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 near sighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.” Now, in order to understand the full import of this passage I just read, you have to start at the bottom of the passage. 2 Peter 1 has inverted logic in it. I don't mean by that, that it doesn't make sense. I mean that it's the end that helps you to understand the drama and glory of the beginning. Now look with me at 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." Now, here's what Peter is proposing. That there really are people who know the Lord, who have been redeemed by His blood, who are filled with His Spirit, who have the Bible in their hands, yet their lives are ineffective and unproductive. Their lives are not producing the full range of the expected harvest of the fruit of faith. I'm going to say this because I need to, there are men who are watching me right now and your lives are ineffective and unproductive. Maybe there is way too much anger and selfishness in your marriage. Maybe there is way too much impatience and irritation with your children. Maybe there’s secret sexual sin. Maybe there’s debt that is a result of materialism. Maybe there are bad relationships at work or with your neighbors. But your life is not producing the kind of harvest of good fruit that you would expect. And whenever you see that kind of diagnosis, that kind of stinging personal diagnosis in Scripture, you want to ask the question, “Who are these people? Who are these ineffective ones?” All of us have places in our lives where we're ineffective and unproductive. Listen, there's no way that Paul Tripp could say in every way possible my life is always fruitful and productive. I couldn't say that, and neither can you. So, this is a diagnosis, men, that puts his arms around all of us. And so we should ask the question, “Why is a man who really knows the Lord, who has the Spirit living inside of him, who has a Bible in his hands, why would that man ever be ineffective and unproductive in his life and in his relationships and in his work and in his leisure? Why?” Look what it says in verse eight, "For if these qualities are yours and are increasing," check this out, "they keep you from being ineffective and unproductive". Peter says, if your heart is ruled by faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love, if those character qualities are in possession of your heart, the result will be that your life will be effective, fruitful, and productive. Guys, I would ask you this question. These qualities: faith and virtue and self-control and steadfastness and godliness and brotherly affection and love, if the people who know you would describe you, would they describe you this way? Because if these character qualities are not in your life, then you won't be fruitful and you won't be productive in your marriage and in your parenting, in your friendships, at your university, at your work, wherever you live in your everyday life. Now, that begs the third question: “Why if these people know the Lord, why if they have the Spirit living inside of them, why if they have the Bible in their hands, why wouldn't they have these character qualities in their life?” Now we have to answer this in two ways. First of all, this list is not just a list of moral character qualities that I should aspire to. If I could turn myself into a self-controlled man, if I could turn myself into a godly man, if I could turn myself into a loving man, Jesus would have never had to come. These qualities are actually gifts of the grace of Christ. And when you understand that, you begin to understand where this passage is going. Remember, the question we ask is, if these people really do know the Lord, if they really do have the Spirit in them, if they really have their Bible in our hands, why are they lacking these character qualities? Well, that's answered by verse nine. I love the tightness of the logic of this passage. "For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins".
Transcript: Session 3
MEN OF FAITH
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