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MARCH 19, 2006
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2 Peter
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"God's Recipe: To Knowledge Add Self Control"
2 Peter 1: 1-11
- The pastor was caught in a quandary. He was new to Houston, just getting settled into the church. He had hopped onto the bus one day to head downtown and realized after he was seated that the bus driver had given him a quarter too much change.
As he considered what to do, he thought to himself, "You'd better give the quarter back. It would be wrong to keep it."
Then he thought, "Oh, forget it, it's only a quarter. Who would worry about this little amount? Anyway, the bus company gets too much fare; they will never miss it. Accept it as a 'gift from God' and keep quiet."
When his stop came, he paused momentarily at the door, then he handed the quarter to the driver and said, "Here, you gave me too much change."
The driver with a smile replied, "You're the new preacher in town, aren't you? I have been thinking lately about going to worship somewhere. I just wanted to see what you would do if I gave you too much change. I'll see you at church on Sunday."
When the preacher stepped off of that bus, he literally grabbed the nearest light pole, held on, and said, "Oh God, I almost sold your Son for a quarter."
The crucial reason why we must be diligent to not waste a minute in adding to our faith is so that that faith may be made manifest, may grow, that when faced with decisions we will have an already established openness to the Lord, we will be, as this preacher proved to be, obedient listeners.
This happens as we continue to supply our faith with what Peter lists here as necessary ingredients for this growth.
We have looked at adding goodness, beginning with setting our minds upon the goodness of God, and then seeing that goodness made visible through our lives. "For whatever gets your attention, gets you," I quoted evangelist E Stanley Jones as saying. So, has God's great goodness captured your attention?
To goodness we add knowledge, for we always can continue to grow in the Lord, we can learn to know Jesus better.
Last week 98 and a half year old Willa Hayes testified that she still is getting to know Jesus better, and she was a Christian believer before any of us were born. So, that tells us, knowledge can increase.
This is both factual knowledge, knowing the Word of God, the actions of God in history, the truth about our God, and relational knowledge, knowing God through Jesus Christ.
Now, knowledge is dangerous if it is just the end focus of our lives. We can get fat with knowledge by never applying it. This happened to the Pharisees those robed church leaders of Jesus' day. They knew a lot of Scripture but were not listening to what those Scriptures said! They never saw the One standing right in front of them about whom Moses has written.
- So we grow in knowledge while supplying that knowledge with self control - what this preacher in the opening illustration exercised. This addition of self control is the application of what we know of the Lord, how we know the Lord to this moment's situation.
Daily we apply self control to our lives -- from decisions about when to stop eating, drinking, pressing on the gas peddle, or talking in a gossiping situation, to decisions of when to speak, what to do, how to respond to someone in conversation with us.
Self control relates as much to what we may need to say "no" to as to what we need to affirm. In order to say "yes" to our walk with Jesus requires that we say "no" to other behaviors in our lives.
Indeed you can read in Scripture how the grace of God has taught us to say "no" to "ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age…." (Titus 2:12-13). That is we say "yes" to living in one manner while saying no to living in another. But did you hear from that passage that the yes and no are empowered by God's Spirit: "God's grace teaches us to…" Here in Peter, we already know that all has been poured into us with God moving into town. And the word for self control means that there is strength IN us. So, as you say no and yes, remember it is by God's strength, by His grace!
- What do we say "no" to in our lives? Well, the early church encouraged believers to specifically abstain from sexual immorality, along with a couple other things applying specifically to their cultural setting, which do not relate to us as fully today.
But sex is an idol of this current age, an altar of worship at which we are called to bow with billboards and signs abounding inviting us to indulge the flesh. This is not to say sex is bad, on the contrary, it is a great and good gift from God for his creation, however, pulled outside of covenant it is an evil that consumes and destroys.
Sex is a big area but only one of many for "self control" in our lives. I could list some of the "just say no" commands of Scripture, and perhaps the Holy Spirit has others for you. "All you can eat" restaurants are invitations to gluttony. Self control is having boundaries and limits. We say no to greed, anger, unforgiveness, to holding a grudge, to keeping a record of wrongs. In our lives we apply God's words to our inner lives and outer lives in order that all the goods in this world may be used for us to draw nearer to the Lord.
It is unpopular to say that some things are wrong. People seem to be of the opinion that what they do "between themselves" as consenting adults, is amoral. There is the general attitude that wrong is relative to a situation.
God could not disagree more with that idea. There is no sin that will not affect many people. Sin pollutes first the person and then every person through that one who committed it. It pollutes character, it changes behavior, it maligns a life. To sin makes one a slave to sin, and a slave must obey its master.
God says with self control in this place in 2 Peter, "obey me". We say no to the lure of sin in order to say "yes" to Jesus in our lives. Self control is then like a listening obedience, it is my own yes to Jesus' spirit's work within me.
- So, how might I more fully say "yes" to Jesus?
That is what the people of Rev. Henry Maxwell's congregation in Raymond were asking after God got their attention one Sunday morning in worship. A group of them committed to seek to say "yes" to Jesus more fully by intentionally incorporating Him into their daily living. They decided that the means by which they would do this is through that question that nearly a century after this story was written would become the four-letter fad WWJD. They simply would not take any action without first asking, "What would Jesus do?" This question really was asking what John and I were speaking about a few weeks back, saying, "How can I be obedient to Jesus in this situation?"
The answers they come up with change their lives.
The newspaperman struggles with what advertisers ought to advertise in his newspaper. A factory owner wrestles with how Jesus calls him to pay his employees, and develop more humane policies for his workers. The singer decides to not go off into the glamour of a big city opera but instead to use her incredible talents to minister the love and power of Jesus to those who are the most down and out.
The story is one of how obedience to Jesus changes lives. And to walk in obedience is to walk with self control.
This is a powerful little story, called In His Steps, by Charles Sheldon.
But the key to all that happens in this little novel is found in the fact that these people made their decision and kept meeting together to help hold one another accountable and to support one another.
They prayed together. They did not just decide to follow Jesus, to apply "self control" to their ambitions on their own. But they brought their fears and decisions back to their group and walked together forward into obedience.
It is a picture of the work of discipleship which happens in community.
The fad that developed from the book lost hold of all that was rich and true of discipleship from the book. It made trite what is a powerful call of commitment to Jesus Christ.
Friends, we are not able to live the Christian life alone nor are we meant to.
It takes others.
Currently I know of ten groups of people (of 2 or more) that are intentionally meeting during the week to pursue Jesus more fully. Are you in any group that is there just to pray for and support you in your walk with Jesus?
Some are meeting to pray, others after reading passages from the Bible as they gather to talk about them, another "group" meets over the phone to discuss what has been read from the Bible during the week. Some of these groups are "official" Bible studies others are various discipleship groupings.
Do you know someone in the body you admire and wish to meet with somehow? Approach them. Ask if they would be willing to meet, to pray over the phone or in person, to read Scripture, to help you keep accountable to Jesus.
The kinds of relationships are endless. The need is simply to seek to add self-control to your life through this means.
If you want such a group but don't know where to start to find one, then talk to me, talk to Sally Smith, if I am too scary, or talk to Len and Dian Punzel or Laurel Medinger. We are members of the DiscipleMakers Team in the congregation and we would be happy to help you connect to an existing group, or if there is none that fits you where you are, then we will help you create one.
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