Something That Lacks Nothing

"Something That Lacks Nothing" – 2 Peter 1:4-8 Our life ought to lack nothing. Life is precise and exact, and the days are precise and exact; what we do not see precisely and exactly passes over our head, and life is lost. Peter sets down for us a rounded, complete Christian character, one that lacks none of its parts: upon the foundation of faith are added virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. If you live lacking this, you are a little behind, your hands are not full but empty, and we are not able to be useful for the very purpose for which we exist.

I. He hath given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

A. God will never make a promise that will not be fulfilled.

1. There are promises that are general, for everyone; and there are promises for those who fulfill a certain measure according to what God puts into their hands to multiply. God multiplies in blessing whatever one multiplies.

2. Eternal life when we depart; believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and it is added that the household may be saved; peace on the day we are converted, and joy: all of it is promise.

3. When one comes to the Lord he discovers an endless number of promises. And if you read it and forgot it, you take it up again and it comes alive again, for it is not dead matter, it is living matter; because the life is Christ.

4. He will fulfill all He said, for He cannot lie. The one who finds it easy to let a lie out of his mouth is the human being: something untrue is slipped in, but made to fit the conversation.

5. Sometimes we use that with a supposed good intention, but what comes of it is what was contrived. God is the truth, and the truth of God is always precious and exceeding great.

B. The promises equip the believer to flee corruption.

1. Corruption is the abuse of power for private benefit. It is what someone says to you and you take part in; it stands at any corner, at any moment, in any circumstance, because it is meant to take us by surprise.

2. Corruption is an art, an art of tearing us apart; and since at times we are a little absent, a little lacking in seeking God and in living a holy life, we know it will come.

3. One by one, directly, nothing can be done: the person must have the conviction, the one that would make him a fighter and make him understand how greatly God is failed. For all corruption is failing God.

4. We have many promises so that corruption may not overtake us and evil may not touch us, because Jesus cares that His body be holy; and the church is the body of Christ.

5. We must fight so that it does not reach even the child. Lying is as common as bread; copying on the exam is as common as bread; today we play with the grade, and what we take as light begins to settle in the heart and will destroy us.

6. In idle talk there is corruption: one thing is tangled, another is arranged, and they are interwoven; it goes out of the mouth, reaches the ears, from the ear to the brain and from the brain to the whole system, until what is a no becomes a yes.

II. Giving all diligence (2 Peter 1:5): it is not sowing, it is cultivating.

A. To cultivate is the process of caring for and maintaining the plant.

1. The seed is a sowing, and that is the wonder of sowing and reaping. But to cultivate is to care for, to heal, and to free the plant from what is harming it, so that it may grow and produce.

2. When you lift the leaf, underneath there are tiny creatures; they come, they suck, and they make the leaf disappear. That wears down the tree and makes it perish, because it reaches the depths of the roots.

3. Some trees come back afterward, but the quality of the leaf tells you that the quality of the fruit to come is already affected. Why? Because it was not cultivated.

4. What God has placed in our hand, if we do not cultivate it, dries up and dies; and not being cultivated, we are bankrupt instead of prospering and bearing fruit.

5. Bad temper is trained, selfishness is trained, greed is trained: everything in life is trained, according to how we come to master what we ought to have if we serve our Lord Jesus.

6. If you want to serve the world, you carry the ways of the world plus a thing or two learned at church; and those ways smother, because they are roots: they smother, they possess, and they choke out the good. That is why the pure does not mix with the impure.

B. God does not make us holy against our will.

1. Nor does He do it without involving us. If we do not get involved, God will not do it either.

2. God wants you to get involved in Him and say: He is my God, He forgives my sin, He has a future predestined for me, He wants to do His will in my life.

3. If you want it, God is willing, and His hand is mighty to do in us what one cannot imagine. But there must be the desire, the decision, and the discipline on our part.

4. And what is it to be teachable but to bend the back? The back is haughty; when it bends, it is humbled. That day we begin to be wholly meek people before a great God.

5. Church is not coming to see whether I like it or not: the church is the place where you are purified. And to have gifts in heaven one must be generous on the earth.

III. Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance (2 Peter 1:5-6).

A. The foundation is faith, and faith must be enriched.

1. Peter writes to Christians who have already exercised faith; he does not tell them to provide faith, he assumes they have it. The very act of coming to the Lord is already faith.

