Marcel: Let me ask you a quick question.
What is compelling about Jesus and Christianity?
What's something that's compelling to you about Jesus and Christianity?
So go ahead, just take 30 seconds and share with the person
to your right or your left.
What's something that is compelling about Jesus and Christianity for you?
And if you're online, go ahead and type in the, uh, in the chat right there.
What is something that's compelling about Jesus and Christianity?
All right, let's get a couple people to share.
She said forgiveness of each other and from each other.
So in the world you could just, you know, we cancel each other really
quickly, but in the church there's a lot of love, grace, and forgiveness there.
Okay, awesome, appreciate it.
All right, John, yes.
Focus on love and relationships.
Yeah, that's good, that's good.
Any others there?
Okay, Big Craig, yes.
Okay, so Jesus helps us not to have just a, uh, a form of religion and
something that's dry and stale there.
Okay, cool.
All right, Eli.
Jesus gives us purpose and a direction in life.
Okay, one more.
Yes, Dorca.
Jesus surrendered to God's plan, even though it was hard.
And obviously we are the beneficiaries of that.
You know, there's a number of things that are compelling that
I'm sure we can probably spend the rest of our service talking about.
You know, there's, that comes to mind for me, eternal purpose and a mission in life.
Uh, you know, forgiveness, not just of each other, but
forgiveness from God for our sins.
Uh, the, the, uh, uh, uh, uh, heaven that is our destination.
That's something that's compelling.
Uh, I think of divine truth, divine wisdom for our lives here.
Uh, but the thing that's really caught me over the last, uh, probably about a
month or two, how compelling it is that Jesus and Christianity is that there
is an opportunity for transformation.
It's that when you really follow the Jesus of the scriptures, the Jesus,
the Messiah, the Son of God, and you live out true Christianity, God gets
us on a process of transformation.
As you can see here, the caterpillar turned into this beautiful butterfly.
You know, I didn't realize there's other animals and insects that also
have this trans, uh, transformation.
Did you know that?
I didn't even realize the whole frog thing.
He's a tadpole and then he comes, I didn't even realize that until the other day.
There's other stuff.
I'm like, whoa, this is incredible.
But the caterpillar and the butterfly, you know, spiritually,
this is what God does with us.
Is that he gets us on this process of transformation where we grow spiritually.
And we grow in our spiritual maturity.
We can think of, uh, in Genesis how it describes God creating,
um, creating the universe.
And how it talks about earth was, was, was basically formless.
And God transformed it into what we enjoy and live on today.
We think of Abraham and how he transformed him and have it led to
him being the the ancestor of really many Descendants we think of Jacob
transforming into Israel and that becoming a nation in which Jesus would
come through that line We think of the New Testament in this passage right here.
Check this passage out real quickly Look what it says, but our citizenship
is in heaven and we eagerly Eagerly, whatever that word is, await a
Savior eagerly I still can't say it.
All right.
Away the Savior from this.
The Lord George, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that
enables him to bring everything under his control, check this out, will
transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to that glorious body.
I'm hoping that it might be, you know, a couple inches taller too as well.
Or at least everybody's on the same page.
You know what I'm saying?
Or maybe God reversed it.
All the short people will be tall.
You know what I'm saying?
And we'll look down on the rest of y'all for eternity.
You know what I'm saying?
But man, this idea that we don't even know what that's gonna be like.
But our bodies will be transformed into this glorious body.
How cool is that?
But in the meantime, and in between time, God is transforming our
hearts, our minds, our characters.
Our very nature.
And so God is in this transformation business, helping us and calling
us to grow and to mature in Him.
Look at some of these passages real quickly here.
For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed
to the image of His Son.
So God's plan from the beginning is for us to be like His Son.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed.
By the renewing of your minds and we all who with unveiled faces
contemplate the Lord's glory.
Check this out are being transformed into his image with an ever
increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
God wants to transform you and me, not into something that's just
special, but he wants to transform us into his own image and likeness.
