The Anatomy of a Disciple Overview / 2 Peter 1:3-15 / Philippians 2:12-13
If you have your Bibles, turn to 2 Peter chapter one. I’d like to spend just the beginning of our time together reading an extended passage for us, just to frame out where we’re going to head in our time together. If you have your Bibles or your phones, flip there again—2 Peter 1, starting at verse 3.
As you’re flipping there, my name is Brad. I get to hang out with some of you here today who might be new with us. We are very committed here at The Well to the scriptures. We’re very committed to life change, and we’re very committed to shaking us up a little bit. You know, sometimes you come to a place of worship and maybe you’re just wanting a hug. And then there are sometimes you leave and you need a hug after. I think this is going to be one of those times where we need to shake ourselves a little bit and challenge ourselves to grow.
My contention is, as we begin this season together, if we are not careful, we grow very soft in heart and very calloused to the things of God, and we fade from what he has called us to do.
Look at 2 Peter 1, starting in verse 3:
2 Peter 1:3-15 (NASB)
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 moral excellence, and in [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 in [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 the 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 of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied 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]. I consider it right, as long as I am in this [earthly] dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my [earthly] dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.
The Danger of Spiritual Drift
Peter, at the end of his life, is reflecting upon the people he has ministered to for decades. He is considering how they started and how they were finishing, and he recognizes the difference. Early on in the passage, he talks about them in the beginning being marked by Christ—their lives were devoted to Christ, and their lifestyle confirmed their salvation. They took what God gave them freely and built upon it. They added to it virtue, and knowledge, and steadfastness, and patience. There was a sense that their faith was an active, growing thing. They weren’t passive spectators. Christ had given them the greatest thing they could ever be given—salvation—and therefore, for that very reason, they got busy.
But something began to happen. As he goes on in that passage, he says over time they began to drift away. He says those whose lives do not possess these qualities are nearsighted or blind, having forgotten that they were cleansed from sin. So Peter comes along and says, “That’s why I’m about to stir you up by way of reminder.” We just need a good talking to. We need a good halftime speech. As often as I’m with you, I am going to stir you up by way of reminder, so you can see what God has done for you and live according to what he’s done for you.
If we’re candid, the church as we know it is in tremendous crisis. Not just our church—I’m talking about the big-C Church. Everybody. Everyone who claims the name of Christ, we are in major crisis, and I think it’s for two primary reasons.
The Crisis of Inactivity and Compromise
The first reason is that most people are not actively growing in their faith. If we’re candid, most people aren’t growing at all. Most people come to faith in Jesus, show up at church now and again, and go, “Dude, what do you want from me? I’m here!” As if somehow Jesus called us to himself just to show up here. Now granted, I’m glad you’re here and I think that’s a good step, but I don’t think that’s everything God wants for you.
When we make Christianity a spectator sport, you get bored, and I would too. The last thing I would want to do is sit there and listen to this voice every week. What is it that God has called us to do? We come and we watch, we observe, but there is no active engagement in our faith.
The irony is that we are actively engaged in all kinds of other areas of our lives. We’ll count calories. We’ll beat ourselves to death in the gym. We’ll get all kinds of feedback at work. We’ll obsess over our latest hobby. But when it comes to Jesus, he gets an hour on a Sunday. The problem, of course, is that an hour on a Sunday is not sufficient for us to grow.
Worse yet, we’re a mess, but we do nothing about it. We learn to live in the low-grade tension of sin. We learn to justify it. At first, the conviction is strong, but we ignore it. So it’s not quite as strong the next time, and we keep ignoring it. It gets weaker, and we keep ignoring it. Then we call it normal: “Well, that’s just what guys do, right? I’m a guy, so that’s what I struggle with.” Or, “Well, you know, I am a sinner.” As if it’s okay for us. As if there’s no sense of a progressive journey. As if God doesn’t want us to engage, to grow, to pursue him, to lay aside the old self and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of Christ.
So we throw it in spiritual neutral, and we just sit. It’s a little thing—a little sin here, a little compromise there. We hit mute on the voice of conviction by the Holy Spirit and go, “I don’t want to hear that; I’ll deal with that later.” We distance ourselves from people who speak truth to us or who live differently than us. Why? Because it’s too convicting, so we just fade away. We don’t outright break up the friendship; we just distance ourselves enough so they know about us, but they don’t really know us. We find ourselves hiding who we really are, and in the process, we become comfortable in compromise.
The Failure of Behavior Modification
The second problem is this: let’s say you go, “Okay, I’m sick of that. I want to grow.” How do you grow? What action steps do you take? For some of you, you’re saying, “I’m tired of living in compromise. I want to pursue Jesus.” Great. How do you do that?
It depends on who you ask. We all would say, “We need to be more like Jesus.” Okay, what does that look like? How do I become more like him? Unfortunately, we tend to move straight to the external. We begin to modify behavior because Jesus was a good guy, so we try to be good guys. But at the heart of the gospel is not “try hard to do good.” For any of you who have tried hard to do good, you know that’s a wicked cycle, isn’t it? You try hard to do good and you fail. You try hard again and you fail again. Finally, because you’re a smart person, you realize that if you try hard to do good but constantly fail and the outcome never changes, maybe you just shouldn’t try so hard and not worry about being so good.
