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One thing I forgot to mention earlier is we've got on the information desk there are some reports,

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financial reports for the church that the year just completed and also a proposed budget for next year.

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If you'd like to have that a week ahead of time to look through, it is available there tonight for you.

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Next Sunday evening is our annual meeting and I hope that all of you will plan to be here

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and especially those of you who are members.

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Now let's open our Bibles together to 2 Peter chapter 1 where our text will be verses 8 through 11.

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We'll read God's Word first.

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For if these qualities are yours and are increasing,

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they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted,

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having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

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Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling in choosing you.

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For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.

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For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

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will be abundantly supplied to you.

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Our growth in Jesus Christ is not measured by our theological knowledge,

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but rather by the character qualities that may be seen in us.

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One can have a THD and still be a spiritual dud.

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One can argue the fine points of theology and yet live like the devil.

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Growth in Jesus Christ is not measured by the degrees we may have on the walls,

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the length of the Sunday school pins we may wear on our lapels,

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or the number of Sundays we have attended without any absence.

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But our growth in Jesus Christ is measured accurately by the character that is displayed in our lives.

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In the earlier part of this text, in 2 Peter 1,

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we are told to diligently seek to supply out of our faith seven traits or character qualities.

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The absence of these traits indicates serious spiritual health problems.

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In fact, Peter tells us in verse 9 that if we lack these qualities

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that are mentioned in verses 5, 6, and 7,

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it means that we are in the first place blind, spiritually blind,

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or short-sighted is another way of saying it.

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The word that he uses for short-sighted is the word that gives us our word, myopia.

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That's what I suffer from, among other things, short-sightedness.

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I can tend to see things up close. The older I get, the less that's true.

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But for a long time now, I've had a difficult time seeing distance.

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That's myopia.

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Peter says if we do not add to our faith qualities like moral excellence, courageous goodness,

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if we don't add knowledge, the true knowledge of God, if we don't add self-control

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and the ability to endure in the time of trial,

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and godliness, and brotherly kindness, and love that sacrifices for the welfare of others,

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if we don't add these things, then we are suffering from a spiritual eye disease.

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We're blind and short-sighted, but not only that.

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He says we are suffering from spiritual Alzheimer's disease.

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He says we've forgotten purification from our former sins.

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Have you ever known someone with Alzheimer's? It's a terrible mental disease,

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a disease of the brain.

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A dear lady who is a friend of our family suffers from this.

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And several years ago, she got to the point of not even recognizing her husband of nearly 50 years.

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And today she is in a home in Ohio, not knowing anybody that she's known through all the years.

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Her personality has changed, totally oblivious to the reality of what's happened in her life

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and really what's happening at the present moment.

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A very sad state.

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Peter says that you and I can fall into the same disease spiritually and forget what we've been saved from.

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It is refreshing to all of us to hear a man like David stand up this evening,

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who is close to his conversion date and can recount how God has changed his life.

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The fact is that many of us would have a hard time remembering.

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It's easy for us to forget what we've been saved out of and what a miracle God has performed in our lives too,

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even if we were saved as children.

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He says if we are not adding to our faith these traits and qualities,

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which really are a reflection of Christ himself,

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if we are not growing in this way, we are diseased Christians.

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We are blind and short-sighted. We suffer from forgetfulness,

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not remembering that we have been saved out of awful sins and cleansed by God.

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He says, in essence, that such individuals are apparently saved, but they're not living like it,

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because of the spiritual dry rot that is set into their souls.

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I was speaking with a father this last week who shared with me a terrible decision that his daughter has made,

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a decision to leave her husband and her four children, the oldest of whom is just turning 13.

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She's tired of it. She doesn't want the responsibility anymore.

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And of course the story is complex.

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He recounted when she walked into the home and shared with her father that she was going to do that.

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And after he got over the initial shock and the stun of that announcement,

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he said, well, honey, are you saved?

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And she said, well, daddy, I'm saved, but I'm terribly mixed up.

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Well, that's an understatement.

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She's not only mixed up, but she has fallen into the very trap that Peter's warning about here,

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a failure to grow, which has ended in disease that is not only destroying her,

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but is affecting tragically the family that she's brought into the world.

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How does a person get into such a state as that,

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where decisions are made that destroy oneself and destroy a family and destroy other people?

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How does one get into that kind of a state?

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The answer really is very simple. It is not hard.

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The answer is a Christian gets into that state when he or she fails to grow in Jesus Christ.

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That is the importance of growth.

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It's not a matter, well, I'll grow if I feel like it, and if I don't, I won't worry about it,

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and it'll all come out in the end the same anyway.

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Bad thinking.

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Failure to grow leads to tragic consequences in one's life.

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The importance of growth cannot be overstated.

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We must grow in Jesus Christ or face the ugly consequences that will inevitably come.

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The consequences of deterioration in our character,

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resulting in personal tragedy and ultimately God's disapproval on our lives.

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The increase and the presence of these qualities listed in verses 5 through 7

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provide three extremely important results in our lives.

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The first result is an effective life. We see that in verse 8.

