Due Diligence, 2 Peter Chapter 1

Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Sabbath!

I don't know about you. I actually enjoy having a little bit of cold weather. It's kind of nice having some real wintertime for a little while, and hopefully the snow will go away soon enough and melt away. The cold as well, yes, Pedro.

Well, I appreciate the sermonette today, and I think we're just going to continue on right from where we left off. If you'll turn with me, we'll start by reading a passage in the Bible, and then we'll pause and kind of go from there. If you'll turn with me to 2 Peter 1, we'll start by reading 2 Peter 1, verses 1 through 11. Joe talked about the different lists of the disciples. Later, the apostles and the Bible. Peter is usually up in the top of those lists since he was one who walked with Jesus Christ through the totality of his ministry on earth. 2 Peter 1, we'll start in verse 1. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. But also, for this very reason, giving all diligence, add your faith virtue to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble. For so, an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I was wondering for a minute why everyone was staring over here. I realized the scripture is actually up on the screen as well. So, probably a somewhat familiar verse. I'm sure people have seen these verses, this passage before, and hopefully reflected on it a bit.

What I'd like to do today is just spend the time that we've got in the sermon going through this passage that we read, and it really divides down fairly cleanly into three different sections that Peter lays out. I'd like to go through each of those. We've probably all heard sermons that go through the different attributes that are talked about in the middle of this passage. We're not going to do that today, but I'd rather go through it more broadly and take an overview of what is it that Peter is bringing across here and why, and what is the idea that he's trying to get across.

Why don't we jump straight into that? Section 1, the way I've looked at it, and if you read different commentaries, they'll divide down this passage in different ways. But section 1 in verses 1 through 4 is something that I believe is sort of the reason and the vision is how I've labeled it.

So if you want to look at the first section, verses 1 through 4, the reason and the vision. And again, just reading through that briefly, Simon Peter, a bond servant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as his divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. So I think it's helpful, first of all, to think back a little bit and reflect on who this was written to.

Obviously, it's part of the Bible, it's part of the canon, and so it's written to all Christians, but it is a letter that was originally written to a group of people. Not surprisingly, the same group of people that 1 Peter was written to. We know that because in 2 Peter 3 verse 1, Paul says that he's writing the second epistle to the same audience that he wrote the first epistle to. And in 1 Peter, we don't need to turn there, but in 1 Peter 1 verse 1, it tells us this was written to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

And so these were different areas in the Roman world that were outside of Jerusalem, places where people had dispersed to. We know that when the Holy Spirit came in 31 A.D., that at first people stayed there, they stayed close, and then as time went on, there was a dispersion, and people went and spread out through all of the known parts of the world at that time. And so this is being written to the people who had dispersed to those different parts of the world. Now, if you read anything on the background of the book of 1 Peter, 1 Peter talks a lot about persecution.

It talks a lot about suffering and challenges that they ran into in those parts of the world. Second Peter doesn't dwell as much on persecution, but dwells instead on false teachers, heresies that were coming into the church, different beliefs that were beginning to bubble up during that time that weren't consistent with what Jesus Christ had taught, as well as the evil conduct of the people who were teaching those things. So, as we look at the beginning of the chapter, I don't know about you, but sometimes as I've read through the different epistles, the beginning of the epistles kind of feels, if you don't read it carefully, almost like throwaway lines, because they all kind of start out, grace and peace be unto you, and greetings to so-and-so, and kind of move on.

But I think we read these things as throwaway lines to our own peril. There's actually a very good reason why Peter started with these things, especially as he was writing to a group of people who were facing a lot of pressure from outside, but also pressure from within, as they were contending for the beliefs that they had. And for those reasons, I think it's a good passage for us to focus on.

Christians throughout the ages have been under different types of pressure, both from outside and from within. I know when we compare ourselves to what Christians even in different parts of the world today deal with, even though we might think sometimes it's difficult, and we stick out as strange in the world around us, it's nothing like living in other parts of the world. For example, in the Middle East or in places like China, where even having Christianity as your belief and trying to espouse that belief even casually could cause even a sentence of death in certain places and true physical threat of physical harm.

