The Village Church
The Ladder of My Life - Audio
[inaudible] Father, your word says that in second chronicles King Joseph Act said, "We don't know what to do but our eyes are upon you." That's what he said before he went to one of his battles. Often in his life, Father, we don't know what to do. We don't know what to say. We don't know how to respond to certain situations. We don't always have the right answer or any answer. But Lord, one thing we can do is speak to our eyes firmly upon you. Firmly upon our Savior. Firmly upon what he has accomplished for us on our behalf. Why should we gain from his reward when we don't know why? But Lord, we know that he has paid our answer and the debt has been paid in four. You gave your son for us, Lord, how can you now also through him give us all things? You know where each of us needs. You know where every family here needs. You know where every marriage here needs. You know where every individual in this room needs. You know our situations. You know our hardships. You know our shortcomings. You know those who are sick. Those who are in financial burdens. Those who have broken relationships. You know it all. And are we forsaken? Or are we cast out? Are we forgotten? Have we been abandoned? No. Your word says you have extravagance on the palm of your hands. And that you dance over your people with shouts of joy. That if our mother and father shall forsake us, you never will forsake us. Never forsake us. So Father, whisper truth to us in the midst of where we are. In the midst of all of our needs. Tell us that you got us. I got you. I got you. Volley turned and crashed in my brain. Amen. If you have your Bible, open it to 2 Peter, chapter 1. And his book, The Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dixon says it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winner of despair. We had everything before us and we had nothing before us. We were all going direct to heaven, we were all going to direct the other way. It was fitting, I think, given the current state of our country. You see, a decision was made this week by our Supreme Court regarding health care and for some of us in our country, that was the best decision for others, it was the worst decision. Some see it as a season of light, others see it as a season of darkness, a spring of hope for some, a winner of despair for others. America truly is a tale of two countries operating as one. As believers in this country are countries, how are we to live and function? What role are we going to play? Are which version of the country has your allegiance, in other words, where are you leaning in the ladder of your life today? Are you leaning in on a man? Are you leaning in on an ideal or a philosophy? Are you leaning in on some particular party or organization? It's the ladder of your life leaning against the wrong wall this morning. You see, as believers, we all know the ladder about life should be leaning on the gospel on our faith on Jesus Christ Himself, to be more than that. You see, when your ladder of your life is leaning on Jesus, it changes you, not just at salvation, but for the duration of your life. Not just at salvation, but for the rest of your life. This is what the apostle Peter has for us today. Second Peter, chapter 1, beginning in verse 3. "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, who the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence, 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 simple desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection with love. For these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the 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, my brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall by this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." This is God's Word, please pray with me. Father, as we come to the preaching of your Word, Lord, I'm not worthy, I'm not qualified, a degree doesn't qualify anyone to open up your truth, Lord, you have to call them. And so Father, I pray that the Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who is our counselor, who is our helper, that he will move my pride out of the way and take over and take these words and apply it to the hearts of your people, to everyone that's here. You know where every person here needs to hear this morning, and I pray that this message will speak to whatever they're dealing with, in the Christ name of my prayer, amen. That part of First Peter can be divided up into different sections. First he reminds us of what God has done for us through Jesus, and then he moves into reminding us of their implications for what Jesus has done for us in this life. Look at verses three and four. He says, "His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 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 the corruption that is in the world because of simple desire." What has he granted to us? His divine power has granted to us all things, that's everything that pertains to life and godliness. This means it's not your power, it's not your strength, it's not your will. He grants it to us, these things, it's of his free, sovereign choice. These things that pertain to life and godliness cannot be earned by you working for them. They are given to you as a gift. If we can't earn these things or work for them, then how can we obtain them? How can we? How has God's divine power freely granted you all these things? It says, "Through true knowledge of him." What does that mean? What does that mean? Knowledge of him is referring to Christ, it is not simply knowing, sunny school stories about him, or