Well, good morning church and I feel like I just need to say Happy Fall, y'all. Because that's what all the signs are saying, these days.  Man, I hope that the last couple of weeks, you have had a chance just to enjoy the common graces of college football on Saturdays, playoff baseball during the week and family time.  You know, it doesn’t get any better than that. That's all that I got to say no matter what virus is going on. That is incredible. A big shout out last week to Pastor Marty Godfrey for bringing the word last week out of Romans chapter 12. Let's give him a big old thank you for last week. Man, I just love it. Just getting to hear good preaching every now and then. It's awesome to do out of those guys. Hey, if this is your first day, or whether you're joining us online, for the first time, welcome, welcome to the family. It's a great day to be here. Because we're starting a new series today it is the start and nobody likes to be left out of the party. So today is day one of a new series that we're calling, Forever Faith.  Forever Faith because that's ultimately the goal, right, is to walk out our faith forever and ever and ever and ever. And what we're gonna do, just as a family, here is we're gonna walk through this little letter on the backside of the New Testament called 2 Peter.  2 Peter. Now, when I say the word 2 Peter, I can daresay no matter how long you have been in church, you probably haven't spent significant time in 2 Peter.  I don't know really why other than the fact that we just always skip it. We love some Philippians maybe spread in a little Galatians every now and then. Not to mention Romans, especially for our reformed friends all over the world. We love Romans. But for some reason we leave this book 2 Peter out. 

So, I thought, hey, I don't like people being left out. Let's look at this book, right? Let's see what it has to offer. But here's the thing.  2 Peter has been left out a lot of times. In fact, if you look at history, here's a little Bible bingo question for you right here. 2 Peter was one of the last books to be kind of accepted into the canon of Scripture.  It took until like mid 300 AD for 2 Peter to finally be stamped as yes, by the Holy Spirit. It is from God. And here's the cool thing. It happened at a place called the Council of Hippo. There's one for ya.  You probably have never heard of it. But just thought it was good to say.  How many times do you get to say it?  And I love this book 2 Peter, because here's what it does for us. Even just a cursory reading, like a fast reading of 2 Peter, you start seeing that 2 Peter is incredibly relevant to where we are right now. And here, let me just kind of give you a little background. It's written by this guy named Peter.  Right? It's 2 Peter, it's the second of his books, all right, of his letters. It doesn't take a theologian to figure that out. It's number 2 on the list. And this guy named Peter was one of the Apostles. Not only was he just an Apostle, we just spent a whole series looking at one of the events that kind of changed his whole life and the trajectory of his faith called the Mount of Transfiguration. He got to be at that.  He was also one of the guys that Jesus appeared to first after the Resurrection. He was in the garden of Gethsemane prior to Jesus's Crucifixion. He was actually the guy, check this out, that after Jesus came back and rose from the dead, Peters one of the first guys that preached at Pentecost, right? He was the guy that stood up in front of everybody in the power of the Holy Spirit and said, this is who Jesus is. This is the Peter we're talking about. I love him. Because Peter, not only did he kind of follow the model that a lot of us like to live, but he also had a little bit of a mouth on him, right? He had a little bit of an attitude problem sometimes. And that kind of brings him back down to our level sometimes to know that you know what, that guy every now and then he kind of said, what he thought before he took account of what he was saying, I don't know if you have a problem with that, but I know some people that do have a problem. I'm one of them. But here's what Peter does. Peter gives us this incredibly, incredibly great snapshot into what it looks like to live the free forever faith and he can do it right? Why? He was one of the inner circle three disciples that spent the most time with Jesus. He spent the most time walking with Jesus. And here's the incredible cool part about this letter is that it is the last letter that he wrote. It's the last one. And so what I want you to feel, just as we walked through this little letter to these Christians, is I want you to feel as if here's an older guy, here's a guy at the end of his life and he's looking back, right, he's looking back at believers, he's looking back at Christians that have been scattered, that are scared, that don't really know how to deal with all of the pressures of life. And he's looking at all of these believers, he's already written 1 Peter and warned them that it's coming. This is a couple of years later, probably about 64 AD, Peter knows that he's about to die. He knows that this is the end for him. Jesus has already told him he's gonna be martyred for his faith.  And Peter is in Rome, and he's looking at everything that's going on in culture. And he's really just going we got a dumpster fire going on here. I mean, we've got like an incredible, I mean, the sky is falling. And let me give you some wisdom.  You know, it's hard for us as kind of 2020 Americans to put ourselves in the shoes of biblical people sometimes.  But I want you to know something about the people that he's writing this to. They're part of the Roman Empire. They're part of the Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire at this time is what?  It's the most powerful empire that's ever been on the earth.  It has the greatest military, of anybody that has ever had, has more money than any other Empire on this planet.  Has the strongest kind of road system of anybody ever. And here's the deal. It's imploding at this very moment that he's writing this letter.  

