2 Peter 1:3-8 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.
Every
day we make hundreds of choices. We choose to get up in the morning, or not. We
choose to begin our day in a variety of ways. We choose to eat breakfast, or
not. We choose to read the Bible and pray, or not. Within each one of these
choices there are many other choices we might make. Many of our choices have
spiritual consequences for good or for evil. How are you making out with your
choices?
Peter
tells us that we have a responsibility to make right choices. We are to make
every effort to add goodness to our faith. We have the responsibility of adding
knowledge to our goodness. And as we grow in knowledge we learn how to practice
self-control and stability in our day-to-day life. Stability, or steadfastness,
is a choice to be made on a daily basis. As we become more and more stable in
our day-to-day life we will grow in godliness. Remember, godliness is “God
likeness”. And the more we become like God in our day-to-day living the more we
will be able to love one another and accept love from others. As we do these
things, making right choices, we will become more and more effective and
fruitful in our service to the Lord. We need to remind ourselves that…
Rebellion against God is a choice. Rebellion was a choice made by our first parents, Adam
and Eve! The Bible records it in Genesis
3:1-7. Now
the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman,
“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And
the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the
garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the
tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you
die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not
surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes
will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight
to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of
its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and
he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that
they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
loincloths.
When
Satan comes into our lives to tempt us he doesn’t get directly to the point. He
didn’t say to Eve, “I want you to eat the fruit that God told you that you
should not eat.” Instead, he asked a question. He then allowed Eve to explain
the situation. Then he told the lie he has been repeating ever since. Simply
put, he said that God had lied to Adam and Eve. Eve’s first wrong choice was to
listen to Satan. Her second wrong choice was to enter into discussion with the
devil. Her third wrong choice (there probably were more) was to examine the
fruit. Then, her greatest wrong choice was to eat the fruit. Then, the man,
Adam, (who had been there all the time) accepted the fruit from her and he ate.
Their
choice, made that day in the Garden of Eden, brought sin into the world and
consequently death through sin. The result of that choice was that death spread
to all men because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The
first immediate consequence of Adam’s and Eve’s rebellion was that they felt
shame. They had never felt shame before! And immediately they began to make a
covering for their bodies out of fig leaves. Of course, man’s effort to “fix”
the sin problem will never work. God demonstrated that fact for them very
clearly that day.
Adam
and Eve had spent an untold amount of time in fellowship with all the other
living creatures on earth. They had no fear of any of the animals in fact they
felt respect and perhaps even love for the animals around them. Because of
their sin some of those animals had to die. The Bible says that God made
garments of skins. Now, God did not cause those skins to appear as if by magic.
Instead, he had to take the life of innocent animals. This was a visual
demonstration of the cost of sin. From that point forward when a person became
aware of their sin they would take an animal lay their hands on his head
symbolizing the transfer of their guilt to the animal and then take its life and
burn it up on an altar.
That
substitutionary sacrifice symbolizes Christ’s death on the cross! He paid a
debt he did not owe because mankind owed a debt we could not pay. The debt owed
was their life just as it is ours. Because, all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God and the wages of sin is death. Praise God he sent his son to
bear our guilt on the cross. Just as rebellion is a choice…
Repentance is a choice. Listen while I read Colossians
3:5-10. Put to death therefore
what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and
covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the
wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when
you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away:
anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do
not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its
practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being
renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Repentance
begins with a confession of our great need and a commitment to the Lordship of
Jesus Christ. The Bible says that if we confess our sins God is faithful and
just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. The Bible also
says that if we will confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in
our hearts that God has raised him from the dead we will be saved. Our need for
repentance doesn’t end with salvation. As much as some people would like it to
be true, we do not stop sinning when we are saved. I suppose it is possible to
go for a period of time without committing a known sin but it is not likely
that it will be very long before we do, say, or think something that is wrong.
Jesus was very clear on that subject. He said that to be angry with someone is
to be subject to judgment. Within the context that Jesus said this anger equals
murder. In the same manner, lust equals adultery.
