“The Truth of Christmas”

Thank you so much, Penny and Terry.

If you have your Bible with you this morning, I'd like you to take it, please, and let's find that New Testament book 2 Peter.  It's almost to the back of your Bible.  It will appear on the screen.  Now, some Sundays we're putting the scriptures on the screen.  That by no means is to encourage you not to bring your own Bibles.  Warren Wiersbe once said, "If you don't talk to your Bible, it won't talk to you."  Well, I talk to my Bible all the time; that's how I understand that God speaks to us.  I'm reading a rather new copy of the scriptures these days, but I already have marks all over it because I write in my Bible.  You can't underline things up here (points to screen).  You don't get to take that one home with you, and the reason we teach from the Bible here is so you can see God's Word with your own eyes, we want you to have a copy, and I apologize - I didn't find the page number for the pew Bible this morning but you can look up there as we read.

I was thinking about Christmas and have just been brainstorming all week about what this passage is teaching us and just a few minutes ago was thinking something seemingly unrelated, "The Sound of Music."  Because Christmas is the time when everything kind of gets just a little fuzzy.  The lens of life blurs just a little bit.  It's kind of like the scene when Maria has come back.  You've seen "The Sound of Music," right? And she's outside in the gazebo and Von Trapp finally tells that witch of a woman that he was gonna marry that he's not gonna marry her!  Didn't she play her role well?  Just loved to hate her!  [Laughter] And so, he goes out to the gazebo on this night and they begin to talk, and they stand together nose-to-nose, and all at once the lens  blurs, and you know what's coming…. a song.  That's what Christmas is!  Everything gets focused on this one thing, and all at once the lens blurs.  And everybody kind of just gets ready for a silly love song.  That is not what Christmas is.  Christmas is the point  in which God defined Himself to humanity in such clear terms that it would be unmistakable who God is, what God does and what God's plan for the universe is, so we want to eliminate the fuzziness and we want to do what this passage does and get definitive about Christmas.

2 Peter 1: Verse 3

2Pe 1:3  His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

2Pe 1:4  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.

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

2Pe 1:6  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,

2Pe 1:7  and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

2Pe 1:8  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.

2Pe 1:9  For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

2Pe 1:10  Therefore, brothers, [Whenever the word "Brothers" is used in the scriptures, it was known when it was written that that is an inclusive word for the whole of the congregation, therefore, brothers and sisters…]

 be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.

2Pe 1:11  For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

You couldn't cover the depth of that passage in 10 sermons.  We're going to fly over it today and see how it helps us understand Christmas.  But lest we don't deal with it properly this morning because I won't have time, do not forget the connection of today with tomorrow.  Peter sums up everything he says in those verses in Verse 11, here's the reason:

2Pe 1:11  For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

He's taking the sting out of death and teaching the Christian how to live today with heaven in view.  I do have a very deep concern for us and for our day and it really is the fuzzy lens effect.  When I listen to Christians talk, when I listen to the world talk about Christians, as you listen to the upcoming presidential primaries and interviews with Mitt Romney and Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and then you go over on the Democratic side and you get all the different views, and I didn't mention Republicans by name so I couldn't mention Democrats to push you one way or the other.  I think I'll develop a whole list of preacher jokes about the Republican Party and the Democratic Party just to keep you on edge. 

But it's so undefined what a Christian is.  Public Radio, I just happened on an interview with Frankie Schaeffer, the son of Francis Schaeffer, and even in his own mind, I've got to read his book. I'm not suggesting it for you because I haven't read it yet, I think it's "Crazy About God," or "Crazy For God."  It sounded like to me he's completely lost what a definition of Christianity is, too.  I don’t know… Definitely what an evangelical is, because by his remarks, evangelicals are those who have leaders that we lionize and idolize and they have their own private jets and they live in a palatial mansion.  I can tell you that I don't have a private jet and I don't live in a palatial mansion.  If you'd like to give me one, we'll talk after church…. [Laughter]… No, I'm sorry.

Can you get Christmas close enough to see?  To touch?  John said, "These things we have seen, we've touched with our own hands."  The experience, this life in Christ.  I'm worried that we live with the fuzzy lens effects and my bigger worry is what we say to the world because, in general, the church and Christianity doesn’t have an accurate picture in the world.  It doesn’t so much matter to me if we're liked or disliked, it's if they know who and what a Christian is.  That's part of what Peter is dealing with.  We're still on the theme of last week, of Christmas Connections.  God made his connection to us through Christ, but what kind of connection is there in Christmas from you to the world and from you to home?  Is Christmas at your home the real Christmas?  Now', I'm not talking about comparing sitting around the tree and opening gifts, frankly I love that kind of thing.  We have blast doing it at our house.  I'm talking about every day of the year can Christmas be seen, is it clarified? 

