(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indy. This spring we're studying the book of 2 Peter, learning about how we can find our anchor in God during unsteady times. Now here's the teaching.

Patrick Gilbert is bringing God's Word to us today. Patrick works in finance with Steve Martin, member of our congregation, and Patrick also has earned a Master of Divinity from Southeastern Seminary. He and his wife Cassie live on the north side of Indianapolis with their three young children.

And some of you may remember the Gilberts from their time attending faith six, seven, eight years ago. In the intervening period, Patrick has had opportunities to provide preaching fill-in for congregations in Bloomington and in Muncie. And we are excited to have Patrick preach here today and lead us in worship.

Would you stand now for the reading of God's Word? Our scripture this morning is from 2 Peter 1, verses 5 through 11. For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.

For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Well, let's pray together this morning. Will you pray with me? Lord, we ask this morning that what we don't know, you would teach us. What we don't have, would you give us.

And who we are not, who we are not, Lord, would you make us. Even now. Even now.

And we ask this in your name. Amen. Well, good morning.

It is a delight to be with you this morning. Pastor Jeff, I want to thank you for the invitation to come and to preach and to worship with you. I appreciate your friendship.

As Pastor Jeff mentioned, my wife Cassie and our kids, Elizabeth, Caroline, and Brennan, had attended probably eight years ago now. And so, it's really sweet to be able to come back and to be with you this morning. Many faces that we recognize this morning.

So, we appreciate the opportunity. 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 5 to 11. I want to talk to you this morning on the topic of pedal by pedal.

Pedal by pedal. What does it take to produce something beautiful? What does it take to produce something beautiful? My wife Cassie had an interesting childhood. She grew up on a flower farm.

Grew up on a flower farm. Her dad grows field cut flowers and he sells them to retailers and distributors throughout the Midwest. In fact, he actually owns and operates the business today.

And I especially love to go visit in the summers because it's not only a peaceful place, but the rows of flowers are stunningly attractive. He's often asked what he does for a living. And people's faces, they light up when he tells them that he grows field cut flowers.

They say, oh, that must be the most fun job ever. You know, we grow flowers on our back deck. And I bet you just love the farmer's markets.

We love the farmer's markets. Getting up early on Saturday morning, getting your cup of coffee, sitting in the shade and selling flowers. That's got to be a lot of fun.

Now, I'm from southern Indiana, so not the real south, though we just kind of talk like it down there. But I lived a time in the real south. And I lived a time down there and I learned a few things about the south.

One of the things I learned is what you say to somebody like that. You know what you say? You say, bless your heart. Bless your heart.

That's what you say to somebody who's well-meaning, but they have no idea what they're talking about. They know the beauty of the flower, but they don't know the back-breaking work it takes to produce it. The weeding and the plowing and the cutting every stem by hand with a pocket knife.

They know the flower is beautiful. And it is. But when it comes to our faith, there's even something more attractive.

It's someone who exudes the beauty of Christ in their life. You might spot it in a seasoned saint, somebody who's lived some life, been through the fire. And you get close to them and you smell the aroma of Christ on them.

We might think it's the norm for the Christian life, but you and I both know that unfortunately, it isn't. Why don't we see the beauty of Christ in the lives of others more often? On second thought, why don't we see ourselves or feel ourselves growing in that beauty more often? Doesn't the Bible say that we as Christians should be growing in our faith? So why don't we experience greater spiritual growth ourselves? Why don't we experience greater spiritual growth ourselves? You know, it's a challenging question, one I've struggled with myself, especially when I consider all the ways that I can get stuck. After all, Jesus does say, or one of the ways that I often get stuck is I have this idea that my growth is completely up to God.

Jesus says, after all, in John 15 and 5, that I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and me in him, he'll what? He'll bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.

And if that's true, and it is, then maybe no effort is needed on my part. But it's that word abide that's always bothered me. Abide implies reciprocity.

Me, Jesus, and me, and me in Jesus. And I've learned that when we trust in Christ, not all the benefits of redemption are applied immediately. Not all the benefits of redemption are applied immediately.