At the same time, we do have real pressures. There's a lot going on today in the world outside, the direction that society is going, all sorts of different theories about how we should and shouldn't live our ways of life, and we do have a lot of different pressures that we have to deal with exactly as we heard in the sermonette as well. You know, I think often about what it's like, I think about it as kind of slogging through a snowstorm sometimes, which is fitting in weather like this, but what's the most difficult journey that you've had to make on foot to go somewhere? You ever gone on a long hike, maybe had to go through the snow? Probably nowadays there probably aren't any of us who've had to kind of make it from the farmhouse out to the barn in a blizzard and hope not to get lost. I used to hear those stories growing up in Minnesota. Usually those were the old Swedish grandparents who were talking about, you know, how you'd have to string a rope so you could make it back to the house in the blizzard after going out to the barn. We don't have to put up with that anymore. When I think of the most difficult hikes, walks I had to do, I think of a summer camp that I went to when I was a teenager, and we went on a canoe trip, and this was when I lived in Minnesota. This was up in the northern area of Minnesota, which is called the Boundary Waters. It's called the Boundary Waters because there are lakes that sit in the northern boundary of Minnesota, southern boundary of Canada, so it's right on the national boundary there.

We would go from lake to lake on these canoe trips, and there's a French word we all came to hate during that canoe trip. It's pronounced portage in English. I suppose it's portage in French. It means you pick up all the stuff that you have in your canoe, and you've got to carry it to the next lake. It's not really a lot of fun, especially when you're a skinny 14-year-old having to drag a bunch of things. So my job in our group, fortunately, was not to hoist one of the canoes and carry it. Instead, I had to have three packs and a bunch of canoe paddles.

Over the course of this three- or four-day trip, we'd get somewhere, and I could still hear the guide on our canoe trip saying, ah, portage! Time to unload the canoes, and it's time to go walking.

I'd get three packs, two packs hooked on to me, one on my back, one on my front, another one that I'd have to sort of hold with my hands that were free in front of me, and sort of stumble through the woods. And the thing that I always remember in doing that was, I had no idea how far I was going. The maps would say, like, approximately how far the portage was, but the thing I always remember doing was looking through the trees and trying to find a spot where I could start seeing through the trees and maybe see some water on the other side, because you're hoping for that opening that means you're pretty much at the end of what you're carrying. And life feels like that sometimes, doesn't it? We're carrying all these different burdens, whatever the unique things that we are dealing with from time to time, and we have to have that vision in front of us. We look for that opening, don't we? Especially when we're in the middle of, you know, very difficult things, perhaps health trials, as many have suffered through lately. We're always trying to kind of squint out there in the opening and see where the end is. And I don't know about you, but I've noticed something about myself psychologically, like when I go on a physical trip.

Have you ever noticed when you go somewhere that's not familiar to you, the trip there seems longer than the trip back? At least it does for me, because you never really know what the landmarks are, how long it's going to take to get there, what you're going to encounter on the way. But when you come back, it's familiar because you've traveled that road before. Or if you do that same trip a second time, at least somehow psychologically, because you know what to expect along the way, it doesn't seem like as far of a trip, does it? It's a matter of what we're oriented towards, what it is that we're expecting. And I think there's elements of that that's built here into this first section of this passage that we read. If we look, in verse 1, Peter talks here about like precious faith, talking about the faith that we have. And in verse 2, he talks about God's divine power that's given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. In verse 4, Peter talks about the exceedingly great and precious promises that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature. And what Peter is essentially trying to do here, I think, is orient us as Christians. Again, give us a bit of a map on this road that we're going down so it doesn't seem as bleak, it doesn't seem as endless. So we can see there are milestones, there are things along this road, we know where it is that we're going, and the support that we have along the way. The support of faith, of divine power, great and precious promises, and the fact that we can be partakers of the divine nature. And I think having that orientation, having something like that to reorient ourselves towards periodically, especially as we can get lost, as we heard in the sermonette and the day-to-day tasks of life and the other things going on, are incredibly important. You know, there's another story that comes to me as I think about this. I think most of us are probably familiar with Beethoven, the composer, probably one of the most famous composers. We don't tend to hear his music a whole lot unless we tune into classical music. But how many remember the fact that Beethoven was actually deaf? Yep, so at around his mid-20s he began to lose his hearing. And by age 45, by most reports that you read, his hearing was completely gone. But he was so gifted and so well understanding the language of music that even completely deaf, he was able to continue to compose. And he composed numerous works after he'd lost really all of his sense of hearing, including his famous Ninth Symphony, which included Ode to Joy, probably a tune many would recognize. It's actually in our hymn put to some words. But there's a famous story out there about something that happened when the Ninth Symphony was first played. The story that you hear today was that Beethoven was directing. I was reading up on it a bit based on contemporary accounts. They don't think he was directing. He was completely deaf. But he was probably standing next to the director, according to some of the accounts that I read, helping to mark out the tempo in terms of how quickly different parts of this symphony should go.