Catch this, because if this isn't something familiar, you don't have the internet. All right?  Here's what's happening. They got these political problems going on, right? I mean, I don't know where those come from. I mean, they've got these political problems that are going on.  This guy named Nero is in control right now and, he's kind of out of control a little bit, but he's the best they got at the moment. And they're like, well, alright, here's Nero. And he's like, out of control a little bit and then not only that, they've got this economic problem that's going on. They don't have a pandemic on their hands. But they just had this fire that literally burned all of Rome for six days, the whole city of Rome, burned down, which turned into, catch this, a social problem. Why? Because the Roman Empire was incredibly diverse, had lots of cultures, has lots of races, had lots of demographics of people that were living in it and as a result of the political problems, and the economic problems, as a result of all this going down, all the cultures turn in to just themselves and they decided, hey, we're just gonna do life with our family groups. And we don't really care about the rest of the groups. And as a result of that, it showed them that they had a spiritual problem.  It showed them that they had a spiritual problem.  Well, what do you mean?   All these false teachers started to rise up. And here's what's happening in Rome at the time, these people are coming out of the woodwork claiming that they're speaking on God's behalf. But they're really just false prophets, their false people and they're wrapping God's name around all of this stuff. So, catch this.  It's kind of like we're looking into a mirror right here. There are political problems, there's economic problems, there's social problems, there's spiritual problems. They literally, the sky is falling on Rome right now and now Peter, I love this through the Holy Spirit with wisdom, knowing that he's about to go, he says, hey, I need to tell you something.  I need to tell you something.

And he speaks to the believers. Now, look, if that doesn't ring a bell, I'm really not sure how much more I can push it. Because Peter begins to speak. And here's what I know. There's something about the words of a man that's about to go, isn't there? There's something in the words of a man that knows that, hey, he's coming to the end of his life. There's something about a man that has walked faithfully for years and years. And Peter right here in the mid-60s, he was martyred in 66 AD so this was probably just before that. He says, hey, I need to tell you something. He speaks to the believers then and listen, he speaks to us now. So, let's read it. Here's what we're gonna do the next couple of weeks. We're gonna read some scripture, we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna read some scripture, we're gonna talk about it. And we're gonna see where it's gonna go on my calendar 4 weeks, but we're gonna see where God goes,all right?  Here goes, 2 Peter 1:1, there's a lot here. So hold on.  "Simon Peter, a servant, and apostle of Jesus Christ."  Now pause right there for a minute, I promise we're not gonna pause that much the rest of the book, but here's what I need to tell you this. Peter here, he does something incredibly, incredibly important. What he does is he starts with both of his names. He starts with Simon, that's his birth name, right? That's the one that his mama gave him out of the womb, Simon, that's your name Peter. But then he also starts with this name, Peter. Now, who gave him the name Peter?   Jesus did, great, I love the interaction we got going on, right? He gave him this name Peter, which literally meant rock, it literally meant that you are Peter one of or if not, the piece that I'm going to build all of this onto.  I'm gonna build my Church on.   I'm gonna build the structure of what this is going to look like. And so, Peter comes out of the box. And he identifies himself as Simon Peter, his old name attached to his new name. And what he's doing is he's building a long track record of faithfulness, and he's looking at the people that are struggling, he's looking at Christians all over the Roman Empire, that are just living, and they're scared. They don't know what to do. They don't know how to face the false prophets. They don't know how to face the persecution; they don't know how to face the dumpster fire of economy of all this is going on. And he looks at him and then Peter does something that's incredibly, incredibly important for us to see.  Peter, not only does he move from this description of his name, but he moves into these three descriptors of himself. That really, he's challenging us to be. He's challenging us, and he's telling us that we're called to be a couple of things. Look at the verse it says this, "Simon Peter, a servant," he begins by saying this, a servant of Jesus.  Here's the thing number one, God has called us to become servants. Now look, we've kind of lost this a little bit, because I'm at my best when I'm serving me, right? I mean, you know let’s just be honest with each other. I'm at my best when it's my wants, and it's my desires, and it's my stuff that's on the table. That's when I work my best when I know it's about me. But what does Peter say? He says, no, no, I am a servant of Jesus.  The word servant there is the Greek word doulos. And it literally means that I am one who has submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  I've come to a point in my life where I realized that He is Lord, and I am not. And what He asks of me is of supreme importance. That's what it means. So, it literally is Peter, this guy is at the end of his life, he's looking at it and going, I know you got a lot going on. I know, you've got a lot of questions you want me to answer, but you got to realize, first off that you are called to be a servant of God. That means that we're possessed by God, we are.  We're at the disposal of God, and that everything that we do, and everything that we should say, should be in a direction that is moving towards God. So let me just ask you a piercing question before we move on. Do you see yourself more as a servant of yourself or as a servant of God? It's a litmus test, right?

