aren’t adding charity to our life we are in danger of forgetting where God brought us out of.
A bright witness for our Lord is not ashamed to identify with other Christians.
When we feel like we’re thankful we’re saved and on our way to heaven but we don’t want to talk about it or we don’t want to spend time with others who are saved - we are not being a bright witness for Jesus.
8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
Identify with brothers and sisters in Christ
Identify with your church
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Instant in season and out
15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
Ready always
Do we hesitate to share the gospel
Do we hesitate to encourage another Christian
Suffering allows us to grow if we allow God to work
Pressure allows us to shine more brightly if we’ll allow
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Patience = cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy: - enduring, patience, patient continuance (waiting).
Perfect = complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.); neuter (as noun, with G3588) completeness: - of full age, man, perfect.
Entire = complete in every part, that is, perfectly sound (in body): - entire, whole.
Wanting = to leave, that is, (intransitive or passive) to fail or be absent: - be destitute (wanting), lack.
Charity = Agape love
Charity is beyond brotherly kindness in it’s reach. Charity is a Godlike love that reaches outside the realm of Christianity and touches those who are not saved.
Godliness is responding to hurts and hardships like Jesus.
Brotherly kindness
Charity = loving people inside and outside the church with God’s love.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Suffereth long - you are patient with people, long spirited,
Kind - everywhere - in church and out of church
a coffee - You are kinder than
You have no business as a believer to be harsh with anyone
Envieth not - rejoicing because someone else gets blessed
In church and out of church
Vaunteth not itself = bragging, boasting
Puffed up - Proud
Unseemly - unbecoming, not appropriate,
We have no right to be ugly with others
Seeketh not her own - not selfish
Adding to our faith charity - means allowing God’s love to start at our home and be shared with the world
Lord, please allow me to love my family to day as you would.
Please allow me to love my boss today as you would.
Please teach me how to love people who annoy me, like my coworkers. I want them to be loved by you through me.
You might be able to love another brother and sister in Christ - but how are you doing with loving people who are not believers in Christ.
Can everyone that witnesses you react to life understand that God is good?
Can everyone that hears your words understand that God is good?
Can all who see you work, know that God gives you strength?
Can all who see your decisions, know that God gives you wisdom?
God rewards bright witnesses
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; That bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; That saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
Dont be contentious with people
God allows things to happen to give you an opportunity to shine!
Easily provoked - to exasperate: - easily provoke, stir.
Thinketh no evil - injurious: - bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked.
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things,
believeth all things, = believes the good, has faith in others
hopeth all things, = Wants the best for others
endureth all things. = perseverance and patience
We are the salt
We are the light
We must add to our faith charity
When those who are saved do not live in the Spirit and develop charity we lose our brightness and preservation qualities and will be powerless
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
Genuine charity never fails = how incredible is that promise
3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
That is our goal
To add and abound
Genuine charity flowing out of our life unto others
When we shine there are blessings
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.
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.
Suffering like Jesus suffered
Quitting, uncommitted, in then out, happy then sad, hot then cold
That’s not God’s plan for us and that’s not what God intended the world to see from bright witnesses for Christ
Godliness - responding like God
Brotherly Kindness - ready and willing to meet the needs of other Christians
Charity - the offering ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of others
Ongoing adding
Continual increasing
vs 8 - they will make you
Lord, I want to become brighter and more fruitful for you.