How awesome is that?
Whatever great compelling characteristic you see in Christ, God wants to
transform you into that for that to be your character and your nature.
Whatever's compelling about following Jesus, God has this plan where he
wants to transform us into his image.
And again, as we mentioned on Wednesday, God's not interested in
just a little behavioral modification.
God is trying to transform you in me.
And so for the first part of 2024, we want to focus in on this
transformation and this growth in Christ.
And so we're going to begin a series today called become more in 24.
And so we're going to study out the book of 2nd Peter and, uh, really verse 1.
And in fact, uh, you should have on your, on your phone, uh, if you
have the church app, if you don't hurry up and download the church app.
But probably we have a little handout, a little series handout that's on
there, but we do have some hard copies.
So if you want a hard copy of the sermon series handout, the
ushers, if you raise your hand, the ushers can give you one right now.
And so we're going to study out.
Uh, just the, uh, several verses in second Peter, chapter one,
verses five through seven.
And we're going to look on how we can continue in this process of
transformation that God has you and me on.
Are you with me, church?
Let's go ahead and let's get into it.
Second Peter, chapter one.
Can I get an amen?
Second Peter, chapter one, verse one.
It says.
And this is Peter and Peter's writing to the churches will many believe he's
writing to the same churches that he wrote to in first Peter and he's dealing
with some false doctrine, but he goes on and he gives them encouragement to
be faithful and to behold hold fast to the faith because of the prophetic
word, but also the transformation that you and I can and will enjoy in Christ.
Let's read second Peter one verse one, Simon, Peter, a servant and
apostle of Christ Jesus to those.
Who through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ have received
a precious faith as precious as ours.
That's just cool to think about.
Our faith is precious.
He also says it's more precious than gold.
He says grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Now here we go.
His divine power.
God has given us everything we need for a godly life through our
knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Did you catch that?
His divine power has given us everything we need for
godliness, for our life in Christ.
That means you and I are fully equipped, fully supplied to live a
godly life through our relationship.
With him, you do not lack a single thing.
And this is incredible because he says it's through your knowledge.
And this isn't knowledge as far as knowing about Jesus, knowing what Jesus did.
This knowledge is really implying the idea of knowing him on a personal growing
relationship because of this relationship.
And we know Peter also told us when we repent and get baptized, we
received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So then when we have this relationship with God, and then we are empowered by the
Holy Spirit, God's design and intention is for us to therefore live a godly life.
We are capable because we are empowered through our relationship
and through the Holy Spirit.
We continue going to verse 4.
It says, Through these, he has given us his very great and precious promises,
so that through them, check this out, you may participate in the divine.
Nature having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
This idea and I believe we talked a little bit about this in two years ago.
This idea here of participating in the divine nature.
What is he talking about right there?
You see, God's desire and will is for us to participate in
the divine nature, meaning.
We become like God in our character and in our very nature.
We can't become God like in the sense of having divine authority and power.
But we get to become like God in our character and nature.
Do you see any shortcomings in your character and nature?
If we're honest, yes.
We probably see them.
Some of us, we go to stream and we see them too much.
What God is saying is that in Christ, through Him, we get to therefore now
start to reflect and start to take on God's character and likeness.
And we begin to think, act, behave, and be something different.
And through the power of the Spirit, we begin to change and reflect
the character of God in our lives.
Again, God is a God of transformation.
And he's transforming you and me back into our original intention.
And that's his image and his likeness.
God doesn't want you to be whoever you are today.
He wants you to be like him forever.
And so we continue in verse five.
And then it says.
For this very reason.
What reason?
The reason for living a guided life.
For the reason of participating in his divine nature.
Make every effort to add to your faith.
For this reason, add to your faith.
We play a role in this transformation.
God has already provided everything we need.
Now we have to do our part.
And so this is so cool and incredible, and it's so helpful for us,
because, see, here's what happens.
When God's empowerment intersects with human effort, this is when
transformation takes place.