In other words, I don't immediately look like Jesus. I want to look like him, but I often don't. And that's because when we trust in Christ, the Bible says that we are justified.

We are justified. Justification is God putting us in right relationship, declaring us righteous in position. It means the penalty of our sin is broken, along with the power of it as well.

The problem is the presence of indwelling sin remains. And therefore, while trusting Christ purifies our sin, it doesn't immediately eradicate it. In this way, we might say that justification is only the inauguration, not the graduation, of the Christian life.

The inauguration, not the graduation. It begins the work, but it doesn't complete it. Instead, God's work of salvation in us won't be fully complete until we have a perfect soul, in a perfect body, in perfect relationship, with a perfect God, in a perfect place.

The Bible calls that glorification. And yet, you and I, in the meantime, are in the process of being sanctified. We are growing in the likeness of Christ.

And so, whereas justification and glorification are completely works of God, sanctification is a partnership between us and God. And as Christians, we are working out in practice what God has already declared in position. That's sanctification.

It's what Paul says in Philippians 2, verses 12 to 13. Now, why do I say all that this morning? I say that because I've found it easy to adopt a laissez-faire type attitude regarding my own spiritual growth. To say to myself, I'm just going to let go and let God.

Listen, the power of growing spiritually comes from God. But the responsibility falls on us. The power comes from God.

It's His divine power that's given us everything we need for life and godliness. Verse 3. But verse 5 says, make every effort. That's the shared responsibility.

So, at times, I've probably been misguided. Probably been misguided. But at other times, my efforts have probably been misplaced.

Probably been misplaced. You know, all this talk about responsibility, putting forth effort. We got any achievers in the room? Anybody want to admit it? You got your list.

I'm going to go to church. I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to pray.

You know what? I'm, in fact, going to let every car out of the faith church parking lot ahead of me. Right? You go. No, you go.

And I'm behind you, and I'm like, well, somebody please go. Right? We can start to feel pretty good about ourselves. Right? It's our effort.

It's what we're doing all the work. But what happens when we fall short? It's no longer pride in us. It's despair over us.

And we can feel, somehow, that we can't keep pace with what God expects. And maybe we don't entirely give up our fight against sin, but we begin to rationalize it a bit. You ever heard anybody say, that's just who I am.

Right? That's just what I do. Listen. Does spiritual growth require effort? Peter says, make every effort.

But if you notice, before that, he says, for this reason, referring back to verses 3 to 4. Jerry Bridges, I think, had it right when he said that sanctification is like two wings of an airplane. The one wing is our dependence upon God. The other wing is the disciplining of ourselves.

Dependent discipline. You can't fly a plane without two wings, nor can you grow spiritually without dependence upon God and the disciplining of yourself. So, maybe I've been misguided.

All God, no me. Or maybe my efforts have been misplaced. All me, no God.

But as I think about it, we may have to admit this morning, we're getting to be friends, right? To be honest. That maybe growing spiritually is not sometimes really our top priority. And in this way, maybe we're misdirected.

Maybe we're misdirected. We have a lot of good competing agendas, don't we? Getting established in that first career out of college. Helping our 20-something kids kind of navigate the newness of adult life.

Maybe even downsizing into that new home now that we're further into retirement. We don't deny spiritual growth is a worthy ideal. But we're not so sure that we have the time to make it a dedicated pursuit.

The reality is that growing in Christ's likeness is a long-term endeavor. And at different times in my life, and I'm sure maybe different times in your life, it's easy to lose focus. To become complacent.

I even wonder if sometimes we just don't want to put forth the sustained effort that it requires. You know, Eugene Peterson called the Christian life obedience in a long direction. Obedience in a long direction.

That's because spiritual growth is slow. It's hard to measure. It's full of ups and downs.

And so it's easy to become misguided, misplaced, or even misdirected. But as we turn our attention to 2 Peter 1, verses 5 to 11, I can't help but think that maybe all those reasons are really nothing more than symptoms rather than root cause. I say that because it seems to me that something else is required for us to be growing spiritually.

