I Want a Monday Kind of Faith

0:29 But I'm really glad to be here. Very honored that Pastor Skip invited me to share while he is out of the country. I'm sure that many of you, you have probably heard this song. Raise your hand if you have. I want a Sunday kind of love. You guys ever heard that song? Catchy song covered a billion times. I'm not gonna sing it. Thank you for that. You can sing it later. I'm not gonna sing that, but right, you know the lyrics. I want a Sunday kind of love, a love that lasts past Saturday night. It's a catchy song, right? The singer is expressing this desire that I don't just want to fling. I don't just want to hook up. I want something deep. I want something meaningful. I want a love that's going to get me through till Sunday night. It's a catchy song. Lots of people have sang it, but I'm convinced that there's a lot of Christians in our world today who have a Sunday kind of faith. Let me explain what that means. A Sunday kind of faith. This is the kind of faith that looks really, really good on a weekend. This is kind of the faith that they're excited to go to church. They're excited to worship. They're fired up. They're pumped up. But come Monday morning, nothing seemed to stick. It didn't seem to transition. It's a Sunday kind of faith. It seems really cool, but there's no long-term life change.

1:48 There's no long-term transformation. They're still fighting the same battles, still fighting against the same sins that they were on Sunday night. We want a Monday kind of faith. That's what we're talking about right now, a Monday kind of faith. But if somebody, you have a Sunday kind of faith, the problem is at some point you are probably going to look at your Christianity and say, this isn't working. I'm fighting the same battles. I'm struggling with the same sins. I don't feel any different. In fact, I feel worse. And some of you might be tempted to say, I'm done. I just don't wanna do this Jesus thing anymore. It's too hard. It's not worth it. I could do better things with my Sunday morning, so I'm just not going to bother. This whole Christianity thing isn't working for me. And sadly, the stats seem to indicate that this is a reality because according to a Pew Research poll from last year, even though thankfully, beautifully, we've seen this resurgence of young people, young adults who've been very excited coming to church, coming to know Jesus in droves, that that's beautiful, that is worth clapping for.

3:01 The less awesome thing that this poll found was that still looking at 25% of young adults, 18 to 24, that 25% of those young adults were people who they were raised as religiously affiliated and now they are not. They were a part of a religious system and now in young adulthood, they are no longer a part of a religious system. For some reason, their faith, oftentimes their Christianity didn't seem to work for them. So they left it, they abandoned it. and perhaps that's maybe where you're feeling tonight. I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hands. There's no judgment. I'm glad that you're here, but maybe you resonate with that. It's like, I've been coming to church. I have that Sunday kind of faith. I'm faithful. I come to church every week, but come Monday morning, I'm back with the same people. I'm doing the same things and the cycle repeats over again.

3:54 Then I go to church on Sunday morning. I get hyped up on Jesus and I feel really good and I say, this is gonna be the day. This is gonna be the week that everything changes and by Monday morning at 12 p.m., you're back where you were. Like I said, we need a Monday kind of faith, amen? We need a Monday faith that's gonna last into Monday morning. This is the sort of faith that is resilient. This is the sort of faith that no matter what life throws at you, you are constant. You are stable. There is vitality. There is strength in what you believe.

4:31 So if you want to get in shape, that doesn't happen by accident. I have not met very many people who are accidentally in shape. You don't see somebody walking around with big old pythons who has never been to the gym in their life. No, it takes intentionality. It takes effort. It takes willpower to be in shape.

4:52 You don't get in shape by accident. And in the same way, good Christians don't happen by accident. Good Christians do not happen by accident. if you know somebody you look around you and you see somebody who has a robust they have a vibrant mature faith I can promise you they didn't find that when they woke up this morning whoa oh my goodness it's 6 a.m wow I am a discipled I'm a disciplined strong Christian I wasn't yesterday no they didn't just wake up like that it took years of training of discipline of self-control, of following the Lord in the boring moments of life, in the difficult moments of life. That's what made them the strong Christian they are today. They put in some work. They got in shape. So come to think of it, why don't we do this?

5:46 Let's exercise those arm muscles. If you got a physical Bible, raise it up in this house. That's good, that's good. You got an iPad, I see a couple. God still loves you. God still loves you. And that's what I remind myself, but no, truly open it up. Second Peter chapter one, we are looking at verses three through 11, very short text in a very short book. But while you're turning there, I think it's worth reminding ourselves that despite there being 2000 years between these words being pen and now, I would actually say that the apostle Peter's words are extremely timely for us. I think that Peter has some words for us today. And even if you've been following Jesus for a long time, maybe you're not that sort of person with the Sunday kind of faith. You're just like, no, I've had a Monday kind of faith. I am that mature Christian. I am that robust Christian. Hopefully you don't describe yourself as that because that's kind of arrogant, but you get what I'm talking about.