And they went through the entire Ninth Symphony, the singers, the orchestra. It was an incredibly powerful performance. And by the accounts that are written, it was so powerful emotionally that even some of the members of the orchestra were crying at the end, which is not something that ordinarily happens. And the audience was incredibly moved. And there was this thunderous applause.

And Beethoven is still standing there next to the conductor, facing the orchestra. And I've read other accounts that talk about the depression and the challenges that he would go through, just in terms of this frame of mind, not really understanding what was going on around him all the time, not realizing how much people necessarily appreciated his music. And as the story goes, and it's corroborated by some things that were written at the time, one of the ladies who was singing actually took Beethoven and turned him around. And he saw the audience and all the incredible applause that was going on, how moved they were. She reoriented him. She turned him around from where he was facing to the orchestra and to the music, where he didn't understand what was going on. And she grabbed him by the shoulders, by the arm, and turned him around. And it completely changed his outlook, completely changed what he saw, what he experienced of what it was that was happening. And he realized, at least for that moment, what kind of an impact he'd had on people. As he looked out at that audience, he realized the impact that his music had had on that audience, even though he couldn't hear it. That's what we need to do from time to time. I think that's what's being laid out in this first section of 2 Peter 1. We need to be reoriented from time to time. We need to turn ourselves around, and we need to look the other direction, and we need to see these things that are out there, like what's written here in these first several verses of this passage. And so the question I'd like to ask as we think about this first part of this passage is, what is your reorientation? What is your reorientation? Where do you go?

What do you open up in the Bible? What are the scriptures that you turn to when you need to be reoriented? Now, if you're stumped, that's okay, because the point is that we need to think about it. We need to consider it and think about where should we go to be reoriented. It's not going to be the same place for all of us. We think differently. We have different emotions. We suffer through different things. But where do you go? For me—and I've mentioned this, I think, before—it's Romans 8. I love Romans 8. I wrote a few bullet points down just to some of the passages that are in Romans 8 that always help to reorient me when times are difficult. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are children of God, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. The sufferings of today aren't worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed. All things work together for good to those who love God. If God is for us, who can be against us? And nothing can separate us from the love of God. That's a chapter that I go to to take these themes back and refresh them in my mind when I need to be reminded of them, when I need to reorient myself. What is it for you? Do you have a reorientation point? If you don't, it's something I'd encourage everyone to think about over the course of the week. What are some of the passages in the Bible that inspire you? What are some of the things that you don't want to let go of that you want to have at the forefront of your mind or to turn back to when times get difficult? It's helpful to have them. Have them written down. Perhaps commit some of those verses to memory so you can pull them up and have them there ready to reorient you when you need it. So to wrap up this first section talking about the first portion of this passage, writing to an audience undergoing a lot of pressures both from outside as well as from within, Peter begins this section of Scripture in this book with the reason and the vision of our Christian lives. In order to live productive Christian lives, we have to constantly reorient to that reason and to that vision. And so as we go forward, I'd encourage everyone to think about and formalize what is that reorientation point for each and every one of us. What's that arm that turns you, just as that lady turned Beethoven around, to focus on something different?

What devices can we use? What scriptures can we use to do that?

Let's look at section two then of this passage. I've titled section two demonstrating the divine nature. Demonstrating the divine nature. Again, you can read different commentaries, different papers, listen to sermons and things that have been given on this topic. You'll find different ways of dividing this down and categorizing it. But I've labeled verses five through seven demonstrating the divine nature. Let's go back and just read that as a refresher again. Verse five, So this is a challenge from Peter to Christians of things that we need to build on the foundation that we've been given. There are seven elements to diligently develop in our Christian lives.

