Is that good? Okay. Okay. Good evening. How's everybody doing? Quiet. All right. Let's hope that you're a little bit less quiet here in a few minutes. You want to stand with me and we'll open in a word of prayer and sing the praise to sing some praise to our Lord. Dear Heavenly Father, I just thank you for bringing us all here this evening. Lord, I just pray that you just

be here with us and help soften our hearts so that even what we're not expecting to hear from you tonight, God, we would be able to hear. Lord, I just pray that as we sing these songs, it would be a prayer to you and just giving you the praise that you deserve. Just pray this in your name. Amen.

As I are, every song must end. Cause all that, cause all that I have is a hug. Cause you've got, cause you've got, and praise you. Cause all that I have is a hug. It's not much, but I've nothing else fit for it. How sweet the sound. Saved a wretch, life was lost, but now was blind. It's great. Grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace my fears relish as did that grace appear.

My chains are cut, his ransom. My chains are been set. My sin is ransom. The son. Thank you for blessing us with music. God, I just pray that as Nick comes up to share from your word, Lord, I just pray that you would just fill him with your spirit, that you would speak to each and every one of us, that it wouldn't just be words on a page, Lord, but that the living word of God would come alive

and speak to us this evening. I just pray this in your name.

How's everybody doing tonight? Who's still recovering from Thanksgiving? Better question, who is still eating Thanksgiving leftovers? That is when you know it's a great meal. All gone. I heard that one. Hey, tonight, obviously I'm not Pastor Ryan. He is out for the night. So please be in prayer for him as always. Tonight, we're going to be looking in 2 Peter chapter one. So 2 Peter chapter one,

and I titled this Belief and Works Leads to Growth. Sometimes we have the words in the sky, but we'll see. Maybe not tonight. Sometimes technology likes to join along. Sometimes it doesn't. But 2 Peter chapter one, we'll go ahead and start there. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of God, our Savior, Jesus Christ, grace and peace

be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord. Seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply more and more of your moral excellence, and your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness,

brotherly kindness, and your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.

For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will abundantly supply to you. Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you. Amen. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by the way of the reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, and it's also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me, and that I will also be diligent at any time in my departure you'll be able to call these things to mind. Verse 16, for we did not follow cleverly devised tales

when we made known to you the power and coming to our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. So when we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning starts, we will be well pleased. And we will be well pleased

until the day dawns and the morning starts. And we will be well pleased. And we will be well pleased. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love you so much. And God, thank you just for allowing us to

come together. Lord, I ask that whatever lesson you want us to hear, God, whatever lesson that you want to get your point across, that the Holy Spirit will just break down our walls, open our hearts up. God, let us hear what you have to say. Allow these words to be applicable in our lives. Let us just continue to transform our lives for your glory. Let us look to you for

everything that we do, God, that we point all back to you. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. So I came across this, obviously, because if you're paying attention within the weekly reading that we've been posting every single week, it's been so helpful because our small group of people, we've been posting every single week. We've been posting every single week.

Our small group, which I highly encourage, if you are not part of our small group, please get in one. Ours is truly like a family. We hang out all the time. We break bread. We have such amazing fellowship. I would get involved in one if you can. It's truly a family. But it's been so encouraging because every single week when we meet, we talk about the weekly reading. And so as I'm going

through the weekly reading, I come across 2 Peter. And as I'm sitting there reading through it, I'm studying, and I just, I can't put the book down. I'm sitting there at my work, and I've done this so many times. And I got to... My boss isn't here, so I'm safe to say this. But I'm sitting there working, and then all of a sudden, I'm reading. And then I'm working, and then I'm reading. I'm looking at schematics or blueprints,

and all of a sudden, they ask me a question like, hey, can we build this? And I'm like, in the name of Jesus, yeah, we can build it. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's 32 million. Hang on, we can't build that. Wait, time out. We got to find another solution for that. So it's just this, I just could not put it down. Every time I kept reading and diving more into it,

