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Now, if an apostle walked in here this evening and we had a chance to have him come up and lead a question and answer, and we would say to the apostle, tell us what our priorities should be, what would you say if that apostle said to you, the most important question you could ever get answered in this lifetime is the question, am I numbered among the elect?

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That is the most important question, not just for Christians, but for everyone. Am I numbered among the elect? Am I saved? Welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing youg Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and today we're continuing our series in Second Peter. Perhaps you have struggled with assurance, or maybe you're not sure what it means to be truly saved. If that's you, then I'm glad you're joining us today because RC Sproul will help us understand not only how we're saved, but also how we can have assurance of that salvation. Well, here's Dr. Sproul in 2 Peter chapter one.

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We're going to continue our study of the second epistle of St. Peter. I will be reading from chapter one, beginning at verse five and reading through verse 11, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self control to self control, perseverance to perseverance, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short sighted even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. For if you do these things you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Peter has already spoken about the glorious majesty of the God who has called us by glory and by virtue, and who has given us exceedingly great and precious promises. And then he goes on to say, for this very reason, because of what God has done for us, we ought to be giving all diligence, that is, that our approach to learning of God is not to be done in a frivolous, a capricious or a cavalier manner. It is to be done with earnest application, with careful study and inquiry, by applying ourselves diligently to every word that has proceeded forth from his mouth. And to expand on this diligence to which he is called Peter then gives us a long list of things about which we are to seek diligently. And as you heard that list being read moments ago, you couldn't help but notice how similar that list is from lists that the apostle Paul will often set forth, most notably in that list that he gives that we call the fruit of the Spirit, that is, these virtues that are to follow upon faith, these virtues that are supposed to be manifest in the Christian life. And let's look at them briefly. That we are to add to our faith virtue. To virtue, knowledge. And to knowledge, self control. To self control, perseverance. To perseverance, godliness. To godliness, brotherly kindness. To brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and you abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, at the beginning we saw that in all probability the great enemy that was threatening the church here to which Peter was addressing himself was the intrusion of the Gnostic heresy, where the Gnostics were called Gnostics because they claimed to have a superior type of knowledge above and beyond that possessed by the apostles, a knowledge that was gained through some direct mystical perception and not by diligent thinking. And Peter again and again throughout this epistle brings us back to the subject of the acquisition of true knowledge, the true gnosis, which is that knowledge that is revealed by God and is found here in His Word. And so here when he gives these lists of virtues, he says, if you have these virtues in your life, you will not be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the knowledge of God, the true knowledge of the things of God, is not a knowledge that is satisfied with mere abstract propositions, but it is a knowledge by which we are equipped for virtue. And that's why we are called to be diligent to seek the knowledge of God, not to get a degree in theology, not to receive the accolades of men, not to be known for our intelligence, but that we may learn from God and gain the mind of Christ. And so he says, if you had these virtues, you won't be barren, you won't be unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things, Peter goes on to say, is short sighted. Even to blindness. He is myopic. He is myopic like Mr. Magoo to that degree, so that he can't see his hand in front of his face. He is short sighted, Peter says, even to blindness. You know that image of blindness is used again and again in the word of God to Describe the natural tendency of people who live in darkness and who will not have God in their thinking and who proclaiming themselves to be wise, become fools because their minds are darkened. We find people out there with 2020 vision who are blind to the things of God. And you can see those who are blind because their lives are barren of the fruit of the Spirit and of the fruit of the virtues that Peter has listed herein. He who lacks these things is shortsighted even to blindness. And now he's directing this critique not however, at the pagan, but to the Christian, where Christians can become shortsighted because they have forgotten that he has been cleansed from his old sins. You know, David understood that when he wrote in the psalm, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. I'd like you to just take a moment to do a little reconnaissance in your own personal life, in your own personal pilgrimage. I want you to think back to the first time that