Active Faith: Cultivating Virtue for Spiritual Growth

We are doing this of course because this is a condition in which no Christian should ever be found. It's a contradiction in terms. It sounds one miserable Christian, spiritual depression, and yet it is affect and it behooves us to face facts and we must do so not only for our own sakes but because it is such a bad testimony such a failure and especially as a time this with the world in the condition in which it is to be found. [00:01:43]

The Apostle deals will get another cause of this condition indeed is illogical viously in writing his letter whilst to deal with it he avoids to encourage people who are being discouraged and being discouraged to the point that they appear almost some of them to have been doubting the very faith which they had believed and accepted that is always something which arises as a very well danger in this condition of spiritual depression if it persists and continues it invariably leads to doubt and to uncertainty. [00:02:52]

The Apostle gives us himself a very perfect description of the condition he tells us a number of things about these people to whom he is writing for instance he puts it like this he says having given his exhortation he says him verse 8 if these things be in you and abound they make you will then become what you are not at the moment well what was that they make you that he shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. [00:03:39]

The first cause see seems to be that they have a wrong viva faith now this I find of course in the opening of the fifth verse he says and beside this offer this very cause if you like giving all diligence add to your faith supplement your faith furnish out your faith with the things he then proceeds to mention there surely is a suggestion that they had a wrong view of faith and this of course is something that is very common. [00:10:58]

There is what we must need to describe as a mystical viewer faith which certainly accounts for the trouble in the case of many people and when I mean a mystical view of faith I mean something like this it is a conception of faith which always thinks of it as a whole and always thinks of it in terms of the personal relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ putting it negatively I mean this that they're lima faith is such that these people do not break it up into these component parts as the apostle does here. [00:12:35]

There is a kind of general indolence or laziness which afflicts us all and is undoubtedly produced by the devil himself have we not all notice that huh when it comes to a question of the spiritual life we don't seem to have the same zeal and the enthusiasm and apply the same energy as we do with our calling a vacation a profession or business or our pleasure or something that we happen to be interested in him we all noticed that some or another when we've been working quite well if we turn to a season of Prayer we suddenly feel tired and fatigued. [00:16:52]

Most of us living lives which are seriously lacking in discipline and in order and in arrangement never perhaps is life being quite so difficult for the Christian as it is at the present hour the world and the whole organization of life roamed and about us it makes the thing almost impossible the most difficult thing in life at this moment is to order your own life and to manage it for this reason of course not anything else rarely compels you but that if you don't realize the danger and stand up to it you have gone down to it without knowing that anything's happened. [00:19:00]

The second is that we've got a supplement our faith add to your faith says this authorized version here supplement it says another furnish it out says another and no doubt that is the best the law and authorities will all tell you that this word add is a Greek word that was used in connection with the performance of the Greek dramas and it means the providing of a kind of course or a kind of orchestra if you wanted to do the thing really well you furnished out your performance with this Orchestra with this chorus as it were and it made it complete it was fully open and wounded off it was a perfect performance. [00:29:47]

The first thing he says he said to your faith virtue what do you mean by that well there again is a word the meaning of which has changed since this authorized version was produced it doesn't be in virtue in the sense that we mean it as we use it commonly at the present time otherwise he would be saying add to your faith virtue and then goes on to repeat various virtues no it means energy moral energy it means power or if you like it means vigor now this is very important you see the condition that the Apostle is dealing with is this language in disciplined slack kind of Christian life. [00:30:49]

The moment we believe in Christ we don't know everything we don't understand for me that's only the beginning there are these constant appeals and exhortations in the episodes to a growth in understanding that your love may even says Paul somewhere in understanding and that's the thing that the Apostle Peter is at this point he says it isn't enough you know that you believe in that you are not a Christian you better understand the Christian life you've got to see the subtle dangers that afflict you you've got to understand something about the ingenuity of Satan and of all the pixels that are around you and the heresies and the errors of the confusion you need understanding. [00:34:36]

The authorities again are assuring us constantly about this that most people are in a poor state of physical health because they probably eat and drink too much there's no question about it and that's something again that's a great tendency in the modern world it's thrust upon us it's there everywhere it's advertised it's made attractive and there are people who find themselves weary and tired and lethargic very often it's simply because of lack of temperance self-control they don't control their appetites their lusts their passions their desires we eat too much we drink too much we may sleep too much all along the line these things afflict us. [00:37:18]

If you do these things you shall never fall now it doesn't mean that you are being kept you see while you are doing nothing it's as you do these things you will not fall so you give all diligence to do these things so that you may not fall and then finally and how glorious it is listen for so he says an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ he's not talking about salvation there because these people are already saved he's talking about the ultimate entrance into glory. [00:42:47]