I'm like, oh my goodness. I love Peter. I love 1 and 2 Peter. It's amazing. And so, just to give a little intro to Peter, we remember that Simon was his given name at birth, but Peter was a special name that Jesus gave him to call this man rock-like thinking and behavior. Some have said that Peter didn't write this letter because the subject and style are somewhat

different than 1 Peter. Yet, the purpose of the two letters are extremely different. 1 Peter was written to encourage Christians under the threat of violent persecution. 2 Peter was written to warn those same believers of the danger of false teachers and harmful influences. I love Peter and studying 1 and 2 Peter because he reminds me kind of like that blue collar kind

of guy. Like he's nothing fancy. You know, he's that generic type of food that you pick up from Walmart. Like you're not paying over price or anything like that. You get what you get from him and he's just black and white. He's not sitting in master's, you know, or in a seminary with three master's degrees. He's got two dissertations and he's working on his thousand

page, you know, essay that he's got. He just gives it to you exactly the way God wants it to be done. Nothing fancy. Easy to understand. And we're going to dive right into the first chapter and we're going to break it apart. And I'm excited for this. But to really understand, I have three points. But before I get into that, I want us to understand from the three points,

there's a blueprint. All right. And from that blueprint, it's to a believer's mental, physical, and spiritual growth. And what does that mean? If I have the blueprint for growth, for that spiritual growth, what does it have to do with anything of my mental or my physical? Obviously, some of you are like, Nick, we know you're not right with Jesus. This kind of wide base you have. I understand. I'll get

to that here in a second. But check this out. If you are dealing with mental, right? If you're struggling mentally, maybe you had a tragedy happen in your life. Maybe just, man, life just keeps punching you in the face and you just can't get back up. Maybe you're angry or you're hating people. You're just so frustrated. It's like, I can't do this. Let me ask you, if you're in that

mental state, how can you go closer to Christ? So then go to the physical aspect of it. I don't mean the physical body, like I said, because I love Ike's Donuts. Big fan. Big fan. He does not pay me to say that up here, but I wish he would. But the physical, what I'm talking about is the laziness. How many of us are lazy? How many of us struggle with that? And what I mean by that is laziness. Laziness is the result of what? Well,

if you get down to all the true meaning of sin, if you get down to the true reason, it all leads to selfishness. You know, in Scripture, it talks about no sin is greater than the other. It all weighs the same. God hates the sin. He wants nothing to do with it. It's all in the water. But then when we look at every sin that's ever taken place, why was it done?

Selfishness. You know, as the fathers in here, we lead our families. We set examples. And how many times, I mean, I know for myself, I'm speaking, when I'm acting selfish, my kids see it and they start acting. And I'm like, hey, quit doing that. Like, you're being selfish. It's rude. Like, well, dad, you just did. I'm like, oh, that hurt. You're right. That selfishness gets inside. And so we got to understand is that when

we're choosing to be selfishness, the result of that is our laziness. And so when we start being lazy, it's like, you know what? I really don't care to pick up my Bible right now. I don't really want to be around people. I don't want to go to church. I don't really want to spend time with God right now. I don't want to do this. And that laziness becomes so addicting that we just kind of

get in these bad funks and we don't get out of it. And so when we're being selfish, we're not them. We get stuck. And the last is a spiritual. If we're not right mentally, we're being lazy. How can we grow spiritually? And that's what Peter is talking about here in this first chapter. He's like, you got to understand that if you guys want to grow, if you want to have that belief,

if you want to have that works, which leads to the growth, then you have to have all three in line. You've got to be right in all three. It matters. So look at verses one through 15. It says, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and the Jesus of our Lord, seeing that his divine power is granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who's called us by his own glory

and excellence. For by these, he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped corruption, and that is in the world of lust. It's important to note the first titles. Look how Peter opens up the very first one, the first verse. He says a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ. He's

humbling himself as even writing this letter. He's like, check this out. I am nobody. I'm a nobody. I'm nothing greater than what I am. I'm simply just a bondservant first to Jesus Christ. After that, I'm an apostle. That's all I am. He's not. He's not boasting. There's not pride. There's not selfishness. It's not, hey, look at me. Look what I'm doing. It's first, I'm putting in the level of respect of where it's deserved, and it's

back to God. He's like, man, I'm just a bondservant. I'm a nobody. I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. But then if you look at farther into verse one, it says, to those who have received a faith of the same kind of ours. I'm going to flip back between the KJV because I actually like how the KJV in chapter one really takes these words, and I think it drives a harder punch.

