Click here to view the entire service
2 Peter 1:5-6, Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, [6] and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,
Building is exciting. I worked for a contractor for about a year in 1990. We built homes in the Seymour, Indiana area. As in any building venture, you do things in the right order, following the blueprints, laying the foundation, then framing, getting the roof on, installing doors and windows, running electrical and plumbing, dry walling, blowing in insulation, painting the walls and staining the woodwork, installing cabinets, appliances, carpeting, even landscaping in some cases. Sometimes we made mistakes and had to start over. My boss’ mantra was, “Whatever it takes!” We applied all diligence and supplied one thing after another to get the job done and get it done right. It was exciting.
That’s exactly what Peter is telling us in our passage. If you are a believer in Christ, you are to build your Christian life, and that’s exciting. You start with the foundation of personal faith in Christ alone, which God sovereignly lays in your heart. No other foundation will do. When the storms of life slam against your spiritual house not built on Christ, it will go down in a great fall. What is the foundation of your life? Can you sing, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand?”
Beginning with the foundation of faith in Christ as your Lord and Savior and empowered with God’s divine power and magnificent promises (vss. 3-4), God says you are to diligently supply in your faith seven qualities given in verses 5-7, capped off with agape love in verse 7. Peter says these qualities are necessary to live a useful and fruitful life for God (v. 8). Who wants to live a useless, fruitless life? Last week we looked at the first two: moral excellence and spiritual knowledge. There’s an order to all these qualities. You need moral excellence or virtue right there at the beginning. Knowledge without moral excellence makes a fine hypocrite. We’ve all known people with religious heads as big as beach balls but bodies the size of a mouse. All air but no substance.
So we are to apply all diligence as we build these qualities into our lives, doing the right thing in God’s sight and learning as much as we can of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Proverbs 2 says we should let out all the stops to dig into God’s Word, to cry out for wisdom, discernment, and knowledge. I love the story in Pilgrim’s Progress of Christian and Faithful in Vanity Fair when asked, “What will you buy?” They said, “We buy the truth,” based on Proverbs 23:23, “Buy truth and do not sell it.”
The next three Christ-like qualities in verse 6, self-control, perseverance, and godliness, are so practical and good. We don’t need a lot of “the Greek word means” here. We know what they mean, mostly. What we’ve got to do is diligently, aggressively, and progressively build them into our lives by the grace and power of God. We’re in a war with the world, our flesh, and the devil, and these three forces call forth every ounce of diligence we can muster by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our business is to fight. The Spirit’s business is to feed our fight with His power so we can win daily skirmishes. Paul put it like this in Galatians 5:16, “Walk by the Spirit, and you’ll not carry out the desire of the flesh.”
Let’s look at these next three qualities briefly and then expand a bit.
- Self-control means living within God’s boundaries.
- Perseverance or endurance means staying true to God regardless of the pressures and troubles we meet, refusing to quit or give in.
- Godliness means aiming our lives at pleasing God every day. John MacArthur calls godliness “the highest of all virtues.”
THE GRIP OF SELF-CONTROL
Galatians 5:23, “The fruit of the Spirit is…self-control.”
Self-control isn’t just human effort. The Spirit empowers believers for self-control. The word literally means “ruling yourself.” We all know becoming proficient in any skill requires self-control. Caitlan Clark didn’t learn to shoot 3-pointers accidentally. Aleks didn’t learn to excel at the piano without lots of practice, which requires self-control.
Christ said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” That’s self-control. That’s dying to your selfish desires and obeying Christ, whether you feel like it or not!
Paul compares your Christian life to an athlete’s exercise of self-control.
1 Corinthians 9:25-27, Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. [26] Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; [27] but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
Athletes practice self-control for a perishable wreath but Paul says he runs and boxes and disciplines his body, making his body his slave and making it do what he knows God wants him to do. He refuses to let his body detract him from living for Christ. He beats his body into submission in order to honor Christ all the way to the end of the race.
So how do you practice self-control? First, be aware when you got saved the Holy Spirit took up residence in your heart and body, but He didn’t eradicate your flesh. That’s the battle Paul describes in Romans 7. Your flesh is like a serpent that slithers around just waiting to lure you, betray you, and seduce you into pleasing yourself rather than God. This is where self-control comes in. Proverbs 25:28 says a man without self-control is like a city without walls. City walls served to protect the people from enemies. Nehemiah came back to Jerusalem to build the walls of the city to keep the bad guys out. The most important walls in your life are the walls of your heart. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart with all diligence.” Live within God’s boundaries. Set up a security system to sound an alarm when it spies any movement of sin. Self-control is quick to smash and crush and deny the first movements of that ugly flesh.
Who needs self-control over your tongue? You ladies will be studying that famous passage in James 3 shortly. And the passage was written to men as well. Paul gives great counsel for those tongues in Ephesians 4:29, “Let no unwholesome word fly out of your mouth….” The very moment you’re about to open your mouth and let a pack of mad wasps come flying out, stop yourself immediately. Get a grip on that slippery muscle and determine to obey God by saying something gracious, edifying, and encouraging. Or, based on Proverbs 17:28, don’t say anything at all; “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise.”
God told Cain in Genesis 4:7, “Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” That’s self-control, plain and simple. Using God’s Word you remember you belong to Christ, He died for your sins, and you are in Him. As Nathan preached last Sunday, “To live is Christ.” So live to please Him. Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 looking on a woman with lust makes you guilty of adultery in your heart. Self-control is God’s means of conquering those sins of lust. Self-control means you mortify them, put them to death. Like that red lizard in C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, you have to be willing to kill those desires that lure you into sin.
