2 Peter 1:5-11

When you think about it, there are a lot of things that Christians are supposed to do. We are supposed to (1) pray, (2) read our Bibles, (3) gather with other Christians for worship, (4) be a true community, (5) help the poor and the needy, (6) preach the gospel, (7) share our faith, (8) live morally, i.e. don’t abuse substances, don’t have sex outside of marriage, etc., (9) be generous financially toward our local church, missionaries, etc., (10) study and obey God’s Word . . . the list goes on and on!

Have you ever felt like you are trying to do all of these things (or at least some of them) and it’s just not working?

Those of us who are in Christ experience at least three frustrations, seemingly on a regular basis: (1) Why can’t I repent of sin? (2) Why can’t I live a godly life? (3) Why can’t I be effective in ministry?

Paul took us through the first few verses of 2 Peter, showing us that our knowledge of Christ gives us two things: (1) grace and peace in abundance, 1:2, and (2) everything we need for life and godliness, 1:3. Later on, in 3:20, we will see that our knowledge of Christ also gives us escape from the corruption of the world.

So the question becomes, “How can I be effective and productive in my knowledge of Christ, if I really have everything that I need?” This is where we feel the tension. Why is “life and godliness” oftentimes so frustrating if we have everything we need?

In 2 Peter 1:5-11, we find a different kind of list from the one at the beginning of this post. It is a list of things we ought to add to our faith: (1) goodness, (2) knowledge, (3) self-control, (4) perseverance, (5) godliness, (6) brotherly kindness, and (7) love.

The first list was a list of “doing” (i.e. things we ought to do). This list is a list of “being” (i.e. the kind of people we ought to be).

In Peter’s text, these two lists produce two different kinds of people: (1) those who forget the gospel, v. 9, and (2) those who live out the gospel, v. 8.



Those who forget the gospel stumble through life blind to the truth and guidance and direction and power and glory of God. They are Christian without being Christ-like. In contrast, those who live out the gospel are effective and productive in their knowledge of Christ. By God’s grace, they (1) repent of sin, (2) live godly lives, and (3) are effective in ministry.

If we are ineffective and unproductive, it is only because we have forgotten the gospel.

What is the key, then, to being effective and productive in our knowledge of Christ? Cultivating the gospel in our lives. (To see what I mean, cf. the use of “godliness” in 1:3 and 1:6.) Simply put, “being” informs “doing.” Who we are informs what we do. The kinds of people we are inform the extent to which our outward actions will be Christ-like. And the extent to which our outward actions are, in fact, Christ-like is the extent to which we will be effective and productive in our lives and ministry.

Specifically, Peter is saying that the qualities listed in vv. 5-7 must inform our lives and ministry if we hope to be effective and productive.

Peter concludes in vv. 10-11 with an encouragement: if we make every effort to cultivate the gospel in our lives, then the result will be a warm welcome into the kingdom of God: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (to quote Matthew’s Gospel).

“Being” informs “doing.” Therefore, we must focus on cultivating the gospel in our lives, rather than focusing on conforming to some list of prescribed actions.

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Reading Round-Up

Cassie posted some reflections after she, Chris, and Jason got back from their first preliminary trip to San Jose to lay some groundwork for Downtown Synergy. The best is yet to come!

Scot McKnight shares some thoughts on worship.

Pray for our brothers and sisters: “Christians in the Palestinian territories are a minority within a minority. Israeli Jews view them as enemies because they are Palestinians. Muslims view them as different because they are of another faith.”

This quote really hit me in the gut last week: “Most people who say they oppose abortion do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing.”

I recently was thinking that there is a blog I wish I linked to more often but I don’t have a particular post that I want to single out, so I am just going to go ahead and link the whole thing: Beauty and Depravity. This is the blog of Eugene Cho, pastor of Quest Church in Seattle. Go read it. Now. It’s that good.

Here is an interesting study on the Top 25 multiplying churches in America. The criteria used includes but is not limited to (1) the total number of church plants over the life of the church, (2) the average number of churches planted each year, (3) dollars and percentage of budget dedicated to church planting, and (4) the number of daughter churches that have planted a new church.

And ending on a light note . . .

Dog yoga? Yes indeed: Stuff White People Like reflects on an article in the New York Times: “White people like to make the most of their free time, but many of them discovered that time doing yoga was time away from their dog and time with their dog was time away from yoga. It was becoming a fairly significant problem. Thankfully, Doga has been created to allow white people to combine two of their favorite things into one expensive, time consuming activity called Doga or dog yoga.”