And so I'd encourage you, go back and read in the KJV the first chapter, because in KJV it says, like a precious faith. Why does it matter? What's the difference between what we're reading here in the KJV of saying the precious faith? What makes it so precious? Better question, how many times do we ask ourselves how precious is the faith that we have? How often do we take it for granted? Well, if you remember Peter, he's writing this letter to the

Jews and Gentiles, right? Those people, like, not cool. They are not going to take it for granted. Family. Like, they don't mix well. They don't like each other. History tells us it's well documented. It doesn't belong together. They have frustrations, their lifestyles, the people, the languages. It does not gel. But what Peter's saying here is like, listen,

you've got to understand that what you believe and what you believe is precious because it's the same faith. I love seeing, you know, if I watch like a three-hour segment of news, it gives like two minutes of like actual positive news, right? And I love when there's, like, opportunities that are taken around the world of people worshiping the same God. And it's like, man, that is so cool. Or VBS has taken place, and you've got this,

you've got these people that are walking down the streets with all these kids, and they're coming to know Jesus. And we're like, that is awesome. That is special. I love that. And then how many of us are like, you know what? I want to go. I want to do it. It's so unique, and it just grabs a hold of you. Because that same faith that we have, truly precious, but so often we can just take it for granted. We're like, you know what?

I have easy accessibility. I can drive to church Sundays and Wednesdays. Ryan will always pick up the phone. I'll call him or text him. It's not a problem. But the same faith that we have here is on the other side of the world. Same exact faith. And so Peter's like, man, you've got to understand how precious this is. Look at verse two. It says, Grace and peace are two of my most precious gifts. Why?

Why would he list those two? Like, I could think of like 10 different other words that probably would have been more impactful. Why grace and peace? Why are those so significant? Check this out. Mercy refers to not receiving the punishment one deserves. Sounds like Old Testament. While grace means receiving the gift or favor that one does not deserve, and grace means receiving a gift

or favor. Excuse me. In scripture, mercy is often equated with the gift or favor that one deserves. The deliverance from judgment, Deuteronomy and 1 Timothy. But grace is always extending of a blessing to the unworthy. Also carries the idea of bestowing a gift. What does that sound like? The gospel. You don't deserve this gift, but I'm going to give it to you anyways,

because I love you. And where does that come from? God. Love comes from God, and from that is peace is shown, and that gives us an opportunity. And people are like, man, you're really weird. Like, you're giving me a gift I don't deserve. I don't really know you. Why are you giving me something of yours? What's the reason? Let me tell you why. There's this guy I know. His name is Jesus.

Look what he did for me, and look what he did for you. You see how that opens up? But if we sit there and we're too busy, like, man, you messed up. You really deserve this judgment, but I'm just going to not do that to you. I'm going to actually hold it over your head for quite some time, or I'm going to think negative about you. Do you see how that connotation can switch? It's more

of saying, you should be punished. I'm going to hold it over your head, but maybe I won't, where you're going to be punished. I'm going to hold it over your head, but maybe I won't, where you're saying, listen, you don't have this. Let me give you this gift. You don't deserve it, but I'm going to give it to you. Why? Because I care about you. I love that. Mercy is often equated with the

deliverance from judgment, and grace is always extending of a blessing to the unworthy. Also, Carrie's idea of bestowing a gift or a favor. Verse four, for by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped corruption. That is in the world by lust. His magnificent promises. As we know, God will gain these.

We know God, we gain these essential foundations for salvation and living. We have to understand is that when we have that relationship with Christ, we start to gain these essential foundations. Why? Because that's a relationship. That's what we do on a daily basis. But the problem is, especially with church nowadays, is we sit there and we're like, you know what? I'm going to go to church on Wednesday and Sunday, and that's good enough.