theological facts about him. But it's saving faith in him, that's knowledge of him. Saving faith in Jesus Christ alone, the text says, "He has called us to his own glory and excellence." Well, Pastor Alex, what in the world does that mean? It means he has called you to himself in order that he can know you. Do you believe that? Do you believe the Father wants to know you? Do you know your creative purpose? Do you? It's to be in fellowship with the Father, it's not to work for him. The work flows out of the relationship. So the most important question of your life is, do you know him? Are you in relationship with him or are you just doing good deeds for him? You've got to know him first, faith in Jesus first, work flows out of that. Our creative purpose is to know him and to enjoy him and then glorify him. He wants us to know his own glory and his own excellence, and his glory is referring to his character, his person, who he is, who is God, who is he? His creator, personal creator, he's eternal, he's Father, he's faithful, he's good, he's holy, he's just, he's love, he's sovereign, he's merciful, and he's perfect. That's who he is. That's our God. He's Trinitarian, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That's our God. His excellence. What is that referring to? That's his work, his actions, his deeds. Well, what kind of things does God do? He heals, he redeems, he forgives, he judges, he restores, he reconciles. This is the knowledge that we have with the Father when you come to faith in Jesus Christ. That's what he gives you. And so through this statement, knowledge of him, you get the things that pertain to life and godliness. What are these things? His precious and very great promises, granted to us, the promises of the gospel of grace. Free, unmerited favor from the Father through Jesus and applied to you by the Holy Spirit. You want me to say that again? The promises of the gospel, free, unmerited favor from the Father through Jesus and applied by the Holy Spirit, all three working together for your salvation, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The ladder of your life, Christian, needs to be leaned in on those very great precious promises of the gospel. What are some of those promises, Alex? He grants you forgiveness and grace, does he not? Does he not? He grants you mercy. He grants you peace with himself through Jesus. He grants you freedom from the power of sin and death. Does he not? The death is no longer your master, sin is no longer your master. No longer your daddy. There is no condemnation for those who are now in Christ Jesus. Are you excited about that? And when you messed up, the Father doesn't ever do this and I tell you what, do that again? No, he disciplined us, but he never forsakes us and casts us to the side. All your shame, all your guilt has been taken away. Don't you know that when you become believer, all the things you've ever done has been wiped away through the cross. Past sins, present sins, future sins have been nailed to the cross just as Jesus himself was nailed. That was your sin, there, hanging on Capitol, hanging on that tree and you can, don't have to bear it no more. That's a promise. He grants us a spirit who lives in us. He has lavished us with his love and affection. You know what that means? You never have to earn the Father's approval. Have you ever thought about that? Never have to earn the Father's approval. Now if you had an earthly Father that was different than that, that's hard for you to understand. You never have to earn it. He's given to you through Christ. You already have it. Don't you know that? You know of his affection, you already have it. All of his attention, you already have it. His love, his protection, all given to you. You have been adopted into God's family and you know what, he ain't going to take you back down to wherever. You're his forever, your last name has changed permanently, you are his forever. You're no longer an orphan but you are sons and daughters or the king forever. He has also given us freedom to struggle and some of you need to accept that. He's given you freedom to struggle, freedom to fail because you are. He's always forgiven us when you do. Philippians 1.6 says, "He who began on good work and you were carried on to completion through Christ." That's a promise that he's not done with you yet. He's not. He said, "Well, I don't have it all together yet. You ain't ever going to have it all together, brother." It's his work in you. He's given you the power to be what you need to be. And when you fall short, man, just repent and move on. You know, we're the only ones who think we're going to get to a place where we're not struggling with sin. And Father is not that delusional. He knows you but does. You keep forgetting that. You're dust people. That's all we ever going to be until we cross over the glory. Accept that. Romans 8, 28 says, "He writes all things together for the good of those who love you." Promise. He says, "Well, I don't believe God is good right now. I'm telling you, He's coming. He is going to work it to your good. He will." Romans 8, 38 says, "For neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things that come, nor height nor death, nor anything, and all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ." Promise. Nothing. And all creation. And I don't care what our government do, they ain't going to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ. You've got to hold on to that. That needs to be your only hope in the changing world that we live in and God's unchanging law. That whatever happens, you are in taking care