Consistent with, but different from, the fruit of the Spirit that we read about in Galatians. Consistent with things that we read in other parts of the Bible, but unique in terms of how he lays it out. The seven elements again that he lays out are virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. Now, these are all elements, as you can imagine when you read them, of Christian maturity. So it's not something like, okay, I have to start checking these off the list. Self-control, got that last year, don't need to figure that in anymore. Let's move on to the next one. I think we all know. These are all things that we struggle with to some extent over the course of time. As we go forward, our Christianity is a walk. It's deliberately described that way because sometimes we stumble, sometimes we walk faster, and we're always making progress moving forward, though maybe not sometimes quite as much of a straight line as we would hope for. Maybe more of a meandering walk. But these are things that we don't fully attain as human beings, but it's part of our never-ending process of trying to mature as Christians, to grow up into the fullness and the maturity of Jesus Christ. As I mentioned earlier on, my purpose today is not to dig into these. You could probably give a series of seven sermons focused on each and every one of these different topics and what they mean. But I'd like to focus more here on faith as the foundation of it. You'll notice I didn't list eight. I listed seven. Faith is there at the beginning of the list, but I didn't list it as one of those. Why is that? Is faith something that we bring to the table? Is it something that we work up? Let's look back in 2 Peter 1-1, just the very beginning of this passage again, and see what Peter says here. He says, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. So number one, it says we've obtained it. Not that we've developed it, not that we brought it to the table, not that we had it to offer to God, but we obtained it by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. So faith, even in this passage, is not displayed as something that we bring forward. It's not as though God scanned the earth and said, you know, I see someone down there, they've got great faith. I could use that faith. I'm going to bring them in. It's a gift from God.

Verse 4 goes on to say, By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these we might be partakers of the divine nature. So through the promises, through the spirit that's given to us, through God working with us, we can be partakers of God's very nature. What I'd like to put forward is there's a chain of events here that's being talked about. If we look at this, there's a chain of causation, if you will, that happens. We're given, first of all, faith as a gift of God. God calls us. We know that He calls us by grace, and that by definition means one thing. It means we didn't do anything for it. It happened. God did it because He determined He wanted to do it. Not because of any bargain with us, not because of anything that we brought to the table that He thought would further His cause, but out of His own will, for whatever reason and purpose, He individually tapped each of us on the shoulder and called us. And we're given faith as the gift of God. And that, in turn, opens the door that we can develop His divine nature within us. As His Spirit comes into us and dwells in us, we know that that Spirit is God Himself dwelling in us. And the job, then, as we walk forward as Christians, is to continue to break down those barriers—our own humanity, our self-will, and all these things that stop us from expressing that divine nature, building it and cultivating it and growing it—in the things that we do. So our job, if you think of it that way, is to diligently apply ourselves in letting that divine nature permeate our lives, letting it take over, letting God's Holy Spirit guide what we do in our lives rather than our own physical self-will. And as we do that, we begin to express these traits that are shown in these passages. Turn with me, if you will, to Ephesians 2. We'll read verses 8 through 10. Ephesians 2 verses 8 through 10.

Hear Paul writing to the Ephesians.

And he brings out a similar concept here as he tells them in verse 8, By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. Just as we were saying, it's not the faith that we bring to the table. It is the gift of God, the faith that we have, that beginning point of building these seven characteristics that Peter lays out. Verse 9 of Ephesians 2, So those good works, if you will, that we should walk in, those results of that gift of faith that we're given is what we're seeing in this second part of the passage that we're looking at in 2 Peter. As we move forward, those are the traits. Put some meat on the bone of what Paul is talking about in this passage in Ephesians. I would like to take a little time to look at the first trait that's listed here, though, because I think the others are relatively self-explanatory, words that are easy to understand, also a good thing to spend some time on over the course of the week. The first one, though, which is translated in New King James as virtue, isn't really as concrete as the others, is it? What is it that's meant by virtue? There are different translations of this word, depending on which translations of the Bible you open up. Some translations use the term moral character or noble character here instead of virtue. Another concept that's applied to this word is the idea of excellence. So it talks about a way of living that expresses these things, that expresses morality, expresses a noble character, expresses virtue in the way that we do things, and in that sense it's a motivation, it's a way of being that's connected to the things that we do. I think it's interesting to look at a few other ways that the same Greek word, which I didn't bother to write down this time, but it's one you could look up if you wanted to. I'd like to use a few other passages to show where this same word is used, and we can draw some conclusions from the way this word is used in other places as well. The first one is in 1 Peter 2 verse 9. 1 Peter 2 verse 9. The same word that's translated virtue. In 1 Peter 2 verse 9 we read, You're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So in this passage the word praises is the same one that's translated virtue in that list of characteristics.