No, it's not. That's not why Jesus is sat there and died on the cross. It's not the way God intended this to be. It is supposed to be a daily relationship. And in doing so, you gain that relationship. You gain that knowledge, and you understand God even on a deeper level. Why does that matter? Because when you get in situations, you understand how to handle

them properly. When you get in tough moments, you're like, you know what? I can't do this. Only God can handle it. But we have to understand that if we're going to sit there and understand these magnificent promises, we have to know him first. It's amazing how we're willing to try almost anything except the knowledge of him, right? God's like, listen, I'll give you the knowledge

for everything that you need. I'm here for you, but you got to come to me. We will trust in the schemes and plans of men instead of the knowledge of him. We try knowing ourselves. Isn't it amazing like we'll try to go to church on Wednesday and Sunday, and we're like, you know what? I'm going to go on social media. We'll try to follow, you know, pop stars. We'll try to take anything we can to

our friends and be like, hey, how should I handle this? You know, this person did handle this situation that way, so I probably should do the same. Why? Why are we following other mankind, or why do we even think for the audacity that we can handle situations or problems or tough moments in our life by ourself? God's like, I'm here. This is what I'm here for. I want to help

you. I love you. We need to come to the same thing. We need to come to the same thing. We need to come to the same place as Paul did when he said that I may know him in Philippians. Psalm 138 says, I will bow down towards your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth that you have magnified your word according to your name.

Why are we not getting in the same position in that passage in Psalms and bowing down to God and be like, this is yours. I can't do it. I can't handle it. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's coming next, but God, you do, and I'm going to give it to you. But instead we use our phone. We rely on our friends. We look to put our trust in human beings and in our leaders. And it's like, God's like, I know what's happening next.

I know what's happening. Trust me. Trust me. It's going to be okay. Cause I'm here to protect you. And that leads me to my second point, consistent improvement through grace. So, right. So you remember when I was talking about that blueprint, right? We have the blueprint, how to grow. How do you do that? Through your mental, physical, and spiritual growth, right? So point number one, the believer's path, the vision. So we see the

blueprint, right? So the point two is how do we get from here to here on the blueprint? How do we achieve that? Look at verse five through seven. Now for this very reason, also applying all diligence and your faith supply moral excellence and your moral excellence, knowledge and your knowledge, self-control and your self-control perseverance and in your perseverance, godliness and your

godliness, brotherly kindness. Brotherly kindness, love. Once again, KJV, it says giving all diligence. I think that's more impactful. Why? Because I'm giving something. It means I have to give up something. That means I have to work for it. I have to earn it, right? We are partakers of the divine nature, but once we are made spiritual sons and daughters, growth in a Christian life, it doesn't just happen.

It's not old. It's not like the old school where you just go to watch the matrix and you just download everything. And then, you know, everything about God, it's not how it works. You do it by doing it. You do it by doing it. You do it by doing it. You do it by doing it. You do it by doing it. This is how you get to know him. I've said this before and I've preached it to teenagers. Like,

listen, if you don't go home and talk to your mom every single day, what's going to happen? Your mom's probably calling you and she's going to spank your butt. Maybe not. Maybe she won't spank you. Maybe you're too old for that. She'll just take your phone away. No? Some of the kids are like, don't ever touch my phone, mom. Real problems. But like, think if you didn't talk to

your mom, you didn't talk to your family or something. They'd be worried. What would be happening? Well, nothing's growing. There's no communication. And so God is saying in here is like, listen, giving all diligence. What does diligence even mean? If you look at Hebrews 11, six, it says, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. Check that out. But without faith,

it is impossible to please him. For he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them diligently seek him. The Greek word that's used for diligently here is exito. And that means to zealously seek for something with all of one's heart, strength, and might. And so the question I'm asking you tonight is, what is your heart seeking for?

What are you applying your strength to? Because God's like, listen, if you want to come after me, you have to fully commit. It's not just a commitment on Wednesday. It's not a commitment just on Sundays. It's not a commitment when tough, you know, you're going through tough times. It's every day. What are you seeking for? What is your heart desiring? What are you applying your

strength and might to? You know, so many times we sit there and we excel at our jobs so we can get accolades. We can get more money. Our salaries increase. We can get a bigger house, more friends, social media, whatever we're chasing after. But I'm telling you, at the very end of the race, what is the return?