6:43 Regardless of where you are in your maturity, I think that old Pastor Peter has words for us that we all need to hear, that we all need to tune in on because all of us, young or old, physically young or old, spiritually young or old, we all want a faith that is gonna last, amen? We want a faith that's gonna go the distance. And if that's the case, then I think that Peter, he's gonna give us four principles that we need to live by. Four principles that we need to embody if we want that Monday kind of faith. If you're ready for it, here we go. Here's the first one. I have what I need. I have what I need. Let's look at verses three through four real quick. Peter speaking. his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

7:47 You've had this experience. I have this a lot. There's like a movie that I wanna watch. It's like, man, I haven't seen that movie in a long time. I want to go watch it. So I go Google it because honestly, there's so many streaming platforms. I find it. I'm like, oh, yes, cool. They have it. And then I only find out it's locked behind a paywall on some dumb sounding streaming service, something like Tubo or Fubo, Freebie, right? Another dumb, dumb name. I don't know where they come up with these names, but they do, right? It's just like, hey, sorry, buddy. You can't watch your favorite episode of Battlestar Galactica. it's locked behind a paywall on thingamajig, right? There's always some new subscription, some new service that you have to pay for to get what you want. We're so used to that nowadays, we just kind of expect that. Hey, there's this cool free service. Every time I download an app, it has that fun little text that says, in-app purchases included, right? No matter what we do, no matter what service we're looking for, there is a subscription that comes from it.

8:43 There's this promise that, hey, this service, this thing, this book, this course, is gonna change everything for you. And it can all be yours for just a small monthly fee, right? We're kind of used to that at this point. Everything has a subscription. We want something new. We want something new and novel, but it's always gonna cost us because we're gonna have to subscribe for it. Peter, in this text, suggests the opposite. Peter actually suggests something very revolutionary. He's actually saying, hey, you don't actually need to go looking for something else. You don't need to go looking for something else. Why? Because you already have what you need. You already have everything that you need and God has already given it to you. There's no subscription, right? There's no ongoing annual or monthly price. God's already given it to you. You don't have to go searching for something new.

9:37 For some very brief context to this letter, Peter, this is likely what scholars would assume is the last letter that he writes. This is his last will and testament. So much in the same way that 2 Timothy is Paul's last will and testament to his protege Timothy, 2 Peter is Peter's last will and testament. But what's interesting is, is despite all of the persecution he's been under, despite the fact that he's old, he's been through it, he's learned a lot, he's got a lot of wisdom, he doesn't show up with some clickbait title. Hey, I've learned these three things that transform my faith in prison, right? do these three things, do these five things and become an all-star Christian. He doesn't do that. Peter doesn't bring some new tip, some new trick, some new thing that they need to do. He actually says, hey, I just wanna remind you of what you already have. I just wanna remind you that all that you have, it's enough.

10:31 That's all you need. It's such an important letter. And in an era, in this era, where our Christian ancestors were undergoing severe persecution, They were contemplating, I'm gonna give up this faith. I don't think I like this Jesus thing anymore. Peter doesn't tell them to do something new. He says, hey, remember how much you have. Remember all that you have in Christ because that changes everything. That is Peter's message. And I will just say this, recently I've been very deeply ministered to by 1 and 2 Peter. And maybe those are your favorite books, but I'm gonna wager for most of us, 1 and 2 Peter, they can kind of be flyover books. Let's be honest. Hey, I'm trying to get to Revelation. and got a buzz past 1 and 2 Peter. They only take up a couple pages in our New Testament. But these books, especially 2 Peter, I believe really speaks to our cultural moment.

11:25 It's worth your time if you haven't read it in a while. And if you have, if you are familiar with 2 Peter, you're probably thinking of a lot of the verses that talk about the end times, right? False teaching, the day of the Lord, wrath, end times stuff, right? Or you might be thinking of the beautiful promise out of chapter three, I'm sure you've heard this passage, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some would count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish. Sorry, Calvinist. That's what the Bible says. But that all should reach repentance. Don't get mad at me. Peter wrote that. He's in the Bible. I'm not. But even though a lot of people tend to approach 2 Peter as an end times book, the fact is it says a lot about how do we live today? How do we deal with the threats and challenges we face today? That is 2 Peter. Look at verse 3 with me one more time. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. I need that verse. I need that reminder. Why? Because I need the reminder as somebody who's grown up in church, I need to be reminded that I don't bring anything to the table in my own salvation. You and I don't bring anything to the table. God did not look at us. He did not see us from the corridors of eternity and says, wow, they're a strong candidate.

12:56 Look at their resume. Dang, I want them on my team. You and I have nothing to offer God. God doesn't need us on his team. God already has everything that he needs. And in a world where it is deeply easy to build our identity off of our own accomplishments, off of what we do, off of who we make ourselves out to be, we can probably all use the reminder of verse three that it is God's divine power that has given us everything we have right now.

