The Rick & Bubba Bible Study Live - Oct. 28, 2020

five four three two so welcome in to the wednesday bible study here from the broadcast plaza and teleport we're about to start a new series so anytime we start a new series uh i wanna say you know it's probably a welcome for some of you that may be joining us for the first time especially because of my home church just finished up uh the five years of the men's discipleship strategy that is now available to the whole country at the manchurians.com so we just had one of our man church services this past sunday and coming out of those services there's different opportunities for you to plug in to small group bible studies so some of you may have selected to be with us today for the very first time we're glad you're here we'll keep you posted when we decide to allow you to come back into the room uh we're kind of watching that and watching how things go and if covid disappears like we all think it might until november 4th then that may that may change a lot of how we do things but we'll keep you posted this is always available to you every week some of you are watching it live right now or whether you're listening to an archive you can watch it live or watch it archived or you can listen to the archive by going to the ricky bubba podcast channel the youtube channel is the rick and bubble youtube channel if you ever need to go back to past studies or maybe you miss a week you also can find audio only archives at burgessministries.com do want to tell the folks in troy alabama if you're watching this coming up on monday november the 2nd uh we're we're going to be kicking off the men's discipleship strategy at first baptist church troy this will be their first gathering of men then we'll go into the pursuit 40-week curriculum they have opened up 50 additional seats to that it was sold out so they are available if you want to go grab those find details at ricanbubba.com under events and then we'll go on to columbus mississippi they'll start the men's discipleship strategy from the manchurch.com we'll kick off with that first gathering their man church will be november the 8th columbus mississippi at first baptist church columbus all those details can be found at rickimbabba.com under upcoming events you can also look at the 2021 dates coming up by going to the same location so we're going to start a new study today uh in the book of second peter we just finished first peter now we're going to jump into second peter and this is our first session if you're joining us today so let's open up with the word of prayer lord we are just living in perilous times and all this uncertainty but you make it very clear that we are not called to be anxious about anything we are not called to a spirit of fear and we are called to be people who live at peace because of who you are not because of who we are or what the circumstances may or may not be that knowing that you are on your throne and that everything is not out of control it's under your control but there are things that we need to do there there's actions that we need to take that you have instructed us to do and some of those will unpack today and i pray that we take those and we apply them uh to our each individual life and lord i pray today that maybe there's somebody who draw to you in a way that maybe uh they've never gotten it so may you be glorified may i be crucified uh and may i be uh you know nothing and you of course are presented as everything in the name of jesus we pray amen okay so we're gonna unpack this so let's let's talk about what peter's doing here in this second letter you're going to find out pretty quick that peter knows that his life is coming to a close uh you know he was told by jesus that he would die a martyr's death uh he knows and he'll tell you even before we get through this study that it's being revealed to him that that time is coming we know that peter is martyred uh and was martyred by nero uh and and these the first letter that peter wrote was just concerned about the suffering of the church and and we went through all that uh the christians were which we should say the disciples of jesus who who people called christians they were being persecuted uh uh in in a very intense way nero was trying to wipe out the church and so peter was concerned about the surfing of the church satan was attacking from the outside he was he was going after satan the lion you remember that he referred to uh in chapter five but now peter in in this this this second uh letter the second letter of peter i think may apply more to the current state of the church than even the first letter i mean and i'm speaking to the western church not the church around the world the church around the world has is continuing to be persecuted and people are being killed and martyred but here in america uh in the western church in the european church it's a little bit different uh there there's you see a little bit of persecution coming but what you probably see more of is what peter is now concerned about in the second later letter and not that that's not the attack from outside the church but now it's going to be the attacks from within the church within the church the first was about the church's survival uh by fiery torment but now the church must face false teachings and buddy i don't know if you've been paying attention to the modern church and the western church there's a lot of bad theology out there and boy now more than ever do you need to know the word of god now more than ever do you need to be able to spot a false teacher a false prophet and peter was gravely concerned about this so he's going to tell us some things today that will enable us to have that kind of knowledge and to be able to spot false teaching and those attacks from within side from within the church now i i do marketing for a living there's a lot of marketing that goes on and i sell a lot of products and and and i will tell you this we're going to get to a line uh today in our study in chapter one of second peter if i were to to come into your office and i'm trying to pitch you and my final line was this if you practice these qualities and you use my product you will never fail have i got you you'll never fail wait wait a minute so if i do what you just said i will never fail that is correct have i are you in i mean at that point you say well tell me well we're going to be told that today by peter uh and so let's start off the first part about who he's writing to you see he refers to his full name uh in this letter simon peter a servant and apostle of jesus christ uh and then he goes on