James
warns us that a person who doesn’t control their tongue deceives themselves and
their religion is worthless.
One
of the temptations we face is to believe that since we have thought something
that is wrong we may as well ahead and do it. Nothing could be further from the
truth! To have an evil thought against another, or to imagine sexual sin
involves our relationship with God. To actually commit the wrongdoing involves
other people and adds to our guilt. Please, stop the wrongdoing while it is
still in your mind and your life will be easier.
These
examples show us that after salvation we often have to repent. I remember a
pastor who told about his four-year-old son and his “blankey”. They had tried
every way they could imagine to get him to give up his blanket. They had even
made it smaller and smaller but he hung on to it. Finally the pastor’s wife
said to her husband, “I want you to take care of it.” So, he took his son aside
and decided to reason with him. Well, you know that didn’t work! Finally he
said, “When will you give up this blanket?” It was a short time before the
boy’s birthday and he replied to his father, “I think I will when I’m five.”
The pastor said he thought nothing else about it until the morning of his son’s
fifth birthday. He said that while he and his wife were still in bed they heard
the door to his son’s bedroom open and the pitter patter of tiny feet going
down the hall. They heard the back door open and the clatter of the garbage can
lid. His son had “repented” of his “blankey”.
On
a day-to-day basis, we need to take the same attitude about the things in our
lives that we need to repent of.
Rebellion
is a choice and repentance is a choice leading to…
Spiritual growth as a choice. Let’s listen to what Peter wrote for us in 2 Peter 3:18a. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. And
in 1 Peter 2:1-3. So put
away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like
newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up
into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is
good.
Anytime
the Bible instructs us to do something or think something we can be confident
that God will enable us to do it. There has never been a choice that a
Christian needs to make that God doesn’t enable that choice! Not only are we to
grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we also are
able to put away all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.
We
are required by God to grow up into salvation. That doesn’t mean that we can be
gradually saved it means that having been saved we are born anew. And since we
are born spiritual infants we need to mature. Having been born of the flesh we
begin the process of “growing up” physically. In the same manner having been
born spiritually we are to “grow up” spiritually.
Rebellion
is a choice; repentance is a choice; spiritual growth is a choice and…
Obeying God in difficult circumstances
is a choice. I have often heard people
talk about salvation as being “easy”. And also the same people might talk about
living the Christian life as being “easy” because we are enabled by God to do
anything he calls us to do. Let me read an example from Daniel 3:16-18. Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to
answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we
serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver
us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you,
O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you
have set up.”
The
King had been tricked into creating an idol that he required everyone to
worship. The penalty for not worshiping his idol was not just death but
included being thrown into a burning furnace. This was done because his
advisers hated the Jews who were in his service and knew that they would not
worship his gods. By challenging their faith the enemies of the Jews would
either cause them to lose their life or their faith. Well, Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego, could not have been clearer in their choice! They knew that God
was able to deliver them, if he so chose. If God did not choose to deliver them
they wanted it to be very clear that they would not bow down to the golden
image! You probably already know the story. These three men were thrown into
the furnace that was so hot that it killed the men who threw them in.
Afterward, the King came to the opening of the furnace and saw inside it four
men — not three and, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire
without even the smell of smoke on them.
Today,
all across the world Christians are finding that it is hard to live the
Christian life. Particularly in the Muslim countries a conversion to
Christianity is usually a death sentence. It was said during the first
centuries of the church that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
That being true, we should expect there to be real spiritual growth in the
countries where there is oppression.
The
church in China is a good example of what might happen in the next generation.
After the Communists took over the country the pressure on the Christian church
increased from the 1940s into the 1960s. Then the Cultural Revolution came and
Christians were killed all across the country. It is reported that there were
about 5 million Christians when the Communists took over. It is also reported that
when the bamboo curtain came down and we could see what Chinese society was
like there were at least 50 million Christians! One of the greatest concerns
today is for leadership in the hundreds of thousands of churches that are
springing up across China. Pray for them please!