Something else is required. Do you know what's required for us to be growing spiritually? I'll tell you what's required. Something must be growing in us.

Something must be growing in us. Do you want to exude the beauty of Christ? God is saying in these verses, for Christ to bloom in your life, grace must be growing in your heart. For Christ to bloom in your life, grace must be growing in your heart.

That's what God is saying in these verses. But you say, wait a minute. Grace growing in my heart.

That sounds nice. That sounds spiritual. But what does that actually mean? I'm glad you asked.

Listen, when we trust in Christ, listen to me. When we rake, we get leaves. When we mine, we get gold.

When we trust in Christ, God changes. He changes what we love. That's called our affections.

The things we used to hate, God and his word and his people, we now come to love. And the things we used to love, our selfishness, our pride, our sin, we now come to hate. God changes our affections.

He changes what we love. And so for grace to grow in our heart, these affections, these loves which are planted in the soil of our new nature, they must grow. They must be deepened.

They must be strengthened in order to produce godly virtue in our lives. But the only way that these affections can be strengthened is that like a muscle, they what? They need to be exercised. That's what it means for grace to grow in your heart.

So how do you know if that's happening in you? Well, Peter gives us three ways. He gives us three ways in this text. The first comes in verses 5 to 7. The first comes in verses 5 to 7, and it's this.

You'll know God's grace is growing in your heart when more of you reflects more of him. When more of you reflects more of him. In verses 5 to 7, Peter presents us with what's often called a ladder of virtues.

But you'll notice before he gets to this list of virtues here, the first thing he does is he exhorts us to make every effort to supplement these virtues to our faith. Supplement them to our faith. Now, the word supplement here, it paints a picture of a chorus director.

A chorus director, someone who spares no expense to prepare everything for a grand performance. And similarly, we are called to actively supply our faith with virtues to ensure that our lives are fruitful and productive. Now, I want you to see something here.

I want you to look here at these lists of virtues. Tell me, what's the first virtue mentioned? It's in verse 5. Starts with an F. Tell me. It's faith. 

It's faith. Supplement to your faith. Okay, then notice the last virtue.

It comes in verse 7. Tell me what it is. It's love, right? Okay, it's love. Now, in between, there's all this speculation on how all these virtues relate to one another.

But I think the significance here is faith comes first because it's the root. Faith is the root. Love comes last because it's the fruit.

It's the fruit. And the virtues here are sandwiched in between, and they're in many ways illustrative. They're in many ways illustrative, but there's something more here.

There's something more here. On closer look, you'll notice these virtues first relate not to us. They first relate to Christ.

For example, look at the word virtue that's in verse 5. It could be translated excellence, excellence. And if you run your finger up to the end of verse 3, you'll see that same word. It's excellence.

And it's being described of both God and Christ. It's actually the same word used in 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 9, when we are to proclaim the excellencies of God who called us out of darkness into his wondrous light. Same word.

And then knowledge. Well, we know from Paul in Colossians 2 and 9 that in him, in Christ, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And likewise, as we think about self-control and steadfastness, which could be translated patience, godliness, and brotherly affection, these are all virtues that Peter learned again and again from who? From Christ.

From following Christ. And the point here is that before they're ever our virtues, they're first Christ virtues. And so, as grace grows in our heart, our lives begin to reflect more of the beauty of who Christ is.

So, why is that important as it relates to us making every effort to add them to our faith? Why is that important? Well, I think we know this, but I'm not sure we always see the opportunity in this. I think we know this, but I don't think we always see the opportunity in this. Here's what I mean.

Stay with me. Except for the virtues of faith and love, faith and love are virtues that are planted in us the moment we become a Christian. And faith and love, they're nurtured in us through worship and prayer and the preaching of God's word.

And they're done in such a way as almost like that we eat food and food kind of nourishes our body. They're grown on almost a continual basis in the life of the Christian. But the other virtues, the other virtues don't grow continually.

They don't grow continually. Instead, they grow by how we respond when placed in certain circumstances. They grow in how we respond in certain circumstances.