13:29 God is the one who gave us that. And I have four kids. If you know me, I got four kids, nine, eight, six, almost two. So we are in an energetic household. We are a messy household. We are a loud household and we like it that way. But my longing for my children, beyond the fact that I hope that they have lifelong, vibrant relationships with the Lord, my deepest hope is at the brief time that they live under my roof, that I equip them with what they need to be independent, successful adults. I can't train them everything they're gonna need to know ever, but I am hoping that the short, brief, 18-ish years that I get with them is enough to impart to them the skills and tools they need to get through life and succeed at it. That's my hope. And I'm sure if you're a parent in here, that's your hope as well. That's all that I want as parents. And this is the beautiful truth of scripture.

14:21 God is a really good dad. God is a really, really good dad. Because according to verse three, he gives us all things that we need for life and godliness. He sets us up with everything we need to live the life that he's called us to live. He's a really good dad. What's really interesting, do you wanna know what the Greek means when it says all things? It means all things. It's not a metaphor. It's not a figure of speech. It's a literal statement. God has given you everything, all the things that you need to live the life that he's called you to. All things. That's what it means. We don't need something other than what God has already given us. What God has given us is not just enough, it is more than enough.

15:11 Verse four, look at verse four with me. By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. We have everything we need. I have everything that I need to live the life that God wants me to. And yet I am susceptible to the temptation of novelty. I like new things. I like the next new thing. I get bored of the thing that I have and I want the next new thing, right? We as Americans, that's kind of our bread and butter as a culture. It's the next new thing. Even as Christians, we're onto the next new thing. Hey, this next podcast, this next book, this next course, this next person. Oh, this next church. Oh, this church didn't work for me, so I'm gonna go to this church, right?

16:02 We're always looking for the next new thing. We're always struggling to be content with what God gave us. We like novelty. We like new things. Here's the problem. Novelty is a really bad catalyst for sustainable long-term growth. It is really, really hard to grow in a healthy direction when you are constantly looking to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. I'm not gonna look at where I'm at. I wanna go to this thing and I wanna go to this thing, right? You're never focused on where you're going because you're always looking for that next new thing, that next thing that's gonna fix everything.

16:40 And I hope that if that's how you're feeling in your faith, that this is good news for you because you don't need to frantically be searching for the next thing to unlock your faith potential, despite what the people on TBN tell you. You don't need that. You don't need the thing to unlock your faith potential. There's not some teacher who has some deep secret that they need to impart to you that's gonna change everything. According to Peter, the man who spent three years with the Lord, you have everything you need right now.

17:11 And I hate that I have to say this because you hear that word, partakers of the divine nature. And we have to address this for an apologetic stance because you may have heard of the term Christ consciousness. Christ consciousness. It's not a new term, but it's definitely been gaining prominence again on social media. And if you don't know about it, you don't really need to go research it, but suffice to say, it's this 19th and 20th kind of merging of Christian ideas and Eastern mysticism, New Age philosophy, all that. Ultimately, its core premise is that you're God and I'm God, we're God. And that our job as humans is to become Christ where we achieve some higher vibrational life or you name it, some existence that's I'm a high vibes kind of person, you know? And suddenly I'm cool, I'm a Christ, right? One of the most interesting phrases that I read, this is a quote from a thinker in that school, the most important gospel that you'll ever read is the one that you write, right?

18:14 right? It's like objectively heresy, like objectively heretical. But again, the problem is this is a heresy that's gaining traction on line. If you weren't aware, sorry to burst your bubble. You're not God. I'm sorry to be the one to deliver that news. You're not God. I'm not God. You should thank God that I'm not God. We're not God. The gospel is not a message of self-affirmation and enlightenment and activation. Why? It's actually a message that you are horrifically deeply broken by sin. And you need somebody who is not you to come down in human history to save you. Because if we are God, we're not doing a great job, y'all. We're not God. And please understand this too, because again, that term, partakers of the divine nature, that's one of those kind of exegetical terms that scholars like to argue about. It also doesn't mean this. It doesn't mean that when we become a Christian, that we share in God's eternal, his incommunicable attributes. That's a big, fancy theological word. But when I become a Christian, I don't become all-knowing. I don't become all-seeing. I don't become all-present, right? I don't become almighty.

19:21 We don't become those things. Only God is those things. What this does mean, what Peter means, is that when we partake in God's divine nature, we get to share in his moral character, his ethical character, his goodness, his compassion, his love. That when we enter his kingdom, God begins a work of transformation, of sanctification, of taking the things about us that are broken and worldly and wicked and transforming them into something that resembles him. So when there is hatred, when there's bitterness and anger in my life, God is slowly transforming those things into love, to compassion, to forgiveness. If there's lies that I have been clinging to in my life, God is slowly, progressively removing those lies and helping me to see the truth. That is what it means to partake in the divine nature. We are sharing in God's ethical, his moral character. We're experiencing those things and we're also reflecting those things to a lost and broken world. And what is so beautiful is that even though we are temporal people, we enter existence and we leave existence at specific times in Christ, we get to experience eternity with God now. That is what it means to be partakers of the divine nature.