Do you see yourself, oh here's another one? Do you see yourself more as a servant of your family? Or let me get even more personal, as a servant of your kids as you do a servant of God Because Peter, he could have said anything first, right? He could have said anything. He identifies his name. And he says, first off, you are called to be a servant submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but he doesn't stop there. Number two, he says this, we're called to be apostles. We're called to be apostles. He says, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle.  Now look at number two right here for you grammar-nazis, I've already lost you. I know it. I got it. All right? I saw you but you're like Matt, look at that, you blew it right there. No, I did.  A $7 million budget and he can't even put a capital A on there, right? Here's the deal. There it is. I put it there on purpose. Because this is what I want you to know.

The word apostle literally means one that is sent out by another on their mission. Now we get a little squirmy when we talk about apostles, right?  We get a little squirmy because some of us have been taught that we just stay away from that word, and it doesn't make sense anymore. But here's what I want you to know. Here's why I put that as a little a. Some of you just couldn't do it. You're like, I can't write it as a little. Yes, you can. Here's why. There are two types of apostles in the Bible. There are two types. And you need to know this. This is important as you read. The first type is the big A Apostles, it's the capital A Apostles? That's the 12, right? That's the 12 plus Paul, that's another day. That's the 12, right? Those are the guys that were called by Jesus that walked with Jesus that experienced His Crucifixion, that experienced His Resurrection, and Ascension and walked with Him and did miracles in His name.  Those are the Apostles, capital A Apostles.  We all right, we are the little a apostles all right? You'll never forget little a apostle that's who you are. You at the moment you give your life to Jesus. What have you done? What have you done? You have agreed you have given your life over to God to be sent on his mission and not yours.

That's what it means. Right? So, when you're reading the Bible, sometimes you're reading about the Apostles that's capital, but God has also called us to be apostles. What does that mean? That means that we have given our lives to be on mission for who?  For God and not ourselves. And not ourselves. But I love this word, picture. Because Peter, I mean, just put yourself in the moment. Peter could have said anything he wanted to; nobody would have challenged him. He was in charge, right? This is Peter that's talking. He comes out of the box, and he says, hey, listen, I just need you to know right here, I could say anything. But Jesus defines me, and I get my worth and I get my value. First of all, I'm just a slave of Jesus. I am His, and I'm not mine. And He says, and I'm been sent by Jesus, you're feeling the two sides, right? I'm a slave of Jesus and I'm sent to Jesus.  I'm a servant of Jesus and I'm sent by Jesus. And look all week long, this has been heavy on my heart. And this is why because I just think some of us need to hear this. Because if we could get ourselves out of the identity of trying to just make something of ourselves, or putting ourselves on a pedestal, and begin to see that it is God's promise, God's power, and God's calling that we're a slave to, and that we've been sent to, then  a lot of that stuff's not gonna matter anymore. It's just not.  A lot of the pressures that we're just falling, like how I am and what is my vocation and who do people think that I am if we can submit to the fact that we're a slave, and we are serving, and we are sin to Him, then look, the rest of the stuff really doesn't matter. And I love that the leader of the church that could have postured himself, they could have put himself up on a pedestal was like, no, no, I'm nothing but a servant and I've been sent.  That is a message for life.  It's a message for life and it gets us out of some identity issues, but I can feel the tension.