So, let's walk through this passage and we're going to see if we can define Christmas for ourselves and then out of ourselves, define it for the world.  Chapter 1, Verse 3:

2Pe 1:3  His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,

These first few verses lay the theological groundwork for what Peter's going to say.  We've spent a lot of time together over our years together understanding the gospel and the work of God.  I'm going to just lay lightly on those to move chiefly to the application of today's passage.

2Pe 1:3  His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

How did he do that?  If you look in Verse 1 it says:

2 Peter 1:1 To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

Our faith was gained for us through the righteousness of Christ.  Then since he's given us through Christ all these things that pertain to life and godliness, and we access that…..

…..through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

2Pe 1:4  by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises

Through Christ's glory and his excellence, He's given us a book full of precious and immeasurably great promises.  What for?  So that through those promises and through his glory and excellence, you, all who believe in Christ may become partakers of the divine nature.  He's saying He's going to put life in from Christ in you by his Spirit and you then are going to have the power of God through the life of God within your soul to be a Christian.  A Christian cannot be measured simply by their moral behavior, simply if they go to church, simply if they give of their money to Christian causes.  A Christian can only genuinely be measured by where they stand with Christ.  Faith is only obtained through the merits, through the work and through the worth of Christ Jesus.  We have an object to rest on.  But that's not all to Christianity.  Not only do we need to rest, but we need to learn how to run, because it's actually more in our running that the world understands what a Christian is than it is through our resting, but if you don't rest on Christ, you can't run for Him.

2Pe 1:4  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.

The world is corrupt today because of desires in the human heart that are

corrupted by sin.  Then, he says "for this very reason," the reason that through those promises and Christ's glory and excellence have come to you and through Christ you have faith in him and you have partaker of the divine nature, here's what I want you to do, but the first thing you have to notice is follow this word of "knowledge" with me.  The word, "knowledge." 

Verse 2:

2Pe 1:2  May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

2Pe 1:3  His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

2Pe 1:8  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.

Something not understood about Christianity in the church and outside of the church is this, there is an inseparable link between knowledge and practice.

There is an inseparable link between knowledge and practice.  You must know that through Christ you've been made a partaker of the divine nature.  You must know Heaven is guaranteed to you by his grace, but, my dear friend, if you don't put feet to that knowledge, that knowledge then is biblically false.  Knowledge is connected practice and practice is connected to knowledge and they are forever inseparable in the life of the believer.  We are not to be a bunch of nonintellectual, easily lead buffoons which is a common caricature of the evangelical right, if we could be classified as that.  That we are not!

Because these things have been made true of us in Christ, Verse 5, and I would say to you right now, buckle your seatbelt; not because I'm going to get energetic, but because this scripture begins to drive home this truth of Christmas, us making Christmas seeable to the world and to our families.  Do we connect this to reality? It's intense, for this very reason.  There's a knowledge word again.  Christianity is a reasonable, logical faith.  It's not a leap in the dark.  It's always based on the act of God that leads to faith in that act, that leads to function in our lives. 

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith….

And there is the rub.  How many of us have been convinced that you make a decision for Christ and whoosh…. You have reached the climax of the Christian faith?  My dear friend, when Jesus saves you and you truly have trusted Christ, you were saved then, you were saved fully and you were saved forever, but you've just begun.  You're a babe.  And if you don't add to that, you're going to stumble, you're going to fall, you're going to struggle, and you're going to be a lousy witness.  The Apostle Peter said,

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort…..

What's he saying? Let's look at the word, supplement, first.  It's the word we get our word, choreograph, from.  These choreographers in his time were the very wealthy citizens of the town that helped the government fund the Greek drama that came to town and they vied for the opportunity to do so.  It was their opportunity for prestige and honor to pour out of their own wealth everything that was needed to fund this play to see that it could take place. It was costly, it was a huge effort that they would supplement this.  Peter says I want you to supplement your soul, your faith with a generous and costly cooperation.  That's what the choreographer did.  He cooperated with the play coming in.  He cooperated with the government who brought it in and he said, "I want to fuel this."  God is the one who made us partaker of his divine nature, but in real Christianity, we are the supplementers, we are the outfitters, we are the choreographers of our faith and with our own generous and costly cooperation, we are to add to our faith to supplement it with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love.  Do you need a seatbelt?

1.                 There is an inseparable link between knowledge and practice.

2.                 We must supplement our faith; in other words, don’t be cheap with your soul.  Don't be cheap with your soul because you get what you pay for. 