So it's interesting that living that life of virtue of moral excellence, of noble character, is meant to be something that demonstrates praise, as though we can praise God through the way that we do the things that we do, through our motivations, through the ways that we make our decisions, through those guiding principles that we live our lives by. Let's look at 2 Peter 1 verse 3. We'll see again that's translated by the word praises in this passage. 2 Peter 1 verse 3.

You're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Again, the same word that was translated virtue in the earlier passage that we read. So we're to proclaim these things, the virtues of God, the noble character of God, the praises of God, and we're supposed to live those things. Let's turn to one more passage, and that's in Philippians 4 verse 8. Here Paul uses the same word in writing to the Philippians. Philippians 4 verse 8, talking about the things that we should dwell on and think about as Christians. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report, if there is any virtue, there's the same word again, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. So again, this gives us a wider definition of that word as we read through all that passage. Things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of a good report. Those are the things that define this godly idea of virtue that we see written here. So we're to demonstrate the praiseworthy and divine nature of God is what's being said here. Our actions are to proclaim his praises. Virtue in this passage describes the way of being that emulates all of God's praiseworthy traits. And that's why James makes the strong statement that he does, which causes theological controversy sometimes as people think about faith and works. We read one passage in James in the sermonette. Let's turn to James 2, and we'll read verses 18 through 20. James 2 verses 18 through 20. This is all around the idea that Christianity, a belief in God, is more than a simple sitting there passively and saying, I believe. What Peter is saying in this passage is, if you have been given that faith, you will develop and demonstrate the virtue and all of these other actions that you see. James says the same thing in his own way in James 2 verse 18. He says, someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works. So what he's saying in that sentence is, the only way that you can have true faith is by showing what it produces. You know by the things produced by true faith that it exists.

Passivity and sitting there and saying, I believe in God, does not equal true faith if it's not producing in the life of that person these actions that we're talking about. You believe there's one God in verse 19. You do well, even the demons believe and tremble. He's using a very extreme example saying simply believing the fact that God exists is not true faith. There are many people who believe in God that God exists. The angels believe he exists, but choose not to obey him. They don't have faith as a result of that. But do you want to know, verse 20, oh foolish man, faith without works is dead. So James in this passage is essentially making the same point. We think about showing the virtues of God, living the godly way of life, the fact that faith is something that engenders action. It doesn't engender simply sitting back and doing what we've always done, but it propels as God's Holy Spirit comes in and leads us in the way.

The gift of faith gives us the divine nature of God, and we seek to clear the way in our life that nature to be exhibited in a more and more strong way as as every day goes by. And as we put aside that pull, it's always within ourselves of what we're going to do when situations come along, whether we're going to follow our own human instincts and our human reactions, or whether we're going to listen to God's Spirit, that divine nature that's been put in us that's available to us and continue to strengthen our lives in following it in the way that we move forward. So as we wrap up this second section of this passage in 2 Peter, just to recap, we've been given the gift of faith by God. It is a gift. It's not something we brought to the table. And through it, we're partakers of His divine nature. Perhaps we don't always think about it that way. We know we have God's Holy Spirit, but we have His very divine nature living within us. In this section of 2 Peter 1, as it goes through the other of the seven characteristics, notes the way in which that divine nature evidences itself. So as we look in our lives, we look at those characteristics that are laid out, it gives us something to reflect on as we think about the extent to which and the way in which we're allowing God's divine nature to work itself out, to show itself in our lives as we give our lives more and more completely over to Him. How are we clearing the paths for God's divine nature to demonstrate itself in our lives?