Because when I read the Bible, and I see people like Peter, I'm like, but he was there, God, I wasn't there. I mean, God, he got to see it. Right? You know, you've said this, you know, you've read like when they get to experience the miracles and see the stuff, you're like, but God I didn't get to do that. Peter knew that. So, look at the rest of the verse. He covers it.  "Simon Peter a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, have received a faith as precious as ours."  Now pay close attention to what Peter says, Peter says, not only am I a slave, or a servant, not only am I an apostle of my sin, he says number three, I have been called and you have been called to be righteous with equal standing. Righteous legal standing. Now, when we read the New Testament, I know this is real churchy. I couldn't come up with a non-churchy way to say this. Here's what I'm saying. When we read the New Testament, we see guys like Peter.  When we see the power, when we see what they got to experience, when we see these incredibly high things that God did for them, and it's huge. But I want to encourage you with something that Peter says right here.

Peter looks at us and he looks at them. And he says this, hey, listen, your faith is as precious as my faith. And I know it might take a minute for that to soak in. But you're looking at the guy that rocked the big a Apostles, St. Peter. And he's looking at us and he's looking at all of us, and he's going, hey, listen, you have the same salvation that I do and it's only because of the righteousness of Jesus. Now, what does that mean? That means I want to point this out, because this needs to encourage us that all of us have been justified by the same blood of Jesus. That means that the disciples that we look at, we have the same power. We have the same presence of God in our lives, we have the same salvation in our lives. And look, we have equal standing at the foot of the cross through Jesus's righteousness of any person that has ever walked on this planet. So here's what I want to tell you for some of you, you're are struggling with life right now, you're struggling with an identity right now, you're struggling with who you are right now. If you have given yourself over to the person of Jesus, here's the deal. You have equal standing at the foot of Jesus, and nobody can take that from you. Nobody can. That's encouraging. Why?  Because that means that Peter faith is not different than my faith, on a salvation basis.  

It's the same blood of Jesus, it's the same righteousness of Jesus that did this for both of us. We have equal standing; it means nobody has a more special salvation than you do. Than you do.  So when you lay down at nighttime, and you're struggling, you need to thank the Lord Jesus Christ that your salvation, no matter if it was yesterday, or 40 years ago, is the same salvation of the Saints that we're looking at in Scripture.

It says right here, in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made him who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."  You see, when we think about these heroes of the faith, we put them on these pedestals so many times, but look on a salvation basis, it's the same salvation, the same power is offered to you. Ephesians 1:18, Paul says it like this, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength that He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and he seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms."  From the moment of salvation, we all possess equal standing before God, how? Because of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now notice there's no pause and that God and Savior Jesus Christ, what did Peter do? He called Jesus, God, this doesn't happen very often in the Bible. But Peter validated it and the Jews missed this, that Peter validated that Jesus was, in fact, God. So, what's Peter saying right here? He's saying, hey, look, I know it's hard. I know, it's hard. I know, situations in life are hard. But you've been called to be a servant, you've been called to be an apostle, and you've been called to level ground at the foot of the cross through the righteousness of Jesus. But here's where we got to look, before we go any farther in this book, we have to pause, and I need to ask you this. Have you given your life over to this? Have you given your life over? Because here's what I know, this isn't about attending church. This isn't about being baptized when you're a baby. This isn't about any of that. What this says is, there's a moment in our lives, there has to be a moment in our lives, where we reach to God, and we say yes to His calling. Where we say, yes, you are, Lord, and I am submitting myself as a servant, and to be sent so that now I'm walking, at the foot of the cross. Let me ask you this. Have you there ever been a point in your life where you've given your heart to Jesus?  I'm not talking about going to church.  I'm not talking about knowing that there is a Jesus. I'm saying, has there been a part of your life, has there been a moment in your life where you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, to come into your life and become your Lord, become your Lord, because if not, you can settle that right now. You can settle it because salvation is available. It's available.  The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, that you can be saved. Listen, all morning long we've talked about this next kind of text moment. If you're at the moment in your life where you're like, Matt, I need Jesus because I don't even know. I'm not even sure where I'm at. I need somebody to talk with me to make sure that I know that I need Jesus. If you'll text that today, here's the deal. You don't have to wait to the invitation. You can get on your phone right now, I don't know if you're taking notes or playing Candy Crush, it doesn't matter. All right?  You can get on your phone right now and you can just text that word next and just say, hey, I need Jesus. And can I tell you something at that very moment you have equal standing at the cross.  Your sins don't matter anymore. They're gone. He's forgiven you. But let's keep going.  Look at verse two, because Jesus speaks to the heart of what He wants for you and what He wants for me.  Peter tells us right here what's happened. Look at verse two, it says, "Grace and peace be yours in abundance".  That's what we want, right? Don't we really want that in our lives at the core of who we are, we want grace and peace?  Look at how he says we get it.  "through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord."  Now remember, faith is the baseline.  He's speaking to believers right here. We don't pursue a faith God pursues us in faith. But what does he say? He says that there can be an increasing of grace and an increasing of peace in our lives by seeking the knowledge of Jesus. Now, what does that mean? That means this, if you want more grace, and you want more peace, to be put into your life, it's not a moment you just pray about. It's a moment that you pursue and knowing in an ever incremental day by day by day knowledge of Jesus, that's what he's saying right here, He's saying that we know Jesus through salvation, but we know more of the heart of Jesus, we know more of the peace of Jesus, we know more of just Him taking and consuming us. When he transforms us, when we walk in His name, here's the thing, you'll never be more saved than you are at the moment that you receive Christ as your Savior, you can never be more saved, but you can be more sanctified. You can experience more peace, and more presence and more power of God and your life. But this is why some of the most miserable people I know, are so called believers that aren't walking with Jesus.