20:40 Think about this. What a beautiful contrast, right? Think about Genesis chapter three. What does Satan entice Adam and Eve with? Hey, eat this fruit. The one thing that God said you couldn't do, eat this fruit and you'll become what? Like God. If you eat it, you'll become like God. Do something that God told you not to do so that you can be like him. contrast that with what actually happens where God himself enters human history and says, I want you to experience my life. I'll do it for you. I'll pay the price for your sin. I will begin the work of healing and redemption in your life. I'll do that. And if you simply receive this gift, you get to experience my nature. We don't have to go outside of God to become like God. That is the first lie. and that is the lie that is persisted in all of human history.

21:31 That new thing we're always looking for. God saying, no, I'm enough. In fact, I want to transform your life because I have so much more to give you. That is the beautiful contrast that we see here. You and I, we do not need some new guru. We don't need some new teacher. There is not some podcast or paid course that is gonna transform your life. I'm not anti-education here. If you need to go get a Bible college degree or seminary degree, you do that thing. But I need you to understand this. You don't have to go do something extra to transform your spiritual life, to unlock your potential. According to Peter, you already have what you need. Why? Because God is enough. God is enough and he's already given you all that you need and more. First principle is I have what I need. The second principle that we're looking at is I cultivate, I cultivate what I want. Look at verse five with me.

22:25 for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I wanna park there on that word in verse five, virtue. That is not a word that we talk about as often as we used to, virtue. This is how a lexicon defines the Greek word for virtue is that it's an uncommon character worthy of praise. It's excellence of character. It is exceptional civic virtue. I don't know about you, but I do not hear virtue spoken of like that very often in 2026. I don't hear us discussing in political discourse about virtue, about being a virtuous person, a virtuous citizen. In fact, I will argue the reason that we don't hear about those things is part of why our country is as broken and messed up as it is. We no longer prioritize forming people to be virtuous people, people of strength, people of conviction, of character. We don't do that. Thomas Jefferson, our third president actually believed that it was essential that people have virtue.

23:53 He says this, without virtue, happiness cannot be. Without virtue, happiness cannot be. And yet in our culture, we've reversed that. We don't build virtue so that people who are virtuous experience happiness. We say, no, no, no, happiness is the priority. It's important that everybody's happy. It's important that everybody feels comfortable. When you prioritize happiness at every cost, virtue goes out the window because virtue trains you to do things that you might not otherwise do. Virtue and character train you to do things that your flesh might not wanna do, but you know is the right thing. We've thrown all that out.

24:33 And Peter is not saying that our work, that our faith rather is defined by these things. Please understand that because it could be easy to read this and be like, so is Peter saying that we're saved by works? Not at all, not at all. Key word here, supplement, supplement, make every effort to supplement your faith. So think of this list in verses five through seven. These are your vitamins. This is the fiber of your faith diet, right? You gotta do these things to get healthier. You have faith, you're saved. You place your trust and faith in Jesus. You are saved, you're forgiven from your sin. However, you need to eat healthy. You need to work out. You need to take your vitamins, right? Anyone grow up taking those awful Flintstones gummies? I hated them. Like they just tasted awful. Tastes like chalk, right? But we need vitamins. And just like James in his letter will say, a faith that does not have works is a dead faith.

25:30 Peter is saying a faith that does not have these qualities is a blind faith. It's an ineffective faith. He's not saying that it's not a saving faith. He's just saying you're missing out. You are not experiencing all that God has for you. but here's the kicker. Virtues like this don't just happen accidentally. They don't just happen one day. Like I said, you don't wake up and you suddenly have all these virtues in your character list. My wife and I, she loves to garden. I am a happy observer when gardening. I don't have a great track record with plants. I've probably killed more than I planted. So when you're going out of town, don't ask me to water your plants unless you want to kill them. My wife is a great gardener. She's extremely, I've seen her resurrect plants. There was no hope. Other people thought they were dead and she's brought them back to life. So she is very good at gardening, at plants, at flora.

26:26 But when we moved into our house, my wife wanted some roses. So I said, okay, I can do that. That's simple enough. So I made a rose bed. You know, I cleared the earth, put the soil down, dug some holes, put some nice fencing. My kids knocked down. That's okay. But anyhow, here's what I learned, planting roses. you don't have a good rose garden accidentally. Like, you don't just wake up one day and just like, oh my gosh, look at these beautiful roses. No, when you plant roses, you gotta what? Water them three, four times a day for like a whole month. You have to do a lot of work to make sure that the soil is good. You wanna make sure, again, it takes some effort. And even once you have them, you gotta trim them. You gotta take care of them. You have to cultivate these roses if you want a beautiful garden. and it's the same with us as Christians.

27:21 I've met people, unfortunately, and I'm sure you probably have too, who we might categorize, we'll call them couch potato Christians. Couch potato Christians. These are the sorts of Christians, they come to church regularly. They listen to good Bible teaching like we have here. They listen to all the podcasts. Maybe they have a Bible college degree. They have all these, they have a beautiful library that makes us all jealous, right? They have all these things. But when you look at their like lived life, the way that they go through their life, you're just like, I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. Like you say the right things, you know the right things, but the way you treat your spouse, the way you treat your kids, the way you treat your neighbor and your coworkers doesn't line up. Something's wrong. Like you know all these things, but you're not seeming to do any of these things that you know. Couch potato Christians know all the right things, but sometimes they struggle with doing all the right things that they know about.