I'm not talking about paying for your salvation, but I am talking about paving the way, supplementing your faith as far as you act.  There are so many repercussions of that.  One of the things, I'll get to it later maybe, but just in case I don't, one of the things I have noticed over the years of my own living and of pastoral counsel is when I sit with people and I deal with soul problems, I have learned that most of them come out of a kind of a shallow understanding of the basics of the gospel.  And a lot of people begin to be worrisome, doubtful, insecure and unstable.  And it is because once they got that way, they began to think instead of act.  They began to try their state and see, well what am I, who am I, is this true of me, is that true of me? and that is exactly the opposite of what the Bible would teach us to do.  To gain assurance, to find strength for our soul, we take the faith that we have and we act on it, we don't feel it.  We are not forever taking our internal spiritual temperature, we're out doing, and that's one of the things Peter is telling is telling us here.  Supplement that faith, and what do you supplement it with? Virtue.  What's virtue? Let me show you something terribly interesting in this passage.  In verse 3 it ends with that "he's called us to his own glory or by his own glory and excellence."  That word excellence and the word virtue are the same word.  You could translate virtue as excellence in Verse 5.  It simply means bringing anything to its fulfilled end.  You are consistent in your Christian living.

Alright, before I get too far ahead of myself, you are to supplement your faith, don't starve your soul, don't be cheap with your soul.  We've been given this grace of God and then this grace of God enables and demands effort from us.  This is an important statement.  The grace of God enables and then demands effort from us.  If this doesn’t take effort, I don't know what you could call it.  We are to bring alongside, as we supplement our faith, it is the picture of bringing alongside what God has already brought, and the words used here describe someone bringing alongside all of these 7 things to their faith with every ounce of determination they can muster.  Can I stop there just a minute and ask if that has described the Christians you have been around most of your life? Somebody who understands who God is, what he's done for them in Christ, and somebody who with great diligence is continually adding specific things that God has told them to, to their faith?

Why is that not so?  One reason, one simple reason is that we haven't been taught that it was so.  We have spectator worship.  We hire somebody who can keep us interested or at least keep us awake for 30 minutes or so, and we haven't been told this is what Christian living is.  We want to be definitive as God was definitive at Christmas.  Aren't you glad that God was definitive at Christmas?  Aren't you glad He clothed His Son in flesh so that you could understand clear enough how to bow your knee, trust Christ, have your sins forgiven and heaven to be your home?  Why don't we get that definitive to our families and to this world about what a Christian is, one whose trusted Christ.  Our effort in what we're talking about this morning, this is important, our effort is indispensable, yet inadequate.  It will not save you, I don't care how hard you work, you will not work your way to heaven.  But, once you have been saved by grace through faith, you must work.  It is the proof of that faith and it is what will bring fruit from that faith. 

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

2Pe 1:6  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,

2Pe 1:7  and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

Which of those would you choose to start with? He gets kind of picky doesn’t he?  Isn't he a little bit on the specific side to tell us exactly what He wants us to do?  Yeah, I'm kind of glad because I don't have to wonder.  God, what's your child look like? What's a Christian look like.  He said, "This is what a Christian looks like, so I want you to pursue these things.  I want you to be a virtuous person, a person marked with excellence for our God is excellent.  I want you to follow through to the desired end of your life in everything that you do, your work, your family, your worship."  Self control.  What in the world is that?  It is just the fact that you control your passions and your passions don't control you.  The descriptive word or way of saying that would be "It is submission to the indwelling Christ."  That's a difficult one in the emotional world of Christianity we have today.  We are driven by our emotions and it is a virtue to do that.  Conversations we see, interactions on news channels, television shows we watch.  It is when "I, me," is the center of life, then whatever happens on my outside and causes my insides to feel a certain way because you've hurt my feelings or done something to me, I then am justified to let my passions come out at you so I can be authentic and tell you exactly what I think and if I feel like telling you to take a hike, I can tell you to do that and I'm justified in doing it. 

My friend, do you know what that's called?  That's called being hijacked by your emotions.  That's being totally out of control, that's not being in control.  The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.  And because we don't work on it, sometimes we Christians who have an emotional faith about Jesus can get the most emotionally upset when somebody contradicts what we say we believe, or confronts us when we're supposed to be dead to self and sin.  When Jesus was reviled he reviled not again.  He didn't even open his mouth when they were going to crucify him and he could have called a whole legion of angels.  12 legions of angels. 