This is why.  Because they got one foot outside of the world, and then they don't like them, right? They're like, I don't even know why you're making those decisions, just come be with us. But then they got one foot outside of their faith, and they're miserable, because they don't have the grace and the peace in their life. They're caught in this middle ground. And here's the deal. Here's all I know about standing in the middle of the road, both sides hit you. That's where it is.  That's where some of us are living our lives. You want to know if your identity is truly in Jesus?  It's when you get to this point in your relationship with Jesus, where you're just going, Jesus, I need your peace and I need your presence. And here's how I can get it, I start taking these steps. And here's the cool part. Peter doesn't stop there. Because that's where most pastors will stop. They're like, do it right? And they're like, see you later, go get some lunch. No, no, no Peter doesn't do that. Look at verse three. He says this, he tells us that it's not in our own power that does this, it's God's, look at our story.

"His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life, through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." Now that's a really big run on sentence right there. All right?  That's really hard. So, here's basically what it says, because I think it's important for us to know what he does right here. It says, hey, you need to be walking after Jesus to get that knowledge to walk in knowledge to be ever increasing. But it's only about Jesus's promises that you can do that. And he gives us five things that Jesus gives us right here in order to do it. I've put them in your notes just so you can have them for the week. Number 1, Jesus is the giver of divine power, divine power. This is what the verse says.  What does that mean? That means it's not our power that walks this out.  It's the power that He puts in us. But not only that, he's the giver of divine generosity, of generosity, that just means this that we don't deserve what Jesus has given us. And the moment that we think we deserve it, we fall into pride, and we no longer walk in it. But number three, he's the giver of divine promises. He's the giver of these divine promises. And, that's the Holy Bible, right? All through the Old Testament and the New Testament, we see all these promises that the New Testament says there yes, in the name of Jesus and the power of Jesus. That's what He gives us. But not only that, number four, He gives us an inheritance, to His divine nature. You know what that means? That means that the moment you give your life to Jesus, he takes your heart of stone, listen to this, and He gives you a new heart. Ezekiel says, now what does that mean? That means when you become a believer in Jesus Christ, you no longer have an evil heart. He gives you His, He gives you a new one. So, you don't need to walk around defeated, you are given His divine nature. But number five, He also gives you an escape from the world's corruption. He gives you an escape. Now what do all these things have in common?  They're all gifts from God that Jesus gives us as we're increasing our knowledge, as we're increasing our faith. They all come with faith, but they all continually increase as we walk out our faith, as we walk out our knowledge of who God is. And Peter says, it's through these things that grace, and peace are incredibly promised to us. So, this is what I want you to hear this morning. It's not from the promises of other people that we need to find our strength.  It's through the promises that God the author and perfecter of our faith has given us the promise of grace and peace and power and generosity and his promises and divine nature and an escape from the things going on around us. Listen, that's more than any of your girlfriends or boyfriends or husbands or wives can ever give you.  It's more than any new grandbaby can give you.  It's more than any job can give you.  These are the promises of God and here's the incredible part about the promises of God, is He fulfills them.  You know, I I saw a whole lot of promises yesterday watching football on ads, right? You know where I'm going with this right? There's a whole lot of commercials about promises from both colors and animals right now. Right? A whole lot of promises. But here's what I need you to know about promises from God. They're yes. They're yes, no matter what's going on. And here's the cool part about it. They're not on our identity, they rest on His power. And so here's what Peter does. I love, love, love this.  