It's a question that I need to ask myself. It's a question that we could all reflect on as we think about the second part of the passages in Peter.

So let's move on now to section 3, which encompasses verses 8 through 11. And I've titled this section, Exercising Diligence, verses 8 through 11.

Again, let's go back and we'll read this section and then spend a little time thinking through it.

Verse 8, For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that's a great statement that comes after those attributes, that divine nature being shown. If those are ours and abound, those are outgrowth that come from God's Spirit working within us, from His faith becoming live within us, and we will not be unfruitful, we will not be barren. For He who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that He was cleansed from His old sins. Not a category we want to fall into. Therefore, brethren, in verse 10, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If there's one thing I think we'd all want, is to have that entrance supplied to us abundantly into God's kingdom, right?

And this is something that lays that out. Verse 10 really is the pivot point of this section.

It talks about it's set up ahead of time at the beginning of verse 10 by the word therefore, and it's followed by the words for and so.

All right, so verse 10 starts with therefore means look at what came before that, right? Because of these things that are laid out there. So because if these things are ours and abound, we won't be barren and unfruitful. Because somebody who lacks these things is short-sighted even to blindness, therefore we should be diligent.

Okay, it's setting it up in those first two verses. Because of those things, because we don't want to be unfruitful, we don't want to be spiritually short-sighted, therefore we should be diligent.

And then we look afterwards, it says for if we do these things, if we're diligent and do them, we won't stumble. And so, as a result of that, an entrance will be supplied abundantly into the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So what sits right in the middle of that is this idea of being diligent. And that's the pivotal verse of this section.

It introduces the end result then as we go to verse 10 of entrance in the Kingdom. So whether or not our lives include righteous actions built on faith and demonstrating God's divine nature, in the end is evidence of what's going on in our hearts.

And diligence, to make sure that we're listening to God's Spirit, that we're following Him, is really the linchpin of this.

So let's look at 1 Peter 1 verse 5. Earlier in this passage, again, we see this idea of diligence here. It says, for this very reason giving all diligence. Remember, we talked in the first section about the fact that this is our reorientation point. Right? It gives us a reason. And because of those reasons, we have to also exercise diligence.

I think it's interesting as I was reading some of the commentaries and so forth going into this message, some of them reflected on Peter as a person. And I think it's interesting contrast to think about. What do you associate with Peter when you think about the Gospels?

You've got this young guy, probably in his 20s, full of energy, right? Probably full of action before thought, when he does things. Right? Jesus Christ walking on the water. What's Peter do? Disengage brain, jump in water. Right? Start walking. Then start thinking. Then sink. Okay? That's kind of characteristic of how Peter was. When they were there, in the garden before Jesus was taken prisoner, Peter had a sword.

Right? Servant of the high priest came up with the armies. What's Peter do? Disengage brain, grab sword, slice ear off. He wasn't aiming for his ear. Okay? I don't think he meant to cut his ear off. I think he probably wanted to chop the guy's head off.

When Jesus Christ says, guys, I'm going to die. I'm going to be crucified. Disengage brain.

Tell Jesus it's not going to happen because I'm not going to let it happen.

Then be told, get behind me, Satan, by Jesus Christ. Okay? That was Peter back at that point in time, before the Holy Spirit came. And if we look honestly at ourselves, we all have characteristics that would look exactly like that in some different way if a story was written about us without the Holy Spirit.

So to me, it's even more interesting to see Peter in this mode in 2 Peter. As he talks about diligence, as he lays out methodically these characteristics that we need to develop, you can almost see how he's reflecting on his life. I didn't mention this at the beginning of the sermon. This book is believed by most to have been written in the mid-60s AD. So at that point, Peter would have been a much more mature person, certainly had a lot more experience.

Many people believe he was in prison at this point, and very close to being killed. There are references, I think it's in 2 Peter 3, to him putting off his tent, soon putting off his tent, talking about the fact that he expected to be martyred very soon. So this is a reflective book.