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There is a danger, you see, and the danger is that we may waste our lives by a failure to grow in Christ.

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A failure to add to our basic faith these other qualities that round us out and mature us.

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A failure to grow results in an abnormal immaturity,

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which if it persists results in a failure to achieve one's potential in life.

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Well did the poet write,

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of all the words of tongue or pen,

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the saddest are these what might have been.

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I cannot tell you the tragedy accurately. I cannot depict it good enough.

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But you go to some place where there are older people

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and you search out a Christian who has failed to grow in his or her life

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and who looks back upon a wasted life and you will see heartache and you will see tears and bitter remorse.

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And it cannot be reclaimed. What has been wasted is gone.

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I remember when I was in high school our pastor would take a group of us young people

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and some older people to a nursing home once a month.

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And there we would sing and then put on a service for them.

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In one particular home I well remember a lady who must have been close to 80 years of age.

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Whenever we would have the service she would sit in the chair and just weep and weep and weep.

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One day she invited the pastor and some of us to come up to her room and so we did.

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And up there she showed us some of the precious things, the few precious things she was able to bring out of her life

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into these cramped quarters where she was spending her last days.

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And she explained to us why she was weeping in our services.

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She told us that when she was a teenager God had called her to serve him on the mission field.

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And her parents didn't want her to go. They wanted her to stay with them.

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And so she turned her back on the calling of God and stayed with her parents.

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And she went on to explain to us how all of her life she had lived in regret of that decision.

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That is an awful danger. To live a life that is wasted, an ineffective life.

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One of the wonderful results of growing in Christ is an effective life.

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There is a dynamic that is involved here.

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The supplying of these qualities that he mentions in verses 5 through 7 will produce two very desirable ends.

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He says God will render you, God will bring you to a place of usefulness.

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Now Peter says it negatively. I'm changing it to make it positive.

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But if we in fact do increase in these qualities, he says that we will be useful to God.

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There will be something active and industrious and effective about our lives.

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We will reach our maximum potential for God if we give ourselves diligently to growing in Christ.

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It's worth it.

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And he also says the second result will be that there will be fruitfulness, productiveness.

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There will be a positive and expected outcome from what has been planted within us.

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Why be diligent about spiritual growth?

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Because in the first place it will lead to an effective life.

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Spiritual effectiveness comes to as one develops in the genuine knowledge of God.

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And these character qualities are added to the life.

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And we are either gaining ground or we are losing ground spiritually.

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We are something like a canoe that is in a stream of water.

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As long as you're paddling the canoe, you are making progress.

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But the moment you stop, the current begins to carry the canoe the other direction downstream.

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The same is true spiritually.

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As long as you and I are paddling away diligent in growing in Jesus Christ,

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we are making progress and our lives will be lived effectively.

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But when you and I stop being diligent about growing, we begin to float downstream.

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It's worth it to be diligent, to focus on, to concentrate on growing in our Christian walk with God.

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There's a second result of doing that that is very important.

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Not only will we have an effective life, but he tells us in verse 10 we'll have a certified call.

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What is he saying here?

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Well, notice he says that we are to be diligent,

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to make certain about God's calling and choosing of us.

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God's choosing of us refers to His election.

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The fact that God in His sovereignty chooses some sinners

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to be rescued from their deserved and self-chosen judgment.

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God chooses some to be saved.

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He has done this in Jesus Christ before the foundations of the world.

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You and I can give a testimony like we heard tonight at the time that we found Jesus Christ

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and accepted Him into our lives or begged Him to come into our lives.

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The fact is that we were chosen long before God even spoke the world into existence.

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God looked into time and irrespective of anything meritorious or worthy about us

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because there are none of those things, God says, I will graciously save these.

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What about the rest?

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God simply allows them to go where they want to go.

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He allows them to live out their lives in the direction they desire to live them out,

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for justice to be fulfilled.

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You and I must bow the knees and thank God that in His grace He has chosen us in Christ,

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for if He had not, we would never have responded to the call of God.

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Now the calling is the second thing he mentions.

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That's the work of God in salvation, in summoning us to believe on Christ.

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A few years ago I got a summons from the county.

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I was to appear at the court in order to be available for jury duty.

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And only if I died and maybe one or two other potential things happened could I miss that date.

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It would have been easier to die than to fill those other two things that they mentioned.

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I was to be there on that Monday morning and I was not to have any excuse for not being there.

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Well, in an heavenly spiritual summons, God called us to faith in Jesus Christ.

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Chosen before the foundation of the world, but in the history of our lives,

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at that moment that God had prepared, He called us.

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And He used seed that was sown ten years before or three weeks before or whenever it was.

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But He called us and awakened our heart to hear His voice and we responded in faith.

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Now notice what Peter says about this.

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He says, be diligent to make certain that you're one of the chosen and one of the called.

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Make sure about it. Make sure.

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This verb comes out of classical Greek language.

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It was used originally by the Greeks to refer to a warranty deed,

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which of course proves that one possesses something.

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It was also a word that was used in those days in the validating of a will to authenticate it that it was genuine.