Peter takes us and shows us our identity, that we're apostles that we're servants, and that we're standing equally at the foot of Christ, he shows us that it is only through the power of God that we can walk these things out. And then we can have these promises. And then he leaves us with a practical way of how we can invite more grace and peace in our life. Because here's what I know about myself. I love a good list. I love a good list. Don't talk to me in kind of 50,000 photo ethereal views. Give me a list. All right?  Give me how I can kind of check this off, was exactly what Peter does. Peter walks through this Greek Socrates list. It's kind of this literary list and doesn't matter. But it just kind of builds virtues on top of each other. And what Peter says is, I'm about to give you how you can walk out these promises and have peace, keep reading, he gives us the tools.  Verse 5, "For this very reason." He's writing to believers, right? It's a second letter he's written them. "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and knowledge, self-control; and self-control perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and mutual affection love."  Look of verse eight, I love it.  "For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure." What does that mean? You don't just get them at once.  It means you need to keep on walking in them.  "They will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."  What is Peter say right here?  He says, hey, you need to make every effort to place on top of your faith. Now, know this, nowhere in here is Peter saying that you need to work for your faith. He's saying you work out of your faith. He's saying this use faith as the foundation and add to faith and he gives us this list of seven things. And here's my goal for this week, I want you to get these seven things on some kind of piece of paper. And I want you to pray one per day this week, because it's this list. Listen to me. It's this list built on top of faith that will begin you walking in a direction that you're going to begin to see more grace and more peace in your life.  That's what Peter is saying. He gives us these seven things and let me just give them to you. Number 1, he says that we equip our faith by adding a faith filled goodness, a faith filled goodness. Now what does that mean? A faithful goodness is basically the point this, we have been given faith through Jesus, right? His righteousness, He's already told us that. But now we begin to put our lives in a morally excellent, virtuous is the word that most writers use life that reflects who God is.  That means this.   That means that we don't just claim that we have faith and go out and live how we want to live.

It's exactly what it means. But some of us feel like hey, as long as I've got my salvation, as long as I got this thing down, I can just kind of do what I want to right now. And I can call some blessings down from God, he's like, no, doesn't work like that.  Maybe just maybe there's no grace and peace in your life right now, because you're not beginning to walk the goodness of God out in your lives. He starts with goodness. But then he says, add some faith, built knowledge. Now these are like stairs, they're adding on top of each other, the foundation is faith. And now we're walking up these if you want more grace and peace, and this is what you need to do add some faith filled knowledge and what that means is it's the practical, taking what is up here, and what is being poured into us and pressing it down through our lives to where we begin to walk it out. That's what it means. It's a right understanding of deep things. It's the practical application of the right things in our lives. Now I need you to see this is a process, right? Faith has to come first; we will never have the knowledge of God until faith is built in our life. And then we will never begin to walk out this knowledge until we decide to put goodness in our hearts. And then we start to see the deeper things and they're transferred from our minds to our hearts. And then look at the third one. He said add some self-control, some faith filled self-control. Now don't nudge that person beside you because this is the one right here, right? This is the one. What that means is its that inner strength to control my desires.

Now that's sticky right there. Because here's what I hear a lot of times, well Matt, you just don't understand who I am. You just don't understand. It's just my nature. We already talked about nature.