It's a mature book. It says he's looking back, he's gained a lot of experience, he's walked with Jesus Christ, even more importantly, he's had the Holy Spirit for decades at this point, and accomplished things through that spirit in his life. And you can see that coming out as he goes from, you still have the action there, don't you? You've got to do these things. You've got to be diligent. You've got to jump in, but you don't have the impetuousness.

There's level maturity and thoughtfulness and a methodical approach here. I think it's really interesting when you refer or you think back on Peter as a person. So the important question that follows this is, what in the world is diligence, and why is it so important? Now, I'm going to rely on some non-biblical examples because I think sometimes they can bring things home to us in a different way about what diligence is. So in the work that I do, I hear the word diligence actually pretty much every day at work, which seems a little weird, probably, doesn't it?

But there's a financial term called due diligence, not D-O, but D-U-E, due diligence. And that's a term that actually comes out of securities law in the United States. There's a thing called the Securities Law of 1933. And that came in after the Great Depression and after all of the financial shenanigans that were going on before that point in time. And it introduced this idea that if a financial advisor exercises diligence in really understanding an investment and makes full disclosure about everything that he or she has found to a customer, then that advisor is not going to be held responsible if somebody makes an investment and the investment goes bad.

Okay, because if that person has done due diligence, they've educated themselves about the investment, and they've fully disclosed it, then they're not held responsible for a decision that the investor makes. And a dominant theme that sits at the core of this is an idea called standard of care. So when you're doing diligence, you have a standard of care. It's like this ethical responsibility that you need to go through and you need to really look through everything to fully understand it.

And this is used these days a lot more broadly, too. Whenever, you know, we see in the news from week to week, this company is acquiring that company. Companies spend millions of dollars to have people do due diligence for them. They'll hire a bunch of attorneys, a bunch of actuaries, sometimes accountants, financial analysts, and they spend millions of dollars literally as one company starts to look at another company and think, am I going to acquire that company? They perform due diligence. They go through mountains and mountains in the old days of paper, or nowadays they go through computerized data rooms and they look through endless spreadsheets and reports and contracts and all of these things as they're performing diligence on this company that they're thinking about acquiring because they want to know everything about it.

And there's a standard of care that's inside of all that. It's not like they just sort of flip pages, oh looks good, there's numbers here, there's a chart where the line's going up, I think we should buy this thing.

Of course not. They look at everything that they can find. They try to figure out exactly what's behind the curtains. They don't take anything for granted that's stated. They do diligence, and they have a standard of care doing that. Now we all do that every day in the things that we do as well. How many people bought a used car? Okay, you buy a used car, do you walk up to the car? You say, wow, hey it's blue? I'll take it. Chances are we take our time with that car. We're going to sink hard-earned money into this vehicle. The one thing we're going to do is take some time and figure out what in the world we're buying. I remember a kid in high school when I grew up in Minnesota, and back there, probably similar to here, rust was the biggest thing. When you're buying a used car, you want to make sure it's not rusted out. He had this story about how he'd gone, and his dad was being a stick in the mud, so he left his dad behind, and he was going to go buy this car. He found a great deal, and he bought it. Of course, the floorboards were rusted out, and the person selling it had done a nice job putting down the floor mats, maybe even putting a little plywood in there to make sure that he didn't fall through to make everything look good. But he didn't peel back the floor mats. He didn't look at what else was in there. He didn't perform diligence on what was going on. What did he end up with? A car he had taken in the shop, and he had to weld this metal plate to the bottom of it, so his feet wouldn't go through the floorboards.