28:19 That's why Peter says this, make every effort. Your translations say, be diligent to supplement your faith with these things. And in the Greco-Roman world, the world of the time that Peter's writing this letter, this sort of list that has these kind of like different virtues that we're all supposed to go on, that's not uncommon. Like there's plenty of different Greek and Roman authors who talked about this, they had their own virtue lists. Plato and Aristotle, the great Greek philosophers, they believed that there were four cardinal virtues. They said, wisdom, justice, self-control, and courage. And they say, hey, if they wrote a virtue list like this, those would be on them. The Romans came along and they said, hey, let's also add duty to that. There were these virtue lists. And what would happen is they basically build on one another. They link up to the last virtue and they build. It's like a ladder. You're climbing up higher and higher and higher. Ultimately, it's going to culminate in what is the supreme virtue. This is the virtue that ties them all together. This is the most important virtue that you need to learn.

29:22 And again, for the Greeks, it was courage. You need to be courage. You need to be courageous. For the Romans, it was, you need to be dutiful. You need to be a good citizen. Peter takes a much more Christian approach than he does a Greek or Roman approach. He doesn't say, hey, be courageous. Hey, be a dutiful citizen. He does talk about that in other parts of his letters, but that's not how he summarizes his virtue list here. Note verse seven, godliness turns into brotherly affection. Brotherly affection, that's the sort of love you have for the people in your immediate family. That's the sort of love you have for the people, or you should have for the people in your immediate family. You love them. You love them in a way that's different from how you love everybody else. Brotherly affection, though, isn't the end of the list. We might say, how can you love somebody more than you love your family? Well, for Peter, that's not where we stop. He says there's one more. We need to love, and guess what? It's that fun word that we all know, agape love. Unconditional love, sacrificial love. That is the supreme virtue for the Christian in the first century or now. Agape love is the supreme virtue. We are called to be people of love, of Christ's love. That the same love that Christ showed us and continues to show us is the love that we are called to embody and reflect onto the people that we interact with in this world. That is the supreme virtue. So let me go out on a limb here, if you'll permit me. If you feel right now that Christianity isn't working for you, I say this with respect, it's not Christianity's problem. Christianity is actually not the issue.

31:01 My guess is that you have not been cultivating these virtues. You have not been cultivating these virtues, and so they are not existent in your life. And you're just waiting for them to happen, waiting for these virtues to show up one day. It's not gonna happen. You have to cultivate it. You have to be intentional about it. Verse eight, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have these things and they are increasing, meaning even if you do have them, they should be increasing some more. No matter where you are in your spiritual journey right now, you are not done growing, you are not done cultivating. Those lists, those virtues, those characteristics, those qualities, whatever you wanna call them, should be increasing.

31:55 You should have more of those qualities next year than you do this year. You should be striving to hit those targets of those virtues a little bit more accurately tomorrow than you did today. They should be increasing. And going back to like yard stuff, we're talking a lot about yard stuff. It's spring, right? Where it's all warm, we're doing some yard work. But I love a good lawn. Like I love a good lawn. I don't have a lawn in my house. In fact, I don't really think we, we have like a patch of grass that's hidden in the back of our property. We don't, I don't have lawns. Why? Because again, I told you, I'm not good at keeping green things alive. So we don't have lawn. I don't have a lawn. I don't have grass. It's too hard to keep up with, but you wanna know what? Boy, do I appreciate a good lawn when I see one. Oh, nice crispy lawn, nice trimmed, is good. Why is it attractive? Well, I know, number one, I know that I could never achieve that.

32:48 That lawn is way out of my league. But the fact is, I look at that lawn and I say, man, that took some time. That took some effort. They put some work to make that lawn look good. They didn't just wake up one day, they had xeriscaping like I have, and they're just like, oh, look at that, a beautiful lawn, perfectly trimmed and perfectly watered. No, it took time. They poured their life, their soul into that lawn. Good lawns don't happen by accident. In the same way, friends, good Christians do not happen by accident. You do not accidentally become the Christian that God wants you to be. if you want a nice looking rose garden like I did for my wife. We had to cultivate it. It didn't just happen that way. We had to cultivate it. We had to put some work into it. If you want a healthy, you want a vibrant faith, then guess what?

33:42 You need to cultivate. You need to get to work. You need to start cultivating what you want to see and stop expecting it to appear without any work. Does that make sense? We're tracking. We're doing good. Good. Principle number three, I remember who I am. I remember who I am. Look at verse nine with me. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Now we're talking about the flip side of that. So Peter told us the things we're supposed to be growing in, but he says, oh, this is what happens if somebody doesn't have these things. Is anybody a fan of the show Seinfeld? I'm not endorsing it. I like it. It's one of my favorite shows, but I'm not endorsing it. So you can't say, Taylor said I'm supposed to watch Seinfeld. No, I did not. I'm just saying I like the show and I find it very funny. But if you have watched the show, then you will famously know it's the show about what? Nothing, right?