You see, I begin to walk through this and think, "Oh, boy! I think I have some room for improvement."  Somebody says something to me I don't like, it enters my mind and it shoots a direct signal  to my adrenal glands that they've hurt my feelings, and all at once I listen to that fight or flight syndrome and I get emotionally hijacked.  And what that does, it sets you down and causes you to build your fortress in how you’re going to defend yourself instead of saying, "Yeah, I feel that way, but God what do you say about this?"  You say you've made me a partaker of your divine nature and you're almighty, and so therefore, what would the Lord Jesus do in this situation? How would He respond?  Well, I have your power, therefore, I can do that?  My friends, that doesn’t happen without an awful lot of practice.  But that's part of being definitive, of showing Christmas, of showing what a Christian is.  That's who we are, that's what we are to be.  We are to be self-controlled, we are to be godly, that means conscientious about our behavior towards God and men.  We're to have brotherly affection and the New Testament is full of talking about brotherly affection.  It's both important to have that and difficult to have that, but brotherly affection is still easier than love because brotherly affection is a bit mutual.  Love is this issue of this agape love that God has.  Now think this through with me. I didn't even mention steadfastness, which is patience, sitting under circumstances that irritate us with this self-control.  But the love that we’re talking about?  This love, now remember, we're defining God, we're defining Christmas, the origin in this love is in the agent doing the loving.   It is not in the object, the one being loved, can you follow that? Let me say it again, let's explain it.  The love that God says a Christian is to have, as a normal part of life that we do have to work for, the origin of that love in us towards others is in us, the agent of the one loving, not in the object of the one being loved.  First of all, that's how God loved us.  He loved us first.  That's why we love him.  He didn't see something in us lovely and say, "Oh, I think I'll love them."  He loved us because God is love.  That's different than brotherly affection.  And he wants us to be like His Son, so when we see people that, at that moment aren't lovable or don't look lovable to us, one of the distinctive marks, as a matter  of fact one of the chief distinctive marks of Christians, and that's why it's last, I think, and that's why it's first in the list of the Fruit of the Spirit, is we are to be people who love.  When you and I cannot do that, if we haven't had somebody make us so secure in their love for us, that's why we need to know we've been made partakers of the divine nature.

Now, how do I then take Christmas home?  How do I make Christmas visible? It's certainly not by buying gifts.  It's certainly not by playing Christmas songs, and we do all of that at our house, we love to do that.  There's nothing wrong with doing any of those things.  Let's read further:  Verse 8.  This is where it gets really practical.  He's told us, basically God is telling us in this passage what He's done for us, then He tells us what He expects us to do, then He tells us what happens if we do it, and what happens if we don't. Verse 8:  Here's what happens if we do these things:

2Pe 1:8  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.

Ineffective and unfruitful.  I want you to understand that these things are your friends.  God's not giving you something that's going to harm you.  They actually become your keepers.  If you do these things, you've already seen the list of them, if they are yours and increasing… now the word increasing means you keep on doing them, and it's a word that to the Greek mind meant someone who has an excess, but since we can never have too much goodness, God says, keep it up, let it keep growing, keep it on, let it grow.  But they keep you.  What it means is they become a ruler over you.  It means they are put in charge.  They are the ones that conduct you or bring you to a certain place and that certain place is effectiveness and fruitfulness in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Do you want to know Christ more? Serve him.  You want to serve Christ more, know more about him.  They are inseparable.  So these are your friends and the more you do them, the more they rise up high around you and guard your faith and guard your life; keep you where you are supposed to be. 

What if I don't do them? 

2Pe 1:9  For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Do you have the qualities? If so, you’re kept, you're being effective, you're fruitful and your knowledge leads to action.  If not, the Bible clearly says, if you don't have these qualities, if they are not increasing in you, then you are nearsighted.  That's what I am.  [Takes glasses off].  You are now a bunch of fuzzy blobs.  Taking my glasses off, I can't see anything.  As a matter of fact, if you could see like me, you might want to listen to me preach with these glasses off.  But if I put them back on, I'm no longer nearsighted.  It's corrected and I can see the details in your face.  As a matter of fact, I can see that some of you, your eyes are closed.  It'd be time to open them again.   You're nearsighted.  It means you can't see life correctly.  It means it's out of focus.  It's got a fuzz around it like a lens in a quirky musical.  It means life is out of proportion.  I means when you are nearsighted that your focus is on what's nearest you, and that would be your own self.  Nearsighted, spiritual nearsightedness means you are the chief object in view. Actually then, it's not nearsightedness, you become blind, not physically.  You can see fine, but the strangeness of spiritual blindness is you don't know it.  You don't know you've been blinded. Therefore, in life, because you can't see spiritually what coming at you or you can't understand spiritually the things that come at you, all things in life coming your way tend to surprise you, they tend to upset you.  You tend to get emotionally hijacked and you wonder, "Oh, God, why aren't you helping me? I'm one of your children!" And it's because you're not seeing life as it really is.  You don't understand in this world there's both good and evil.  You don't understand that God can use both good and evil to form his character in you.  You don't know that you suffer like his son did in this world.  This isn't your final home, heaven is and you need to be preparing for that now! 

