Please turn to 2 Peter, chapter 1. Last night, we read from 2 Peter 1:1-4, and this afternoon we will read from 2 Peter 1:5-9.
But for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge;
and in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control patience; and in your patience godliness;
and in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness love.
For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.
Last night we mentioned that, from 2 Peter 1:1-4, we have the calling and making of a man of God. Thank God, we have been called, and we are called by His glory and virtue. It is a great calling—a calling into glory, according to which we are to be conformed to the image of His beloved Son. To put it in other words, it is a calling to be a man of God.
First of all, we realize that we have a great calling. Whenever God calls, He always provides. He knows that, by ourselves, we will never be able to fulfill His calling.
He has, by His divine power, given us all things that relate to life and godliness. This is given that we may fulfill our calling, because He who calls us is faithful; He will perform it. In performing it, He gave us life. Everything begins with life.
Without His life, we will never be able to become a man of God. All our efforts are futile. But thank God, when He gave us His life, that life contained all the potential toward godliness—that is, toward being like God. He not only called us, but He has also provided for us.
Furthermore, He has given us great and precious promises. Through His promises, we know that the calling will be fulfilled, so that we may be partakers of His divine nature. That is what we shared last night.
This afternoon, we would like to continue with the making of a man of God. We have been called to be men of God. But how is a man of God made? How do we really become men of God?
In 2 Peter 1:5, it begins, “But for this very cause also.” In other words, what follows is because of what we have already read. He has called us, provided for us, given us life and godliness—all things—and given us promises. In other words, He is going to do it.
Then he says, “For this very cause also, using therewith all diligence.” Does that sound like a contradiction? We have just heard that He is going to do everything, and now He says, “For this very cause also, use all diligence.” It may seem as though now it is all up to us, and we must try our best to see whether we can make it.
This word diligence is used twice—not only in verse 5, but also in verse 10. Whenever we think of diligence, it immediately gives us the feeling that we must go into it ourselves. But is that true?
Here we find the two sides of the truth of God. On one side, it is all God’s doing—no doubt about it—because it is far beyond us. But on the other side, there is a human side. There is something that God expects us to do. It is only when these two sides work together that the thing will be done.
This “all diligence” means that we have to apply ourselves. The very opposite of diligence is idleness. To be idle simply means that you lay back and do nothing—passive. You say, “After all, it is all grace, and there is nothing we can do. So do nothing, sit back, and wait, as if it were something automatic.” But we know that it does not work that way.
We have to apply ourselves. But in what way? Does it mean that we are going to do it all? What does it mean to use diligence?
Here we find another word: unfruitful. If we are idle and lay back, then we will not produce any fruit. But brothers, I think you know better than I do: when a tree produces fruit, it is spontaneous; it is natural. The fruit does not make an effort and say, “Now I am going to produce fruit.” Fruit is produced because the life of the tree, the rich sap of the tree, produces it. It is natural and spontaneous.
Yet here we find that if we do not use all diligence, we will be unfruitful, as if we must exert ourselves to let fruit come forth. There is a mystery there, but that is how God always works. He works with two extremes, two opposites. It is purely grace, no doubt; yet it is also purely human. These two things work together.
Life has the natural, innate feature of growing. Wherever there is life, growth is natural and spontaneous. When life slows down and ceases to grow, it means that death has come.
The life of God given to us has a supernatural tendency to grow. His life will grow according to its nature, and the result of the growth of that life is character: partakers of His divine nature. In that sense, it is spontaneous and natural.
Thank God, life is a gift. God has given us life, and within life is the nature of growing according to that life. The end result will be partakers of His divine nature. But unfortunately, after man sinned, death came upon this world. Therefore, for life to grow today, it is a battle. Life has to fight its way through death.
Physically, this is true. From the time we are born, our whole life is a battle for life. With viruses, polluted environments, and all kinds of surroundings, our life is daily exposed to the intrusion of death. In order that we may grow from a baby to manhood, we have already fought a long fight.
Spiritually, this also is true. We have been given eternal life—the life of Christ in us. After we believe in the Lord Jesus, our spiritual growth should be natural and spontaneous. But we are surrounded by spiritual death, not only around us but even within us. There is the flesh within us, the self-life within us, and temptations all around us.
We are surrounded by all kinds of circumstances that suppress our life. Because of this, there is a fight. In this fight, we cannot be neutral. In the fight of life, you cannot say, “Well, I do nothing. I do not take sides. I just leave it.” If you do that, outward death will overcome you.
