When we read about the calling of the first disciples last week, Jesus used two key phrases:
So they said to him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “Where are you staying?” Jesus answered, “Come and you will see...”On the next day Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
We talked about the “come and see” part last week. Today will focus on the following, which I am going to call “stay and follow” so it matches with “come and see.” J Last week we talked about the challenge of sprinting toward Jesus when faced with choices so that we increasingly reflect His character. When that happens, people who ‘come and see’ Jesus aren’t soured on Jesus by what they see in the people of Jesus. In addition, there is an increasing number of people are having such a bad experience in churches that they are leaving church so they don’t leave Jesus.
Today, let’s talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus well so that rather than being roadblocks on the way to the cross, we are “‘preparing the way for the Lord, and making straight paths for him.”[1] Our text is from 2 Peter 1:3-9.
His divine power has given us everything we need to experience life and to reflect God’s true nature through the knowledge of the One who called us by His glory and virtue. Through these things, we have received God’s great and valuable promises, so we might escape the corruption of worldly desires and share in the divine nature.
To achieve this, you will need to add virtue to your faith, and then knowledge to your virtue; to knowledge, add discipline; to discipline, add endurance; to endurance, add godliness; to godliness, add affection for others as sisters and brothers; and to affection, at last, add love.
For if you possess these traits and multiply them, then you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with and true knowledge of our Lord Jesus the Anointed; but if you don’t have these qualities, then you will be nearsighted and blind, forgetting that your past sins have been washed away—2 Peter 1: 3–9
To [share in the divine nature], you will need to add/supply/equip (epichoregein)…”
Epichoregein comes from a word that means "the leader of a chorus." Greek plays needed ‘choruses’ – groups that gave commentary and filled in the plot line for the audience. This was expensive. Wealthy people would voluntarily fund these choruses at great cost. Epichoregein eventually became associated with other generous and costly things: equipping an army with supplies; equipping a soul with virtues.
Peter said for Christians to equip their faith in this way: be lavish, be generous, overwhelm your faith with the following gifts that will enable your faith to flourish. It’s like they are singing along with your life, constantly giving commentary and filling in the plot lines. There’s a great line in Hamlet when Hamlet turns to his cousin – who won’t stop talking – and says, “You are as good as a chorus.” That’s what we want our virtues to be in our life. This adding/supplying/equipping language reminds us that Christians cooperate with the grace of God.
“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).
It’s a sanctifying faith in which our human wills cooperate with the divine will. Think of the Parable of the Ten Virgins (five wise and five foolish) going to a wedding. Only the five with oil in their lamps end up going. A German theologian named John Bengal wrote:
"The flame is that which is imparted to us by God and from God without our own labor; but the oil is that which a man must pour into life by his own study and his own faithful effort, so that the flame may be fed and increased."
The list here is the oil which we pour onto the flame God has given us. These lists were a common literary tool (often for memorization purposes) in the ancient world and the early church. [2]
FIRST STEP: FAITH
The list begins with faith: “trusting, holding to, and acting on what one has good reasons to believe is true in the face of difficulties” (Tim McGrew) Maybe think of it this way: Faith is a lifestyle of confident trust. Each step we take in this list moves us into sharing more fully in life in and with Christ.
It’s worth noting that faith is not a feeling, though feelings can and do accompany faith. Faith is a life orientation, a purposeful allegiance, a world’view’ that orients our world’do’ (@ copyright 2022 J) It has to do with things to which we trust the weight of our lives (like this chair, and your chair). We do this all the time with physical things: ladders, cars, airplanes, skyscrapers, etc.
A number of years ago, I went out on my deck one spring to find that a portion of it had sagged about a foot down the house wall. Turns out whoever built it hadn’t fastened it right. So I fastened it, propped it up, etc. When I walk out on my deck now, I put my weight on it.
We also do this with people. Maybe a friend, a counselor, a doctor, a spouse, a parent. We lean on them; we sag on them; we trust who they are, and what they say and do.
Faith has to do with trusting Jesus such that we put the weight of our life on him.
