Standing on the Promises 2 - Standing and Striving

Standing on the Promises - A Study of 2 Peter Lesson 2 - Standing and Striving

Recap from last time: God desires that you: (1) participate in the divine nature, and (2) escape the corruption that is in the world due to mis-directed desire. To accomplish his desire; he gives you incredible promises for you to stand on.

2 Peter 1:5-7 And, for this very reason, after applying every effort, add moral excellence to your faith. To moral excellence, add knowledge. 6 To knowledge, add self-control. To self-control, add patient endurance. To patient endurance, add godliness. 7 To godliness, add brotherly affection. And to brotherly affection, add love.

1. Agree or Disagree: Effort is incompatible with faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone.

2. Isn’t faith in Jesus all that’s needed to be saved? Why would anyone need to try to add to their faith?

3. Making provision carries cost. What does it cost you to add these qualities to your faith?

4. To your faith, add moral excellence (goodness, virtue). We all have times of moral excellence, and times of moral terrible-ness. How do you become a more morally excellent person?

5. To your moral excellence, add knowledge. I though we already started with knowledge (in v.2 and v.3). How can you add knowledge to your already existing knowledge?

6. To your knowledge, add self-control (ability to command your ego, your self). On a scale of 1-10, how hard is self-control? Why is it that way?

7. To your self-control, add patient endurance (perseverance, long suffering, ability to bear under heavy weights, stick-to-it-tive-ness). To your patient endurance, add godliness (piety).

To your godliness, add brotherly affection (family type love).

8. Agree or Disagree: You should not have any more affection for your family members than for anyone else.

9. To your brotherly affection, add love (agape, sacrificial and unconditional love). How can you become a kind of person who loves others in this way?

10. If you don’t know a subject, say algebra, what should you do? If you don’t know how to be self-controlled, or loving, or godly, what should you do?

2 Peter 1:8-9 For if you have these qualities and they are increasing, they are going to keep you from being idle or unfruitful in regard to your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 Indeed, the person who lacks these qualities is shortsighted and, in fact, blind, because he has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

11. Do you always have to be increasing in these qualities? Don’t you ever get to the point where you have enough patience, or godliness, or love? Are we doomed to a never ending striving to get more of these things?

12. When the output doesn’t match the input, you have to question what is wrong with the machine. If God’s powerful promises are fed into the human “machine” but the output is often unproductive-ness and unfruitful-ness, what is wrong with the human “machine”?

13. Near-sightedness is a problem. Give an example of something that may make a person happy now, but is an unsustainable way to be happy across any period of time.

14. ”Remember the Alamo.” “Remember Pearl Harbor.” “Remember __________.” What are some ways that people try to remember really important things?