For the next few minutes and the next few Sundays, I want to speak to you about forming some great spiritual habits.
Today’s Scripture Passage
“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 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. 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. 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. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:2–11).
In my mother in law’s house, there is a really important wall. It’s a wall that has marked our children’s growth over the years. When you walk in and look down, you see little pencil marks on the wall next to dates from years ago. Then as you look eye-level, you more current dates of how these three have grown physically. As I survey that wall, I have a sense of pride in how tall they’ve grown through the years.
Time-lapse photography will allow you to see physical growth over a span of years. But there are no photographs that can show you your spiritual growth.
I want to serve as a catalyst for your personal spiritual growth for the next few moments. I want to encourage you to form some personal habits that shape and focus your life. Most of us want to see dramatic breakthroughs of personal and spiritual growth. We want to wake up one day to see that we have left our superficiality behind. Yet, spiritual growth doesn’t happen this way. Spiritual growth happens through “little advances.” God has designed your growth to happen through spiritual disciples such as Bible study, prayer & fasting, and attending worship regularly. When we devote ourselves to these disciples, we will see growth over time just my mother in law’s wall shows the growth of my three children.
1. You Have the Resources You Need
Like a business needs capital to grow, a Christian needs certain items to grow as well.
Peter informs us that we have everything we need: “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” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
Again, you have everything you need. Jesus has provided everything I need to grow spiritually. Can we say this together? Jesus has provided everything I need to grow spiritually.
1.1 What God Has Provided
The Bible says we have peace through our relationship with Jesus Christ: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2).
But we also have power through our relationship with Jesus as well: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him” (2 Peter 1:3a).
1.1.1 God’s Power and Grace
You need God’s grace and God’s power as your foundation. When (and only when) you have these as your foundation, you are able to pursue spiritual growth. Like Monopoly, you cannot collect your $200 without passing “Go.” And you cannot grow spiritually unless you have first been born spiritually. You cannot grow spiritually unless you have first experienced God’s grace and God’s power as your foundation. You are born spiritually dead but you have to be spiritually alive to grow spiritually. So let me ask you: have you been born again? If you know Jesus Christ, then you have everything you need supplied to you for growing spiritually (verse 3).
1.1.2 God’s Promises
Take note of how the promises of God facilitate your growth in verse 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…” (2 Peter 1:4a).
Now, God has made a lot of promises in your Bibles, but I think the promise Peter is speaking of refers to the Second Coming because he devotes most of chapter 3 to Jesus’ return. All of our life has to be oriented around this one fact: Jesus Christ will return one day and that really matters. God will keep His promise of His Son returning to the earth and judging everyone.
There’s a big difference between taking a course for credit and auditing a course. When you audit a course, you don’t worry when the teacher tells you there’s a pop quiz or a test. You simply shrug your shoulders because you ae auditing the course. But life is not auditing a course because there’s a test at the end. The Lord will evaluate you no matter you religion for we will all stand before the Lord Jesus Christ.
1.2 You’re Called to…
Every Christian is, “…called us to his own glory and excellence…” (2 Peter 1:3b).
When you become a Christian, you need to be aware that you will be morally transformed.
Imagine a bachelor’s pad for a moment. Here is a home where a man’s man lives for a number of years. He has some hunting trophies on the wall but very little matches inside. All he’s every really done in terms of shopping and decorating is to pick out a huge TV, a nice recliner, and big box fan that blows on our single friend night and day. Go to his kitchen and you’ll find wrenches and sockets next to the bread on the kitchen counter. Then he meets a young lady. They date for several months before tying the knot. Soon the bachelor’s pad is transformed with matching curtains, a nice sofa, with a matching dinner china hutch and dinner table in the nearby room. As you enter the very same room where clunky box fan used to sit, you cannot believe you’re in the same room. Now, what has happened? She has not mandated he change the room in order to marry our bachelor but her transformation of the home comes as a result of their marriage.
