His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to[c] his
own glory and excellence,[d] 4
by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue,
and virtue with knowledge, 6
and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7
and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9
For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
You can tell by the bold print in the verses above that this morning I want to emphasize one aspect of Peter’s thought: The cultivation of virtue. I am adapting this
from a Sunday School class I taught not too long ago and I confess that this morning’s devotion is a bit longer than usual. However, I am convinced this is vitally important in our day. As you read, I hope you will conclude the same.
A Christian High School teacher at a wonderful Christian school tells the story of asking his class every year if they as believers should be pursuing virtue; goodness,
faithfulness, patience, kindness etc. The students respond quite consistently that those are things that happen to people but not things you are to pursue. That is puzzling.
According to the students, these virtues just “happen” to you somehow. But as I look at my life, and I would guess you would agree, sin just happens, but virtues
have not simply appeared out of nowhere in my life! When the teacher pressed them, the students said: “To pursue virtue is works righteousness.” This is of course all kinds of wrong, but it is what many Christians in our day think. Here is the reasoning:
If you have been saved, then pursuing virtue cannot save you, therefore, not pursuing virtue cannot damn you. So, virtue and its pursuit is irrelevant or at least not instrumental to the Christian life. Again, so goes the thinking
and sadly, much of the way people in the church live their lives in our day.
Again, the thought is that if doing those things: prayer, fasting, faithfully giving, serving others…if doing them cannot save you, then not doing them
cannot damn you. Therefore, serving others, caring for the orphan and widow, being disciplined in prayer and worship, is no different, morally speaking, than playing a video game; Neither of them save you and neither of them damn you. No one goes to hell for
playing a video game, and no one goes to hell for not feeding the orphan and widow.
In this way of thinking, Christian virtues are optional…they are not part of salvation, they do not save me, so how important can they be? And what has happened is
that Christians, you and me included, do not pursue what our Savior has called us to pursue. We do not pin our ears back and press on in holiness and righteousness, our knees are not tired from kneeling in prayer, our eyes are not wet for weeping over the
brokenness of men and women, we are not forcing ourselves to practice kindness, gentleness, self-control…we are not careful with our speech, or how much ‘me time’ we think is necessary…because we think…it doesn’t really matter.
And what do you suppose will happen if someone tells us that our life should be more disciplined, that the practices of the Xn life, prayer, giving, fasting, reading,
fellowship should be pursued and sought after by discipline, ritual and godly habits? Someone will tell you that you are being legalistic.
What does Peter say: His divine power has granted to us all things that
pertain to life and godliness…5 For this very reason, what should we do, what are we TOLD to do…make every effort, that is all diligence, arduous and immense labor, that is what it takes to put of the corruption of this
world IN US because of sinful desire. There is no place for mediocrity or apathy…Peter says, make EVERY effort…do whatever it takes, let nothing stop you…You have faith, but he says you need to…look what is next, supplement your faith: that is, add
to your faith. You believe; now that belief is to be bolstered, increased, made stronger. How do or what do we add to it? Virtue.
The Christian life, the life of grace and faith is not contrary to virtue in fact the life of grace and faith demands that we make every effort to add virtue to our faith! Virtue
is to be sought, like buried treasure. Nothing is to stand in our way of pursuing virtue, that is what Christians are called by Christ to do!
Something is wrong…dreadfully wrong with Christianity in our day if we call seeking virtue, legalism or self-righteousness.[1]We
do not make every effort, laying ourselves out in discipline and formation to attain virtue. Most have never thought of it at all. “I got saved. Or I am saved. Jesus has done it all. Jesus has done all the dying necessary, the end.” That is just wrong.
Granted that what Jesus did in His dying is unique, non-repeatable and imitated by no one. But if His was the only dying necessary, why did He tell you and me that we have to
die…daily? Why are we told to put self to death? Christianity is about the death of Jesus for sinners, but there is more dying to do…not Christ’s dying, but disciple dying. And if Christians today want to try and convince themselves of anything different
and to do so claiming grace alone, they are seriously mistaken and deaf to what the Savior actually said.
Peter continues: …and virtue with knowledge,
6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
What is listed after the word virtue are virtues in and of themselves. And even if you don’t want to call them virtues in the formal sense, they are the kinds of things that
you are to be growing in, the kind of things you are purposefully pursuing.
A good question for us at this point is to look at our lives as individuals, our habits, even the past week: Are we making every effort to add knowledge, self-control,
steadfastness, godliness and brotherly love and affection to our Christian faith? Every effort?Why not?
Listen to what Peter says next: 8
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, (these are qualities, or virtues that we are to be growing in, they should be obvious in our lives to greater and greater degrees. And if they are, then) they keep you from being ineffective
or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice Peter’s point: if you have these virtues, you must see to it that they are increasing, growing more visible and influential day by day. To be unfruitful or
ineffective is not simply to be less than you might be. To be unfruitful or ineffective is to raise the question whether one is a Christian at all! True Christians are fruit-bearers; they are not like the seed in the Lord’s parable of the sower, seed that
produces plants that either because they are scorched by the sun or choked by the weeds do not bear fruit. Maybe that sounds too harsh…maybe someone would think that
there are many people in the church who are unfruitful and ineffective, and we shouldn’t be too hard on them, or judge them too severely.
9
For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
Wow. Peter has gone to meddling. Peter emphasizes the point he just made
by saying that the man or woman who stands on his or her laurels and makes no effort to grow in these graces is blind. “Blindness” in the New Testament is often used as a metaphor for an inability to see spiritual realities. The translators of the ESV (and
of the NIV) made an interesting choice here, reversing the order of Peter’s Greek. He wrote “blind and nearsighted” not the other way around. But how can someone who is blind also be nearsighted?
There are various suggestions to resolve the problem but the point is clear: this blindness or nearsightedness is willful and deliberate; it is no accident. The person
has turned his or her back on what God has done for him or her in Christ. And why, how did this happen? Because of a lack of making every effort to pursue virtue. Listen to how Peter concludes this thought: Therefore,
brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
Peter does not say read a book on these virtues, or listen to sermons on them, or even come to a Sunday School class about virtue. Rather he said, practice living this way,
nurture this kind of life, do these things…and you won’t fall away, because, not only will you not have time to, you will want for nothing but to live in the joy of a life filled with godly virtue!
Prayer: Father, fill me with Your Spirit that I might make every effort in my life to add virtue to my faith. Help me to pursue righteousness with fervor, joy and with extravagance
wanting for nothing but Your pleasure. Forgive my laziness and lethargy, and may my life produce the fruit of a faithful child following hard after the Savior, in Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Hymn: Be Thou My Vision
[1] Of
course, anything that we are called to do can be done in a self-righteous way, but that is no reason to cease from doing it! One can go to worship and be self-righteous that they went when others didn’t. But no one would conclude that the self-righteous man
should therefore stop going to worship! No, he should repent of his self-righteousness. Pursuing virtue is a command in the Bible and we are to do it humbly, trusting the Lord and with the expectation of virtue bearing fruit in our lives for the glory of God.