What is the return of all of that? You can't take it to heaven. What are you seeking? Because right here, Peter's telling us to zealously seek for something with all of your heart, not halfway, not three quarters, not be like, man, on Sundays, I'm all for Jesus. And Monday, you act like you don't even know him. And people are like, dude, I thought you were a believer.

I thought you knew that Jesus guy. You act just like me. So why would I wake up early on Sundays? Why would I stay Wednesday nights? I don't get it. Why do I got to read this big, giant book? Makes no sense. You act just like me. We look just like the same. I don't understand. And so the question is, what are you seeking with your heart? What are you chasing after? That strength that you have, that you're using,

it reminds me of the movie that Hacksaw Ridge, where the guy, he's at the top of the mountain. He's like, I can't do that Tennessee voice or West Virginia, whatever it is. I can't do that slang he's got. But he's like, just God, give me strength for one more. One more, God. And he prays all through the entire night as he's bringing these soldiers down. He's a medic and he's bringing them down

and he's helping them, essentially saving their life because they would have just been killed by the enemy. And so through the entire night, he's sitting there and he's got this rope and he's almost like a carabiner. He's wrapping around his waist and he's just letting them down. And he's got no gloves, right? You can't just go to your auto zone and go pick them up real quick and then

help the guys that are pretty much bleeding. He's got no gloves. He's got no gloves. He's got no gloves. He's sitting there letting them down and the rope is tearing up his hands. And at the very end, the guy that gets dropped down that he's helping, he's like, God, give me strength for one more. Give me strength for one more. And he keeps doing it over and over and over all through the night.

And so the question to you is, what are you applying your strength for? What is your heart chasing and desiring after? Because right here, Peter's like, man, to zealously seek for something with all of one's heart, not half, quarters, all of your heart. My wife and I were talking about Francis Chan. He's a really cool speaker, very impactful. Him and his wife, they put out this podcast and they're explaining of

how they sold everything of their house. They had the white picket fence. They had everything they wanted, lived a very comfortable lifestyle, very successful speaker, truly godly man, love listened to his sermons, and he sold everything. And so somebody was asking him, like, why? Why would you do that? You bought it all at a premium price and then you sell it for

nothing. He was like, what difference does it make? I have all this, but I can't do anything with it for God's kingdom. I can't take it with me to heaven. So why do I need it? He said, if God called me right now, I'd be willing to walk right through the gates of heaven and say, God, I'm here. I hope I served you well. I wonder what our attitude is like and how many of us would look

back and be like, man, I really want to take that with me to heaven. How many of us would do that? It's such an amazing story, right? These three verses, five through seven, it simply means that God wants us to be a well-rounded Christian life, complete in every fashion. God doesn't want you just to have that perfect attendance on Wednesdays and Sundays. He doesn't want you just to be that

prayer warrior. He doesn't want you to be that person that's always supplying meals for people who need it. He doesn't want you to be the person that collects every single version of the Bible. He doesn't want you to be the one who's your greatest volunteer. What he wants is your entire life. He wants you to be vulnerable. He wants you to have that personal relationship with him

every single day. And so that's what Peter is expressing here to the Jews and Gentiles. He's like, what we have together, we may live different lifestyles. We may talk in different languages. We may look different, but we share the same precious faith. And sometimes our churches, our own churches that have same faith, similar faith, we're in such arguments,

and we're so worried and concerned about, oh, use that version of the Bible. Man, you don't have communion every single week. Oh my goodness, you have LED lights. And we worry about the petty things. It's like, what are we doing? We have the same faith that God sent his perfect, one and only son to die on the cross, that if we choose to accept that we have an opportunity to spend heaven or spend eternity in heaven, but yet we're so worried about, man, if I tie that 9%, that's not good. I better be at 10%.