While we’re at it, Stuff White People Like also has a funny post on Moleskine Notebooks. (I hear good things about these . . . has anybody used one?)

2 Peter 1:2-4

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
     His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:2-4)

I don't know what everyone else got out of this first section of 2 Peter, but I found it to be a very encouraging passage. Often I feel like I need something more to have a "successful" Christian life. For me, the struggle is most often in feeling like I ought to be doing more, especially in being better at connecting with people and forming new friendships. As I shared with my table on Sunday night, I would take a "spiritual superpower" of being able to stretch time to get done all the things that I have ideas to do or else have a superpower of strong charisma that would enable me to connect quickly and easily with people. Somehow it can feel like I'm not doing what God wants me to—and can even feel like I'm not able to do it!

What Peter points to in this passage is encouraging because it reminds me that I don't need a spiritual superpower to be who God wants me to be or to do what God wants me to do. Who I need to be is in Christ and what God wants me to do, fundamentally, is to know Jesus. Through knowledge of Christ, I have been given everything I need for life and godliness! Through knowledge of Christ, I am given God's "very great and precious promises". (As 1 Cor 1:20 says, "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ.")

This frees me to live out my life for God because I am no longer focused on myself and my own inadequacies and the spiritual superpowers that I wish I had. Instead it points me to look continually toward Jesus and the divine power that he exercises to give me everything I need for life and godliness. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, 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. (Heb 12:2-3)

Recommended Reading: The Cross-Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing

Introduction to 2 Peter

Second Peter is a book for anyone who has ever had questions about their faith.

Questions like, is my faith really making any difference? Why doesn’t my faith seem to be working? Why it is so hard to repent of sin? Why is godliness so difficult? Why do I feel ineffective and unproductive in my faith? Why is ministry so hard?

Questions like, isn’t it possible that we are all just following a bunch of cleverly invented stories? How do we know the most significant events even happened? Are they recorded elsewhere in history outside of the Bible? Even if we grant that the events did take place, how do we know that the Bible was written anywhere near the actual time of the events? And even if it was, isn’t it stretching intellectual integrity just a bit to say that these sixty-six books have remained intact and true to their original form after thousands of years? How do we know the Bible is true? How do we know the Bible is trustworthy? And even if it is, isn’t it stretching intellectual integrity just a bit for modern people like us to hang their entire lives on the words of some ancient text?

Questions like, what really distinguishes true from false? There are so many competing teachings and perspectives and opinions and even lifestyles... who can I really trust? How do we handle all of these competing ideas and lifestyles and perspectives? Who’s right? And who’s to say? What is a Christian to think? What is a Christian to do?

Questions like, isn’t it possible that our Christian hope is just wishful thinking? After all, our faith is not empirical. We can’t test our future hope. There’s really no way to know for sure that Jesus is coming back. There’s no way to confirm the reality of a final judgment day. The new heavens and new earth sound more like fanciful myth than real hope, don’t they?

And even if I had the answers to all of these questions, how should I live? What am I to do with what I know?

Second Peter is a book for anyone with questions about their faith. Second Peter is a book for anyone who has ever had deep-seated doubts. Second Peter is a book for anyone who has ever been frustrated as a Christian in life and ministry.

Because where there is honesty, there are questions.

Why do questions about faith matter? Because faith in Jesus is “precious” and infinitely valuable (1:1). Therefore, we dare not ignore our questions. We must face them, alongside Peter and his readers.

Reading Round-Up

A moving story. Please read.

The good folks at The Resurgence are doing an excellent and ongoing series on pitfalls in church planting. (Chris & Cassie, have you seen this? If not, it may be worth your time to sit down and look at it with Jason and Letitia… lots of good stuff.) I think many of the general principles would actually be helpful to anyone in ministry or anyone in leadership.

Here is an informative presentation from Jonathan Jarvis, a designer and graduate student in L.A.: “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.”

Remind me never to be Treasury Secretary! According to this article from the New York Times about Timothy Geithner, “At 47, the same age as the president, Mr. Geithner works out at 5:30 a.m., gets to his desk by 6:30 and leaves 15 hours later.”

Here is something I encourage everyone to take a look at... it will only take about 20 min of your time, and it is well worth it: Shai Agassi’s bold plan for the mass adoption of electric cars.

How about this from the Wall Street Journal? America’s Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire. No kidding: “In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters.”

Redeeming Work, Part VI

Perhaps you have seen someone who is struggling in life and heard the saying, “They were just dealt a bad hand.”