When God's empowerment intersects with our human effort, this is
when transformation takes place.
But if you remove one of these things, you won't have transformation take place.
Let's think about this.
It's the new year.
A lot of us are having goals.
A lot of us have some health or fitness goals.
And so some of us, we want to get ripped and be swollen and buffed.
You know what I'm saying?
We want to be like Dallas Kawhi.
You know what I'm saying?
Some of us would say, Hey, I want to, you know, whatever it is.
I want to eat healthier.
I want to lose weight.
Whatever the case it is, right?
We all know we There's two major components to achieving that goal.
One is what?
Exercise.
And what's the other?
Your diet.
If you said something else, there's some reasons.
You have to have what?
You have to have some exercise.
But you have to have the diet that follows.
If not, you will look like Marcel.
You see, I've been trying for a while to get the six pack abs, but you know
what, I got the exercise part down.
But you know what, I just can't give up those french fries.
I said, Marcel, you gotta go ahead and eat more vegetables, and I do,
but I don't eat enough because then I add it with some potato chips.
You get what I'm saying?
I'm like, it balances out.
We all know if you want to physically transform, you better have some exercise
and you better have your diet right.
If you want to be spiritually transformed, you need God's empowering
spirit and you need your human efforts.
If you remove the human efforts, transformation can't take place.
And for some of us, we've been frustrated about where we're at spiritually.
Man, and then we blame God or we blame the church or we blame ministers.
We blame whoever, we blame, uh, politicians, we blame government.
We blame social media, whatever the case is.
But oftentimes it's because we're neglecting to make every effort to add to
our faith You see the Holy Spirit isn't is effective in an actor when we decide we're
gonna match him with our efforts What 3?
God's already given you every single thing you need you are not in need in
order to grow and mature spiritually But the requirement for you and me is
to take the steps necessary to work hand in hand with the Holy Spirit.
And that's when transformation begins.
Church are you with me here?
You see, again, we understand this physically, but we need
to make sure we apply it.
Spiritually.
Let's continue going.
It says, for this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith,
goodness and the goodness, knowledge and to knowledge, self control and to self
control, perseverance and perseverance, godliness and to godliness, mutual
affection and to mutual affection, love.
This is going to be our text for the next seven weeks here as we see really
these, uh, you know, it's kind of, it's been coined faith, faith arithmetic
because it keeps saying add to.
Or some call it the ladder of transformation.
Now let me ask you this.
What would it look like to have these things in your life?
What would that look like for someone?
To have these things in their life?
You would say, man, that's a, that's an incredible person of
faith right there, isn't it?
He said, man, that's incredibly like, man, I'm, I'm becoming more like Jesus.
I'm starting to resemble more of my heavenly father.
You see, this is what God is doing is he wants us.
To have these virtues, but we have to again have our effort and then what's
going to be created this Transformation where we are the beautiful butterfly
in Christ and we resemble behave think and act like our God And then he tells
us more Results he goes on in verse 8.
It says for if you possess these qualities in increasing
measure Let's stop right there.
The way the Greek is worded there, it actually is telling
us it's a continual thing.
It's not a once.
And so what this saying is, that we should be growing in increasing measure.
We should continually be going after our growth in Christ.
Never arriving until our death or until Jesus returns.
Let me ask you this.
Have you arrived spiritually?
You better not say yes.
Of course, none of us have, and we know this.
And so every day we make decisions to grow in our relationship and
to grow in the likeness of Christ and transformation continues.
And so we should always see ourself as, man, I need to grow, but not in a negative
way, but God wants me to continue to grow so that I can begin to think like him.
Now, there's a difference between behavior modification and what you are
interested in, what your interests, likes and dislikes, and how you think.
You guys get what I'm saying here?
See, at my conversion, I went from a womanizer to, man, I'm going
to try to be righteous and holy.
But what God has been producing in me is that I lift up and value women way
more than I ever did in my life before.
But he's having me start to view them as queens, princesses.