34:43 It's the show about nothing. The whole point is that nothing happens. It's about the mundane episodes of life. The entire plan for the series that there is no character growth. There is no lessons learned. There are no morals. It's the same. These people start out and they're pretty bad and they end the show and they're also still pretty bad. They haven't learned anything, right? And that's what makes it funny, right? They learned, they never learn a lesson. So they do dumb and stupid funny things. And the show is very amusing.

35:16 Verse nine, Peter is describing a spiritual Seinfeld character. He is describing someone who is not learning any lessons, who is not growing. There is no character progression. There is no multi-episode story arc here. This person is having to learn the same lesson over and over and over again. They are going up against the same sin over and over and over and they're never making progress. They're never advancing the plot line of what God wants to do in their life. And Peter uses this term, he uses this term nearsighted. Nearsighted, myopia. It's a condition we have today. I'm nearsighted. I'm extremely nearsighted. I have contacts in right now, but I'm in desperate need of corrective lenses because if I don't have them, I'm maybe good in like the 18 to 24 inches range. And outside of that, we're gonna have problems.

36:11 But I'm nearsighted. So I've had corrective lenses since I was a kid. A few weeks ago, I was waking up early in the morning. I don't like waking up, not a morning person, but I knock my glasses over. I reach for my phone to shut off the alarm, knock my glasses onto the floor. So I get up and what am I doing? I'm trying to like squint. I'm just like looking, trying to find it because I can't see. So I'm looking for this. Because also what's cool is I got clear frame glasses, which look cool when they're on my face and are nearly invisible when they're not. So I'm looking through this squinting, right? I'm nearsighted. I can't find my glasses.

36:49 Peter envisions that sort of nearsightedness that I have in a physical sense. He envisions it in a spiritual sense. This is the sort of person who does not have glasses on, spiritually speaking. They do not have clear sight. And so what are they doing? they're like I was walking in circles, trying to find where they're going because they can't see anything. Peter's talking about somebody who is spiritually nearsighted. And imagine this. Imagine that you're the sort of person where you have glasses, but you've chosen, I'm not gonna wear them when I'm following Jesus. I'm just gonna kind of squint. I'm gonna do my best. I can't see very well, but I'm just gonna, I can't be bothered to put my glasses on. And so what do you do? You kind of stumble. You're gonna bump into stuff. you're gonna get all bruised and fall over because you're nearsighted and you're not wearing your corrective lenses.

37:40 This is the sort of person who has not cultivated the qualities, the virtues of verses five through seven. Those aren't there in their life. Like Peter says, these are people who lack those things. Not only are they nearsighted, scripture has another word for them. They're a child. They're a spiritual child. This is what the author of Hebrews says and the author of Hebrews does not pull punches. For by this, he says this in Hebrews 5, for though by this time, reading is fun, you ought to be teachers. You need somebody to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God. We do not outgrow the gospel, right? I've been a Christian most of my life and I need Jesus to save me today just as much as I needed him to save me the day that I walked forward and raised my hand and received him.

38:56 Same is true for you. We do not outgrow the gospel. However, we should never be content to experience this sort of immature faith where we're always going in a circle. We're never learning. We're never growing. We're never progressing. We're just doing the same thing over and over and over year after year.

39:16 I was working out last summer. I started working out because I hadn't been working out in way too long. You don't need to know how long, but I committed last summer, I'm gonna get in shape. So I got a home gym, got some stuff, you know, off Facebook Marketplace. But I start working out and it was kind of embarrassing because I was like, I know that I can move more weight than this, but I can't. So I had to start off in a much lower weight than I wanted to. But over time, as I was working out several times a week, every day, I was to be able to add weight. Okay, I was able to lift this, now I can lift this, right? And over time, you're progressively growing, you're progressively adding weight, You're growing muscle. You're growing stamina. You're growing all these things, right? You are growing in your physical stature, your strength. But it takes time. You have to add weight. Peter is talking about somebody, a spiritual child, is somebody who says, I'm gonna go to the gym.

40:10 I'm gonna finally make good on my New Year's resolution. I'm gonna go to the gym. And they go every day, but they never add more weight. They are still pushing the same amount of weight that they did when they first started two years ago. They've never added more weight. They're just doing the same exercise, the same weight over and over and over. And they're saying, why am I not getting into shape? I go to the gym every day. It's because they're not growing. They're not advancing.

40:35 Just like cultivating a garden, just like getting in shape, growing in your faith, growing in your walk with Jesus requires effort. It requires intentionality. because you want to know what doesn't require effort or intentionality to grow? Want to know? Weeds. Not that kind of weed. Weeds. Weeds, the kind you pick.