Therefore, in order that we may become men of God, we have to use all diligence. Using diligence does not mean that everything depends upon ourselves. No. It means that we have to take a stand. We cannot simply lie back and remain neutral. We have to take our stand with the Lord.
We must be on the Lord’s side and say, “We want His life to overcome. We want to follow life. We want to respond to the working of the Holy Spirit within us. We want to exercise our spiritual senses so that God may do His work and life may manifest and express itself.”
Using diligence simply means that we cooperate with God. We respond to His calling. We respond to the voice of the anointing. We are willing to stand on His side, willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. That is all that is required.
In Hebrews, we are told to use diligence to enter into His rest. Rest means to cease from works. Yet we must use diligence to enter into His rest. He is going to do all the work, and He has done it. It is a finished work. But we must use diligence to enter into it. That is the secret.
Why is it that some, after believing in the Lord Jesus, make great spiritual progress, while others seem to make no advancement? God is not partial. He loves us all the same, and His grace is wide open to all of us. Why, then, is there such a difference among God’s people?
Some seem able to build the man of God, while others do not. This morning our brother mentioned Samson. I think that is a very typical case. God called him to be a man of God and even equipped him for it. But in reading his life, I think we all have to say that he did not make it. God may have used him, but he himself was a failure.
He did not really yield himself completely to the Lord, allow the Lord to do His work in him, or stand with the Lord against himself. Again and again, his flesh prevailed. Even though God may have used him, so far as he was concerned, he failed to fulfill his calling.
Therefore, we who are the Lord’s people must apply ourselves diligently before Him, earnestly seeking Him with all our hearts and standing with Him.
He says, “In your faith, have also virtue.” This is another matter that may cause difficulty. In some versions, it says “supply,” and in others it says “add.” When you read the word supply, you may think, “I am going to supply it.” When you think of add, you may think of something external. This can give us a wrong concept.
A better rendering is, “In faith, have virtue.” The whole thing begins with faith. When Peter wrote to these brothers, he said that God had given them like precious faith, as He had given to us. We have been given faith. It all begins with faith.
Thank God, He has given us precious faith. Faith is not something we work out. Oftentimes we try to work up faith, but it does not work. Faith is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8 says that we are saved by grace through faith, and this is not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. Thank God for giving us faith—faith to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Faith comes through revelation. With all our natural intelligence, we will never be able really to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of God. We may confess Him as a great man, just as people did in His day.
When our Lord Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” they gave Him the good reports: “You are like Elijah. You are like Jeremiah.” That is all that man can do.
But when Peter confessed the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Lord said, “Simon Bar-jona, thou art blessed: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven.” This revelation comes from above.
Dear brothers, we thank God—not because we are smarter than other people, but because God has blessed us. He has given us precious faith, so that we are able to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. By believing in Him, we receive His life. That is how it all begins.
When we first believe in the Lord Jesus and are born again, we are babes in Christ. Life is there, but the life within us has not yet been given opportunity to grow and mature. It is not that the life itself is incomplete. The One who is in us is Christ Himself.
God never gives to us in pieces and bits. He does not give us one thing now and another thing ten years later. No, when God gives us His Son, He gives us all that He can give. When His Son dwells in us, God has nothing more to give. Christ in us is complete. The life in us is perfect. Everything related to godliness is there.
It is like the children of Israel. God had already given them the promised land. He did not give them one small piece at a time; He gave them the whole thing. But they had to enter in, put their feet down, and possess it step by step. That is growth.
We already have faith. Having faith, how do we proceed to become men of God? In faith, have virtue.
The virtue here, in the American Standard Version, is called moral excellence. It has to do with our behavior, our conduct, and our works.
One of our great problems is the controversy between justification by faith and justification by works. Even Martin Luther could not reconcile these two things. When he fought the battle of the Reformation, he used Galatians as his sword because Galatians is the gospel of justification by faith. But he found little use for the book of James; he called it an epistle of straw.
Throughout the twentieth century, among God’s people, the controversy has continued: justification by works or justification by faith. But actually, there is no contradiction.
It is true that we cannot be justified before God by works. That is where all human religions come from. They try to be justified before God by their own works, because everyone’s conscience is troubled. There is a guilty feeling in every one of us, and we try to bribe our conscience by doing good deeds. We think that by doing so, God also will be satisfied. But we know that is futile.
