PERSEVERING IN DISCIPLESHIP
Text: 2 Peter 1:5-6
…add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,
Intro:
- The link between discipline and godliness is
It is perseverance over the long haul, even if slow, rather than a short-lived burst of activity in one or more of the disciplines that brings godliness.
What do we need to persevere?
1. The Presence Of The Spirit
- Wherever the Holy Spirit dwells, His presence creates a
- The natural man has no such passion, no drive, no hunger, no desire to be like Jesus.
But in the Christian, the Spirit of God begins to carry out the will of God to make the child of God like the Son of God. (cf. Rom 8:29; Phil 1:6)
The Holy Spirit’s presence within us is one of the keys to our
He produces within us a power and a desire: power for the execution of the discipline and desire to become godly. (cf. 2 Tim1:7)
Some people have a natural inclination toward order and discipline, but whether you have a natural inclination or not, as a Christian you have a
Self-control (discipline) is a direct product of the Spirit’s control in a believer’s life. And when the Christian expresses this Spirit-produced self-control by the practice of the Spiritual Disciplines, the result is progress in godliness.
2. The Practice Of Fellowship (1 John 1:3; cf. Lk 2:52)
- Fellowship is the balance of
- None of us should imagine that practicing the disciplines in isolation can make us just as Christ-like as Christians who are active members of a local body of believers.
Nothing could be further from the truth than to think of the spiritual disciplines as part of the Christian life unrelated to the fellowship of other believers.
We not only measure our growth in godliness in terms of our fellowship with
Fellowship is both with the triune God and fellow believers.
Just as the human maturity of Jesus included growth in favor with both God and man, so will the spiritual maturity of those who seek to be like Jesus. (Lk 2:52)
You would think that with all the fellowshipping that Christians do in churches today that we would be persevering in the disciplines and excelling in godliness. But there is a subtle reason as to why this is not true: the average Christian (most of us) fails to distinguish between
- Socializing is often both a part of and the context of fellowship, but it is not fellowship in and of itself.
- You can fellowship and socialize with one another, but you can socialize and fail to fellowship with one another.
- Socializing involves the sharing of human and earthly life. Fellowship involves sharing our spiritual lives.
When we substitute socializing for fellowshipping we rob ourselves of a practice that helps us persevere in the disciplines.
JI Packer defines fellowship as “a seeking to share in what God has made known of Himself to others, as a means to finding strength, refreshment, and instruction for one’s own soul.”
- As we live like Christ when together, we encourage each other in Christian living. As we talk like Christ and about spiritual matters together, we also encourage each other toward godliness.
3. The Principle Of Struggle (1 Tim 4:7-10)
The Christian life will be accompanied by struggle. Struggle is not necessarily a bad thing. Struggles allow us to grow strong, gain strength, and persevere.
The words labor and strive (Col. 1:29) tell us that becoming like Christ involves a lot more than to “let go and let God.” The Greek word “labor” means to work until one is weary. We get our English word agonize from the word translated “strive.” It literally means to
Aren’t we saved by grace and not by works? Yes. But advancement in the Christian life comes not by the work of the Spirit alone, nor by our work alone, but by our responding to and cooperating with the promptings of God’s Holy Spirit.
JI Packer
“So we need to remember that any idea of getting beyond conflict, outward or inward, in our pursuit of holiness in this world is an escapist dream that can only have disillusioning and demoralized effects…What we must realize, rather, is that any real holiness in us will be under hostile fire all the time, just as our Lord’s was.”