to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our god and savior jesus christ so he's he's talking to fellow disciples of christ and he's talking about that that god and and his righteousness has been given to all those his divine power has given us the power to be uh people that we can never be uh and and he's talking about this uh when we get started so we know who he's speaking to and he says may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of god and of jesus our lord don't forget the part about knowledge we're going to get into that today may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of god uh and of jesus our lord so now he goes on to say and this is one of these things that you remember when we did the unsaved christian uh when we did some and we kept starting every one of those bible studies going to second corinthians and hearing paul saying assess yourself let's see if you pass the test of say you say you belong to jesus so why don't we now look at your life and let's look at scripture and let's assess whether that's really true or not and hopefully you pass the test that we can see the evidence of jesus christ if you know my testimony that's how i was redeemed as a grown man at 31 who had claimed to be a christian since he was a child but was living a life as an adult that didn't look anything like jesus it didn't look redeemed because it wasn't and i had a pastor who took this this this view of scripture and says let's assess your life today and let's look at how you live your life now can you honestly tell me after we've gone through your life compared to what it looks like to be redeemed how can you say you're redeemed so we're going to kind of take that attitude a little bit as we jump into verse 3 because first of all peter's going to be talking about what we're supposed to have access to and he says 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 it's his divine power that gives us power to be people we could never be everything depends on him his glory is granted to us in christ don't lose in christ if you were at man church sunday night you know we talked about this a lot so we we in our in our study of the gospel of john which if you missed that you can get that at burgessministries.com or here on this youtube channel if you're watching uh just go back to the other studies you'll see our 33 33 week study of the gospel of john and if you remember john 15 you you see you see jesus saying if you abide in me if you abide in me and you abide in my words then i will produce fruit because apart from me you can do nothing and if you see the apostle paul he writes over and over again in his letters he keeps using this term in christ in christ in christ so if you've been redeemed by jesus and what peter is saying right now that means that jesus has now ushered you and ushered me into the glory of god and he's now given us access to be made fully righteous he's given us access to god's divine power in christ so really if you want to say so what's your name now i would say rick in christ that's what makes me a new creation i didn't make myself a new creation not my new code of conduct or my new self-control jesus really is that powerful i abide in him i'm devoted to him i belong to him i pursue him i seek him and so i've been giving access for from jesus to the defined power of god and guess what that changed me so peter starts out by saying remember who we are remember what has happened so then he goes to verse 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 have an escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire so god's promises are backed up by his integrity god's promises also promises the power to be sanctified god promises that we will escape from the sin and it's corruption we don't have any excuses so rick what delivers you from the sin and corruption of the world god does so so these things that you used to do you don't do anymore how did you stop doing them by by clinging and attaching myself to the true vine to jesus jesus took all that away i i can't explain to you a moment when all of a sudden uh you know and i think that's where people mess up i get emails about this all the time and and people are saying well what what do i need to do and that especially with me and that's what we do we're trying to say get give me the formula what i got to do to fix it what are the things i need to do well we know that james said submit yourself then to god resist the devil he'll flee from you come near to god and he'll come near to you action action action we know that we're saved by grace through faith but this faith is a faith of action what's the action to go after jesus i mean to i don't know why when it happened that i i had no desire to read the bible now honestly it's all i really want to talk about i can't tell you how that happened other than i began to pray i began to seek when called to i begin to fast these these these disciplines of the spirit these things aren't to earn my salvation they're part of my salvation i was made fully righteous by jesus not by my works not by my uh to to some some new code of conduct but i was i was made fully righteous because of my devotion to jesus and and i and i cling to jesus i i i abide in jesus and since i started doing that all of a sudden i don't desire the things i once desired see we think jesus is in the business of giving us our desires that's that health wealth and prosperity garbage that is heresy blasphemy now what really happens is god changes our desires see this is the this is the biggest mistake that most of us make we think that discipleship is us getting jesus to conform and be more like us to be something that that's more comfortable to us no discipleship is we're being conformed to be more like jesus and then jesus doesn't make god something we're more comfortable with jesus makes us something that a holy god is more comfortable with because we got it backward we we think conforming to jesus and we're going to conform to jesus and make him more like us that's why we paint all this big man upstairs garbage and jesus sometimes is portrayed as this hippie you know this this putting together a spiritual woodstock no he he's the king of kings and he's the lord of lords and he is going to judge heaven and earth and and and he and like we talk about he he he was the mouthpiece of god the prophets were the mouthpiece of god in the old testament we studied this in in john he became the mouthpiece for god uh during his his time this ministry on earth he's ascended to the right hand of the father and now the voice of god to us is the holy