In Hebrews 9, we are told that through the blood of our Lord Jesus we are delivered from dead works to serve the living God. All our works before faith are dead works, because they are done by ourselves. They are our own efforts—the best that we can do. But in the sight of God, they are dead works. They are filthy rags, like the fig leaves Adam and Eve used to cover their nakedness. They do not work.
Before we believe in the Lord Jesus, no matter how many good works we have done or how much merit we have accumulated, these are dead works. They are of no use. God can never be satisfied with them.
We are justified by faith—by believing in what our Lord Jesus has done for us on Calvary’s cross, His atoning work for us. Because we believe, we are reckoned righteous. This is justification by faith, and that is the only way.
But that does not mean that after we are justified by faith, there is nothing more to be done. We are not merely waiting for the day when we shall go to heaven. That is not the Christian life.
After we are justified by faith, God still allows us to remain in this world. We have to continue to live. How are we going to live our life of faith? We live our life of faith by expressing our faith through good works.
This is the teaching of James. James is not in contradiction with Paul or Romans. Romans speaks of our justification by faith before God, and that is the only way. But James speaks of our justification by works before men.
How do people know that you are a believer? How do they know that you have faith? You have to express that faith in some way, because people cannot see your heart. You say, “I believe,” but they say, “I do not see it.” What people see is what you do. By your works, they recognize that you are justified.
James speaks of justification by works before men. We must not only be justified before God; before men, God wants us to have a testimony that proves that we are children of God. The only way the world knows is through virtue.
But remember: the virtue here, the good works here, are works of faith, not works of the flesh. Formerly, they were works of the flesh, and therefore they were dead works. But now they are works of faith. Because we believe in the Lord, we allow His life to express itself in good works.
Just as our Lord Jesus, when He was on earth, went about doing good, throughout His life He expressed Himself as the Son of God. He showed people what God is like. God is a God of compassion, and He was full of compassion. God is a God of love, and He showed love by His deeds. God is a God of righteousness, and He showed forth that righteousness when He confronted the Pharisees and called them hypocrites.
Throughout His life, by His words and His deeds, our Lord Jesus proved that He is the Son of God. The Lord said, in effect, “If you do not believe Me, look at My works. Look at how I live. Look at Me, and then you will realize who I am.” That is testimony.
Brothers, we who have faith need to allow this faith to work out and express itself in virtue, in moral excellence. This is not natural; it is supernatural. These works are the works of the Holy Spirit, the works of Christ, the works of His life. Therefore, they are accepted by God, and God is pleased with them.
As believers, if we allow the life within us to grow, if we allow the life of Christ in us to come forward, it will result in good works. By these works we have our testimony before the world, and people in the world will recognize us.
This is very important for us as believers. When we are teaching the gospel and talking to people about the gospel, one thing always comes back: they look at a believer and say, “If this is the result of believing in Jesus, I do not think I want it.” We are often confronted by such things.
We have life, that is true, but we do not cooperate, using diligence, cooperating with the Holy Spirit, and allowing Him to release the life of Christ in us into practical deeds. This is part of the making of a man of God.
Then, in virtue, knowledge. Let us read Philippians 1:9-11.
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment;
so that ye may approve the things that are excellent;
that ye may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ;
being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
Upon faith there is virtue. You begin to allow that faith to express itself through virtue. Then, in virtue, you find knowledge. These things are not externally added. They are released from within. They are all there.
You do not tie fruit onto a tree. Fruit grows out from the tree. These things are not something we try to add on. They grow from within as life overflows. Out of virtue, you begin to have knowledge.
The knowledge here is full knowledge and all discernment. After we believe in the Lord Jesus and try to follow Him, thank God, we may be very zealous. We may exhibit in our lives some of the virtues of our Lord Jesus, and we may be very active in what we believe is God’s work.
Looking back, I realize that I did many foolish things, full of zeal, doing them for God and thinking that they were of Him and not of myself. Yet how mixed they were. At the time, I was sincere. I did not know it, and I believe God accepted it to a certain degree. It was not all rejected.
But as you begin to grow in life, spiritual understanding, discernment, intelligence, and knowledge begin to grow with you. You begin to understand more of the will of God. When you know more of God’s mind, God’s ways, and God’s heart, you look back and say, “What have I done?”
You begin to see the things that are more excellent. What you did was good, but not more excellent. You begin to see the things that differ. In the beginning, you cannot divide the spirit from the soul. You do not know whether something comes from yourself or whether it comes from God.