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Here's what Peter is saying.

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He's saying when you add these qualities to your life,

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when you develop your character to be like Jesus Christ,

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what that does is to provide evidence that your salvation is genuine.

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And notice that this is our responsibility.

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He says, you be diligent to be certain that you are called and chosen of God.

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Well, for whose sake are we doing this? For God's sake?

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Are we trying to prove to God that we're one of His chosen, one of those He's called?

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No, of course not. God knows His own.

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We're giving evidence to ourselves and to others of the genuineness of our conversion when we grow in Christ.

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One of the reasons some people struggle with the assurance of their salvation is that they are not growing and they're floating.

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And that doesn't provide assurance for the heart.

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As long as you and I are growing in Christ,

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there is assurance in our heart that we are genuinely God's children among those that He has chosen and called to be His own.

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I have never known a growing Christian who doubted his salvation.

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Inevitably, doubts come in a time when we are floating downstream.

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Then notice the last part of this verse, verse 10.

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As long as you practice these things, what things?

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Those character qualities that he's talking about.

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As long as you practice these things, as long as they are present in your life, you will never stumble.

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He could not write this more strongly.

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He puts two negatives together, which in the English is very poor grammar, but in the Greek it's very good.

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Two negatives make a positive to us. To the Greek, two negatives underscore the negative.

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What he says here is that you will not never by any means stumble.

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This is just as certain a statement as the one in John chapter 10 where Jesus says,

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and they shall not never perish by any means.

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You and I are guaranteed that as long as we are practicing these character qualities,

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we will not stumble in the Christian life.

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Stumble here means to fail.

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We're not going to trip up to experience reversal and misfortune.

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Who does trip up?

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Well, the answer is those who are blind or short-sighted.

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Those suffering from spiritual myopia stumble.

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If I take my glasses off now and try to navigate around this church,

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I would probably come back a little bruised.

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I can make out the big things. It's those little things that get you.

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It's possible to be that way spiritually and to stumble.

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Who is it that stumbles? It's those who are immature,

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those who are babies.

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It's possible to be an abnormality in God's family,

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to be a handicapped child of God by our own choice, our own failure to grow.

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He says if we are growing, we will never stumble.

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We will have an effective life in the first place if we are growing.

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And secondly, we will have a certified calling.

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And the track record of our lives will testify to us and to other people,

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this person is truly a child of God.

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It's worth being diligent about this matter of growing.

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And finally, he tells us that if we are growing,

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there will be an abundant reward. Verse 11.

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When you and I are practicing these things,

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we are adding, supplying richly these things in our lives,

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these character qualities.

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We will have an abundant reward.

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You see, our destiny is the Kingdom of Heaven.

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That is our hope.

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The eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that is mentioned here.

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Today's trials are easier to take in light of tomorrow's prospect,

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Christ's Kingdom, that place where He will exercise His rightful authority.

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He tells us that one day you and I are going to have some kind of an entrance into that Kingdom.

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And He says that if we are growing Christians,

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we will have an abundantly supplied entrance.

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A welcome home celebration.

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We might put it this way.

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We'll have the mother of all homecomings.

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When we get to Heaven,

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we will be glad that we gave diligence in this world to growing in Jesus Christ.

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Because you see, the implication seems to be here.

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It's possible to squeak into Heaven without this kind of an entrance.

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But who wants to do that?

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He says give diligence to growing in Christ,

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becoming mature in Christ,

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so that when you enter into Heaven there will be an abundant entrance.

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The Apostle Paul may have in mind here what was a tradition in that day.

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Olympic winners were often welcomed back to their hometowns

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throughout the Roman Empire

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with special entrances that were built into the city wall in their honor.

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A brand new gate was put into the city wall,

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and these Olympians were brought through the gates.

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It was their gate dedicated in their honor,

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and that was their entrance into the city.

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And great celebration, ticker-tape parade sort of thing.

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Peter says, look, give diligence to growing,

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so when that day comes and we enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

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there may be a rich, abundant, Mother of all homecomings entrance for you.

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It's important to grow in Christ by diligently supplying out of our package of faith these character qualities.

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Come back and think about those tonight before you go to bed

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and ask God to add those to your life

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and determine by His grace that from this time forward,

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perhaps like you have up to this point,

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but certainly from this time forward,

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you are going to be diligent to see that these things are increasing in your life

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so that you can enjoy these great results,

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an effective life, a certified calling that you're a child of God,

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and an abundant entrance into the Lord's eternal kingdom.

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Let's pray together.

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Lord Jesus, I pray that we will not be satisfied just to float along with the current of things.

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As we are in the stream of life,

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may we be busy and diligent and serious about our Christian walk.

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I pray that will be true of every teenager who's here,

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every junior high or every high schooler,

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every college student, every single adult,

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every young married person, middle-aged person, older person.

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Wherever we are in our lives,

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may there be a seriousness about the things of God,

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a seriousness about growing into Christ-likeness

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so that we can enjoy the blessed results of that kind of a life.

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May we press on with diligence.

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In Jesus' name, Amen.