| |
MARCH 26, 2006
|
2 Peter
|
Pastor Brian Shimer
|
|
"God's Recipe: To Self Control add Perseverance"
2 Peter 1: 1-11; Joshua 14:6-15
- I was making a cake this week - no, not for my own birthday. I would not do that! But, as I was mixing the ingredients together I thought about this passage. In a recipe you add all the ingredients listed. To this cake I was adding butter, eggs, sugar, salt, baking powder, soda and flour, and then since this was a chocolate cake, cocoa and coffee.
I added all the ingredients. They fit together to make the cake.
If I had chosen to leave out the flour I would have to have added something to replace it, or I would end up with pudding not cake. If I decided to not use the eggs, then I would need something to replace the liquid and leavening they add or might have created biscuits.
Likewise if you hired Andy Haboush to take apart your car engine, or Len Punzel to fix your motorcycle, then you would expect that they would put all the parts back in again after they had it apart. Were they to leave something out when reconstructing it, chances are the car or motorcycle would not run as a result.
The car parts and recipe ingredients are like what Peter has offered from God in this letter. We are to continue to apply our faith by adding what is listed.
In previous weeks I compared the additions we are making to "steps in a dance" for the original word for "to add" conveys the idea of choreographing a dance with these steps. But these "steps" do not only fit alongside one another but into one another, like the parts of an engine, like the ingredients to a recipe. God is at work in our lives as we "make every effort to add to our faith," as we complement our basic faith with these ingredients, as we supply them into one another.
God is at work making us into what He planned for us to be, He is creating us to be "something" over the long haul.
I love the character of Caleb in the history of Israel, this man we hear of in Joshua 14 and other places. At 85 he asks for his inheritance saying he is just as strong as when he was 40 and will go to take the territory. What a man!
Caleb was a man of faith when we first encounter him in the book of Numbers. He added to his faith goodness, believing in and meditating upon the goodness and greatness of God and to goodness, knowledge as he had a living relationship with God. In Numbers 13 we see at 40 he was adding to knowledge self control, not giving into the fears and lies of the other spies. And to self control perseverance, for he has not persevered in the desert 40 years while his generation dies for their unbelief and sin, and while the Promised Land is beginning to be occupied.
Caleb at 40 knew that God was bigger than the giants who lived in the Promised Land. At 40 he was certain that God would see them through. Now at 85 he is even more certain. He is a demonstration of what happens to us as we make every effort to add to our faith, as we persevere to grow in Christ, to be in small group, to trust God.
In the illustration of the folk in the town of Raymond I told of last Sunday, what would have happened to their grand scheme to be more obedient to Jesus had the not persevered beyond the initial disappointments and various points of suffering?
Their town would not have been transformed.
Our lives are about growth, and growth does not always look like what the world will vote as "success" but growth will look glorious to Jesus. He will place into us His own character, and strengthen our ability to follow more fully.
This will happen as we are diligent to complement our basic faith with these ingredients that fit into one another, adding to faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge self control, and to self control perseverance.
- Do I even need to tell you that self control takes perseverance?
Ask someone on a diet if self control, changing a pattern in life does not take perseverance. Ask them whether it is painful to stick to what they have chosen.
Indeed, when we say "no" to something to discipline an aspect of our lives, it will be "oh so difficult" and we need brothers and sisters around us to say "no" effectively over the long haul.
One thing that strengthens me in areas of sin that plague my life is that I know if I stumble I have to confess to my brothers. They need to know. I have to be transparent. That does wonders when tempted. But it does not make the perseverance any easier.
One thing about perseverance is that it is not easy!
Could I have a volunteer?
Thank you.
I want you to hold your arms out straight from your sides like this. And I want you to hold these two glasses of water, one in each hand.
Now, self control is to say "yes" to what God has before us. This time, I am the one this volunteer has decided to obey.
But to continue on in self control, will take perseverance.
Now at first, it is easy. It is not hard to hold a cup of water in the air. We do it all the time. But to do so for a long time, in this static place, is difficult.
Are you feeling any pain yet? No? Then you have not begun to persevere.
(This illustration will bring forth a picture of how tough it is to keep going with perseverance, even with something as simple as glasses of water.)
- So, it is with pain that we persevere, it is with a willingness to remain faithful under difficulty.
In fact that is what the word means, to "remain under" - and it can be correctly translated by many English words, the most frequently used are perseverance or patience. To persevere is to exercise patience.
As Mariana Peters has astounded us in running marathons over the past years, one thing that a marathon takes is perseverance. This is perhaps why the Bible compares our application of perseverance to running a race. It is an apt illustration. In Christ we are called to TRAVEL ON.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (Hebrews 12:1-2)
To run with perseverance is to keep on placing one foot in front of the other. It is to continue to keep your eye on the goal as you are in the race. The prize we will receive is much greater than the prize received after running a race, but entrance into the excellencies of eternal life.
I remember reading an article written by our District Superintendent who when she was running the Portland Marathon was hitting a wall and did not feel like she could continue on when she saw this verse from Hebrews 12 printed on the back of some guy's T-shirt in front of her. She read and reread that verse and it gave her the confidence to carry on and finish.
How do we persevere? The writer to Hebrews tells us two things, we throw of everything that hinders, we deal with sin instead of letting it deal with us, we confess what we discover, and turn, and we fix our eyes on Jesus.
Now in dealing with sin we often need people around us to help with this. I find as I have said to have a group of brothers who support, pray for, challenge, and forgive me for areas of sin is a powerful tool of the Lord's in my race.
But we fix our eyes on Jesus.
What does Hebrews tell us about Jesus?
"Who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
The Scripture speaks to the depths of our lives and hearts.
Perseverance is hard work, we can get discouraged, but how much we need to persevere in walking in self control, both the control of our bodies and our of wayward thoughts.
But the Bible says to fix your eyes on Jesus who for JOY endured.
- The Bible says to fix our eyes on Jesus, to consider Jesus. What will happen in our troubles if we fix our eyes on Jesus?
We will be able to persevere. That is what will happen. To look to the one who pioneered the faith we walk for us strengthens us to remain faithful under our own troubles.
And while we remain faithful, we continue to meditate upon God's goodness, we add knowledge through the Bible, either as we listen to a radio broadcast or read it, we add to our knowledge self control so that knowledge will not just become puffed up but will translate into love that will build others up and to self control perseverance, that we will continue to follow day by day.
If we imagine that Christianity is some kind of pill we take on Sundays and then we check in again the next week to take another, we have missed the point of this passage of Scripture either in 2 Peter or Hebrews.
No following is a daily thing. For me to apply self control in a moment of disagreement or argument with my family over something takes effort. I need to decide to follow Jesus, I need to practice what I preach, I have to choose what is right.
Then I have to do the same thing again the next day. But the more we practice perseverance the more we will be able to persevere and overcome. Like Peter in this book facing his own martyrdom, we can even encourage others with joy without flinching in the face of death because of God's work within us.
|
|
|