of us. Our end, we know where we go in the end. He grants us Christ's righteousness to us. But what does that mean, Alex? That means you are covered in the righteous blood of the Lamb, and that when the Father sees you, He sees Christ in you. God made Him who you know sin to be sinned on your behalf, so that you might become the righteousness of God. When you come to saving faith in Jesus, you get all these things, all of it. And now, to get the true impact of what Peter is saying here, the verb to grant, it should be that God continues to do these things for you. Do you feel the way that He just doesn't forgive you once? That's for the rest of your life. Everything. You don't just have Christ's righteousness at salvation, you continue to have it throughout your life. The same is true from your sin and your guilt, it's all been taken care of. The Spirit of God, all these promises are applied to us through God's Spirit. He is the one that's transforming us to become partakers of the divine nature. That has been transformed more into the image of Christ. That's what He's doing to us, transforming us, and the Spirit is doing it through this saving faith, who have escaped the corruption that is in the world. That's a promise, that's a promise too. Does these promises excite you? I mean, do that really, you can say no if they don't, do that, or is it just watered down your back? Yeah, forgiveness, yeah, that's okay. Do that, cite you. I read a book that she called First Things First. In it, the author says, "Some of us feel empty. We've defined happiness solely in terms of professional and financial achievement. We found that success did not bring us to satisfaction without it would. We've painstakingly climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong. We got the diploma, we stayed up late at nights, working hard, we got the promotion, we got the house, we got the status, we got all these things only to discover as we reach the top of the ladder we've been leaning against the wrong wall." Over in this sense, we left a trail of shadow relationships over focus and our race up the ladder we simply did not take the time to do what really mattered most. You see, the reason we lean our ladder on other things is because we don't really believe Jesus is really enough for what we, for this life. We don't really believe that. The reason we don't live mission or in our lives is because we don't believe Jesus is enough. We simply don't believe and firmly embrace the promises that He's offered to us through the gospel if we did it, reflect this up in our life. Here is our reality. We, me included, we all love Jesus for all more than we profess each Sunday. Let me say that again. We love Him far less than we profess each Sunday, and we love this world for more than we think. We can get here and sing the songs, but I'm telling you, we love Him for a less. We need to repent. That's what we need to do. And pray that the Holy Spirit will give us a heart to embrace that love for us and extend it to other people. It has believers leaning in your life against Jesus and His promises is what matters most. That's what matters most. You pray that the Spirit will empower you to lean and to rest and meditate on Jesus and those promises. You see, if you don't understand verses three and four here, you're not going to really understand what I'm going to say next. For everything I'm going to say next flows out of what God has done for you. All the Christian life for Christians is that everything we do as a response to what the Father has done every time. He says in verse five, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith. He's connecting what He just said with what He said in verses three and four. He's saying verse three and four is a motivation to do everything else I'm getting ready to tell you. The God who saves you is the God who is now transforming you. The gospel for salvation and the gospel for living to live the Christian life. And Peter is not talking about adding to your salvation. He's not talking about earning God's favor for some of you who are thinking that. But what he's talking about, the faith that I have in Christ has to take form in my life in a tangible way. This is what he's talking about. The faith we possess professing Christ must be the faith that we also live out before Him. A saving faith always leads to a serving faith. It pushes you out not to read more books, but it pushes you out to live it. We are to supplement our faith with seven qualities according to the apostle Peter. These qualities here are not a graduating list as if you do this at least to that. It simply means these are qualities that we should pray for and strive after in our lives of believing, pray the Holy Spirit make these true in our life. He says virtue and what is that? That's integrity, that's character, knowledge, wisdom, and discernment. Self-control is not being mastered by your desires and passions, steadfastness that's patience and trials and hardships, it's perseverance, endurance, godliness is devotion to God in every area of your life, brotherly affection, that's a good one, is love for the saints. Even believers from different denominations and even believers who have different political views than you, brotherly affection for them as well. Putting their needs before you and finally is love, that's love for God and love for all mankind, even your enemies and the lost. This is what the apostle Peter said, we should supplement our faith with, make every effort he says and he's not telling us that as a simple request or a nag suggestion, he's not saying, well, pass