Figuratively speaking, we all hold cards in our hand—our background, stage of life, locale, job and financial resources, future hopes and dreams, etc. Some of these cards were dealt to us, some we have acquired, and others we have managed to get rid of. Whatever the case, we all hold a set of cards in our hand.

And the truth is, we all spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to get the right cards, trying to get that winning hand. Sometimes we even feel we have made irreparable mistakes in the past that have ruined our chances of winning.

But what if God is less concerned with whether we have all the right cards and more concerned with how we play the cards that we do have?

In Luke 16, Jesus tells a parable about a man who is on the verge of losing it all. He is on the verge of becoming unemployed and homeless, all in the same day. He can’t afford to wait for better cards. This hand is the only hand he has left.

You can read the parable for yourself in Luke 16:1-9. What is the point that Jesus is making? Very simply, the dishonest manager acted shrewdly. He had only one hand left, and he played it well. He was careful and not careless.

In v. 9, Jesus draws his point of application. He gives the only imperative of this text. He says that we, too, ought to act shrewdly.

The dishonest manager considered what was to come and then acted accordingly. So, too, should we. We ought to live in light of what we know to be true about the age to come rather than living only in light of what we know to be true about this age (as if there were no age to come). This is the difference between being careful and being careless.

So we see that God is less concerned with whether you have all the right cards and more concerned with how you play the cards that you do have. The reality is, one day we will all have to give an account of how we played our cards (2 Corinthians 5:10; Hebrews 9:27). Therefore, we, like the dishonest manager, ought to consider what we know to be true about the age to come and act accordingly. In doing so, we will be acting shrewdly.

Specifically, Jesus says in v. 9 that we ought to act shrewdly in relation to our worldly wealth. Luke then uses this parable as a launching point for relaying other of Jesus’ sayings on the issue of how we relate to our worldly wealth. You can read these sayings in Luke 16:10-12.

Theologically, the “worldly wealth” that Jesus refers to is the wealth of this age. “True riches” are the wealth of the age to come, namely, sanctification of self, ministry to others, etc. These are the wealth of the future and in-breaking kingdom of God.

Practically, your job counts as part of your worldly wealth. Take a look at this article from a recent issue of TIME Magazine to see what I mean: Jobs Are The New Assets.

Here’s the point: God is less concerned with whether you have all the right cards and more concerned with how you play the cards that you do have. A big part of this is your worldly wealth, and that includes your job.

In these sayings (vv. 10-12), Jesus is talking about being faithful with what has been entrusted to you. Your worldly wealth is not your own. Your worldly wealth, including your job, is a stewardship.

If your job is a stewardship, this means that (1) it is temporary, and (2) you’re accountable. [HT: Andy Stanley] And given that our jobs are stewardships that have been entrusted to us, Jesus says we ought to be faithful in the little things.

With respect to our future, we ought to be faithful with even a little bit of worldly wealth (including our jobs) so that we can be entrusted with greater worldly wealth.

With respect to our eternity, we ought to be faithful with even a little bit of worldly wealth (including our jobs) so that we can be entrusted with true riches, i.e. opportunities for sanctification, opportunities for ministry, etc.

Indeed, God is less concerned with whether you have all the right cards and more concerned with how you play the cards that you do have. Therefore, we ought to be faithful in the little things, even (or especially) at work.

Being A Community Of Grace

Here is a good article from the folks over at The Resurgence:

Communities of Grace vs. Communities of Performance

By Tim Chester

I was recently asked to speak on communities of grace. So I got to thinking: What is the opposite of a community of grace? And I came to the conclusion that it's a community of performance. Communities of performance may talk a lot about grace, but they value performance—Christians who have it all figured out, churches that run smoothly, meetings that are accomplished. And so they communicate that what matters is that you perform well.

So is your community a community of performance or a community of grace? Try these diagnostic tests:

Communities of Performance

• The leaders appear to have it all figured out
• The community appears respectable
• Meetings must be a polished performance
• Failure is devastating, because identity is found in ministry
• Actions are driven by duty
• Conflict is suppressed or ignored
• The focus is on orthodox behavior (letting people think they have it all figured out)

Communities of Grace

• The leaders are vulnerable
• The community is messy
• Meetings are just one part of community life
• Failure is disappointing but not devastating, because identity is found in Christ
• Actions are driven by joy
• Conflict is addressed in the open
• The focus is on the affections of the heart (with a strong view of sin and grace)

In performance-oriented churches, people pretend to be okay because their standing within the church depends on it. But this is the opposite of grace. Grace acknowledges that we're all sinners, all messed up, all struggling. And grace also affirms that in Christ we all belong, all make the grade, all are welcome.