Lack of doing diligence. I read another interesting story this week as well that I'll try to summarize for you. It's the story of a guy named Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish guy in the early 1820s. He was one of the original hucksters. He was like a minor aristocrat in Scotland, did a short stint in the British military, married an admiral's daughter, was really moving up in the world, then he got kicked out of the military. His wife unfortunately died. His wife's family knew exactly what he was about and said that he was cut off and wouldn't get another penny from them. At that point in time, he went to South America, spent several years in Venezuela working with the Venezuelan resistance fighting the Spanish army, because at this point this was after the Spanish colonization of South America. Spanish countries were trying to free themselves. He was well known for deserting his troops in battle. So he then befriended the king of the Mosquito Coast territory. Things can only go well if you befriend the king of the Mosquito Coast territory. It's now known as Honduras and Nicaragua. And Gregor MacGregor was gifted eight million acres on the eastern shore of Honduras, a plot of land about the size of Maryland. So you can probably all guess where this story is going at this point, because you see at this point in Britain, it was after the time of the defeat of Napoleon. All the money they'd been spending on the war was not being spent on the war anymore. So you had all this money in England looking for somewhere to go. And because the Spanish were starting to get pushed out of South America, a lot of these Spanish countries were starting to sell bonds in order to finance themselves, to finance their war effort, to get the Spanish out of South America. And so a lot of these British people would invest in Colombian bonds and Chilean bonds and get incredible returns on it. So just like any investment bubble, you know, your buddies just made 10% on Chilean bonds. What are you going to do? You're going to do one better. You're going to buy Colombian bonds.

Well, good old Gregor McGregor decided he was going to take his land on the mosquito coast, and he named it the country of Poise, P-O-Y-A-I-S. He designed a flag and a coat of arms for the country. He got the British newspapers to detail bond prices for Poise, as though it was a true country, like they did for legitimate countries. And then he set up offices in some of the major cities where promoters would hand out brochures, talking about this country. The capital city was beautiful, all the roads and infrastructure they had there, and trying to sell his bonds.

They even made up songs about the country that they would sing these patriotic songs about how great Poise was. And so he started bringing all this money as these people were buying up bonds. They didn't do their diligence, and I don't want to blame just them. I mean, you've got the newspapers, you've got all these people who just took his word for it without thinking it through. He even got a shipload of families who sold everything and sailed off to land of Poise.

And when they arrived on the coast, they realized that they were facing an uninhabited, malarial jungle. And over 200 people actually died at the end of this story. Incredible. Really tragic when you think about it from that standpoint. And there was nothing there. And like every bubble, everything fell apart, and they lost their money.

And like many bubbles, he walked away. Even some of the people who went there, when you read the story, and lost family members, refused to come back and say a bad word about them. So somehow he pulled this con off and just continued to have these people believing it. So a lack of proper diligence can cause horrible damage in people's lives. We have securities laws around because of that. We recognize names like Charles Ponzi, the maker of the original Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff, all of these things.

Because there are people out there that do that, and that's why diligence exists. So diligence is brought in here, again, in this passage that we're reading in verse 10, as a linchpin of what we're supposed to exercise. I know it's not the same thing, but when you think about the time, the money, the effort that's put in to examining whether it's a house we're going to buy, a car we're going to buy, money we're going to invest so we don't get taken advantage of, do we think about that same diligence going into our spiritual lives?

As we're looking at the lives that we're leading, do we take the same duty of care to think about what it is that we're doing in our day-to-day Christian lives? So as we wrap up this third section of the passage, proper diligence is vital to a successful spiritual life. One of the things I encourage all of us to think about over the course of this week is what kind of diligence do we put into caring for that life so that we can be fruitful, so we can have entrance to God's kingdom?

In what areas do we need to recommit to an appropriate diligence, a standard of care, in how we direct our daily lives? So as we wrap up for today, let's reflect back on what we've talked about. We looked at 2 Peter 1 in the opening verses through about verse 11.

2 Peter was written to a group of Christians who were enduring a lot of hardship. They were hard-pressed from outside and from within, and we're not experiencing the same thing that they were. But I think if we all look at our lives, we're all experiencing different types of hardships as well, both external and internal. And there's a war of ideas going around these days, isn't there? And if we're not careful, if we're not using diligence, if we're not examining the things that we're told, we can fall for a whole lot of things that are not based on God's word and His way.

In the passage we've examined in 2 Peter 1 verses 1 through 11, the apostle sets out important themes for our spiritual lives as we work through the unique difficulties of our time and place. In the first section, we're reminded to constantly reorient ourselves to our reason and our vision as Christians. The second section demonstrates the divine nature and how we need to seek to allow God's Spirit to work within us and continue to work those elements in our lives.

And in the third section, we're reminded about the importance of exercising diligence in our lives. Hopefully this gives all of us a few things to think about in the upcoming week as we continue to direct our walk with God. Have a great rest of the Sabbath.