to Alice, if you get around to it, I want you to supplement your faith with these things, no, he says make every effort to do so, not optional. When a person is making every effort to do something, that person, I think, is fighting, being intentional, being proactive, being determined, being responsible, being diligent. These words make every effort, it's a fighting word that marches orders, go make every effort to supplement your faith, he wants us to take personal responsibility. Is it our intention to do so? He says if these qualities are yours and increasing they keep you from being ineffective and unproofing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. By practicing and growing these things, we learn to apply the truth, we learn to apply the knowledge we have to our life, we will take everything we talked about in the beginning of the sermon and apply it to our life. He says if we do not, we are an outsider, so blind that we have forgotten we were cleansed from our former sins. He says if you're not a planet, you don't actually believe the gospel. That's what he's saying, you actually forgotten it. Or at least there's a disconnect between what your head believes and what your heart believes. A lot of folks don't like sermons that talk about effort because it implies legalism. But my answer to that is you're going to struggle with ignorance until the day you die. So that's part of course, repent of it and move on. You're going to struggle with the being a younger brother our days of your life, repent of it, move on, that's just a given. Are you going to think you're not? We all are because we're sinners and where I'm pointing at Peter's making here is that he wants to take personal responsibility. Not adding to what the father has done, but telling us because of what he's done, these are the implications of that. It means something. It means something. And Peter said it means this, we will make every effort. He said I don't want you to be spiritual lazy or spiritually obese where all you do is go down to Christian Buffet line and read the sermon. Get that book, go to Tim Keller website, get another Tim Keller tape. How many Tim Keller books can you read? Practice something. Don't just consume, exercise your faith, exercise it, exercise it. Is it real to you or is it just a faith that's bound up in a bunch of things that old dead men written a whole long time ago. You read about their faith. That's all we do sometimes. What about yours? Do you practice it on your job, in your communities, in your families, or all you do is just read about it? Your faith will not become real if you don't store exercise on it. That's why James says faith without works is dead. A saving faith will always lead to a serving faith. Everything that we believe cannot just be head knowledge. It cannot just be in the songs that we sing. I love that song how big the Father's love is for me. But is that love changing you or is it just words on the page, man, or is it just emotions? Is it really changing you? Is it really changing the way you love your wife, husbands, wives, to your wives? Is it changing the way you love your husband? Is it changing you or is it just for sure? It has to take time to perform in our life. Christian truth, theology, and I like theology, but it must shape the way I live, must shape the way I see my life. When we practice these things and we are exercising our faith, we will be effective and fruitful. Think about all the things you do in your life, family, husbands. If you don't make ever effort to love your wife or you're going to be married long, don't get tongue tied now. No. There's effort. If we have family, we have jobs, we have church, we have sports, we cook, we do whatever. And all these names involve responsibility and we know that to be true, but when it comes to the Christian life, we forget it. We think it's different sometimes. When we become Christian, we sometimes forget we have responsibility in our relationship with Christ that we can seek him. A.W. Tola's book, The Pursuit of God's Awesome Book, talks about now that we are believers, we can actually pursue the Father in relationship, spend time with Him in prayer, spend time in His Word. You see, we all have a role to play here, not out of guilt, not out of duty, but out of love for Jesus, out of love for Him. Do you love Him? You can love Him back. God is in control of all things. You know this is but true, and as I said last week, He ain't going to come down and live your life for you. You still have to make decisions and choices. The thing we need to realize is that people do what they want to do. If that's one thing I've learned in ministry since I've been here, at the end of the day, people do what they want to do. If it's a priority to you, you're going to do it. I don't care what it is. That's why I don't run behind people or chase them. If it's a priority for you, you're going to do what's a priority. You'll do what you value. And many of us, we will spend our last time fighting tooth and nail for things that don't really matter. For those of us who are in their relationship with Christ, you are as close to Him as you want to be at this moment, because if it was a priority for you to be in the Word, you'd be in the Word, bottom line, marriages, your relationships are as healthy as you want them to be, because if it's a priority for you, you'll do something about it. Bottom line, parents, you're as close to your kids as you want to be. Again, if it's a priority, you'll do it. Bottom line, think about this. Many of you are going to be at that game in November. Why? Because it's