41:04 Because what's fun about them is at no point have my wife and I ever walked around our yard and said, hey, babe, man, just think we could, we could have a weed patch right here. just like Bermuda grass, like just like right here. Wouldn't that be so beautiful? Just some Bermuda grass, some of that like, you know, mustard weed, let's just have that here. No, at no point did we ever have that conversation. At no point did I go to the store, I'm gonna buy Bermuda grass seeds. I'm just gonna sprinkle them all over. No, I did not invite them. They just show up, especially because the prior owner didn't bother to put down weed guard. So I have this lovely problem of a constant battle that I feel like I'm losing and I have to just vent that to you. I'm losing this battle with the weeds in my yard because they just don't stop. There's more of them than there are of me. but what happens right one good rain and the weeds grow and they start small that's what's frustrating is they don't start big they don't catch your attention usually just like something a little tiny over there and you might not even see it even if you do see it you might say ah whatever I'm too tired I'm too busy I'm not gonna get that today like I said one good rain is all it takes in the land of enchantment and then suddenly you have a weed that's that tall and it's like, what did I do?

42:24 Where did I go wrong? You didn't pick it. You didn't pull it out of the ground because when you're picking weeds, you gotta remove all of it, right? You gotta pull the whole darn thing out, which is something that I did not like to do as a child. Why? Because I was lazy. I wanted that allowance, but I didn't wanna actually do the work of having to yank a weed out. So what would I do? I wouldn't actually pull the weed. I would just yank the top part off that was visible. Looks great for a day. Looks super easy. Just go, okay, mom, I'm done.

42:58 The problem is, day later, two days later, the weed's back again, and I have to go pull it again. And I go pull the top again. No, no, I got it this time, mom. And then what, two days later, it's back again. Because I haven't dealt with the weed. It just keeps growing up because I never uprooted the thing. Some of you have some spiritual weeds in your life that you've been picking that way. You are only dealing with what is on top of the surface. You rip it off, you think, I'm good. This is gonna be the time, God. I promise I'm not coming back to this thing again. I'm not going back to that relationship again. This is it. And you think you pop off that top part of the weed and then guess what? A day later, a week later, a month later, what are you doing? you're back there again. And you're saying, what's wrong with me? Why is this not working? It's because you're not actually uprooting the weed. You are just ripping off what is visible. You're not actually picking the weed and removing the roots.

43:57 and this is always something that stuck out to me. There's this author, Peter Scazzaro, wrote a really incredible book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, but he says this, he's speaking of a crisis of faith he had when his life kind of fell apart. He'd been a pastor for a long time. He'd been a pastor for 20 years, but he realized, am I a 20-year-old Christian where I've been a Christian for 20 years? Am I actually a 20-year-old Christian or am I a one-year-old Christian 20 times over? where rather than saying, man, I have grown, there's been a trajectory of growth in my Christianity from where I started to now. He's saying, I think I keep living year one of my Christian walk over and over and over. I've just done it a lot. how long have you been a christian and honestly has there been that that what nietzsche of all people says a long uh obedience in the same direction where there's growth there's a trajectory of health and discipline or are you just doing the same cycle over and over and it hasn't really changed much since when you were first christian since you first came forward at an altar call let me just say this if that is you and I think you know this God doesn't want you to stay there not because God is mad at you it's just because he has a lot more for you he has a lot more life he has a lot more of himself that he wants you to partake in and when you're living that same cycle over and over you're never getting to experience all that God has for you God doesn't want you living that life I'm gonna wager that you don't want to live that life because that is probably why you're saying, I don't feel like my faith is doing much for me.

45:39 Well, because there's no growth. There's no cultivation. The answer is simple. In this case, I can't stop being nearsighted. I have to have corrective lenses. Spiritually speaking, you can stop being nearsighted today. You can stop being nearsighted today. How? By taking your eye off of your sin. Because when you're spiritually nearsighted, all you're doing is you're staring at yourself and what you're doing. and you're wondering, why is this not working? I'm not moving past this. Look up. Look at Jesus. Remember who you are and remember what he has done for you. In case you need a reminder, let's review. You are God's adopted child. According to Ephesians 1.5, he adopted you. He doesn't tolerate you. He adopted you. He chose you into his family. According to Romans 8.2, you have been set free from the power of sin and death. According to Hebrews 4.16, you have 24 seven access to God's throne room.

46:34 You can go there anytime you have a need. According to Romans 8, 33, not even the devil himself can bring a charge against you because God has declared that you're justified. So if the devil can't even bring a charge against you, why are you letting yourself bring charges against you? Satan can't even do that. God has declared that you are justified. It is time that you remember who you are. It is time that you put on your spiritual glasses, is look up from yourself and look at Jesus. Refocus your eyes on Jesus because looking at your sin will not fix it. It will only perpetuate it. Looking at Jesus will. If you say, I'm gonna look off of my sin, I'm not turning a blind eye, I'm just saying my focus is on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of my faith. I'm gonna move towards Jesus. Turns out that's a lot easier to move away from sin than when you're saying, I gotta move away from this sin, but it's always there.

