And for your ministry tonight and for all of you who participated in the early part of our service, let's turn now in the Word of God to 2 Peter as we look again into chapter 1 and think about the theme of this book, which is growing in Christ, the key verse, chapter 3 verse 18, which is evidenced by the manner in which one responds to trials.
It's not really knowing more of the Bible or quoting more verses, nothing wrong with those things of course, but really growing in Christ is our maturing in our experience with God. And that maturing is then evidenced by the way that we respond to the trials of our lives. God has given us life in His Son Jesus Christ and the inevitable result of life is growth.
Although admittedly there may be periods of latency or dormancy, and although growth occurs at different speeds, there is nonetheless growth where there is life. Beginning in chapter 1 and verse 3 of 2 Peter, we learn some basic facts about Christian growth and maturity. In the first place we see that Christian growth is supported by the root of genuine salvation. There is really no growth as a Christian until one becomes one. There is no maturing in the Lord until one belongs to the Lord.
And so the root of Christian growth is genuine salvation. He describes that root as involving faith. In fact, he says it's a faith of the same kind as ours. That is, the faith that has saved you is that same kind of faith that has saved anybody that's been saved in the last however many thousands of years since God's been saving people. It is a reasonable faith. It's not just merely leaping into the dark into whatever may be out there.
It is a reasonable faith that is based upon the promises of God, God who is trustworthy. It is a repentant faith, a faith that involves our turning from all that we've trusted in before to God Himself and God alone. Then genuine salvation also involves knowledge, the full knowledge, the genuine knowledge of God as he talks about it in these verses. It involves a call from God. He speaks of God who called us by His own glory and excellence. That is God's summoning us to salvation.
Genuine salvation finally involves a grant. Because when we're saved, God by His divine power grants to us everything we will ever need in this life and in the life to come. He also tells us regarding Christian growth that it is the provision of God. God has provided His promises, which He calls magnificent and precious. He says that by these promises we become partakers of the divine nature.
We partake of Christ's likeness and in doing so we escape the corruption that is so prominent in our world. He also tells us that growing in Christ is a pattern, it's the following of a pattern. It's not a haphazard thing. He tells us that faith is involved, but out of that faith we are to provide with diligence for some qualities. Qualities that flow out of faith, they ensue out of faith like that telescope you may have played with as a child.
It was just about this long and then you begin to extend it until it was maybe that long. He says that faith, out of our faith, we're to provide for the seven qualities that are mentioned in verses five, six, and seven. In other words, as we grow in our Lord and we face trials, there are times that we will need to evidence moral excellence, a courageous goodness in the face of temptation.
There are times that we will evidence self-control or a true God focus to our lives, or a godliness, or a brotherly kindness. The point is that our growth in Christ follows a pattern, and as that pattern is fulfilled in us, it makes us more like Jesus because really these qualities are an expression of what he was like in the world. He tells us that our growing in Christ is important. It's not something that we can be haphazard about. We are to give diligence to it.
He says it's important because it will bring to us an effective life, verse eight. He says if these qualities are yours and they're increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful. We'll have an effective life. It's also important because as we grow in Christ, we certify our calling. Verse 10 says, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. My growth in Jesus Christ certifies that I've truly been one of his called ones.
And then in verse 11, he tells us that we are to give diligence to grow. It's important because it will bring to us an abundant reward. He says in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be abundantly supplied to you. If we want to have an abundant reward then, it means giving diligence now in growing in our faith in Jesus Christ. So what's the problem? What's the problem?
The problem that all of us have is doing this with consistency because we share a common difficulty. Peter alludes to it. Let me read some verses here beginning in verse 12, our text for tonight. Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you.
And I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is eminent as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind. What is the problem that you and I struggle with that causes us to be inconsistent in our growth? Well, Peter suggests here that the problem is one of forgetfulness.
