Let me read 2 Peter 1:1-11 that you just read. And then we’ll pray. And then I’ll ask you what your key quality is.
Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
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.
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.
1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: 2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 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, 4 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. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 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. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 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. (2 Peter 1:1-11, ESV)
Let’s pray. Father, we enter this new year asking for your presence. Jesus, we are gathered in your name. We ask that you be here. Holy Spirit, we ask that you fill this place with the presence of God. We open our hearts wide. We want to meet you, Lord.
We pray that you would teach us how to be effective in our knowledge of Jesus Christ so we can grow more and more in intimacy with him and partake in the divine nature of Christ and have his nature become our new nature, our new creation. Thank you, Lord. We pray that you would speak during this time. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
So is there a quality in terms of our part in our own sanctification, our own journey to grow in spiritual maturity in the fruit of the Spirit? Which one of these eight qualities stands out to you in terms of our part and why? Do you have a why?
Alfonso: I believe for me it’s self-control. In order to be a representation of God and examples to my children, I got to be firm in the Lord. That means that I don’t get worried when the storms come. I don’t waver. I don’t go to the left or to the right. I’m in the control center.
Yes, yes, yes. Praise God. Thank you. Anybody else? That’s great. Anybody else?
I mean, you can’t go wrong. All of these we have to add and supplement, but is there one that stands out in terms of our part?
Sarah: I feel like I know what you’re getting at, but I’m very weak in this one, so. Okay. It seems like it should be perseverance. But I am not persevering.
Okay, it could be perseverance. Yes.
Jackie: Just the attitude of diligence, making every effort.
Well, I will agree with Alfonso. For me, the one that stands out in terms of my part is self control. That’s something we have a big role to play in controlling ourselves. So we start out this new year with resolutions, obviously. And so because Temmin is here, whenever I see Timin, I just feel motivated to exercise. Like, I want to look like him in 2025. For me, training has begun. I bought some boxing gloves not too long ago, and I’m starting to box.
I was a black belt before, and so I want to get into fighting shape. The one thing I realized with Taekwondo, if you can’t kick, it’s useless. And right now my kick doesn’t look like a kick because I try to kick. My hips are so locked up that it just doesn’t move. Like, as soon as I do it, I feel like a tightness, and it’s like my body just can’t move.
Like, I want to kick the bag, so I want to kind of do, like, kickboxing, like punching, but a side kick to the bag, but my hip is locked up. And so now I have a lot of homework. I have to do mobility training. I have to do training. I feel like my hands and my wrists were sore in the beginning, but they’re getting stronger. I need to improve my sleep, so I took some vitamin D. That helped. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night.
I saw on YouTube that you also need magnesium. I was taking magnesium, but then I realized there’s 10 versions of magnesium, and I was taking three of them, but not the one that helps with sleep. So I need to adjust my supplement regimen.
And just to say, if you want to train in a physical sense, there’s a lot of effort, a lot of effort before we get into self-control. Maybe the overarching theme for this message is training ourselves to be godly. That is one of the qualities that’s mentioned there.
It’s not the one I’m going to maybe focus on like practically, but I think godliness doesn’t just happen. Like you don’t just. You just don’t look like Taemin just by eating whatever you want and just doing your normal routine.
Your normal routine is not working. If you want to get in shape, there’s a lot of training, a lot of effort, a lot of adjusting of what you eat, supplementation, getting good sleep. There’s a lot of areas that you need to focus on just to be physically trained and ready. Godliness is no different.
So it says in first Timothy 4, the second half of verse 7, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
7Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;8for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. (1 Timothy 4:8-9, ESV)
So especially the young people, you want to be fit. I know that’s on your mind. you’re going to train yourself this year and that’s well and good, but let’s put godliness above it. You have to train yourself.
The amount of effort you put into your body to just get fit, that is of some value in this life. If you want to have eternally valuable return, you want to train yourself to be godly.
Godliness. Here’s a definition. It’s an attitude of reverence toward God. It’s characterized by life that reflects his holiness and commands. It encompasses inner devotion and outward conduct that aligns with God’s will. It’s associated with a life that is pleasing to God, is marked by moral integrity and spiritual devotion.
I think the key phrase here is out of reverence for God. There is an inward devotion which we all are striving for, but also there is an outward conduct that is visible. There’s a way that we speak. There’s a way that we carry ourselves.