spirit lo i'll be with you to the age of the earth so when you look at the great commission then you have to think to yourself well he keeps talking about us that god's promises are backed up by who he is he provides the power for us to be sanctified his seed really does change us he provides the escape from sin and its corruption so if i keep going back to sin remember this and we studied this and this was good in one of our past studies if i go back to sin now if i'm truly redeemed i go back willingly not because i don't have any control anymore because see back when i didn't have any control that's when my spirit was dead so my flesh ran everything because the spirit was dead because of the of the original sin but when jesus redeemed me first john tells me that god's seed now comes into my spirit and now that dead spirit comes alive and now the battle between the flesh and the spirit is actually a battle before it wasn't the flesh won everything it had no opposition so now as i feed the spirit now as i grow in christ now as i attach myself to the true vine i now have access like peter says to the divine power of god and the divine power of god delivers me from the the slavery of sin so if i go back to sin now i go back as a free man i choose it so that leads us to the it's almost like peter says look i want to i want to just set you up on what we have access to and then i'm going to tell you things you need to do to continue to access it so then we get to verse 5. for this very reason and these are going to be unpopular statements in the modern church today what i call the era of grace abuse because you're going to hear some words here that that are action words i i guess we i guess we do take action listen to this for this very reason make every effort what make every effort remember we talked about before we are saved by grace if don't hear me say anything else because that would be blasphemy we are saved by grace i can't do anything about saving myself by faith and this is where we mess up this is that effort that he's talking about this is a faith of action you've heard me talk about this a lot the hall of fame of faith in hebrews 11. you don't find anybody in the hall of fame of faith that just believed that god had told them to do something that's all they did they just believed it no they did it remember what i said abraham is not in the hall of fame of faith because he believed god said to go he's in the hall of fame of faith and the saving faith was when he went he didn't just believe that god said i want you to take your only son and take it up to the mountain i want you to kill him and sacrifice him to me and abraham didn't make the hall of fame by saying oh i believe you probably mean that no he he got to say the saving face when he started taking his son up the mountain and was prepared to kill him even saying well even if he wants me to kill him i know he can raise it from the dead maybe that's what he's going to do because what did he remember in the back of his mind he promised me that there was going to be a seed that came from the sun so god's not going to go back on that i don't know what he's doing but i guess this is the way he's going to do it see that's the saving faith he actually did it did noah make the hall of fame because he believed it was going to rain he believed that god said make some giant something he didn't know what it was no when he when he had a saving faith is when he spent over 100 years building it so that's that's what peter is talking about when he says you need to take some action so make every effort to supplement your faith and now he starts running a list this is big so now peter says let me tell you now remember don't ever forget the theme of second peter peter is now he's left the the physical persecution outside the church that's that's that's first peter now he's very concerned about apostasy he's very concerned about heresy he's concerned that we're going to be duped by bad theology now satan's attack's going to rise up from inside the church the great adrian rogers who i have tremendous respect for once said when you're looking for satan never fail to check the pulpit so this is why he says you know and i never i don't understand this i know a lot of women are now watching the wednesday bible study and that's fine because we're doing expository teachings that's fine however i want to talk to the man for just a minute i for the life of me cannot understand how god made a man and i was this way so this is on me i don't understand me how we we seem to care so little about being excellent in the faith we demand excellent excellency from everything except our faith it's like a man says i'm willing to work on anything except my faith i am okay with being mediocre in my faith well i got news for you peter says that's not going to do because you're going to be destroyed you ain't going to make it you will not endure what's coming i love these people right now that are all over social media inside the church and they're trying to make some case that marxism is somehow a lot more like jesus than than a constitutional republic in the free market that if jesus was here today he'd be a democrat can i give you a heads up jesus wouldn't be a democrat or a republican okay jesus's kingdom is not of this world i love the fact that y'all actually think he would pick apart he wouldn't be but let me tell you what this some of you that think marxism and socialism is somehow you're tying that to teachings of the new testament here's what's sad about all of you when you if you get what you want and we start moving in america to a more marxist socialistic type of government and when they come after the church which they always do throughout history you're gonna be the first to crumble you're gonna be the first one to cry how'd this happen you won't withstand the you won't endure that persecution you're bringing persecution on yourself that you can't even endure so we need to to think in our minds about what it looks like to truly be in the kingdom of god to truly be under the authority of christ and hear the things that that peter now says these things need to be you ever get up every day how many you get up and take supplements every day well boy i'll tell my body don't produce the collagen like it used to boom there's a supplement to help that happen hey i got information you know now you take this so what he's saying is these are supplements that need to go with your faith now the first thing he does he takes faith and he links it right out of the gate with virtue so your faith must have integrity it must have