For example, self-control grows by how? By exercising self-control, by being in a position where you have to restrain yourself and exercise self-control. Brotherly kindness. That grows by putting others' needs above your own.

Patience grows. Well, my patience grows. I don't know about you, but my patience grows by sitting out in that I-465 traffic.

That's how my patience grows, being put in a position where I have to exercise patience. The point is that when we look at it this way, every circumstance in our life is an opportunity to grow in grace. Every circumstance in our life is an opportunity for you and me to grow in grace.

But we usually don't think of it this way, do we? That's because that whatever we're facing, we become so engrossed in it. So engrossed in it. And so I'd say this this morning.

I'd say this. That the opportunity for spiritual growth, your opportunity to grow spiritually, my opportunity to grow spiritually, is usually hidden inside whatever is most consuming our energy. It's usually hidden inside whatever is most consuming our energy.

Think about that for a moment. What in your life is most consuming your mental, your emotional, and your physical capacity? You got it in mind? You got it here? That's the very way in which God is wanting to grow you in grace. That's the very way God is wanting to grow you in grace.

And how you respond, how you lean into that situation, will determine whether more of the beauty of Christ shows up in you or not. Because remember, for Christ to bloom in our life, grace must be growing in our heart. For Christ to bloom in our life, grace must be growing in our heart.

But we have to first see every circumstance as an opportunity to grow. Well, the second way we know we're growing in grace comes in verses 8 to 9. It comes in verses 8 to 9. It's this. You'll know you're growing in grace when grace in your heart produces fruit in your life.

When grace in your heart produces fruit in your life. Since these virtues are first descriptive of Christ, Peter has to make the point in verse 8 for if these virtues are yours, if these virtues are yours, and if they're increasing. So Christ's virtues show up in us when they're exercised.

And when they're exercised, they begin to increase. Now, you'll notice Peter here, what he doesn't say, he doesn't say if these virtues are complete or if these virtues are matured. Rather, he's saying if they're increasing.

If they're increasing. Now, I don't know if you've ever given much thought to a sunflower seed. But inside a sunflower seed is the potential for a beautiful flower.

In fact, think about it. Inside that seed is the embryo of the root and the stem and all the petals of that future flower. The only thing that needs to happen is that it needs to grow.

It needs to increase. It needs to bloom. The grace of God is like that.

The grace of God is like that. When you trust in Christ, God plants the seed of grace in the soil of your heart. And within that seed is the potential for great beauty and also growth.

And it's through nourishment and the watering of that grace in your heart by the Holy Spirit and in our posture of dependent discipline, that that seed of grace will ultimately produce fruit in our lives. But we know this doesn't happen by us trying to earn more grace. It happens by being reminded of the grace we've already received.

Being reminded of the grace we've already received. That's what Peter's saying in verse 9. You've been cleansed from your past sins. So don't be nearsighted. 

Don't be blind. Don't forget that. So spiritual growth occurs when in partnership with God, we respond to the grace He's already planted in us.

You say, okay, well, that's great. We want grace to produce fruit in our life. I get that.

But what's that look like for me? Especially as I'm thinking about all the ways in which God is wanting to grow me. Well, I think it means that we not only have to look at our circumstances in our life differently. We have to look at them now as opportunities to grow.

But we have to be honest with ourselves about how we respond to those circumstances. How we respond. And so this means that regardless of what you're facing, I'd say we have to ask ourselves just a couple questions.

A couple questions. The first question I think we have to ask ourselves is, what do we want? What are we desiring in whatever it is that we're dealing with? Because here's the reality. We do what we do because we want what we want.

People do what they do because they want what they want. And so what is it that we want? I think that the next question then is, okay, well, what does God want? What does God want? And then is my desire for what God wants greater than my desire for what I want? Is my desire for what God wants greater than my desire for what I want? In other words, what would thrill the heart of the Father most? What would thrill the heart of the Father most? And am I willing to respond in a way that would reflect that? Easy questions to ask. Hard questions to answer.

(This file is longer than 30 minutes. Go Unlimited at https://turboscribe.ai/ to transcribe files up to 10 hours long.)