03-09-08 Step Right Up Pt. 2

This is our ninth week in our study on Spiritual Growth.

Our goal in this series

is to understand what it really means for us to grow in our Christian lives,

and then to understand how we go about it.

There are a whole lot of voices around us

all offering their definitions and explanations of what it means.

Unfortunately many of them are simply pushing one more religious system -

yet another set of rules and religious duties that,

if we fulfill them, are guaranteed to get us closer to God

or make us more acceptable to Him.

They all ultimately rest upon our determination,

our commitment,

our faithfulness to God,

our self-discipline and ability to make it work.

But, as Paul said to the Colossians,

COL 2:23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

They look great,

they sound great,

they sell really well,

but in the end they simply have no power whatsoever to transform our lives.

But fortunately our Lord did not leave us in the dark.

It’s certainly true that what He says to us

is sometimes hard for us to understand,

not because it’s complicated or obscure,

but because it’s often exactly the opposite of what we expect Him to say

and, because we are expecting Him to say something different,

it sometimes takes us a very long time before we actually hear what’s really being said.

And for a number of weeks now

we’ve been doing our best

to listen carefully to what He’s been saying to us through Peter.

We’re using the first half of the first chapter of his second letter

as our guide into understanding

what spiritual growth is and how it takes place in our life.

And what we’ve seen so far

is filled with both hope and encouragement.

We’ve heard him tell us

that what we’re after,

everything that we truly long for in life,

will come to us through a growing personal friendship with our Lord.

2PE 1:3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

We’ve also seen that friendships never grow without a shared project,

and that the project God has selected for us

is that of helping us to “...become partakers of the divine nature...”.

In other words,

becoming more and more like God Himself.

And then Peter took us one step farther in our understanding of this whole thing

by telling us that the key ingredient in this growth process

is what he calls “...the precious and magnificent promises...” of God.

Remarkable as it may seem,

it is not our commitment to God that brings changes into our lives,

but rather God’s commitment to us.

The more we hear and understand and trust what He says to us,

the more real change comes into our lives.

And we spent three weeks

talking about why those promises are so important

and how they help bring about change in our lives.

Then last week we took one more step with Peter

as he shared with us the eight progressive steps of growth

that our Lord seeks to lead us through.

2PE 1:5-7 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

We’ll spend a lot more time with these before we finish this study,

but before we go back to those progressive steps

there’s one other thing I want to point out.

And here again what I’m about to share with you

is so easy for us to miss

because it is simply not what we expect to hear.

In fact, not only is it not what we expect to hear,

but it is, in fact exactly the opposite of what comes to us through the world of religion.

And maybe the best way for me to say what I want to say here

is to introduce a word that I have rarely used in my public teaching,

yet a word that is extremely common in the church world.

It’s the word “ministry”.

If you’ve been in the church world for any length of time

I’m certain you’ve heard this word used frequently.

Someone may have asked you, “What is your ministry?”

Or more often,

you’ve heard someone say, “This is our ministry.”,

or “God has given us this ministry.”

Or possibly,

“We just purchased this ____________ (boat or car or RV or house or airplane or...) so that we could use it as a ministry.”

And before I say any more here

let me say that the word “ministry” certainly does appear in the New Testament texts,

but not the way we so often use it.

In the New Testament

the word means simply “service”,

the act of serving another person or group of people.

It is clear that there are times

when God calls us to specific acts of service,

when He gives us specific opportunities to meet the specific needs of someone else

in a way that powerfully communicates both our love for them and God’s love for them.

It is a significant part of what He seeks to do both in and through us,

and when done correctly

it is never something we try do for another person

but rather simply a natural expression of the life of Christ within us.

In fact,

here’s something really fascinating -

a kind of test to know whether or not what we are doing

is a true ministry given to us by God.

If it is the real thing,

if we were to openly call it a “ministry”

it would probably destroy it.

Maybe an example will help here.

Picture a situation in which God brings another person into your life,

a person He just simply gives you a heart for,

a person you find yourself caring deeply about,

a person who is now where you once were,

a person who responds to your friendship and your kindness and your love.

And many of you right now

have just thought of that type of relationship in your life,

because it’s just the type of thing God does.

It is a huge part of the way He expresses Himself through us as His children.

It is a big part of being the body of Christ here, now on this earth.

Now, this friendship between you and this other person grows,

and as it grows some really great things begin to happen in both of your lives,

but especially in the life of your friend.

In a very real way

you become a solid anchor for them,

a safe place.

What you’re doing is serving them,

giving of yourself, your time, your resources

to help them.

But you’re not doing it as some sort of religious duty,

you’re doing it simply because you care about them,

you love them.

Now, I want you to imagine what would happen

if you were to say to that person,

“You know, you’re my ministry...you are the ministry God has given me.”

What do you think that would do to your relationship?

I think it would shred it.

I think it would create a barrier between you and the other person

that would perhaps never be undone.

I think it would make it extremely difficult

for them to hear and trust the love that was your true motivation.

Once that term “ministry” came into it

rather than them being able to trust and receive your love for them

it would create in their mind

the belief that your involvement in their life

was just some attempt on your part to fulfill a religious duty

so that you could get points in heaven.

And here’s the remarkable thing -

if you’re doing it right,

if you really are simply allowing Christ to live out through you

in a way that helps and heals another person,

that truly is your ministry in the correct sense of the word.

But given what we’ve done to that concept in the world of religion,

if you were to label it as your “ministry”

it would destroy the very thing God is doing through you.