integrity and let me tell you that my faith when i first was redeemed had zero integrity uh i didn't know anything and you know what god everywhere i would look i would see this word integrity i talked about this sunday night too everywhere i would look i would see integrity you know why god kept showing me that word because i didn't have any he said he's a rick i know that i've redeemed you praise the lord you were finally sincere you've submitted to me now we're going to go on a journey to so you'll get to the point you have some integrity in your faith and he took me through things that i didn't want to go through but those things have refined me that i now at least have some integrity but i want to i want to hear well done i got a long way to go but i'm going some of you say well rick it'll never be perfection but would you would you at least would you at least like to join us on progress progress is demanded perfection is in jesus but progress is demanded and that's what peter's talking about does your faith have any integrity does it have anything do people look at you and somebody says that's the man of faith right there and people go hey you sure about that i don't that surprises me uh it that have you ever had that happen to you before you ever had anybody tell you that a guy was was like in a church or that he was a christian you're like really played 18 with him i i didn't i didn't come i didn't come to that same conclusion uh i i that's surprising so the one thing that that peter says is that our faith must have integrity and and i love the word when you're talking about the integrity you realize this means that that um that no it's a genuine faith uh it's a faith and the virtue must stand beside your faith it's moral excellence i love this one definition i saw a virtue genuine goodness so i just don't i don't just claim to be redeemed i'm genuine you do see jesus in me i don't just say it you actually see it so that's the first thing he says if you're going to pass the test and you're not going to be duped you're not going to be fooled by this attack within the church you know you're not going to somehow think that god changed his standard for marriage and you're going to go out and your kids are going to get involved in same-sex marriage you're going to post it on facebook and start telling the church expect the church to go on there which sadly you'll see and have a bunch of like buttons of everybody just says i guess this is okay when scripture says otherwise see that would be a faith that doesn't have integrity it's not a genuine faith and so that's the number one thing so let's see what's next and he does them in a list here so we must have virtue faith and virtue must stand together and then he says and virtue with knowledge here we go with knowledge so we must be informed we must continue to learn uh the impossible to exhaust truths of the word of god all right if anybody's got their bible or some of their bible on i know you i know you're on ii peter let's go to the book of romans 11. let's go to romans chapter 11. we also did a study on romans if you'd like to go back to that you can find it at burgessministries.com under listen or right here on this youtube channel just pull down the playlist of the past bible study so we did a whole series on this incredible book uh that paul was inspired many have said uh it's one of the greatest books if not the greatest book in the entire bible so we go to romans 11 and then we go to verse 33 let's listen to 33 o the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways i mean we when will we ever learn all of it we won't but but that process needs to to keep going because remember see knowledge is is one of those things we said it a thousand times and it's kind of old worn out but it's a great one is i remember this movement i think was it the 80s what would jesus do was that the 80s i don't know if it was 80s or early 90s i think it was the 80s well it isn't it really should have been called what would jesus have me do because jesus is perfection we have access to that but but i don't know that we ever in this progress will ever become another jesus because he was perfect but what what does jesus call me to do well would we agree when he says if you if you love me you'll obey my commands do we agree uh the the great omission from the great commission uh teach them to observe and obey all i have taught you would you agree that if your children come into your your room dad or mom who's watching this and say i was at school today or god forbid you've sent them to college you better find out what's going on at college and my professor said or my teacher said this this and this and said that in the bible that's what that's what god says in the bible and are you going to go i have no idea sorry well that's that's going to be bad because now they're going to have to go and find it somewhere else so peter says you you must have a a faith of integrity you must have a lot of knowledge or then i can't recognize something that's wrong it's impossible to do what jesus would do if you don't know what he did i mean that that's going to be an uphill climb i mean can you imagine me going out and claiming instead of claiming i'm a disciple of jesus claiming i'm a mechanic and then you say what's wrong with my car i said i have no idea i thought you said you were a mechanic well i claim to be one but uh i don't know much about cars well then i probably need to stop calling myself a mechanic because i don't know what i'm talking about and guess what i i'm not any help to you so what do you think i do about my car here i are worse than that what if i pretend to be a mechanic and i tell you the wrong thing then your engine blows up hey thanks on the engine by the way i thought you were a mechanic well not real knowledgeable but i i just i certified myself as a mechanic but i never learned how to actually fix a car well that wouldn't make any sense and so peter says this is going to be problematic if you don't have the knowledge and and i will say this you've heard me say it a thousand times some of the men right now are you screaming at the screen or you're screaming at whatever you're listening to this on he's going to say it again and i am going to say it again i have found that men and women people we tend to be very knowledgeable on things we care about right i still have good study habits man i'm not seeing any deer at my place hey let me tell you what you need to do here comes the expert hey uh my business i mean we're trying to get our p l right and all this kind of stuff i just don't know let