Now, my conversion, I didn't have that thought process.
You guys get what I'm saying?
Don't throw any tomatoes at me.
I'm just being vulnerable up here.
But God now has me and he's like, boy, I'm going to give you two more daughters so
that we can really implant this in you.
And so my thought process is changing and I'm starting to think more
like my heavenly father because transformation is taking place.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
You see, we can be converted and that's a lot of behavior
modification, a lot of our desires.
But when we start to desire what he desires, think the way he thinks,
that's when we start to really reflect and become the image of
Christ, which we were intended to be.
He goes on and he says, they will keep you from being ineffective and productive in
your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we're growing, again, we're not ineffective, no, we're
productive, meaning we're living a fruitful life the way God intends.
But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind,
forgetting what they have been cleansed from their past sins.
You know, if we're not growing, if we're not going after these
things, then we become blind.
We become nearsighted.
We can only see things, but we don't see the spiritual realm.
It's or we become forgetful and we forget what our past life was like.
What's the result of that?
Spiritual damage and destruction and oftentimes affecting
others in the process.
I read this quote and I want to read it says a lack of spiritual
growth is a sign of spiritual death.
When we lack spiritual growth, it's a sign that, that there's some trouble.
We need to have some warning signs.
We need to heed those and take our faith seriously and get help.
Then it goes on.
It says, therefore, my brothers and sisters make every effort to
confirm your calling and election.
For if you do these things, you will never stumble and you will receive a
rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
Again.
Yes, you're gonna.
He says not stumbling.
I mean, you'll never sin.
But if you think about this if I'm growing in all these attributes I
probably will have a lot more victories over sin in my life, wouldn't I?
But I won't stumble and fall meaning I won't leave God But I'll be welcomed
and have my eternal goal of eternity with my Savior Again, there's so many
things that are compelling about Jesus compelling about a life in Christ But
brothers and sisters It is incredible that you and I have the opportunity and
we are in the process of transformation of being transformed from who we were,
who we are into being like Jesus.
You know, people of faith will not stand still.
The nature of our discipleship is to grow and this transformation is
available, but we have to do our part.
And so what's the response to all of this?
I believe it's this is to make every effort, you know, to give our best to
God, to give our very best to growing spiritually, not a little bit, not
just some, but giving our very best.
Some of us in here, we've maybe never made that decision to seek Jesus.
And so my encouragement would be to you to take a faith of step toward God.
Get some help, study the Bible so you can see what is this
transformation that is offered to me.
Let's get real practical here.
Here's an action step here for the week here.
And so it's real simple here, and it's to pray through the list in 2 Peter 1
through 5, or chapters 1, uh, verses 5 through 7, every day this week.
Just during some time, whether it's in your devotional time in the morning, in
the evening, whatever the case may be.
Spend some time and just pray through this list.
Right now we're going to take communion.
The emblems represent Jesus body and blood that was broken
and spilled for our salvation.
And we read again in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 10 it says, Therefore my
brothers and sisters make every effort to confirm your calling and election.
For if you do these things you will never stumble and you will receive a
rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It's because of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.
And resurrection that we have a chance to not only participate in the divine
nature, but also in eternal life in him.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, I thank you so much for your word today.
I'm excited.
God about growing.
I'm excited about seeing the church collectively grow.
I'm excited about us growing individually and thank you for
giving us your Holy Spirit.
Thank you for giving us the word.
Thank you for giving us the church and relationship.
Thank you for giving us the example in Christ on how to live.
And God, we thank you that Jesus persevered, and God, that all the
qualities listed in second Peter, Father, all those Jesus demonstrated.
And so Father, we pray that we can have the strength and you can help guide us
to make good decisions so that we can make every effort to add to our faith.
We thank you for your grace and your mercy.
We know we don't earn salvation.
That's not what Peter says at all.
Salvation is offered, but we respond by giving you our very best.
And father, we thank you that Jesus made every effort for
our salvation in his name.
Amen.