In those moments, we do what so many Christians choose to do to our own demise: we just fake it. We just smile. We say, “Hey, isn’t this great?” As if that’s normal. As if that’s what God wanted. I want to stir you up by way of reminder to say: I think there is more.
Now, when I say “more,” you’ve got to be careful. Some people say, “Oh, the way you grow is by doing more.” If spiritual activity were really the way to spiritual growth, we would all be giants. People will tell you, “You need to read more, pray more, give more, serve more, share your faith more.” Those are all good things, but on their own, they are short-lived. They’re not going to produce long-term life change.
Yet that’s the model we throw out there. We jump on the religious treadmill and get busy. The church fills our social calendar. We’re in a women’s group, a men’s group, a couples group, a recovery group, a prayer group, an accountability group, a quilting group, a hunting group—we’re busy! But we’re still not growing. We’re around Christian things, we’re around Christian people, and we even look and act like Christians, but that still doesn’t mean we are actively growing.
Some people say it’s just a season-of-life thing. When I ask, “Tell me about the sweetest days of your relationship with Christ,” how many of you think it’s back there in the past? I talk to so many folks who go, “Oh man, high school—that’s where it was at! No responsibility, right? Nothing to worry about. Just me and my Young Life buddies winning all my friends to Jesus. But then I graduated, got married, and now I don’t lead anybody to Jesus anymore. I just live off the vapor of high school.” Or others say, “College was the best! Ditching class, road trips with friends, Campus Crusade, FCA… man, those were the good old days. Bible study at eleven at night every Tuesday until three in the morning.”
Why is it that we assume spiritual growth was meant for a season and then it ended? Why is it that the good old days have to be behind us, instead of us figuring out how to make today the good old days? What if the Apostle Paul had said, “Well, I’m getting old now, so I’m just going to quit my ministry”? Or what if Peter had said, “I was really effective until I got married, and now I’m not”? Christianity would look very different.
The Cost of Real Growth
A wise man once said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be what you’ve always been.” If you don’t like the way things are going, change the way you do things.
What I want to try to do over the next five weeks is hit the reset button and see if we can change the way we do things. I want to invite you into a journey with me. I don’t want you to just passively listen; I want you to lean into this. For some of you, these concepts will be familiar. You’ve heard them before. Great—can I stir you up by way of reminder? For some of you, this is brand-new information. Lean into it. Let’s grow spiritually.
I want to caution you, though: it’s going to come at a cost. If you want to grow spiritually, it is going to demand some things from you:
- You are going to have to uproot sin in your life, and that’s painful.
- God is going to shine light on those dark places you’ve been trying to keep off the grid.
- You are going to have to relinquish control, because he is very good at being God, and we are not.
- You are going to have to come out of hiding. You’re going to have to quit faking it. You have to realize God already loves you for who you are, and you don’t have to impress anybody. Embrace who you are in him and leave behind the competitive urge to look better than those around you.
- Ultimately, you’re going to have to get uncomfortable.
A friend of mine once said that at the edge of uncomfortable is where you find greatness, and I think that is so true. If you’ll go there, maybe for the first time, Christianity might actually be a ton of fun. Walking with Jesus might become more than just a list of dos and don’ts. It might actually be the joy of your life to wake up every morning, take a deep breath, and say, “God, what do you have for me today? Who are you going to bring into my life? What are you going to show me to make me more like you? Let’s go!”
The Gospel That Saves and Sanctifies
Where does spiritual growth begin? Spiritual growth begins and ends with the gospel.
When I say “gospel,” most of us are familiar with the first part. You say, “Oh, the good news of Jesus—his death, burial, and resurrection.” Without question, the gospel saves. If we are justified in Christ, we have peace with God. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the propitiation—the satisfaction of the wrath of God. Without a shadow of a doubt, the gospel is where it begins, because without Jesus, we have no answer for sin. You have to embrace Jesus and the gospel right up front. There is no good work, no “do good, be a good person” effort that can earn the favor of God.
The problem is, we typically stop there. We don’t talk about what else the gospel does. The gospel not only saves; the gospel sanctifies. The word sanctify means to make holy. The gospel saves you, and the gospel makes you holy.
Scripture tells us that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
Romans 8:29 (NASB)
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to become] conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
God is doing something through the gospel to make us more like Jesus. But we tend to think sanctification is a work of our own effort alone. That’s what the church in Galatia thought, so Paul challenged them.
Galatians 3:3 (NASB)
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Were you saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, only for God to say, “Now, in terms of growing—good luck, you’re on your own”? Is that really the gospel? No! God initiated your salvation, and he initiates your sanctification.
Titus 3:5 (NASB)
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
He saved us not on the basis of deeds done in righteousness, but according to his mercy. He initiated it. And he is the one who initiates us becoming more like Jesus. Having begun by the Spirit, we are not perfected in the flesh. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is going to convict you, and that is good. That is normal. Don’t freak out when you feel conviction and think, I’m the only one struggling with this. No, you’re not.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (NASB)
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. But God is faithful; he will provide a way of escape so you can endure it. That’s the excitement of the Christian life—when God says, “Hey, you ought to work on that,” and you realize, I never even thought of that before.