me let me have a look at that oh well here's your problem right here i thought this guy didn't like to study he sure does know a lot about his business i hope you do he knows a lot about hunting fishing golf uh you know lord of the rings i mean it's star wars where where where did we get all this in from his football team or whatever sports team he likes so he's incredibly knowledge and knowledgeable on everything that he cares about you know why i didn't know the bible very well for most of my life because i didn't care about it it's no more complicated than that it was of no priority to me but now you asked me about things that i cared about man i knew a lot so i had the ability to be knowledgeable but then you got to be careful for what he says next and then with knowledge you better supplement self-control yeah what's the best example of that in the bible solomon i don't think you get more knowledgeable than solomon but you know what he lacked self-control women were a real problem for solomon he had some issues uh and uh they once said that if solomon had picked one of his wives just one and says i'm not going to be intimate with another with you again wife number one until i've run the gamut of all the women they said it would be three years before he got back to the original woman three years so solomon had a lot of knowledge but he did not have any self-control if you've ever read the book of ecclesiastes it's his book of repentance you know what he says i knew a lot but i lacked self-control because i tried everything so you have to add virtue to your faith it must be a faith of integrity you have to add knowledge to your faith you must know what you're talking about you must know the the the things that god has called us to do and you must know him and then you must have self-control you you have to get to the point so where do we get self-control from rick well like we do everything else well you know the word disciple you know comes from the word discipline uh i i am disciplined in my devotion to christ so where does my self-control come from i'll tell you where it comes from i become in such an intimate relationship with jesus that when i i would rather be right with him than to chase after a moment of pleasure or to to fumble i feel i feel a devotion to him for what he did for me on the cross and and my obedience flows from my adoration of him in everything you know when i'm when i'm when i'm not being the best husband i need to be i would love to tell you that the reason why i correct that and i don't i don't i don't stray from my wife i would love to tell you is because of my devotion to her because a lot of you like that that makes good romantic movies and all that but it's not it's because of my devotion to christ and i bet my wife would say the same thing about her devotion to me he comes from christ you know why because there's a lot of days that i i'm not worthy for my wife to be devoted to me i i don't think that i can just be so lovable and so wonderful my wife says you know what this guy that's just not who i am i make mistakes sometimes i'm not desirable i i may be not worthy of her respect i may not be worthy of her devotion i may not be worthy of her loyalty but see she's not going she's not going to disobey jesus and i'm not going to disobey jesus and when i do i don't justify it so that self-control has to come see if the reason why don't don't think this order is something peter just came up with integrity knowledge then you may have a shot at self-control because of the not because you know so much about god now you know to know god is to fear him to know god is to love him to know god is to serve him so if you don't feel any obligation at all not not not not obligation like i have to do something to earn salvation but obligation to the god that gave you salvation then you don't understand what happened you don't know how wretched you really are you don't know how bad things really were for you because i know what i deserve and i know because of jesus what i've been forgiven so he says then next if you you've got virtue you've got knowledge you've got self-control and he says and with self-control you need to add steadfastness so what the steadfastness now there's other words in different english translations you'll see some translate that as patience some translate that as endurance and that's really what it is steadfastness means i'm solid notice notice we're walking virtue knowledge self-control so you don't take steadfastness to try to put up with the top because it won't work you better work this in the order that peter being inspired by the holy spirit is laying it out steadfast are you solid can god can god depend on you can he look down like he did with job and say you come against him he won't turn on me you know i think about that a lot you know because uh god does not tempt us but he does test us and you know he's testing for it don't you and james talks about this these difficulties produce steadfastness hey i wonder if i can trust so and so well let's find out i mean did we not do that i mean anything you've ever been in your life there comes a point where somebody has to say i mean think about people like would you just let at your business would you let just anybody have control of the money you better not who are you going to be who are you going to have control of the money somebody that's steadfast somebody that's solid i've got a i got a a man in my life that i love what he says every time i see him i'll ask him i said how are you doing and you know he says steady i'm steady my highs aren't too high my lows aren't too lows i'm not i'm not over here where god can't trust me one day the next day i do pretty good i don't sway i love that by john the baptist when jesus said what y'all think y'all gonna find out there just some some weed whipping in the wind no you found a man that was steadfast did you and he's calling you to repentance and you don't like it and he's devoted to me and he's gonna do exactly what he was told to do is that you are you about the lord's business and does the lord say just like i think about this so much and and i want to continue to to try to pass the test any test that god puts before me to prove my steadfastness but also produce steadfastness so can can god trust you with a test i mean some of you may be watching this or listening this you go you know i've really never faced a lot of difficulty in my life it may be that god can't trust you with it and uh and you know that that's something to consider uh because there's a there's a lot of things you see in scripture uh you