a priority. You know what game I'm talking about. You're going to clear all your schedule, come to fall. Every man in this room will be on Saturdays at this time, there are no interferences. Because they're 11 o'clock, they're on CBS, that's what I'm going to be. Why? It's a priority. That's what I'm talking about. We plan our lives round our priorities, so like you don't know what I'm talking about. You do. You do. Let Jesus be your college football. If he was, it assured the fit in the way that you live your life. Priorities. We all got them. And our churches, our church, is as mission or as we want it to be. When it comes to advancing God's kingdom and our participation in it, we have to be intentional about it. We need to realize that we have to fight as we leave. And this is one of the things I learned about hanging around Mark, he told me that, that fighting, the spirit empowers us to fight, to fight. Nobody weapons of the world, but with the weapons God has given us, we have fight, soldiers and God's kingdom. And if I'm going to have a good marriage in my God, I got to fight for it. If I'm going to have a good relationship with my kid, I got to fight for it. Fight for it. Pray the whole spirit, give me the power to do it. And the semipods for each of you, you have to fight the living right. And I said, where's the grace in those words, Alex? Well, where's the grace then? You know what grace is there for when you mess up, because you're going to mess up. That's what the grace is for, because you're going to mess up, because you can get repentance and forgiveness when you fail, and you pick up and move on. That's why Paul says, I forget what lies behind, I move forward to what lies ahead. Repent, we want another person to truly understand the grace by how quickly they repent and move on. If you wallow, you don't understand it. Beat yourself up, you don't understand it. If you get calling and saying, you got me brother, please forgive me, I'll forgive you, now let's go. It's just as simple as that, at least how I see it. From my experiences, which is not, I haven't experienced much, but from my experiences. You see, it doesn't take away our responsibility to live with the people of God, but instead the power of the Spirit and strengthen us to do so. And if you have to ask the Spirit to do that in us, He will do it, because we have freedom to struggle, knowing that we're always have forgiveness when we fail, we can just step out and live and try to live right. One Christian said, it is the will of an all wise, all of his father to seek our house welfare. You know that God always seek your house welfare? He has your back more than you do. We make decisions that hurt ourselves, but he has your back more than you have your own back. And so as you live your life, know that, that the power behind you is the Spirit pushing you, even when you make bad decisions, even when you make mistakes. You are fully accepted by the Father, and I don't know about you, but that empowers me to step out in faith, knowing that my Father is never going to cut me off, never. Any of you remember our friend Steven Burtfield? If you never met him, then you missed out on meeting a good young man. It was always wonderful saying Steven. I think he said right here, every Sunday, when he would come, and he passed away some years ago, and I had an honor of doing his funeral. And as I walked alongside his family, and I learned a lot about Steven, you know his mother Nancy told me that he loved God so much, and whenever he prayed, he felt it. While I was visiting the family, you know as we were playing the funeral, his brother took me into Steven's room, and he showed me all these prayers that he used to write to God. And I came across one that I'm never going to forget. He says to Jesus, "Through the years, may we always be together, Jesus knows me this I love." Jesus knows me, all my junk, the depths of my heart, this I love. Do you love the fact that you are known by the Father? And I don't know about you, but that don't empower you, nothing ever will. Nothing ever will. If knowing that the Father knows you love you that much, there's nothing I can say that's going to ever empower you if that doesn't, because it's a truth. Before God is truly an amazing God, let us pray. This I know, Father, that you know me, and Lord I love that, that you know the depths of my heart and yet you love me the same. You know my flaw, you know what I'm going to do next week, you know what I'm going to do when I leave here, and yet you love me the same. All that I pray for my heart and every heart here, that we truly embrace how amazing your love is for us, how deep your love is for us. It's greater than we realize, it's sweeter than we realize, Father. And I pray that that love for the power of your spirit will change us. As we live in a world that appears to be good one day and bad in next, let us know that our God is above this world, that he is still upon his throne, that no matter what we go through, you're going to be with us, Father. So Lord, as we step out and live our life and supplement our faith and fight and take responsibility, let our latter be leaning on the promises of the gospel, let those things empower us through your spirit to be the people of God, to be the sons and daughters of the king of the universe. We need you, Spirit, and I pray to you that you empower us, strengthen us, produce your fruit in us more, that you will give us the boldness and the confidence and humility that we need as the people of God to represent Christ in this broken world. And Christ, I pray, name I pray, amen. Amen.