There’s a fruit, there’s an aroma. All of this is also a package of what it means to be godliness. I won’t read this, but if you. If you read first Timothy six, the chapter, it outlines the biggest distraction from a pursuit of godliness. It is a greed for money.
So on top of wanting to be fit, I’m sure all of us, we want to be richer. This year we’re thinking about how can we generate more money. And if we’re not careful, this pursuit of money can derail us from actually achieving training to be godly.
You can read that on your own. Second Timothy 3 also speaks of people who appear to be godly. And it says avoid such people. They are always learning, but never able to arrive at the truth.
There’s a lot of head knowledge, but there’s never a breakthrough in terms of change, in terms of becoming leveled up, in terms of becoming a new creation.
It says these people, they are evil impostors. They just appear godly, but they’re going from bad to worse. So the longer you spend time with them, it’s like there’s more and more skeletons. There’s more and more like you saw some bad qualities, but 20 years later it’s so much worse. These are people we are to avoid.
Instead, let’s surround ourselves with the opposite, which is a godly person. Somebody who’s going from good to better to best. Somebody who is growing in actual knowledge that translates to change. It’s a life that’s trained for godliness. There’s no shadiness, they’re not trying to manipulate you. There’s no ulterior motive. They really want your good.
Titus 2:11 says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, (Titus 2:11-12, ESV)
So in order to be godly here, we’re already getting a clue. We need to be self-controlled. There are things in the world that are permissible, that are attractive, that everybody else is doing. But we say no to these things. We renounce ungodliness, these things that are common in this world.
And instead, we live self-controlled. That is a key to eventually becoming a godly person. And so now we get to our main text, 2 Peter 1:3.
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.
And the word for excellence here is virtue. It’s the same as in verse five when it mentions virtue. So I don’t know why the translators, if it’s the same word in the same text, they should just translate it the same way.
So I’ll say called us to his own glory and virtue, 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 desires.
3 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, 4 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. (2 Peter 1:3-4, ESV)
So when I read this, I see that this training to be godly is not a solo act. We’re not striving on our own to, to be self controlled and to be more and more godly. That is not where we are putting our effort.
We don’t put all the burden on ourselves to become this godly Christian. But we have God’s divine power, and we are in Christ, and we are knowing Jesus, and Jesus is helping us with his power. And so we are doing it together. It is a joint effort.
So Jesus, through the power of God, is now partaking in your godliness, in your training to be godly. It is not a solo act. And so it says all things that pertain to life and godliness.
And there are church leaders who went to seminary right out of college, and I admire their zeal. I think if I were not careful, I would have been one of them because I felt called in college to be a pastor.
But these people who have only done work in the church, they’re out of touch with life. They don’t understand what it means to work under a difficult boss and to have deadlines and to be stressed and to have that kind of a burden and not give up because you only have one source of income.
So just because you don’t like your boss, you don’t like your job, you’re going to give up. There’s so much training in life that translates to spiritual life and there’s merit.
To be a bi-vocational minister, that’s my plug. We should all be bi-vocational ministers. You should have your way to make income.
And you’re in life. You’re working in the marketplace and at the same time you are a Christian. You’re learning spiritual things from your natural vocation. It all translates. It’s all of this. God’s power is for life and for godly living.
And then 2 Peter 1, we’ll get into the qualities. Now for this 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.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (2 Peter 1:5-7, ESV)
I’m going to do a little bit out of order. I want to focus on brotherly affection and love. In way of an announcement, this is what I’m praying for this year, and you can pray with me.
But I think we will start sometime end of this month or February. We’re going to try small groups. This is based on a conversation that I had with Sister Minjin not too long ago, and she was describing the small group that she had at her church, I think.
I think Heavenly Hope Church does a similar kind of a small group. And in our small group, I’m hoping that we can practice brotherly affection and agape love, which is the seventh and the eighth quality.
The brotherly affection. We get only so deep, and we can go only so far in stirring our affections for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. When we gather just for a couple of hours in a week, and we are mingling, you’re talking to different people, but in a small group, you go a lot deeper.
And so this is what I’m hoping will actually stir us to have more affection for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
It’s going to be a closed group. And what I mean by that is, in order to join this group, you need to be a member of this church.
To be a member of this church, I haven’t talked about it much, but it is pretty simple. It’s just you are here as often as you can on every, hopefully every, Sunday.
Because if you’re going to share deeply with your brothers and sisters in a small group setting, there’s going to be a lot of things that are shared that are confidential in nature.