In the cultural sense of the word,

as we commonly use it in our religious culture today,

I don’t have any ministries.

All I have is a group of people God’s given me a love,

a group of people I care deeply about,

people that, in my own fumbling sort of way,

I try to help and serve,

just as many of them try to help and serve me.

But I bring all of this up in the context of Peter’s comments here in this passage we’re studying

because I want us to see something fascinating

about the relationship between this project we share with God

of becoming a partaker of the divine nature

and whatever “ministries” God may choose to give us while we’re here on this earth.

Left to ourselves,

I think if someone would have asked us

what sort of projects God wanted to share with us

so that we could get to know Him better,

our first response would have been

to think in terms of some “ministry” He wants us to perform.

In fact,

we would probably assume that the “ministry” is the goal

and all this other stuff is just the necessary preparation.

But the truth is that here again we have it backwards.

The goal is always, only HIM,

our growing in our friendship with Him,

and the means by which that friendship grows

is always, only His leading us through the process

of becoming increasingly conformed to the image of Christ,

becoming a partaker of the divine nature.

So then where does this ministry thing fit in?

Doesn’t God intend for us to live effective, productive lives,

lives that literally change our world for good?

Certainly.

But he also wants us to know

that any real good that ever comes out of our lives

is simply a by-product of the changing process within us.

Listen to this!

Immediately after Peter shares with us these eight progressive steps of growth,

this is the next thing he says.

2PE 1:8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To my mind

that is the most remarkable single statement in this entire passage.

Peter tells us that,

if we cooperate with this growth program offered to us by Christ,

embracing it and sharing it with Him,

it will, ‟... render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That phrase ‟true knowledge” is the same Greek word, ‟epignosis” that we found in verses two and three,

that same word used by the New Testament writers

to describe the unique, intimate friendship with Christ

that can be known only by the Christian.

In this amazing statement Peter is telling us that

all true productivity in the Christian’s life is a by-product of character growth.

And to reinforce this truth

Peter gives it to us in the form of a promise.

He guarantees that,

if we focus our attention

on sharing with our Lord this character growth process,

the result will be a life that is both useful and productive by God’s standard of measure.

Do you want a Christian life that’s really productive,

one that is effective and powerful in demonstrating the reality of God to the world around us?

Do you want to know

that you haven’t wasted your time here on this earth,

or your gifts, or your talents?

In this single phrase

Peter reveals to us a crucial truth

that seems to have escaped the recognition of much of the Christian world.

We are surrounded by so many voices

telling us that the path to productivity is found

in trying harder and doing more

and committing ourselves more fervently to the things that must be done.

It’s an approach that,

like all flesh-generated substitutes to true life in the Spirit,

has the appearance of wisdom and correctness,

but an approach that can never produce true usefulness and fruitfulness in the Christian life.

Peter doesn’t want us to waste our life,

burning ourselves out in a burst of frantic effort that, in the end,

changes nobody and accomplishes nothing of lasting value.

Peter wants us to know the truth -

usefulness and productivity in the Christian life

are not goals to be pursued,

they are by-products of a growing trust-friendship with God.

True Christian living isn’t a business,

it isn’t a system we fulfill.

It’s a relationship between us and our Lord.

That relationship deepens

as we share with Christ the character growth projects

that He has carefully selected for each of us.

As that growth process changes us on the inside,

allowing us to become a ‟partaker of the divine nature”,

increasingly conforming us to the image of our Lord,

God places us in situations and positions

that allow us to be truly useful and fruitful in His kingdom.

Any attempt to circumvent that process, though,

will ultimately lead to tragedy for all concerned.

Our contemporary Christian landscape

is littered with the broken lives of those

who have attempted to achieve success and productivity as a goal

rather than as the God-given byproduct of character growth and development.

Rather than facing honestly the growth issues their Lord sought to share with them,

they attempted to hide behind a great show of productivity and success.

Too late they discovered that the issues they ran from, hid from

ultimately destroyed their little empires

and damaged the faith of many others in the process.

Peter, certainly as much as any other New Testament Apostle,

hungered for a useful, fruitful, truly successful life.

But after years with his Lord,

he understood that everything God would ever be able to do through him

depended upon what God was first able to do in him.

There’s only one path that leads to true productivity for the child of God.

It’s the path that leads us through God’s carefully crafted program of character growth,

a program that brings an ever deepening heart knowledge of our Lord

and enables us to become increasingly conformed to His image.

‟For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And then,

before we leave this for the morning,

I want to point out one more important thing about these eight steps.

Peter makes it clear

that God wants us to have a sort of dual relationship to these qualities.

It’s stated for us in the first phrase of verse 8

where Peter says, ‟For if these qualities are yours and are increasing...”.

Peter wants us to understand

that our relationship to these qualities is a process, not a point.

Because these character qualities are presented as progressive steps

we run the risk of falling victim to the ‟I have arrived” deception

that can be so deadly to healthy progress in our walk with the King.

It’s true that, when we first come to our Lord,

He guides us through these steps of growth,

seeking to make them “ours”

in a way that was never possible before our union with Christ.

But it’s also true

that we will spend the rest of our lives

discovering greater and greater depths of understanding

about each of these qualities

and how they need to be integrated into our daily walk with the King.

The goal God is offering us is not to attempt to arrive at a point.

The goal is to share an ongoing process of growth with our Lord.

The truth is that, if we allow Him to,

our Lord will lead us up these steps many, many times throughout our walk with Him,

each time showing us new depths of awareness about both ourselves and our God.