In the beginning, you do not even try to distinguish them, and thank God that we do not try too much in the beginning, because if we tried, we would be paralyzed. We simply rush ahead. But gradually, as we go on, we begin to ask, “Am I on the right path? Is it really of God, or is it of myself? Or is it a mixture?”
How can we differentiate them? We do not know how, because we do not have the light for it. But as we go on, light begins to be given to us. The word of God is like a two-edged sword. It begins to penetrate and divide the soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, and exposes the thoughts and intents of our heart.
As these things come into your life, you may enter a very puzzling state. You begin to be very introspective. You examine yourself, and whatever you say or do, you ask, “Is this of me, or is this of God? Is it of the soul, or is it of the spirit?” When you do that, you become paralyzed.
Our Christian life seems to come to a standstill, and I think many Christians have come to this point. I often use the example of a centipede. A centipede has a hundred feet and crawls very fast. One day a butterfly challenged him and said, “Centipede, when you crawl, which foot moves first?”
The centipede tried to figure out which of the hundred feet moved first, and he stayed put. He could not move. Finally, he gave up, forgot about it, and off he went.
Brothers and sisters, we are like that. We may come to a place in our spiritual progress when light comes and we faintly see that there is a difference between the soul and the spirit. We want to be in the spirit and not in the soul. We want to do everything in God’s will and not according to our own will. This is progress.
But in the process, we find that we do not have enough discernment to discern these things. If we try to discern them by ourselves, we become paralyzed. We dare not say anything or do anything because we are afraid that it may not be of God or may not be His will.
Hebrews 4:12 is there to solve that problem.
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
But who is using that sword? The picture is that of a sacrifice. You put a sacrifice on the altar, and the priest comes. He is a trained butcher. He uses the sharp, two-edged sword to cut the sacrifice and expose everything within it. He does not make a mess of it.
If you ask me to kill a chicken, I will make a mess of it. But the priest is a trained butcher. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit. Our problem is that we use the word of God ourselves. If you take hold of the word of God and use it to cut yourself, you will make a mess of yourself and of other people.
Let the Holy Spirit use the word of God. All you need to do—and that is where our diligence is—is lie there on the altar. Do nothing. That is all you need to do, and that is the most difficult thing for the flesh.
“Lord, I give myself to You. I present my body as a living sacrifice. I am not going to cut myself, because I will make a mess of myself. But I put myself in Your presence, and may the Holy Spirit use the word of God to penetrate.”
Brothers and sisters, in our experience, you will find that He will do the work. That is where knowledge begins to grow from within. More and more through experience, we know the division between the spirit and the soul, so that we may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.
After knowledge, he says, “In your knowledge self-control.” Temperance is self-control.
One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is self-control. Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit of the Spirit, and the last one is self-control. What does self-control mean? Does it mean that you control yourself?
Perhaps it would be clearer to say, “controlled self.” Who is going to control that self? How are you going to control self? We know that our greatest enemy is not outside us; it is within us.
In the beginning, we think that our greatest enemy is the world, with all its attractions—the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. But the world is outside of us. As we grow in the Lord, gradually we find that our greatest enemy is within us: our self, this self-life.
Martin Luther once said that he was afraid of the “pope” within him. Melanchthon, the theologian during the Reformation, said, “Old Adam is too strong for young Melanchthon.” They began to realize that self is the problem. It is always standing in the way of Christ.
We want the life of Christ to come forth, but self competes with Christ. The flesh struggles with the Spirit. That is the great enemy. How can we control it? We cannot control ourselves.
Self-control is actually Spirit-control. In other words, the Holy Spirit controls our flesh and controls our self. But for the Holy Spirit to control us, He needs our cooperation.
God never works against our will. This is a spiritual principle. When He created us, He created us with a free will. Therefore, He always respects our will. God will not force us to do anything against our will.
Even if He is willing to do everything for us, He waits until we yield our will to Him. Only after we yield our will to Him, as if we have given Him permission, will His grace come upon us.
In this matter of self-control, what we need to do is will to deny ourselves. That is what our Lord Jesus often says: “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
He will make us His disciples. He will make us like Him. But for Him to make us like Him, He wants us to place our will against ourselves for Him. That is all He wants us to do.
That is discipline. We need to be disciplined. As we go on with the Lord, we find how important a disciplined life is. We need to be under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit disciplines us according to the measure in which we give ourselves to Him.
As we go on, our consecration becomes deeper. Whenever we have an issue in our life, that is the time we need to rededicate our life to Him. When we do that, the Holy Spirit will control us, arrange our circumstances, and give us the right crosses to deliver us from ourselves and release His life within us.