said. That church, they got those sweet LED lights. I don't know. Just don't know. It's sad. Verse five, giving all diligence. These vital qualities are not just things that the Lord simply pours into us as we passively receive. Instead, we are called to give all diligence to these things, working in partnership with God. In order for us to receive these qualities,

that means we have to know who God is. And as we get to know God, as we spend time with him, that character, that development of that person, it starts to look towards God. It starts to glorify him in everything we do. You know, there's someone in our small group that we talk about very often where they're very scared, very timid when they walked in day one. And you could tell they

were very uncomfortable. They did not want to be there. And now we're a couple of years later, into it. And it's amazing how their heart has truly transformed, where now that person is leading a ministry. Now they are eager to talk about the scripture and open up and they want to have more prayer. They want to spend more time with the believers that we're surrounding

ourselves with. It's a family. They desire for that. And it's amazing. That's just a perfect description of what's happening here. It's that partnership with God. That brings me to point number three, living out what you believe. This is the hardest question is the why. We have the blueprint, right? We see the entire blueprint. All right. And then we got to figure out how do we get from here to there. But the question is why?

Why do you believe what you believe? Some of us say, well, my parents, they took me to church when I was young. I've always done it. That's just kind of what I followed suit. Or my wife makes me come. I hope none of the guys are saying that. Why do you believe? I think that's such a tough question. I think that's such a tough question. I think that's such a tough question. I think that's

sometimes for people that we don't know how to answer it. Verse eight, for if these qualities are yours and increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Increasing, seeing these qualities from time to time is not okay. Let me say it again. Check this out. Increasing, seeing these qualities from time to time is not okay.

Christ is saying, listen, I don't want you to be increasing your faith, what you think is increasing on just two days a week or three days a week. What he's saying is I want you to be increasing your faith on just two days a week or three days a week. What he's saying is I want you to be increasing your faith, your trust, your relationship with me every single day. I want it every day. You would

want it every day. And this is where it gets tough. Verses eight and nine, for these qualities are yours and are increasing. They render you neither useless nor unfruitful. Now check this out. What if you flip that? What if you're not applying these qualities yet you know them? Now you're like, oh, Nick, don't, don't offend me. Don't call me that. Listen, I didn't do it. It's written

in the scripture. If you know the qualities and yet you're not applying them, are you being useful to the kingdom of God? Are you being fruitful? So the better question is then what are you doing for the kingdom? When God looks at you and he's going to judge you one day, he's going to look at you like, man, I gave you all the tools. I tried and wanted to have a relationship with you. I'm

telling you right now, if you don't apply them, you don't grow that relationship. What were you doing? How were you being? Useful. Where was that fruit? That's where it gets really tough. Verses 10 and 11. Therefore, brethren, be all more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing for you. For as long as you practice these things, you'll never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into

the eternal kingdom of our Lord, Savior, Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. It is possible for the unsaved person to do many moral and religious duties. It is possible. It is possible for someone to do many moral and religious duties. It is possible for someone to sit there and do a whole bunch of good things for the rest of their life. But the question is, how much good do you have to do in order to get in heaven?

What's the number? Tell me. I don't know it. In fact, nobody knows it. Because it's not based on a number. It's based on, do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Peter wrote of all matters of the heart and should be evident in anyone born again. Simply said, if we are called, if we are elect, then we are born again. If we were born again, it shows in

the way we live. So you need to be asking yourself that self-evaluation. If you were to evaluate yourself right now, what does it look like? Would other people see Christ in you? The way you act, the way you talk? If some of you are saying no, then you need to get with Pastor Ryan, you need to get with Pastor Allen, you need to get with Jesus. And you need to get that right.