see ii timothy 3 12 you see paul writing to timothy and he says hey tell everybody that chooses to live a godly life that they will be persecuted you see jesus in in john 15 we were talking about the true vine and and he didn't even get too deep into john 15 talking about the true vine and i'm really thinking you know jesus did this a lot jesus didn't do pep talks the way i would do them because jesus really starts out with here's here's some here's some things gonna be gonna be problematic you know i would say that to the end i would fire everybody up and they go now let me let you know this not not jesus jesus always tells you right out of the gate what to expect deny yourself come with me pick up your cross daily uh hey you know what don't your family may turn against you just know if you're gonna follow me everybody's gonna hate you but remember they hated me they hate your devotion to me listen what he says about the the true vine we talked about he says every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and you're like yeah that's right what is this every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so it might bear more fruit so wait a minute rick you mean to tell me that my steadfastness is me agreeing and standing firm and even if i am producing fruit for the kingdom he may prune me and refine me so that i'll produce even more fruit yes and it'll produce steadfastness or you'll fail and you know when you fail what that means you didn't have any virtue your faith didn't have any integrity and it probably means you didn't have any knowledge because you didn't know what was going on which is why you didn't pass it and you didn't have enough self-control to stand firm so steadfastness endurance you know keep in mind you hear the scriptures talking a lot about those who endure when they inherit the kingdom of heaven so do you have that so our faith needs to have this we supplement it with integrity we supplement it with knowledge we supplement it with self-control and we supplement it with steadfastness our patience and endurance and and uh and and perseverance so then next here come look how long it took to get to this one and there's a reason for that and with steadfastness godliness oh watch way on down the list because i got to tell you something there's a process to being a godly man or woman what does he mean by godliness here if you look at the original greek word he's using here it means to be devout to to to look to jesus be pleasing to god godliness is to be pleasing to god i like that one makes a lot of sense i can look at that one so let me ask you this if god looks at your life does he see that you are living a life that is pleasing to him because that's godliness it's it's to say that i'm i'm devout to god i'm devoted to him you know you remember when we talked about this uh message that we did uh sunday night and we were unpacking the term discipleship and disciple devotion connected to in christ and and i really was taken back and i'd forgotten we did the study uh which you can't find it on video but you can on audio only at burgessministries.com we did dallas willard's book the spirit of the disciplines and hey baby it was a wild ride that's that is a that is a a challenging book and one of the things that dallas willard talked about which i'd forgotten about until i went back and got ready for this message sunday night he said in the new testament the word disciple is used 269 times the word christian is only used three and only one time is it used in a positive light and that's the message we did in peter peter says hey i know christian is derogatory and everybody's using that to make fun of you don't let that be a derogatory statement be proud they call you a christian so but disciple was a given which means everybody in the new testament that was called mockingly a christian was already a disciple but see the western church has gone a different way instead of us going out and producing disciples we go and grab converts we just we just want a conversion and once you've converted we go got that one and we move on there's a lot of churches they don't even require you to be vetted out to be a disciple of christ to become a member of the church body they don't even they don't you they don't even they don't even care if you have testimony you just tell me you won't be a part of the church they let you that was the way it was the new testament so that's why you see peter he's talking to disciples of jesus so this is not surprising instructions to them now the cultural christian has no idea what we're talking about right now and and then and then the the convert who may be redeemed and as a baby christian is still sitting there going i have no idea what you're talking about but there was a time when when the process for you when you said i i i'm i'm i want to be redeemed then the process started the great commission teach them to obey all that i have told you you were supposed to be like just immersed into spiritual maturity as quick as we could get you there now if you want to stay in a church in america and just wallow around as a spiritual infant for the rest of your life they'll let you well they'll let you i mean it's amazing how little of the church is devoted to discipling people and you know that's what we do with the men's ministry because the problem with men we treat the symptoms of what's wrong with men the the root of the problem is they're either lost or they're a spiritual infant and here's peter saying we got to come out of spiritual infancy because you're not going to survive what's coming against you next and that's going to be an attack from within the church you're going to start seeing false teachings false theology satan is coming inside the church now and you've got to be ready so you need to supplement these things to your faith so next after godliness he says brotherly affection yeah brotherly affection if you don't do all these things i don't love you if i don't know you just because you remember the church but i tell you what if i'm putting on virtue and i'm putting on knowledge and i'm putting on self-control and i'm putting on steadfastness and i'm putting on godliness guess what that comes out of me next brotherly love oh i love the brothers and sisters of the faith a genuine spirit of brotherly love among believers we're kind to one another and one thing i love too you know what jesus always showed us that he was approachable were you approachable do you have time for people to talk to them to cry with them to grieve with them he was always approachable to be charitable to be giving to