I came to Christ in a fraternity house. What kind of godly life are you living in a frat house? You’re not. So the list of things to work on was massive. Where do you begin? God just picks one thing and starts there. Then he picks another, and another, and another. That’s how spiritual growth happens.
God’s Initiative and Our Response
Look at Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13. This phenomenal passage shows us how God’s initiative and our response go hand in hand. In many ways, this is the key to spiritual growth.
Philippians 2:12-13 (NASB)
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.
Paul says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. “Fear and trembling” doesn’t mean being terrified because God is an ogre; it means reverence, respect, and awe. It means saying, “You are so awesome, and I am so grateful for what you’ve done, that I want to live in a way that pleases you.” You have a responsibility in your salvation to become more like Jesus. It’s like what Paul writes in Romans.
Romans 12:1 (NASB)
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship.
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. What more could you do, based on what God has done for you, than offer yourself to him? That’s what it means to work out your salvation. We ought to be focused on godliness, focused on growth, and dealing with sin in our lives.
Now look at verse 13. It’s not all up to you: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Take ownership of your faith, yes, but recognize that it is God working in you. He initiates, and we respond. He calls, we respond.
Years ago, we held a leadership conference in Hawaii. A bunch of us ex-wannabe athletes were challenged by some local Hawaiian guys to an outrigger canoe paddling contest. I looked at these older guys and thought, Look, no offense, but we’re going to destroy you. We were big, strong guys. We jumped in our boat, while these leather-faced Hawaiian men lined up next to us, already laughing.
They said, “Go!” Every guy in our boat turned himself inside out. My lungs were burning, human effort maxed out, paddling with everything we had. But our boat moved like a tugboat dragging an anchor. Meanwhile, the caller in the front of their boat simply chanted in rhythm: “Row… Row… Row…” And every time he called, they pulled together. I kid you not, it was as if their boat levitated right out of the water. They were gone!
Why? Because he called, and they responded.
We tried to do it through sheer, uncoordinated human effort, and we went nowhere. If the caller had said “Row” and the crew just stared at him, they wouldn’t have moved either. But when he called, they moved together.
If Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep who hear his voice, and he says, “Row,” and we just stare at him—no wonder we’re not growing! We’re bobbing in the water looking foolish. On the flip side, we can exert all the human effort we want, but if he hasn’t initiated it, our effort is useless.
When he calls, you row. What does that look like? When you pray, and God lays something on your heart, you do it. That’s a win. When you read the scriptures and see, “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way,” and you think, Man, I need to treat my wife better—he said “Row,” and you rowed. That’s a win. Or a brother comes up to you and says, “Hey man, are you okay? You seem really angry.” Instead of getting defensive, you say, “You know what? You’re right. I am angry.” God said “Row,” you heard his voice, and you responded.
The Inside-Out Transformation
The key to this dynamic is developing an awareness of his voice. God begins to transform us from the inside out through four concentric circles:
- The Heart: Spiritual transformation doesn’t start with external behavior; it starts in the heart. Until our hearts belong to him, there is no hope for genuine life change. He calls us at the heart level, we respond, and momentum begins.
- The Mind: From the heart, it moves to the mind. Left to ourselves, we don’t think straight. When I looked back at the decisions I made purely in the flesh, the report card was awful. God has to renew the way we think.
- The Choices: Once your heart and mind are being transformed, it spills over into your lifestyle. It begins to direct your choices, your habits, what you participate in, and what you walk away from.
- The Compassions: Finally, it reaches the outer circle: our compassions. Biblically, compassion isn’t just feeling sorry for someone; it means being moved to action. It’s the place where you say, “Someone needs to do something about that, and I think that someone is me.” It’s getting your hands dirty.
You don’t start by trying to fix the outside world. You let God change your heart, renew your mind, direct your choices, and then go change the world as he leads.
He Will Finish What He Started
God is already at work in your life right now. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, God wants you to be more like Jesus today. He is calling us out of mediocrity, out of compromise, and into holiness.
How do I know?
Philippians 1:6 (NASB)
[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. God is a finisher. You didn’t come to Christ because you were exceptionally smart or spiritual; you were dead in your sins, and he made you alive. He started this work, and what he starts, he finishes.
Right now, God is moving in your life. Right now, he is inviting you into the adventure of life change. He is highlighting things in you that he wants to transform.
As he calls, will you respond? When he says “Row,” will you pull the paddle? If you do, he will complete what he started, and you will become more like Jesus.
Let’s pray together.
Father in heaven, I am so grateful for the hope we have in Jesus—that the gospel saves, and the gospel sanctifies. Father, for my friends here, would they feel the excitement of what could be as you stir in them fresh affections for Christ? As you call and they respond, would you give them eyes to see and ears to hear what your Spirit is doing? Remind us that you don’t just use super-spiritual people; you use ordinary people like us. Make us more like Jesus, we pray. May the beginning of this journey be marked by an active awareness of your Spirit at work for your glory. We thank you for the privilege of being yours, for you alone are worthy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.