SECOND STEP: VIRTUE
The word is arete, which is virtue, courage or moral excellence. It was used by the Greeks to describe land which is fertile; it also described what the gods did (or were at least supposed to do). It was used to describe people who had the moral backbone not to back down in the face of difficulty.
Our lifestyle of confident trust must be joined with a commitment to moral excellence as seen in the character of God and the person of Jesus, and it must be held tightly in the face of challenges or persecution. We want the land of our life to be fertile soil in which good things grow.
When we tilled our garden this year, my wife and I both commented on how rich the dirt looked. Well, yeah. We put stuff in it last year: compost, manure, leaves. We made it fertile so things would grow.
We start by trusting Jesus; from that, we look to the virtuous character of Jesus as a standard for the soil of our lives, and we take what God has given us and work into the soil so that good virtues grow well.
THIRD STEP: KNOWLEDGE
The word is gnosis - practical knowledge, or practical wisdom.
Worth noting: this comes after virtue. Knowledge in the hands of non-virtuous people can be disastrous. This is why the phrase “Knowledge is power” always made me uneasy. It was posted everywhere to encourage people to get an education. Well, sure, but if you educate a moral fool, you just give power to a moral fool. Knowledge itself is not enough. It is meant to be given to a virtuous person. If you want to be known for your knowledge, please desire to be known for your virtue first.
Key takeaway, though: knowledge matters. We don’t all have to know the same things or know the same amount about the same things. That would actually be quite boring. But we should have a habit of studying God’s two main revelations to us: His work and His Word. His work is general revelation (God’s creation); His Word is special revelation (the Word of God in print and in Person). From both of these we learn more about our Creator, as well as his design and purpose for us.
Don’t we study words and work all the time? When I first came on staff here, I needed to know how to be in a leadership position in the church. Ted hired me to be youth pastor; I had been helping Anne as an assistant when she led youth. I listened to Ted and Anne’s words – and watched their work, both of which happened because I spent time with them. I got to know them. I still do this with those in leadership in this church and others because I still need to learn. I listen to their words and watch their work.
Spend purposeful, focused time learning to know God through His Word and His work.
FOURTH STEP: DISCIPLINE
A person full of virtue and knowledge will know the importance of and see the appeal of self-control. The Greek word used here, egkrateia, is what happens when reason fights against passion and prevails. This is a realistic view of life. Being a Christian does not necessarily remove our passions; it tames, orders and directs them. As we become a servant of Christ, our passions become a servant of us.
For example: I’ve told my boys that the best way to deal with sexual desire isn’t to try to pretend it’s not there or to get rid of it. God made you to have sexual desire. The passion is not a problem; it’s a gift meant to lead toward great pleasures within covenant marriage. The question is this: is your passion directed in the service of God? Is it ordered toward the good? What does it look like to harness that energy in the service of God and His world? It’s more than just this area, of course.
There is a holy and a sinful form of anger.
There is a holy and a sinful form of sorrow.
There is a holy and a sinful form of happiness.
There is a holy and a sinful form of longing.
There is a holy and a sinful form of desperation.
There is a holy and a sinful form of a work, and play, and relaxation….
Jesus did not come to obliterate our desires; he came to redeem them. And part of that redemption involves putting banks around the raging rivers of emotions that want to flood the world so that we bring life to the world rather than ruin.
FIFTH STEP: ENDURANCE
Cicero defines patientia, its Latin equivalent, as "the voluntary and daily suffering of hard and difficult things, for the sake of honor and usefulness."
Odds are good that if you have faith, virtue, true knowledge and self-control, endurance [or steadfastness] will follow. A dude from Alexandria named Didymus wrote of Job (and this combines what we looked at in the self-control section):
“It is not that the righteous man must be without feeling, although he must patiently bear the things which afflict him; but it is true virtue when he deeply feels the things he toils against, but nevertheless despises sorrows for the sake of God.”
The Greek word used here (hupomone) is more than endure, though. It is full of anticipation and hope. Jesus, “for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). This is what we are talking about. There is no moment in life that does not contain hope, either for this life or the next.