You got to get that right. It should show in the way that you live. So that means it's every day. I love sports. If you know me, big sports fanatics, I love having conversations. I love the analytical part of it. That's just who I am. So the cool thing is I have the mic, you don't. So everybody in the live stream can't hear what you say if you disagree with me. So in sports, you could say the greatest football team

is the Patriots, right? Now, in my personal opinion, I think they cheated half of them. And that's the beautiful thing. They can't hear what you, if you disagree. But I think Tom Brady too, Tom or Tom, Bill Belichick cheated on half of them. It's just my opinion. But, still, at the end of the day, they had to earn the others, right? But we all know for what their

football has been producing, which is just boring results. They win, they do their job. And if you don't do your job, they ship you off. Thankfully, Jesus doesn't do that. We're not a baseball card. But the coach, Bill Belichick, he said, listen, do your job. That's what I'm paying you to do. You do it right. And we're going to practice these drills every single day. Think how monotonous it

would be to do the same drills. You're not learning essentially anything new. You're just preparing for those moments. And now we look back in the Patriots with Tom Brady had won seven of those chips. How impressive is that? We know that. They do this even though they know the techniques because they want the victory. For this reason, Christians should never get tired of hearing the basics of

the Christian life. We should rejoice every time in Jesus and in the gospel and this plan for our lives is preached. So what does that mean? I remember this one time I heard the story of David and Goliath. Heard 20 times. In fact, I even preached it numerous times. It's like big deal. Little guy, big guy, little guy, bink, knocks the big guy out. Know the story. But then this one speaker, he said to me one time,

he's like, hey, I want to challenge you. What is your Goliath? I was like, well, I know a guy who's like seven feet tall. No, no, no, no. What is your Goliath? What's standing in front of you? What's holding fast to you? What is causing you to stumble? What is trying to separate you from God? What distractions are holding you back? What idols? What sin? What

problems? What cause? What is going on in your life that's causing that Goliath to stand in front? And I was like, man, I never heard a talk like that before. Did I know the story? Absolutely. But did God teach me something in that moment? Absolutely. And so what I'm saying is just because you read through the entire Bible doesn't mean we can just write it off and say, yeah, yeah,

I know the story. The beautiful thing is that this is living. It's true. It's always teaching us. It's always molding us. Verse 13 and 14. It says, I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by the wave reminder, knowing that laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent. And also our Lord Jesus Christ has made it clear to me. This is Peter's urgency in his heart. Because as verse

15, he talks about, he's preparing. He's like, it'll also be diligent that at any time after my departure, you'll be able to call on these things to be reminded. He's saying, listen, I'm not here with you forever, church, the Jews and the Gentiles. I'm not here with you forever. But what I'm telling you right now is you have somebody who will always be. And that's God. He's there to remind you always. Verse 17, for we receive the honor and glory from

God, the father, such an utterance as this was made by him, by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son from who I am well pleased. I wonder how many of you ask yourself, if you go to heaven right now, because I'm worried. If I were to stand right in front of God, I don't know how, he would respond. Would he say, my beloved son, my beloved child with who I am well pleased. Is he

pleased with me? If I stand in front of God, I'm like, hey God, I'm here. How'd I do? Did I represent you well? Did I glorify you? Was I a disgrace? I'm sorry. How would God look at you and respond? He would tell us he loves us. He's going to, you know, we're going to, we're going to celebrate being in heaven together. But I just sit there and think about that. I'm like, man, is God going to

say, I'm proud of you. I'm well pleased with you. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. Verse 19. So we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you, you do well at pay attention as to the lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rise in your hearts. This is referring back to Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus because they represented

those caught up to God in Jude and in second Kings. They, Moses, he represented the law, right? And then the prophets, Elijah, Moses, and Elijah also connected with the prophecy, having a strong connection to the witnesses of revelation. So you can see full circle that God that was in the old Testament has never changed with God. That's in the new Testament

and he never will. And he gives us these promises and that's what's just, truly amazing. And you continue to read and he says, I heard this voice from which came from heaven. I mean, think how neat it would be like Peter, he's sitting there, he's hanging out with the disciples and all of a sudden he hears this voice and he's like, this is my son. I am well pleased. I'm like, Morgan Freeman, looking all around, confused. Like who is talking? Where did

that voice come from the clouds? I am super confused. I've also wondered what does God's voice sound like? Because at that moment, Peter knew it was God. So he recognized it. But God says that is my son and I'm well pleased. Look at this verse 19. So we have prophetic word made for sure to which you do well at pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place. This is once