And we just can’t have people in and out on a Sunday, in and out on this gathering. And so it’s to protect this very confidential nature of the things that will come out in a typical small group.
The other requirement besides Sunday attendance is sharing your testimony so that we can all hear how Jesus met you, how you’ve been growing in the Lord.
We can have somebody vouch for you. Yes, it sounds like this person met Jesus. Everybody in the congregation can vouch we know this person’s salvation journey.
It doesn’t have to be a dramatic moment, but over time there’s a walking with Jesus that is evident to all who hear it, and also baptism by immersion.
So if you do all these things, then you are welcome to join the small group. And we’re going to stir up brotherly affection for one another. We’re going to try to do this every.
Every other week, it’s going to start at my house, probably on a Friday evening. We’re going to try to do it after traffic as much as possible. Maybe with finger foods or, you know, people haven’t eaten or provide food.
But it’s going to be, I think Minjin said they have five-hour sessions because it’s a, it’s like a mini service. And I want it to be a mini service as well, not five hours. I think maybe a couple of hours where we are really doing a, we’re reviewing the sermon, we’re doing praise and worship, we’re sharing prayer requests.
People have an opportunity to go a lot deeper in what they’re struggling with. And we can pray for one another. And so I think a couple hours every other week is possible.
But again, this is a close in the sense of it’s for members only. It’s open in another sense. And this goes to the final quality, which is agape love.
I think to encourage evangelism, it is this agape love is love for all the world. And as a Christian, like, if we only are good at loving one another, there’s a.
There’s a quality, the eighth one, that we’re missing. And so I’m hoping that this small group becomes an evangelism center where we can. It’s a high bar for somebody who never went to church to walk into a service. And there’s a lot of things that are strange and unfamiliar, and they’re room full of strangers.
But this is going to be a cozier group. We’re going to share a meal together, and everyone’s going to have a chance to share their journey. And we welcome this newcomer into this miniature service and small group and sharing.
In the beginning, maybe that’s too much for the small group. I mean, for the newcomer. So instead of gathering at my house, maybe we just. Somebody likes golfing. I don’t like golfing. But for the sake of that person’s soul, I will golf with that person.
So we go and just. Our small group meeting is, why don’t we golf with this person, get to build some relationship, and then later on let’s bring them in to the small group. So in this small group, it is for members only.
So that we can share confidentially, get to know one another, stir our affections for one another, but also for evangelism. So it’d be great to have an evangelism center in Malibu and one in Arcadia and one in Torrance.
And we just have these centers where we have places to invite people into these homes and just show Christ’s love to them in a concrete way. So that’s something I invite you to pray with me on and let me know what you think. And I don’t have all the details worked out, but just at a high level.
Based on talking with Min Jin and reflecting on brotherly affection and agape love, I think this could be a good concrete step for us in 2025.
But the other one’s faith is, it says make every effort. And in terms of training ourselves to be godly, I think in 2 Peter 1 we start to see a principle emerging. In verses 3 and 4, God says I’m going to do my part. It’s my divine power, it’s my divine nature. You can partake with me, you can do life with me. It’s a joint effort.
God says I’m going to do my part. And then we do our part, which is to make every effort to put on and supplement quality after quality, all eight of them.
So God does His part, we do our part. So we do our best. We make every effort, God does the rest. This is a joint effort for all of us to become Godly in 2025.
Faith is trust, virtue, it’s moral excellence, purity, modesty. You know we’ve talked about excellence as a student for the glory of God. We’ve talked about excellence in your workplace. Not because you want the promotion, but because God is your boss.
But what about excellent in terms of your character? Don’t we, shouldn’t we strive for that? What about excellence as a spouse? What about excellence as a friend? Excellent as a parent, excellent as a son living under your parents’ roof. Why don’t we strive to be excellent in these, all these ways?
Knowledge is knowledge of things that belong to God, which is moral wisdom, which leads to right living, divine things, and human duties. It’s all one in the same life. And godliness, self-control.
We’re going to spend the most time here. Self mastery, self restraint in relation to one’s desires, impulses. Ability to exercise restraint over one’s actions, emotions, thoughts, aligning them with God’s will and his moral standards. And this can be accomplished only by the power of the Lord.
Next, steadfastness, which is endurance, perseverance, patience, particularly in the face of trials and difficulties. Faithful and patient under pressure. This is really the meaning of it. Trusting in God to which is not passive, but actively hoping and waiting for God’s deliverance and fulfillment of his promises.