And so, this is your state if you neglect all of these other things.  You're nearsighted, you're blind, and then you've lost your knowledge.  That knowledge that is so important you've forgotten.

2 Pe 1:9…..having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

I can only think of two things that happen; they're both the result of pride but one issue of pride pushes us to the side of haughtiness, we just get stronger and stiffer; we'll do it on our own, thank you.  Or, it pushes us to the pride of "Poor me.  Oh, I just, you know, I doubt. I worry all the time.  I just can't get this settled."  Well, you've got one thing to do.  You've got to get off your high horse or get out of the gravel and you've got to start doing based on truth.  So that your sight begins to get clear again, so that your mind begins to remember again.  You have lost the knowledge of who you are and what's been done for you and who God is because you cease to act like you are.  The believer needs to become what God has made him or her to be, so what is the point? What's the message?

The message is simply this:  Christmas connected God to earth and earth to God.  You, if you are Christ's by placing your faith in him, are directly connected to God, even a partaker of his divine nature through grace.  You, then, have been given an assignment and the assignment is greatly similar to what Christ did on the first Christmas.  You see, all this is telling us to do is to put flesh on who we really are, to incarnate the truth we know.  That's what Jesus did.  He took on flesh of what He really is and was, God.   He became what we are, man.  And through those facts we learn how to go to heaven from earth through Christ.  We understand who God is.  We understand what He's done and we've been given a way to understand with our weak human ears the magnificence of a Holy God enough that even a child could trust Christ and be saved.  That's what God did to bring Christmas to us.  What are we doing to take Christmas to our children? To our wives? To our husbands? And to the world?  It's just like this jacket I have own.  That jacket is just worthless; it's a piece of material.  But if that jacket represents virtue and knowledge and self-control and godliness and steadfastness and brotherly affection  and love, I can sit around and I can study that thing…. Oh, look at that! That's self-control; that's the greatest trait  in the world isn't it?  Man, it'd be great to be self-controlled.  That knowledge, man, he's got so much knowledge! Look at that knowledge he's got!  And we walk off and leave it.  It's like going to church service, listening to a sermon and walking out the door unchanged. 

God says "Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, godliness…." Now everywhere I go, the coat goes.  What are you wearing home today….your feelings or facts?  Are you going to feel your way to heaven? I don't like to do that.  I want to see.  And I want people to see.  I don't want people to misunderstand who my Jesus is. I don't want them to misunderstand who I am.  I certainly don't want this community to misunderstand who we are.  When the see it defined, as God brought Himself to earth in Christ, we can take Christmas in ourselves to our home by putting flesh on what we are.  People cannot see your faith or your heart, they see you. 

Now, let's review and we'll be done.

1.                 First there is an inseparable link between faith and knowledge.  Do you know what you believe?

2.                 When you have that faith as a gift of God, you are to supplement it generously with all those other things.  Do not be cheap with your soul, you'll pay a deep price for it.

3.                 The grace of God that you have received by faith, both enables and demands your effort.  You cannot coast to heaven.

4.                 Our effort is indispensable.  You'll never be all that God wants you to be as his child without effort, but it is not adequate.  You do not depend on your efforts for God to be pleased with you.  You depend on Christ for that and for him to take you to heaven.

So what do I do?

1.       First you obtain a faith like the Apostle Peter's.   Wouldn't you like to have a faith like the Apostle Peter or the Apostle Paul's?  Well,  Peter says you can.

2 Peter 1:1 To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

Everybody's faith comes the same way, through Christ's righteousness, you rest on Him. 

2. You then learn all you can about the grace of God in Christ.  You open your Bible, you go to church, you go to Sunday School, LIFE classes, you take it in. 

3.  Then you start running.  Put the gospel shoes on, put the coat on, make  

very effort to outfit your faith.  You going on any fishing trips?  You going hunting? You going shopping?  Do you just go without a plan? No.  Well, why in the world would you go to heaven without a plan?

Take Christmas home.  Will it last more than December 25^th?  Will you read the Bible together as a family more than one day a year? Will the people around you know who your God is, who your Christ is, and what a Christian is by how you live?