You just don't understand Matt, I'm number eight on the enneagram and this is just what I do. That's not what he says. He says we need to get to a point in our lives where we begin to be ruled by truth, not emotion. That's the step here. That's the next step of the steps, right? He said, hey, put some goodness, that's the moral living, put some knowledge as we begin to understand the truths of life. And then when you begin to understand the truth, then what happens, then you receive some self-control. See, some of us start trying to get some self-control before we start getting the truths. God give me self-control, give me self-control, maybe, He wants to put some truth in you first. So you know how to walk it. And then He says this, add the self-control, perseverance remember, these are a process, you have to walk it out.  This word perseverance here is this word picture of someone putting a heavy load on their back and walking in a direction towards a goal. That's what it means.  Some of your Bibles here, they may even have the word patience. But it's not just an inactive patience, it's an active patience of I'm going to continue, no matter what is happening around me to walk in this direction, toward a goal. Now, here's the thing, if you don't know the knowledge, if you don't have the faith, you can't have the perseverance to put you on a path to the goal. I hope you're seeing the process here. Every day, I want you to pray one of these this week. And then he says, add some faith filled godliness, godliness and I love this faithful godliness, because it literally means add some moments, or add pieces to your life for you to stand in awe of God in reverence, and obedience.  That's what it means. But here's what we do, I want you to leave this on the screen. Many of us, we begin to try to walk in awe of God before we're persevering, before we have self-control and before we know what it is that we're trying to walk out in our lives.  I hope you're seeing this; you are gifted with salvation. But he's saying if you want more grace and peace, you got to walk a process. You got to move in a direction towards the principles of God. And then He does something that's really cool. He turns outwardly. He turns outwardly and He says, add some faith filled mutual affection.

Now, mutual affection, you know, this word is the Greek word Philadelphia. It's where the city gets its name. And it's just brotherly love. It literally means when we get to this point in our life, where we're good, we're adding this moral goodness and the knowledge of God presses into our heart and we gain self-control over our actions, we start to persevere, in the name of Jesus, we add these moments of all in our lives and it's at that point, we start taking care of the brothers and sisters of Christ. Hope you're seeing this is a process of spiritual walk that Peters given us. And then lastly, He says, walk out faith filled love.  Faith filled love.  It's called Agape, and it means that we begin to not only love the people inside the church, but we love outside of the church so that they can see the faith that we have. You can see the faith that we have.  Man, I don't know if this excites you a whole lot. But here's what it does for me. It gives me a target. It gives me a target this week, to know that there's this guy, Peter, this founding Apostle, that walked with Jesus at the end of his life going, hey, I know there's a lot going on, but you have faith through Jesus and His righteousness and now that faith is offering you grace and peace. And now what He is asking us to do is just to walk these things in our life.  I want you to see all these in one picture, I want you to see how all these go together.  I want you to see how faith is the base, and we add the goodness and, on the goodness,, knowledge and on the knowledge, self-control and perseverance and on to godliness and mutual affection. And then we begin to love other people. So, here's what we need to do in our lives this week, as we think about this list, as we pray through, there are seven of them, one for every day. Kind of cool how that works out. Where is it that I'm stopping?

Because here's what I know. When you get through this list, you start experiencing a peace that you have never, ever, ever thought that you could have. This is the peace that Peter had in his life. He knew he was about to die. But what is he doing? He's turned outwardly and he's loving mutual affection and love towards other people. Even in this moment, even in the moments of all of this going on in life, what is he doing? He's not spewing nasty political ads, he is talking to the brethren and going, hey, I know you're struggling, but you can make it through with Jesus and His power. This is the path of spiritual health. This is the assurance and confirmation of who God is in our lives. Look, if you're not walking these things out, you need to ask yourself, do you know Jesus? And I'm not being unkind in saying that. I'm just saying I want to know that I know Jesus. I don't want to pull up to the end of my life and go, just missed it. I want to know, in fact, if you look at the rest of this, look at verse nine. Just read this over as we close. It says, "But whoever does not have them," this is the list we just talked about "is nearsighted and blind".   If you've been to the ophthalmologists lately, maybe you heard the word myopic. That's what this is.

They are, "blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. You know, while we don't want that list out?  It's because we forgot what God has cleansed us of. "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election."  You want to know?  Man confirm what God has done in your life. Confirm what God has done in your life.  If there haven’t been large seasons of your life, that this has been part of your life, you need to ask yourself “do I know Jesus?” If this doesn't even matter to you this morning, you need to ask yourself “do I know Jesus?”  Look, "For if you do these things, you will never stumble." That doesn't mean you're never gonna like trip up. That means that when you do fall, somebody is going to pick you up that's what it means. "And you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." What does that mean?  That means that some people are just gonna barely skate by. But when you walk these things out, you receive a rich welcome. A rich welcome. What does that mean? There's gonna be some blessings that are attached to our eternal presence with Jesus. And they come not just based on that we're saved, they come based on how we walk that out.