Maybe recovering from surgery is a good analogy here. The pain…the physical therapy…the need to stop doing certain things you love…. We set them aside for what awaits on the other side: (hopefully) health. We pay the cost because of the greatness of the reward that awaits.
SIXTH STEP: GODLINESS
The word use here, eusebeia is hard to translate, apparently, but it’s about the closest you get to a word that could be translated as religion, worship, or piety. Basically, it is simultaneously worshiping God and serving others. It reminds me a little bit of the Hebrew word shalom, which includes peace with God and others.
To the Greeks, Socrates embodied this (for historical context, Socrates died about the time the Old Testament ends). A writer named Xenophon describes as follows:
"He was so pious and devoutly religious that he would take no step apart from the will of heaven; so just and upright that he never did even a trifling injury to any living soul; so self-controlled, so temperate, that he never at any time chose the sweeter instead of the better; so sensible, so wise, and so prudent that in distinguishing the better from the worse he never erred."
Okay, that is definitely an exaggeration, but you get the idea of what the Greeks thought of when they thought of this word. Even pagan cultures had a notion of what true religion was supposed to accomplish in a person.
I don’t want to re-preach last week’s sermon, but we saw it there in the early church. God intends righteous words and righteous lives to be inseparable. God intends knowledge of what’s holy to translate it into actions that themselves are holy.
SEVENTH STEP: FAMILIAL AFFECTION
Philadelphia literally translates as “love of the brethren.” If people are generally seen as a nuisance that get in the way of the projects that are really important to us, something is out of tune. I’m not so sure this means that we super-duper like every individual person as much as it means we ‘have affection for’ the community of God’s people (which will include trying to like them as best we can with God’s grace).
Epictetus was Stoic philosopher who would have been a contemporary of Peter. He is famous for saying that he really had an impact on the world because he didn’t get married and produce snotty-nosed children. He once said,
"How can he who has to teach mankind run to get something in which to heat the water to give the baby his bath?"
Peter sees it differently (and these are my words, not his):
“How can those who want to teach mankind not run to do things just like that?”
I think this has to do with a mindset, a posture, an orientation of actively pursuing being in community with others. I thought of this Wednesday night at the park. There were people who knew each other well and others who didn’t, but they wanted to be together and get to know each other. That desire to know and be known by others oriented them in a particular way. Now, you don’t have to be at the picnic for that to happen J It just an example that stood out to me Wednesday night.
* * * * *
So far, the list is about who you are called to be, because that is really important. It finishes with what we are supposed to do as a result of being a particular kind of person.
EIGHTH STEP: LOVE
Agape love is a deliberate choice to work for the highest good of another, engaging in sacrificial action toward that goal. It comes from our will, not our emotions or feelings (though emotions and feelings may be a part of it). It is deliberately and sacrificially loving the unlovable when there is nothing that makes us want to love. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, (Gal. 5:22) a sign that we are sharing in the divine nature.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and every one who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)
There is a phrase I like: “If God calls you, He will equip you.” God calls us to agape love, yes? He has given us the equipment we need.
faith (a lifestyle of confident trust)
virtue (moral excellence)
knowledge (practical wisdom)
discipline (self-control)
endurance (hopeful patience)
godliness (worshiping God/serving others
philadelphia love (affection for others)
He has equipped us in this way to allow us to “share in the divine nature” – which, I think, finds its culmination in agape love as an expression of genuinely knowing and becoming like Jesus.
“For if you possess these traits and multiply them, then you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with and true knowledge (epigenosis) of our Lord Jesus the Anointed.”
No matter who you are or where you are in life, if you are on this path, you life is not useless and unproductive, but fruitful. These spiritual graces can be added to faith in any circumstance by anyone, and you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with and true knowledge of Christ.
Now, let your chorus sing as that it points toward the Composer and Conductor who makes all of this possible.
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[1] What Isaiah prophesied John the Baptist would do (Mark 1:3).
[2] You see lists several other places in 1st century church writings: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23); righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11); faith, self-control, simplicity, innocence and reverence, understanding, love (The Shepherd of Hermas)