Then, in self-control, endurance. When the Holy Spirit is controlling us and disciplining us, He arranges all kinds of circumstances in our life.
We believe that, as children of God, nothing comes to us by chance. Our Lord Jesus said that even the hairs of our head are numbered. He knows everything about us. When you comb your hair in the morning and a hair falls, He knows exactly which hair has fallen. That is the love of God. It is beyond our imagination, but it is true—very true.
Every morning, when I comb my hair—I do not have much hair now—sometimes one, two, or three hairs fall down. I say, “Lord, You know that.” That is His love.
If we commit our lives to Him, nothing comes to us by chance. He arranges the people we meet, the things we confront, the environment around us—everything is under His management. The reason is that through these things we may be perfected.
Endurance, in the New Testament, has two aspects. One is to endure people; the other is to endure the things around us. Here we find that we are able to endure all the trials and afflictions of life.
God has not promised us that we will go to heaven on flowery beds of ease. But He does promise that He is with us.
Through all the trials and afflictions of life, we learn experience, and experience produces hope. Hope does not put us to shame, because the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God. That is Romans 5.
Here we begin to have fellowship with His sufferings. This is on the way to maturity. By the grace of God, we are able to endure. Endurance simply means that you last longer than your trial.
The reason you are able to do that is not because of yourself; it is because of the life of Christ in you. Because He has overcome, we too will overcome. These things are not added from our side. As we grow in life and in the making of a man of God, these things come naturally. Gradually, there is more and more growth within us.
Then, in endurance, godliness. Godliness simply means to be like God. In other words, the character of God begins to be formed in you.
When something is formed, it is visible; it can be seen. God cannot be seen, but when Christ came, God was seen because His form was in Christ. Today people cannot see Christ physically. No one has seen God, as Scripture says. But if Christ is formed in us, people will see.
That is why godliness is so important. We not only have the divine nature in us, with divine life, but that divine nature is developed into divine character. With such character, we prove to the world that we are of God.
Then, in godliness, brotherly love. How important is brotherly love. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us, and people will see Him.
In the early church, they had such a good testimony that the people around them said, “See how these people love one another.” That was the power of their testimony. They loved one another.
Our Lord Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples.”
Finally, in brotherly love, love. If we are filled with love, we are filled with God. That is Ephesians 3. In Paul’s second prayer, he says that we may know the love of God, which surpasses knowledge. We do not know the length, breadth, height, and depth; but when we are filled with love, we are filled with God, because God is love.
The whole thing begins with faith and ends with love. It begins with life and ends with godliness, with being partakers of the divine nature. That is the making of a man of God.
When a man of God is made, not only will he express God in his life, but God will use his life to do His work. But remember, so far as God is concerned, life is more important than work.
He wants us to be like Him. Because we are like Him, we are able to do His work.
Finally, in 2 Peter 1:9, we see the contrast: “For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.”
We are exhorted to use diligence so that these things may come forward from within and eventually be manifested, that God’s purpose may be fulfilled. But if we are idle, if we sit back and do nothing, if we are content merely to be saved with the assurance that one day we will be in heaven, then we do not press on.
If we do not deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him, using diligence, what will happen? We will be blind and short-sighted. We will be blind to the purpose of God.
God has such a glorious purpose for our life, but we may be short-sighted. In other words, we can see only what is near. We see only the world and immediate things; we do not see the eternal. We are short-sighted.
Worse than that, we forget that our former sins have been purged. God has loved us so much that He has purged us from our sins, that we may be free to grow into His purpose. If we forget that, we will fall back into sin.
With Christian life, you either go forward or go backward. You cannot stand still, because the current of the world is so strong. We are going against the current. Either you move forward against the current, or, if you are idle and do nothing, you go with the current. That will be the result.
Dear brothers, I think the word God has given us is a real encouragement. By the grace of God, we need to yield ourselves more and more completely to Him, so that He may finish His work in us.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for Thy glorious purpose concerning us. We want to thank Thee that Thou hast already begun this good work in us, giving us faith, giving us Thy life, and all things that relate to godliness.
Our Lord, we pray that we may not be people who forget that our past sins have been purged. May we not be blind or short-sighted. Lord, may we be so constrained by Thy love that we want to follow Thy life. We want to allow Thy life to grow within us.
We want to yield ourselves to Thee and stand with Thee, that Thy will may be done in each of us. Lord, make us men of God to satisfy Thy heart. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.