Paul said people in the last days will have no self-control. This is our culture – out of control!
2 Timothy 3:1-4, But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. [2] For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, [3] unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, [4] treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
So apply all diligence to build self-control into your Christian life. The battle for self-control is fought primarily in your mind. It’s a battle with lust, passion, desires, and thoughts to please ourselves. Even our anger is a lust to please ourselves. Our reactions reveal who’s in control. “Someone crossed me, I’m not getting what I want, and I’m not happy about it. I can’t let him get away with it.” Who’s controlling you when you get angry, bitter, full of malice? Other people! God doesn’t say let other people control you. And self-control extends to all of life: how we use our time, our money, our eating, our sexual desires, anything that does not glorify Christ.
What’s out of control in your life? Have you ever fallen asleep at the wheel and ended in the grassy median going 60 mph? I did on the Pennyrile. And I needed self-control to get the metal monster under control and back on the highway without killing someone. I needed to exercise self-control rather than panicking. That plumber airplane passenger got that Flydubai deadly flying machine under control and saved 174 lives. We need to get our lives under God’s control. Where have the godly walls of your life been breached? Where do you need the freedom of self-control to conquer your out-of-control desires? Remember, self-control is the fruit of the Spirit and God has given you all the divine power and magnificent promises to get that grip of self-control in your life to honor your Lord and Savior. Self-control leads to endurance.
THE HOPE OF ENDURANCE
Hebrews 12:1-2, Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, [2] fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Self-control deals with bringing your inner selfish desires and ungodly pleasures under God’s rule. Perseverance or endurance means hanging in there in the face of the severest difficulties, sufferings, and oppositions. When everything inside you is screaming to quit, go back, give up, run away, you don’t! I recently read David McCullough’s 1776. Our war of independence was as much a battle of endurance as bullets. In the cold, the snow, the rain, without food, shoes, little or no pay, many of those soldiers caved and went back home. But many of them persevered. They kept the purpose first and foremost and endured incredible hardship. Our independence wasn’t won cheaply.
But we have a greater calling and purpose and goal – to endure any trials to please our Lord and Savior. He endured the most difficult battle of all as He faced that cruel cross, not only to be crucified but to bear the wrath of God in our place. Matthew 26:37 says He was grieved and distressed. Luke 22:42-44 says He was in agony, in anguish, crying out, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will but Youri’s be done.” That’s self-control – getting a grip on His own heart and enduring, refusing to quit regardless of the pain. Why? Hebrews 12:2, “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross.” That’s the hope of endurance!
I love Romans 5:3-5.
Romans 5:3-5, And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; [4] and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; [5] and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
James 1:2-4 agrees perfectly.
James 1:2-4, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, [3] knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. [4] And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
God uses trials to grow our endurance “muscles.” As they say, no pain, no gain. Ask Job. Job was beat up from top to bottom and all around but he endured. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” and “When He has tried me I will come forth as gold” (Job 13:15; 23:10). James has a comment on this.
James 5:11, We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.
When you face difficult times, troubles, suffering, diseases, and persecution, remember that God is sovereign and has allowed this trouble to come. It didn’t happen by chance. Rejoice in God’s sovereignty in the trials that call for endurance. God has a definite purpose in each trouble, and mainly it is to help us grow to become more like Christ (Romans 8:28-30). Diligently add endurance. Don’t quit. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” That’s endurance, all the way to the finish line. Self-control leads to endurance.
THE DEVOTION OF GODLINESS
1 Timothy 4:7b-8, Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; [8] for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
This is that beautiful word that describes the character of men and women who love Christ and aim their lives every day toward pleasing Him, loving Him, and praising Him from their hearts. John Murray adds, “The fear of God is the soul of godliness.” There’s a fake form of godliness in 2 Timothy 3:5, “having a form of godliness but denying its power,” and 1 Timothy 6:5 talks of false teachers who use this form of godliness or religion as a means of making money. Wiersbe calls them “religious racketeers.”
Paul tells Timothy the pursuit of godliness requires discipline. That word is the source of our word gymnasium – “gumnadzo.” Godliness doesn’t happen automatically. Jay Adams wrote, “Godliness is the goal toward which every believer must discipline himself and toward which he must move every day…. It is by willing, prayerful and persistent obedience to the requirements of the Scriptures that godly patterns are developed and come to be a part of us.” Joseph feared and loved God enough to refuse to sin against God when many men would have melted like cotton candy: “How can I sin against God and do this evil in His sight?”
SO WHAT?
Self-control, endurance, and godliness. What beautiful qualities in a child of God. How many celebrities the world has honored who have crashed and burned because they lost control of their lives. Monitor your speech, your reactions, your use of time, money, food. Do they demonstrate self-control? How many people have quit the race? They grew tired of enduring. So much godlessness is all around us. Determine to refuse to quit the race. Diligently aim your life at pleasing God every day, building godly habits into your life. As these qualities increase in your life, you will be neither useless nor fruitless in building your life for Christ’s glory (v. 8).
But this isn’t merely human moralism. These qualities won’t get you to heaven. This is progressive sanctification, growing in grace, motivated by faith and love for Christ. Only personal faith in Christ will get you to heaven. John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.” Is He your Lord and Savior?