Rebellion
is a choice; repentance is a choice; spiritual growth is a choice and obeying
God in difficult circumstances is a choice. Having obeyed God we discover that…
Godly living is a choice. Everything God calls on us to do God enables us to do.
Listen while read Romans 6:1-4. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
It
seems that a lot of Christians think that since they have security in Christ
Jesus they can live any way they want to. There is no doubt that we are saved
by grace through faith. There is no doubt that our salvation is not dependent
on our works. We are not saved by doing good and we’re not saved by being good.
We are saved by God’s choice of grace. In writing this letter to the Romans
Paul rejected an idea that seemed to be becoming popular in the Christian
church at that time. Since grace is granted by God for salvation and that it
covers all our sin then we might increase grace by increasing sin! Paul was
amazed by this idea. There appears to have been people who were teaching that
grace would increase as sin increased. Paul wanted them to understand that
since we had become Christians we had died to sin and sin had died to us. It is
very foolish to continue in sin in the hopes that grace might increase. Baptism
itself is the picture of our death to the old way of living, being buried with
Christ and rising up to walk a new kind of life.
If
anyone is in Christ Jesus they have become a new creature. The old has passed
away the new has come! We have an obligation to live with a new attitude and
outlook on life. We are no longer to be conformed to this world instead we are
to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. It is sad to see today how the
church is conformed to the world rather than transformed. What the world needs
now is a clear picture of what a Christian is like. The song says, “What the
world needs now is love, sweet love.” I would agree with that if it means God’s
kind of love. And that is “tough love”. Indeed, the love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell. We need to communicate God’s love to everyone
in our world by godly living.
Rebellion
is a choice; repentance is a choice; spiritual growth is a choice and obeying
God in difficult circumstances is a choice; godly living is a choice and…
Loving others is a choice. Remember, if God calls on us to do something he always
enables us to do it. Let’s look at John
13:34-35. A new commandment I
give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are
to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
We tend to think that love is just a feeling that comes upon us without any
control on our part. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, love is
not a feeling it is a willful act. Jesus has gathered his disciples for a long
teaching session. John records this more completely than the other Gospels.
Here, he tells his disciples, and us, that Christian believers are to love one
another. That certainly does not begin as a feeling. It is something that must
be lived out in our day-to-day experience.
It
would seem to be pretty easy to love all the good people in the church. The
truth is not all of us are always “good”! Christians make mistakes, say things
without thought and otherwise are not always good citizens. Throughout Paul’s
letters especially we see examples of his instructing the people to love each
other by the way they act.
Christian
love is more than being nice. Jesus says that we are to love one another in the
same way that he loved us. He loved us by coming to earth, living among us,
taking our sins into his own body, then dying on the cross. Greater love has no
man than this that he lay down his life for another. That is the kind of love
we are called upon to life out!
Then
Jesus said that all men would know that we are his disciples because we have
that kind of love for each other. There is little wonder that the world
increasingly doubts the sincerity of Christianity. If the only evidence that
they have is that we love each other is not very convincing. We may not agree
with each other on things like baptism and the translation of the Bible we use but
we can treat each other with respect. We can do things that show the world that
we are not in competition with each other. Please remember, when God commands
us to do something he always enables us to do it. The choices we make every day
clearly show others what’s important in our lives. It’s nice when we get
recognition from others but the person we most want to see our love is God
himself! Don’t let other people determine how you will live your life or, how
you will feel.
I
hope that in the past you have recognized the need to surrender your life to
the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That is the most important choice you will ever
make! The fact that God knows what choice we will make does not take away from
us the responsibility to make a choice. In fact, not making a choice is a
choice and one we are personally responsible for. To not choose Christ, to not
repent, to not grow spiritually, to not obey God, to not live in a godly
manner, to not deal with our anger issues or to not love others all are choices
that are made every day to our harm. My prayer for you is that you will make
good choices and grow up in the Lord. Do you need to accept Christ as your Lord
and Savior? Do you need to obey him in baptism? Do you need to share a testimony
of God’s goodness in your life? Now is the time. Today is the day. Do it!
All
scripture quotes are from: The Holy Bible: English standard version.
2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.