help when your brothers and sisters need help it's really an overall love for everyone forgiving and not harboring bitterness uh it's it's that first corinthians 13 kind of love where where it's not these things and it is these things and and then he says this brotherly love which leads to just love over all so the brotherly love is the love that we have among the church remember what jesus said when the signs of his disciples you have a unique love for each other and people will know you're my disciples but then he says and then brotherly love the next thing you put on is just love in general and that is a love not an approval not an approval but a love for everyone a a different kind of love a genuine love among the believers that's a different level but an overall love produced just because that god himself said that he so loved the world not the sin of the world but the people of the world that he was willing to give himself up for them and we should follow that example look at verse 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 so this leads to fruitfulness all of these things that peter tells us to add if we take those in the and the you know what everything he just so told us to do they're all manifested in jesus don't miss that so if we follow this supplemental plan of virtue knowledge self-control steadfastness godliness brotherly love and love then we will be fruitful it's what he said it keeps you from being ineffective and and it establishes establishes fruitfulness whoever look at this it keeps you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our lord jesus christ it goes back to what i had to say in my own life it's impossible for me to be right with christ and live in a way that is contrary to him it's not possible not because of who i am but because who he is and this is what peter is saying and then look at he says at nine stop being delusional look at verse nine he says for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins if you don't do these supplemental things you know what you you forget you forget who jesus is and what he did for you and you're delusional and and it says that that that you're blind you lose sight of your condition we forget that we were purged from our sin don't ever forget what you were purged from you know why i'm so thankful for jesus and boy this was one of the things that hit me in in our last study as it was when the adversary begins to talk to god about me it's not him lying about me that throws me it's him telling the truth about me see i ain't never forgot how wretched i was i don't waller in it because i'm not that man anymore but i don't want to forget what jesus did and when we start getting delusional as if the way jesus made us is the way we've always been and there's no need for me to be supplementing these things because i'm just fine then you're gonna become delusional at your condition and you're gonna forget that you were purged from sin and then before you know it and i've seen it happen you start taking grace and abusing it i love when these some of these these these new people that are grace abusers well i'm free in christ yeah you've been freed from sin you haven't been freed to sin romans 6 read it read it from time to time you have not been freed to sin you haven't been freed to walk these lines with alcohol that you like to walk you haven't been free to do these things did you hear what we just talked about what what what did you not have you never read ii peter about the things that we're supplementing to our faith and then look at verse 10 therefore brothers be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure for if you practice these qualities you'll never fail man if i if you can't put that on your product wait a minute peter are you telling me that if i follow this and i'm diligent about being sure my faith has integrity if i'm diligent about i can never have enough knowledge about christ and his word and and his commandments and what he's called me to if if i will be all the more diligent about my self-control diligent about my steadfastness diligent about my godliness diligent about brotherly love diligent about an overall love that flows from flows from christ who who who desires that none should perish that i will never fail apparently so if you fail you haven't been diligent this is this is the this is a word that means to be to have zeal to to have to to be hasty about it make an effort assess yourself do you pass the test of being part of the elect now you're thinking rick are y'all you talking about salvation am i gonna mess this up i mean take take your bible if you got a minute go to matthew 13. this is what he's talking about matthew 13 guess who else talked about it jesus matthew 13 that's why peter knows this the sower a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil underlying but when the sun rose they were scorched and since they had no root they withered away other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some a hundred fold some sixty some 30 he who has ears let him hear what i'm saying that's what he's talking about i mean sometimes these seeds fall in places and and if that that seed isn't diligent about taking roots in the ground it doesn't survive or it's revealed that it never had what it was supposed to have to truly say i am part of the elect what about you where i'm if i talk about the sower there where are you are you are you rocky soul never took root or you somebody that kind of got some roots in but i didn't really get down in there i don't really have strong roots sun comes up i'm done do you let too much sin in your life and here's the thorns growing up all around you and eventually that sin that you have not taken seriously that you don't have any zeal about that you're not concerned about it ain't no big deal before you know it chokes you or do you produce fruit verse 11 for in this way there will be the there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ i love this when he talks about this whole deal about you know elect and the sovereignty of god and and i know that always gets us off in conversations that many times are not fruitful in themselves but you know some events are divinely caused and i love this and other events are divinely permitted he permits us to act as part of his eternal plan while at the same time leaves room enough for one to be responsible for his own behavior yes he is sovereign and there are there are events that are divinely caused and there's other things that are divinely permitted and taking responsibility for our actions if you look at parts of scripture seem