Somebody has said there's an advantage to having a poor memory. You have less to forget. To err is human, to forget routine for most of us. Somebody has said I have three basic problems in life. The first one is I have a poor memory and I can't remember the other two. All of us have short memories. We have quick forgetters. So Peter in his language here says I want to remind you of some things. Verse 12 he says I shall always be ready to keep on reminding you. Parents know what that's like.
To keep on reminding children. And God knows what it's like to keep on reminding us parents because we easily forget. He says in verse 13 I want to stir you up. The word means literally I want to awaken you out of sleep. I want to stir you up to bring you to full alertness by way of a reminder. He says after my departure I want you to be able to call these things to mind. Why is he saying this? Because these people were just like us. They easily forgot important things.
In chapter 3 he begins the chapter with the same thrust. He says I'm writing to you this second letter in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of a reminder that you should remember. So Peter tells us that the key to being consistent in our growing is remembering several things. We'll just look at a couple of them tonight before we go to downstairs in our time of fellowship. In the first place he says remember the things you know. Notice how he says this.
I shall always be ready to remind you of these things. Again in verse 15 he talks about these things. What are these things? They are the things that they already are aware of. What he calls in verse 12 the truth that is present with you. It's not absent. You know it. The truth was actively resident in their lives. It was there but they needed to be continually brought back to the basics. Remember this. Remember these things.
Peter says if you and I are going to consistently grow it begins by remembering the things that we already know. Old truth must never become commonplace. That's the tendency for all of us. Truth that we've heard before sometimes is counted as trite or stale or somehow unremarkable. So continually we need to be brought back to the old truths. Brought back to the basics in a fresh way so that we are reminded. It's been long said repetition is the mother of learning.
We need to keep on saying the things that we've heard before. Keep on going back to them and bringing them to our minds again. What are some of these things? Well if we just look at the context here it's salvation as the gift of God's righteousness. It's not something that we earn or deserve. It's not something we perform for in order to get. It is the gift of God's righteousness. It is a grant that is bestowed freely upon us.
These things would also include the fact that God has already given us everything that we'll ever need. If we don't remember that we're liable to be out here searching for some new experience. Some new thing that we hope will get us over the top on the Christian life. We'll fall sucker to the line that says, well you need to have this or you need to do that if you're really going to grow as a Christian.
We need to remind ourselves God's already given to us everything that we need pertaining to life and godliness. We may not have used it yet, but it's there. These things would include the fact that our destiny is an eternal kingdom. Oh how easily we begin to focus on this life and its passing concerns. Peter says we need to keep being brought back to this truth that we are citizens of a kingdom that is forever. An eternal kingdom and live like it.
These things would include the fact that it requires effort and discipline to grow in our faith. It doesn't just happen automatically. It requires diligence that we must apply. We are responsible to provide out of our faith for these various qualities and the pattern that he's given us in verses 5 through 7. That's not God's responsibility. It's ours. We are to provide for this.
It comes out of the basic package of salvation that God has given, but we are the ones who are to provide lavishly for it out of our faith. These are the things that we have to keep being reminded of. So easily somewhere, somehow we all tend to lose the wonder of it all. The freshness of God's working in our lives, that early devotion to Jesus. We need to remember the things that we already know.
Peter says if we are going to grow consistently as Christians, we also need to remember the limitation that we face. We see this in verses 13 through 15. You know, easily we forget that our lives are not unlimited. That's especially a tendency when you're young. As you get older, you're reminded more that life is limited. But all of us need to remember the fact that we are limited in our opportunities. There is a cessation to life in this world with its opportunities as well as its trials.
As we received a telephone call the other night informing us of the death of Miriam, John and Lydia Rhodes' daughter in that terrible accident, our hearts were grieved. No sooner did we hang up the telephone than in two minutes we received a telephone call from another direction in Kentucky. We were informed of, again, an automobile accident that took the life of an 18-year-old girl, a friend of my wife, one of her best friends back in high school, nursing school.