2. The trouble is that we do not use it: we live forever announcing our own strength. But the moment will come when you see there are things your strength will not accomplish.

3. Faith is something within a person and it has to flow; and you are the one who will let it out. The more you put it into action, the more it grows and the more it obtains.

4. One teacher set this passage out so: to faith, virtue, which is doing good; to virtue, the courage of David; to courage, the knowledge of Solomon; to knowledge, the patience of Job; to patience, the godliness of Daniel; to godliness, the brotherly affection of Jonathan; and to brotherly affection, the love of John.

B. Virtue: moral excellence and mettle.

1. Virtue is a trait, a characteristic, an attribute or quality of an individual. It can mean the godliness and the goodness that ought to be in you, that moral excellence.

2. It can also mean mettle: that strength, that courage. That spiritual mettle before a world that is wholly hostile, for people waste no time in being hostile.

3. It is the strength to hold to what is upright and the courage that lets no one make you tremble in life.

4. When a kindness comes out of someone from within, innate, without anyone asking for it, that is virtue that came out of him. Do not let anyone kill what you have.

C. Knowledge: that of spiritual truth.

1. On the earth we are not carnal: we ought to be spiritual human beings. It is not mysticism, nor rising up in strange things, nor needing a robe and a far-off mountain.

2. It is to be a spiritual being who knows what he says, who knows what he will not say, and who knows how to live; for he who lives wholly in seeking becomes a spiritual being.

3. Knowledge highlights the importance of studying the Word of God and obeying His sacred precepts. You bathe every day: why not read the Bible every day, since it is more efficient?

4. Through knowledge, experiencing the Bible, you develop a practical grasp of the details of Christianity, until speaking of the men and women of the Scriptures becomes natural to you.

5. We know what is in fashion, the song that is in fashion, the sayings that are in fashion. Why not know the spiritual realm? For then you would be a man and a woman useful on this earth.

D. Self-control: God calls every Christian to a life of discipline.

1. Discipline in prayer, discipline in reading the Word, and discipline in the use of time.

2. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).

3. That was Paul's fear. And who would think such a thought could arise in Paul? Yet it did; and we walk out the door assuming we are saved.

4. And it was not that he scourged himself, but that he denied himself what was going to destroy him. Let us not go about so pleased with ourselves, talking of so many things and laughing at so many things.

IV. And to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity (2 Peter 1:6-7).

A. Patience and godliness.

1. Patience is to bear persecution and every adversity patiently. We must be reminded constantly that the Christian life is a challenge to be faced with persistence.

2. That is why many grow cold: they love coming to church and talking about the ministry, but facing it with persistence is hard for them, and they will not.

3. Patience is the art of bearing up, of persisting in the face of everything that seems to go against us.

4. Godliness is that our life reflect God on the road of wholly practical holiness. There ought to be in our conduct a supernatural quality of such a kind that others know we are children of the heavenly Father.

5. You will let them see that when you show your godliness: the family resemblance ought to be unmistakable.

B. Brotherly affection and love.

1. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another (John 13:35). It is not loving some: it is that we love one another.

2. Love for the brethren leads to love toward all humanity; it can spread in the home, in the neighbor, and in the church of Christ, and it can have a following and a growth.

3. This is not chiefly a matter of the emotions, but of the will to love. It is not enthusiasm: sometimes we think we love someone because he has favored us, and afterward we never look at him again.

4. Love suffereth long, beareth all things, endureth all things; love is the subduing of the body. It is not sentimental: it is a commandment that must be obeyed.

5. How is your love? Halfway? You ought to know that you are an unbeliever if you do not love, for the unbeliever cannot love as the Bible commands, since he does not have the divine life.

6. And if you have had trouble with some person, that is simple: one goes on loving. What happens is that the relationship is broken; there are things that cannot be, but one loves.

C. These seven graces make up a rounded Christian character.

1. Virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly affection, and love: something complete, lacking none of its parts. For this reason the title is Something That Lacks Nothing.

2. Our beloved Peter set it down for us, so that you and I might have the benefit of lacking nothing of our spiritual life.

3. When one already has all of this, you have become a spiritual person. It is in your hands.

4. I teach you, you learn; you examine yourself, and you are the one who works on yourself when you present yourself to God. The Holy Spirit is the one who does the work in us; what you must seek is that the Holy Spirit be in you. Amen.