to indicate that this sovereign god does allow us to make choices inside of his sovereignty matthew 23 37 is one such place there are others if you have your bible then you go to matthew 23 37 this is jesus crying over jerusalem jesus who is all-knowing says to jerusalem that has rejected him o jerusalem jerusalem the city that kills the prophets and stones those who were sent to it how often i have gathered i would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings but you were not willing so the all-knowing god and these events of jesus having to redeem the world have been known since the foundation of the world jesus is here to redeem he comes to his people first they reject him and then he says i really have preferred that not be the case i would have taken you as a hand takes her brood and i would have protected you under my wings but you were not willing divine event but then something divinely permitted and that was their choice to receive him or reject him permitted luke 22 look at luke 22 luke 22 22 for the son of man goes as it has been determined but woe to the man by whom he is betrayed wait a minute so jesus is going to go to the cross that was divinely caused but yet he seems to be holding people accountable that portray him to get him there divinely call divinely caused but also divinely permitted so this is a dance i know that's difficult for many and that's not where we want to land today but this is one of those things that you just have to accept and follow what peter is saying to do because how do you make sure how how do i make sure about this that i am one of the elect well just just look at the lost and look at this list that peter has just laid out and then assess where do we stand if we continue adding to our faith things that accompany salvation right now for time i don't have time to go to it but write down hebrews 6 9 then there will be no occasion to stumble there's a hint here that not everyone that is coming into the the final kingdom of god i mean even even those who who are going to make it there there seems to be here a very clear indication in other places as well that not all will have this abundant entrance into that kingdom there will be degree degrees of glory and different capacities and rewards and treasures even in heaven you can look to first corinthians 15 39-44 let's let's turn there real quick first corinthians 39 and then let's go to i mean first corinthians 15 and then let's go to verse 39 and and let's read through 44 verses 39 through 44. and here's what he says for not all flesh is the same but there is one kind for humans another for animals another for birds another for fish there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind and the glory of the earthly is of another there is one glory of the sun another glory of the moon another glory of the stars for the stars differ from the starring glory so it is with the resurrection of the dead what is sown is perishable what is raised is imperishable it is sown in dishonor and it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it has sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body and then it goes on to say that this is not the case for animals but he lists that that there are degrees that we will see of people in heaven and and i love that the writer of hebrew says in chapter six let us go on let us not be content with where we are let let's let's go on in our faith let's let's let's be devoted to these things that peter says that we should supplement to our faith and then we will never fail it's a big statement so when you look at your life how are you doing on these things i mean if we look at the list do you do you see your your faith of having integrity do you do you see your faith being one of knowledgeable you you know your faith you understand it do you see self-control in your life do you see steadfastness do you see godliness do you see brotherly affection do you see love do you see fruitfulness once we've started this study of ii peter peter seems to think this is really important because he starts this right out of the gate and we know what he's concerned about and we see this happening in our country now and in the western church don't we we we see a falling away i know john warns us he said when you see those fall away they were never with us our peter might say well they fell away because they never supplement these things to their faith so their faith lacked integrity what about yours what about mine it's a great time for us to assess these things let's pray lord thank you for this uh convicting message to get us started in this new series in in second peter uh lord i pray that all of us today will assess ourselves and see where we are i pray lord that that maybe we get excited today and we go to second peter ourselves and we take these supplements and we underline them and we spend some time assessing where we are on this list that peter says that if we will diligently follow we won't be ineffective for the kingdom we won't be unfruitful and we will never fail you i pray lord if there's anyone out there today that that something has pricked their heart today they'll make a move to to adjust to where adjustment needs to be made lord i pray that you continue to draw them to you and if they think today that they don't see themselves in the way they should they don't see your power in their life that today though just right now for the first time or the first time they meant it they say lord jesus i submit completely to you i repent holy of my sins i repent of my lack of these things in my life and i want to really know you in a personal way i want access to that power i don't see it in my life lord i know you love me i see what you did for me on the cross but will you teach me to love you the bible says if you're sincere about believing in your heart and confessing your mouth that you want jesus to be your authority and you repent of your sins and you're sincere about that that maybe your seed just was made alive but now there's a process of sanctification that requires your action lord i pray that you will be glorified in all of our lives your holy name we pray amen thanks for being with us if there's anything today that prompted a question from you or you need someone to talk to and you don't have anybody to talk to you can reach me rick rickybubba.com hey thanks for being with us today and look forward to talking to you next week

Channel: Rick & Bubba

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Id: DSSXsCHhGVE

Length: 60min 23sec (3623 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020