I spoke with Joey Suh, who is working at UC Davis College admissions. So I’m going to give a little tidbit for those like Elijah and future people who will be applying to colleges.
I asked her, what are you looking for in these applications? And one takeaway from what she said is they’re looking for perseverance. You start something, but if you only do it for a year, it’s less impressive than if you do it for four years. That communicates something, that you have diligence, interest, but you also have longevity.
You don’t give up just because it’s boring or because you found something else. you’re not jumping from one sport, one activity to another. You do it for four years. That communicates something.
And Christian life also. We should learn from this. And so in 2025, do some hard things. Do some hard things. Things that you are tempted after a week to give up, but don’t give up. Train yourself physically, mentally, emotionally so that it can translate to spiritual life. Because if you give up on anything, that’s hard.
Oh, my boss yelled at me. Oh, I don’t like my co-workers. I’m gonna look for a new job. I’m unhappy. I’m gonna look for a new job. If that’s your mentality, this brother or sister’s driving me crazy. I’m gonna look for a new church.
It’s like there’s so many things that we just quit, and we never develop this area of perseverance, steadfastness, and patience. God wants us to start things that are hard. Try for a marathon. You don’t have to be first place. Try for it and actually run it.
Complete it, do hard things and go for it. In 2025, godliness, I already defined earlier. Brotherly affection obviously, is for believers. Agape love, the last quality, is for all of the world.
I want to focus on self control and then we’ll end. Self control is a fruit of the Spirit. So we might be passive and say, well, God does it all. I don’t have to do anything. But it’s self control. There’s a lot of things under our control which goes back to God does his part.
Like, you really can’t generate and manufacture completely on your own, this fruit of self-control. But there are things that you can do to control yourself. And so you do your part. God says, I will do my part. And at the end, this fruit will be evident.
Self-control is restraint over desires, actions, emotions, and thoughts. And it’s. I tried to kind of dissect them, but it’s like they all blend together. It’s really hard. Like, where does one start, where does one end? It blends together. So self-control, restraint over actions.
It’s what we do, it’s what we say, it’s what we type, it’s what we send over email, it’s what we watch, it’s what we listen to. There’s so much, it’s under this category of actions. Self control over our emotions like anger and annoyance and moodiness and depression, lack of motivation, loneliness.
You can dwell on these things and be captured by these things and all of 2025 could be lost because you were just wallowing in one of these emotions. How do we restrain them? How do we restrain our actions?
How do we restrain our thoughts, which include worries about finances, worries about what people will think because of the decisions that we make, thoughts about pride and selfish ambition, vain concern? See, selfish self-centeredness and narcissism. All of these thoughts that are just out of control.
So the first thing the Lord, I think, wants to communicate to us is we have all the same amount of time, like how we wrestle with this. We have the same 24 hours in a day.
If you sleep eight hours, which is recommended by sleep experts, then you have 16 hours of a day. How do you spend those 16 hours in terms of your reactions, emotions and thoughts? That’s under our control to some extent.
What is God’s will in terms of desires, actions, emotions and thoughts? So whatever we’re weak in, we bring it to Jesus. Whatever we’re weak in, we bring it to Jesus. We ask Jesus for divine help to overcome these things. And then afterward we do our part.
We seek out God’s answer, which can come in the form a lot of times through His Word. And then he gives us the Word, and then we memorize the Word. And then we wield the sword of the Spirit against this weakness that we found in us. I think that’s how we put on these qualities more and more and grow.
For example, these are just examples of some passages that the Lord gave to me. James 1:19. Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. These are actions before you type it, before you speak it.
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; (James 1:19, ESV)
Be slow, pause. This is God’s wisdom. And if you’re unable to do this, you give God your lips and your thoughts that are moving so fast. And your mouth just speaks. You just give him your thoughts, you give him your emotions, but you’re speaking out of your emotion.
You give him your actions, your thoughts, your emotions that you just can’t control. It’s like a wild horse. This tongue can’t be tamed. It’s an animal. You just got to rein it in.
So we, we bring all of these things to the Lord. We ask for help, and then God gives you a verse like James 1:19. We commit it to memory, and then we wield the sword of the Spirit.
Every time we fail, we just keep reminding ourselves, oh God, your will is to be slow. Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to be angry. So the fact that I was angry, I spoke out of my anger. I didn’t listen to the other person. I just spoke over the person. This pattern, this stronghold, I give it to the Lord. Now I have James 1:19. I’m going to commit it to memory until I overcome these areas, these weaknesses.