again, the KJV, they say do well to heed it. This is where it gets super confusing. My mathematicians, I need you. There are at least 332 distinct old Testament predictions regarding the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled perfectly. The combination of this evidence together, and this is where I love to say, man, science and religion doesn't mix. Yeah, absolutely. It does. Sometimes we just

choose to ignore it. From a simple statistical perspective, this is absolutely overwhelming. Professor Peter Stoner has calculated the probability of any one man, one man fulfilling eight of these prophecies is one, and there's three, six, nine, 12, 15, 17 zeros, and a one. I don't know what number that is, but it's 10th, 10 to the 17th power. My mathematicians like,

that's pretty impressive. That number of silver dollars would cover the state of Texas two feet deep. That's just eight of the prophecies, but yet there's 332. Stoner says that if, that if you consider 48 of the prophecies, the odds become one in 10 to the 157th power. I have no idea what that means. My calculator couldn't even pull that up either. So I agree

with the calculator. No idea. That's when you know that no man, man could ever fulfill the prophecy. Not a human being, not a man, not any of us in this room could ever fulfill those prophecies in Old Testament. That's how we know the word of God is real. What Jesus did on the cross, it's real. It's living. It's alive because those prophecies were fulfilled. They came true. Verses 20 and 21. But you know, first of all, that no prophecy of

scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation for no prophecies ever made it by an act of human will. Even in Peter's day, the enemies of Jesus twisted Old Testament prophecies, giving them personal bizarre means, attempting to exclude Jesus from the fulfillment. It sounds like today we still do the same thing. We still try to take Jesus out of the equation.

We still try to take the prophecy. We try to take the word of God and tree as a buffet table. Like, you know, I really like this, but I don't like this in the Bible. I'm just going to take it out. That's not how it works. It's not how it works. God's like, listen, it's all or nothing. You can't just pick and choose. But Peter says that prophecy is not of any private interpretation. It's a meaning of evidence and can be confirmed by others.

The same principle is true for the gift of prophecy today. There must be sober confirmation for any prophetic word and that through another prophetic word, but through the scriptures, it is a gift of prophecy. Look at that last verse, 21. But men moved by the Holy Spirit. I want to end with this quote. Augustine, he said, the truth is like a lion. You don't have

to defend it. Let it loose and it'll defend itself. The truth is like a lion. You don't have to defend it. Just let it loose. The problem is if you don't know what the truth is, how can you let it loose? You know, for a little over 2000 years, I've been trying to nitpick the Bible, tear it all apart and find errors and mistakes and controversial subjects and problems to try to make it,

to split it apart. Trying to find holes and they can't. Why? Because Jesus is like, check this out. I'm going to let the lion loose and I've got nothing to worry about. But too often we don't do that. We try to defend it ourselves or we don't even know how to defend it. We don't know enough about it. So the question is, are you getting in the word of God? Are you spending time with him? What

does your relationship look like? When's the last time you sat back and you've done an evaluation? Are you zealously chasing? Are you chasing after God with your entire heart? Or is it something that's distracting you? What is stopping you? Peter says it really careful, really easy. Listen, the gift that was given to the Jews and to the Gentiles, it's precious. It's free. It's there for you. You just have to choose it if

you want. No strings attached. That's all it is. And once you have that, once you choose to accept it, you should be able to let the lion go. And when you have your own I'm like, you can always come back and do it again. And there's nothing you need to learnt. There are two ways to do it. There are two ways to do it. There's the first way, which is to just let God take it on your own and then let

the lion go. Let the lion go, let God's word defend itself because at the end of the day, it always wins. It will always win and always defend itself. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for someone like But at the end of the day, because I know Jesus, because I have that relationship with him, I can lean on him. I can look for him to help me, to guide me, to give me the answers,

to get me through these tough situations. Lord, if there's anybody in this room that's just struggling right now, if they just have distractions, God, if they're not right with you, they'd go see Pastor Ryan, Pastor Alan. Have those difficult conversations, and I know it's uncomfortable. It puts you in a vulnerable position. But God, that we would get it right.

We would choose you over everything else. God, thank you so much for Calvary. Lord, I ask that we just continue to be a light in the Ark City. We love you, give you all the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.