An 18-year-old girl coming home from babysitting. It had been raining and the street was flooded and she hit a puddle of water that was deeper than she thought. It threw her into a tree and she was killed instantly, taken into eternity. We all need to be reminded of the fact that we are limited in this world. We don't know when death is coming, but it is coming. We each have an appointment with it unless Jesus gloriously returns first.
It may come for us sooner as it did for that young girl in Kentucky last week. It may come for us later in life, but it's coming. Peter knew that death was coming for him. And because of Jesus' words to him, he knew the kind of death that was coming to him. Jesus mentioned that to him in John 21. One day Peter would be carried forth to a place that he would not wish to go, suggesting crucifixion.
Tradition tells us that Peter chose to be crucified upside down because he didn't feel worthy to be crucified the way his Lord was. We may not know the method by which our lives will be taken from this world, but we do know the certainty of it. Hebrews says it is appointed unto man once to die. When we were young, I say again, we easily forget that.
As we vacationed in Kentucky just three weeks ago while we were there, a young boy in Calvary Baptist Church, 11 years old, was playing baseball with his team. The storm came up quickly, and the team was getting off the field, and lightning struck this little boy. And he was declared brain dead several days later. I married his mother and father, their only son. We don't know the limitation in our opportunities. You say, well, this is morose. Yes, it's sobering, isn't it?
But Peter says if we're going to be consistent about our growing, we need to keep coming back to this truth that life isn't forever and our opportunities in this world are limited. So make the most of them. Peter compares his death here to the laying aside of his earthly dwelling, his tabernacle or tent, which suggests an impermanence or an insecurity in his present situation. This laying aside of a tent is a common picture of death in the Bible. He also calls it his departure, verse 15.
The word there is Exodus in the Greek. That's a word that's used three times only in the New Testament. It's used once of Israel's Exodus, as it's referred to in Hebrews 11, 22. But Jesus uses it, or it's used rather of Jesus, in Luke 9, 31 where it says that Moses and Elijah came to talk with Jesus regarding his Exodus, his disease, his death in Jerusalem. It's interesting, isn't it, that both of these pictures are reminiscent of Old Testament history, the laying aside of a tent, a tabernacle.
An Exodus from this world. Paul calls upon a similar figure in Philippians 1, 23 as he speaks of his death in these words. Having a desire, literally he says it this way, having a desire for thee to depart and to be with Christ. See, that doesn't flow in English very well, no. He's saying, I have a desire for that experience that I would describe as departing and being with Christ.
And the way that he puts it together, he saw the departure from this world and his arrival in the Lord's presence as one step. Just as you step through a door and in that instant you leave one room and you arrive in another. He says, that's what death is like. Departure. And if we're going to keep growing in our Christian lives, then we have to work this thing of forgetfulness. Forgetfulness causes us just to kind of flow along with the current around us.
It's a very casual way to live. Peter says, be diligent. He says, remember. Remember those things that you already know. Call them to mind. They are precious, magnificent things. Don't lose hold of them. And remember the limitations that you're facing in the world. You'll not always have your present opportunities, so make the most of them while you can.
He goes on in the text, in a couple of weeks we'll look at some other reminders, which if we pay heed to, we will keep on growing in our Christian life. Bow with me please in prayer, would you? Are you growing, my friend, in your walk with God? Is your experience with God maturing so that your response to trials today is better than it would have been a year ago or five years ago? You see, that's what Christian growth is.
It's maturing in our experience with God so that our response to trials improves. It becomes more like what God wants it to be. As was suggested earlier, some of us are passing through trials right now. The test is hot. What God is doing, at least in part, is just proving to us and to Him where we're at in our growth. Let's determine to give diligence to this matter of growing in Christ. Father, thank you for these reminders from your Word tonight.
Oh, we would desire that the Holy Spirit would enable us to be consistent and diligent in this matter of growing. And if there are some of us that have grown careless, but we've been in the latent dormant period, kick us out of that and get us moving. Accomplished, we pray your divine will in us. In Jesus' name, amen.