2 Peter 1:5-11

“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. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for 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.”

Supplementing Your Aim to Live the Right Life

Verses 3 and 4 of 2 Peter 1 tell us that God has granted us, “all things that pertain to life and godliness” and “His precious and very great promises” and that “through them you may become partakers of divine nature” which provides escape from “the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

The promise that we can be or have been granted not just some, but all things that pertain to life and godliness, access to the precious promises of God, that we’re given an opportunity to partake of divine nature and escape the sinful corruption of the world is nothing short of amazing. It’s stunning and transcendent. If that information doesn’t fill a believer with hope, then what does? But why don’t more people feel that touch of the divine in their lives? Why aren’t more people’s lives overflowing with the fruits of the spirit and shining with Christ’s light which has overcome the darkness and the world?

Two sections of text spring to mind:

Matthew 7:7-8

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

And

James 4:2-3

“You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

Or, to pull from a principle given by the clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, who I acknowledge is no Matthew or James, “What you aim at determines what you see.”

So how do we ask properly? How do we knock, or aim rightly? People can forget, myself included, that God is not a magical, wish granting genie. He’s God. He is the Author of reality from whom all good things flow. He is eternal and glorious, unknowable, yet familiar. He is the beginning and the end and possesses unfailing love and just wrath beyond our understanding. How do we ask Him for anything at all, how do we go about this? 2 Peter 1:5-11 is our road map and unsurprisingly this starts with faith. If our eyes are unopened, if we are spiritually dead and blind for our need for Christ then the rest unfortunately don’t matter much.

Everything provided in the text is there to supplement your faith. That word, supplement, is crucial. I take a lot of vitamins, but not a single one of them makes me alive. They may assist in my quality of life or the function of my body, but none of them have made or keep me alive. If I lift weights, my muscles grow, If I ingest more protein my muscles can (in theory) grow more. But if I eat more steak and eggs and never touch a barbell are my muscles magically going to grow? Of course not. There has to be a base, a foundation (hopefully built on the Rock) for supplementation to have its desired effect. So what do we begin by supplementing our faith with? Virtue, or as an alternate provided in my EVS translation, excellence. How on earth are we supposed to even comprehend, much less pursue spiritual and Godly virtue and excellence? It seems too big right out of the gate, too glorious of a place to start.

You supplement your virtue, your excellence in the spirit with knowledge. You actively read or as I’ve heard John Piper say, “swim in” the word of God, which freely provides His knowledge. And this knowledge or pursuit thereof must be supplemented by self-control. There will come a day when you have to purposefully turn away from the distracting, thorny snares of the world and dive into study of God’s word. And how to bolster and supplement our self-control? Steadfastness.

Now, I have to be honest, this is a word I have always just used context to establish meaning for so to ensure accuracy, I looked it up.

Steadfastness: noun

Firmness; strength.

Stability and firmness; fixedness in place or position.

Stability of mind or purpose; resolution; constancy; faithfulness; endurance.

Or from, straight from Merriam-Webster:

Steadfast: adjective

firmly fixed in place: Immovable

firm in belief, determination, or adherence

My takeaway from that is: If you want to supplement your self-control, ask yourself: Are you loyally and constantly pursuing what you know to be honoring to God? Are you setting, with faith and determination, his glorification at the forefront of your mind? This aim, this focus is how you cultivate steadfastness to supplement your self-control.

And you supplement steadfastness with godliness. Wait, we supplement our steadfast pursuit and desire of God, and his will, and his glory by displaying godliness? How can that be attainable, isn’t that just as vast a concept as proper virtue and excellence were from the start? Where do you even begin with something so grand?

Love your brothers. Start with brotherly affection and supplement that with love. Love your brothers. Love your sisters. Love your neighbors.

Start with faith and supplement these things, one to the other. “Make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

God loved us and so he made us. He knew we would fall, so he made us a way back to him. He loved us so much that our way back to Him was for Him to take on flesh, live a sinless life, die a brutal, shameful death, conquer death and return to life.

I’m always struck that when people point out that He loved us enough to die for us – no, it’s not just that. He loved us enough to completely override and conquer death. His victory for us is a complete one.

John 3:16 is a beautiful, simple, powerful verse. The establishment of your faith, the laying of the foundation is right there. You want to know how to grow and mature in your faith? How to be a gloriously burning signal fire for God? How to live a life that is pleasing to Him and helps draw others to Him by your example? 2 Peter 1:5-11.

“For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Pastor Chris Justice’s sermon on the text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F42JWmoRTqA