Another verse the Lord gave me was Jeremiah 17:9. For those who are emotional, who are just trapped in emotions, Jeremiah 17:9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it? The Lord searches the heart and tests the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10, ESV)
It starts with the heart, the emotions, the thoughts, the desires and outcomes, certain ways, certain deeds. It all kind of blends together.
So we don’t put too much emphasis on the emotions. You just wake up certain days and you’re just in a bad mood. You just didn’t get good sleep. Somebody texted you last night, and then you thought about it while you were sleeping, and you wake up in a foul mood.
We don’t trust our emotions when we recognize, oh, I’m acting this way, I’m speaking this way, it’s coming out of this emotion. I don’t trust it. I got to rein it in. This emotion. My heart is deceitful.
Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my emotions, I give you my thoughts. Please help me to restrain it, Lord. Give me self control. Then you meditate on Jeremiah 17 for that day until you experience victory.
Second Corinthians 10:5. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
All the pride in me, all the selfish ambition, all the vain conceit, all the ideas and the agendas and the things on my plate that are driving my schedule, I bring it before the Lord. I take these thoughts captive.
5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:5, ESV)
I’m showing mastery over my thought life. Please destroy these strongholds. This pattern needs to go. I want a different 2025.
If you worry about money, you meditate on Matthew 6. He cares for the birds of the air. Don’t worry. Food and clothing, guaranteed. Be content with that. Don’t be greedy for more. He’s given you everything, food and clothing. Okay, I trust you, Lord, for the rest. I trust you, Lord, for the rest. I’m not going to worry.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:25-26, ESV)
Romans 12: The renewing of the mind so that we can test and discern the perfect good will of God.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2, ESV)
Philippians 2: Nothing out of vain conceit, selfish ambition and humility. Count others more significant than yourselves.
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3, ESV)
We’ll practice this in small group. It’s like we have things to share, but let’s restrain it. We don’t speak for an hour because we’re counting others more significant, we want to hear them as much as we want to share our story.
We want to love them. We want to really listen to what they’re going through because we want to pray for them. We want to have a brotherly affection and love for them.
What happens if I don’t train myself to be godly? The verses that we read, verses 8 to 11, outline them. There we become nearsighted, blind. We forget that we’ve been cleansed, and so we live in sin because we forgot that we’ve been cleansed of these sins.
We’ve forgotten we’re striving to know Jesus, but there’s a wall where we’re not growing in fruitful knowledge of Jesus. It’s unfruitful, it’s ineffective. We’re stalled in getting to know Jesus.
And then after a while, you start wondering, am I even saved? My calling and election, the solid foundation I used to stand upon, now is like sand, like I’m sinking. Now I wonder, did I ever meet the Lord Jesus? Am I going to be saved? And at the end, no confidence that I’ll be welcomed in eternal life, God’s kingdom.
Conversely, if you train yourself to be godly, your knowledge of Jesus is fruitful. It’s not just head knowledge. It generates some change in conduct, in speech, how you carry yourself. It’s fruitful, it’s effective. you’re no longer blind, but now you can see. You can see life. You can see what it looks like to be godly, and you can strive for that. You can pursue it. And these qualities are growing.
It’s not like you are becoming from bad to worse. Always learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. But you’re understanding more each year. You’re becoming better. Good to better to best.
This is going to be the best year of your life. 2025. Because of all these qualities, you’re growing and you’re supplementing. You’re making every effort. So God does his part and then we do ours.
Okay, let’s pray. Father, we have many resolutions this year. But Lord, we want to resolve that our number one aim for this year is to be trained for godliness. There are eight qualities that you’ve just scratched the surface for us today. Now it’s our homework. How do we grow in these eight qualities?
Lord, we want to start with self-control. If we can control our desires, our thoughts, our actions, our words, our emotions, our will. Lord, that’s a big part of growing. In these other eight qualities, we want to make every effort to supplement.
And faith and virtue and knowledge and self-control and perseverance and godliness. Brotherly affection, agape love. May all these eight qualities be ours in increasing measure throughout 2025.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying on a cross for our sins, for Your Body that was broken for us and Your Blood shed. Now we know that God’s divine power is available to us for those of us who are in Christ.
We pray that you meet with us and teach us even one thing that we can start partaking in your nature as we work jointly for our own godliness and sanctification. Thank you for the blood that was shed for the unity of the body of Christ. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.