47:28 Look at Jesus. Go towards Jesus. final principle that we're gonna talk about is I prepare for the prize. I prepare for the prize. Look at the last couple of verses of our text, verse 10. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. Somebody in here needs that. If you practice those things, the failure that you have gotten used to doesn't have to be that way. If you practice these qualities, you will never fall for. In this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. What a beautiful promise. What a beautiful promise. We have to keep our eye on the prize. A couple months ago, my wife and I, we were building bookshelves in my office at home.

48:24 And that was a terrible experience. Number one, because wow, that was a lot harder than I thought. Turns out eight foot bookshelves are heavy and they're a pain to put together. Second is I am not a carpenter. Unlike our Lord, I am not a carpenter. Please do not ask me to build you anything. I will not, I refuse to. I love you too much.

48:45 And especially that second shelf, having already wrestled the first one in, I'm out there again building the second shelf and it's a pain and I hate it because I'm not good at carpentry. I was tempted to leave it there. Just be like, I'm done. I'm done. I don't need a bookshelf. That's fine. What kept me going was just like, you know, I'm tired of seeing my books stacked up on the floor. I need a bookshelf. So I'm going to get this stupid thing in and screw it into the wall. Because why? Not because this is fun. This is not fun at all. I hate moving this thing. Why? It's because I looked at it and said, you know what? I am really excited about having a nice bookshelf to put all my books on. Because I like books. I'm a book nerd. If you couldn't tell already, I was like, I wanna take care of my books. I want a nice bookshelf. That prize, tiny as it was, I was just being lazy. Tiny as that prize was, that kept me going.

49:39 Because I was like, man, I can't wait till I'm looking at two nice bookshelves. No more piles of books. They kept me going when I wanted to give up. And the fact is, my friends, we live in a world that is obsessed with how we are feeling right here and now. what is in front of us, that is in fact the world. It is engineered to make that your focus. When you stare at your phone, it is designed to feed you stuff right here. It tracks what you look at and it just feeds you this never ending cycle of right now. It's always right now. And it's never training you and helping you to look forward. That is not a virtue that we have here in America is let's look forward. Where are we going? Where do we wanna be? because we're so fixated on where we are now and we get angry, we get upset, we get frustrated and we never move, we never grow, we never progress. It's the same for a lot of us as Christians.

50:33 And I'm convinced that the reason why so many Christians are ready to give up on their faith is because they have a Sunday kind of faith. It looks really good. They do that cycle. I've been that Sunday kind of Christian. I live Sunday and I make a lot of promises to God and I break most of them by Monday. I've been there. And I know what it's like to look at your faith and says, God, there has to be something more than this because this is not working. that is not the life that we have to live. If we want a life, if we want a faith that is going to last, it is not a Sunday kind of faith that lives for a day and is gone the next morning. It's not how it works. If we want a faith that lasts, ultimately, we gotta prepare.

51:26 We gotta focus on the prize. And that is the very thing that is not right now Because according to 1 John 2, all of these things are passing away. All of these things are passing away. And John says, the person who does the will of God is going to endure forever. Or like Peter says, the only eternal thing that we have is not us, is not ourselves, is not what we accomplish. All those things are going to pass away. What is eternal is the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's what we're going towards. That's what we're fixing our eyes on. So if you have been wondering, why does my Christianity not seem to be doing what it's supposed to? Look up, look where you're going.

52:14 You're heading towards the eternal kingdom, which according to Peter, you've been granted access into by Christ. Through Christ, you have access into this kingdom. You keep moving, you keep going in that direction. And guess what? When you're moving towards the destination, you're able to move forward. It's when you look away from that that you start doing like, when you're learning how to drive, parents are probably like, look up, look ahead of you. Why? Because when you look down, you do this. When you look up, you kind of automatically straighten.

52:42 We're looking forward. We're looking at that eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ. That's where I'm shooting for. When you start shooting for that, when you start going in that direction, don't be surprised that you start to drive straighter. You start to drive straighter. You see what's coming up. You're not as fazed by anything because you have some idea of what's happening. You are looking at Jesus. You are focusing on what's eternal, not what is temporal. if you have a Sunday kind of faith, the really good news is you don't have to wait till next spring to cultivate it. Literally, in a sense, we're moving into spring season. It's a good time to plant plants, according to my wife. I wouldn't know because I'll kill them. But in a spiritual sense, now is a really good time. If you wanna cultivate these virtues, if you want that Monday kind of faith that's gonna last, not just into Monday, but into Tuesday, into the next decade, into the next two decades, start cultivating those things now.

53:39 And it starts, say, I'm gonna start looking at Jesus. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for the correction. But the correction that does not come from a tyrant or a boss comes from you as our dad. You want us to live a very special life. You have so much in store for us, God. and we know that you want us to live into all of it, God. So we as a people, we wanna commit to walking in that, to experiencing that. We thank you for that. We thank you for your love for us. We thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus. And it's in his name that we pray, amen.