This is how it works with Jesus. He does not ask you to morally change before you marry Christ but your moral transformation happens as a result of your relationship with Christ. You cannot grow spiritually unless you have first been born spiritually. Peter tells us that one day we will graduate spiritually and morally. One day, our moral transformation will be complete: “…so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature…” (2 Peter 1:4b).
The Bible doesn’t mean you will not become a god. Jesus will always be in a special category in so many ways even when we arrive safely in Heaven. But the Bible tells us that God is sharing so many of the physical, moral, and spiritual traits of Jesus’ resurrected body with His children. Instead, you will be morally transformed one day upon your graduation. When you die, my Christian friend, you will completely escape the corruption of this world (verse 4b). One day you will experience your future resurrected body in Heaven and you will be no longer think sinful thoughts that prayer and Bible study are drudgery.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).
Second, you will one day escape all that sinful traps of your inward moral corruption. You will one day be free of this wicked world that pulls you back into its traps. So the Bible pictures you, my believing friend, as someone is supplied with everything you need to grow.
1. You Have the Resources You Need
2. You Should Pursue the Life You Want
Most of us want spiritual growth but we want it to happen in a dramatic breakthrough. We’re like the 11-year-old boy who complains he isn’t as tall as his older brother. His mother says to him, “East your vegetable and you’ll grow.” But a month later, he says, “I’m eating my vegetable but I’m not growing.” Everyone laughs at this because we know growth takes time. And just like this, the Bible calls on you to do the work needed to grow spiritually: “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” (2 Peter 2:5-7).
2.1 The Logical Relationship
Look at your Bibles for a moment. In verse 5, the Bible points back to the foundation in verse 3-4. In essence, the Bible is saying for you to grow spiritually you must first be born spiritually. Note the logical relationship between verses 3 – 4 and verses 5 – 7. It’s only when you undergone the transformation Jesus brings that you can pursue the qualities for spiritual growth. God gives us the ability to become godly… … it is our responsibility to use the power He’s given us. God gives us the ability to become godly but we are to actually work at becoming people who please God in every phase of life.
2.2 Make Every Effort
If you want to have the kind of life that brings blessing to those around you and here’s “Well Done,” from your Master Jesus, then you have to “get after it.” That’s a phrase that goes around coaching circles: “get after it.” It’s a take no prisoners and make no excuses kind of lifestyle to growing in godliness.
I want to invite missionary Mark Moses to share briefly how the Lord changed his life.
On a summer day in 1965, at the ripe age of 8, I made the decision to put my faith in Jesus Christ and to give God control of my life. A dozen years later, as I muddled my way through college, there wasn’t much evidence that God had control of my life. On the surface I looked fine. I didn’t cuss, smoke, or drink. My grades were OK. I was a good boy.
But my inner feelings were out of control. Embarrassed by physical defects, I felt inferior. Having an introverted personality, I felt socially awkward. Hurting from the heartbreak of broken relationships, I felt rejected. I believed in God, but my inner struggles showed that I wasn’t depending on Him to meet my deepest needs.
Yet, in the midst of all my insecurities there was a vital truth that I held onto like a drowning sailor hanging on to his lifejacket. The truth was this: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. I didn’t want to just believe this truth; I desperately needed to experience it. So, as the calendar flipped over to 1979, I made some big changes.
First, I quite my weekend job at the Star-Telegram that had kept me out of church for 7 years and began a weekday job working at a tow-truck company.
Second, I committed myself to attend my church’s Sunday School, as well as both morning and evening worship services.
Third, I sought out friendship with mature guys who were serious in growing their relationship with Jesus Christ.
Fourth, I joined a discipleship group where we studied God’s Word, memorized Scripture, and held each other accountable in our daily walk with God.
Fifth, I attended week-long trainings, weekend retreats, and other special opportunities to learn, to grow, and to be motivated toward spiritual maturity.
Sixth, I discovered the joy of reading quality Christian books and biographies that further challenged me in growing my relationship with the Lord.
In a short time, my inward struggles blossomed into a new reality: In Christ I had all the acceptance, significance, and purpose I would ever need. He was the only person I couldn’t live without. For some reason that I still can’t fully understand, He really did love me.
There’s a familiar song that says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.” The deeper I plowed into Scripture and experienced God’s presence, the more I wanted to know Him - His love, His character, His wisdom. Truly, the things of this earth mattered less and less as my desire to know and serve God grew more and more.
While I committed myself to know God deeper, He took care of my life’s direction. In 1981, I was invited to serve as a volunteer missionary in the Philippines for one year. In 1983, my church chose me as their college and singles minister. In 1985, I was accepted and appointed by the International Mission Board as a missionary to the Philippines, an exciting journey that continues to this day.
I still get excited at discovering new nuggets of truth in God’s Word. I still stand amazed when I see God drastically change lives, including my own. And I still feel incredible joy, knowing that in Christ I am fully loved, completely accepted, and eternally secure. I am so grateful to the Lord for leading me to make those big changes back in 1979, the fruit of which I will enjoy for eternity.
Special thanks to Mark Moses for his work as a missionary.
Some people think God’s grace should cause you to relax your morals. Instead, the Bible says we should increase our effort … we should turn up our intensity because of God’s grace.
2.3 Eight Virtues
Peter offers 8 virtues for you to grow into beginning with faith and ending with love. Peter chooses to describe it as a series of ascending steps. So think of these eight as a staircase if you will.
2.4 Spiritual Disciples
Spiritual disciples are how you grow. When you commit to reading and studying God’s Word regularly, you grow spiritually. When you seek the Lord in prayer to begin your day, conclude your day, and throughout your day, you grow more like Jesus Christ. God works His power through the spiritual disciples. A recent survey shows just how few people are actually reading the Bible. Americans like the Bible and they say good things about the Bible but more than half of American have read very little of the Bible.
You need 3 things to make regular Bible reading a habit in your life: a reading plan, a place, and the same time each day. You need a systematic plan to read through the Bible. Google the words “Bible reading plan” and you’ll find a lot of options. Read a chapter a day is another option.
Church Attendance
One of the biggest trends that is happening to Christians over the past decade or more is we are attending church less. Many in my generation will allow anything to get in the way of actually going to church. Trends show that committed “church goers” of 20 years ago would attend church around 3 times a month. But many are now content to attend church 1 Sunday a month in our day. W. Bradford Wilcox, sociologist with the University of Virginia, tells us that when a married couple attends church more regularly TOGETHER, they have a 35% greater chance of their marriage enduring.
1. You Have the Resources You Need
2. You Should Pursue the Life You Want
3. You Must Confirm Your Future Home
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:10–11). When these qualities are present in your life as a believer, they confirm your future home in Heaven.
Let’s return to our bachelor friend and his pad for a minute. If you the bachelor’s living room is the same after he tells you he’s married … … if the curtains are the same and wonky box fan is still present in the middle of the floor … … you will question whether he’s really married. For after all, what bride would live in this house? The same is true for the person who tells you they are born again but there’s no moral transformation. The person who remains in their sexual sins and the one who ignores reading their Bible for decades, are just like our married couple whose living room is filled with video games consoles and pizza boxes. We assume that this is home of a young college student but not a married couple.
There are so many Christians who have been sitting in churches clutching their “born again” certificates for a long time, and they haven’t experienced much growth. Too many Christians are simply relieved to know they’re won’t go to hell. You cannot hold onto your born again certificate with one hand and your immoral lifestyle with the other. Sooner or later, you’ll be torn asunder.
3.1 When Personal Growth is Absent
But when they are missing from you life, the Bible says you’re a blind born againer: “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (2 Peter 2:9).
A Christian ought not to be a question mark hanging over her head. But she should be an exclamation point. Friend, you ought not to be a doubting Christian; you ought to be a shouting Christian. You ought not to be “a hope so” Christian; you ought to be a know so Christian. You ought to make your calling and election sure.
3.2 When Personal Growth is Present
Nothing will substitute for your personal commitment to your spiritual growth. Nothing takes the place of you forming powerful convictions in your life. Your older self wants to say to you sitting there today, “Make the time.”