you realized that God had forgiven you of all of your sin. And I want you to try to recall what that did for you. The freedom that that brought to your soul, the peace that came to your conscience, the joy that came to your heart. And yet how easy it is to forget what God has done, to forget that he has forgiven us and in Christ, has made us clean. Now Peter comes to an extremely important teaching that drips of theology. And people who don't like theology will certainly not like the this little bit of data. It's the conclusion of these remarks, the place where Peter is taking us when he says, therefore, brethren, be even more diligent. Now do you see what he's just said? He said, I want you to be diligent, industrious, careful to apply yourselves, to add to your faith, virtue and perseverance and loving kindness, brotherly love, all these things so that you won't be barren, so that you won't be fruitless. But there's something about which I want you to be even more diligent. Now, if an apostle walked in here and this evening and we had a chance to have him come up and lead a question and answer. And we would say to the apostle, be it Paul or Peter or John or whoever, we said to them, tell us what our priorities should be. What kinds of things should we be most diligent to learn, would we not be a little bit surprised if the answer said, you need to learn about the doctrine of election, but the doctrine of election or of predestination, not in the abstract, but with respect to your own person, what would you say if that apostle said to you, the most important question you could ever get answered in this lifetime is the question, am I numbered among the elect? Now, I realize that there are multitudes of professing Christians out there that don't even worry about such questions because they don't believe in election in the first place. In fact, if there's one verse that people appeal to in all of Sacred Scripture to try to deny the doctrine of election, it is a verse that we will examine later on in this same epistle. That verse that says, God is not willing that any should perish. And if it's true that God is not willing that anybody should perish, then manifestly, who needs to worry about election? You do. Because Peter is saying you need to be all the more diligent to make your calling and your election? Sure. Do you remember to whom the first epistle of Peter was addressed? To the elect. The doctrine of election permeates the Epistles of St. Peter. So we can't dismiss the doctrine of election simply to the machinations of the mind of the Apostle Paul or even to Jesus himself. It's everywhere, on virtually every page. No, I want to ask two questions. What does Peter mean by making your calling an election? Sure. And what reason does he give for being especially diligent to do that? Well, let's start with the first one. What does he mean when he says, to be all the more diligent to make your calling and your election? Sure. I had a person ask me that once and said to me, how can I know if I'm a Christian? And I said, well, let me ask you a couple questions. Do you love Jesus? Perfectly. I said, no. Do you love Jesus as much as you ought to love him? Of course, that's just the same question repeated, isn't it? And he said, no. And now whatever assurance he had when he asked the question is starting to slip out of his fingers. And I finally asked him the third question. Do you love Jesus at all? But I said, be careful. I'm not asking you if you love the Jesus that was portrayed to you at a youth camp. I'm asking you if you love. Have any affection in your heart for the biblical Jesus, for the Jesus whose person and work is set forth in the pages of the New Testament. Do you have any affection for him? And if that person says to me, yes, I do, I can tell what the disposition of my heart is. I know that I don't love him as much as I ought to, but I know I do. Love him. I want to see the consummation of his kingdom. I wish I didn't disobey him as much as I do, but I know that I have affection in my heart for him. And I said, okay, here's where your theology is so important. Because if you understand that the natural person, the unregenerate person, never has an ounce of affection in his heart for God, that it is impossible for anyone to have any love for Christ unless first the Holy Spirit has changed the disposition of your soul. Because by nature, not only do you not love him, you cannot love him. If now, in time and space, you have the slightest true affection for Jesus, and if the doctrine of election is true, then based upon your good theology, your assurance is solidified. So one of the best ways of gaining the assurance of salvation that you need to have is by understanding what salvation requires and of what it consists and how it comes to pass. That's where the learning of theology has such great practical implications. Now, again, what is Peter concerned about here? Before I close, I. I just want to look at the end of this, is that he is not talking about this diligent quest for the assurance of your election just for the sake that you can sleep tonight, just so that you can stop worrying about what your status is in the kingdom of God. But let's look at it. If you do these things, that is, if you are diligent to make your call and election, sure, if you do these things, you will never stumble and an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Dear friends, regeneration, we say, is monergistic. It's not a joint effort between you and God. You cannot cause yourself to be born again. You cannot do anything to help yourself to be born again. Your rebirth is totally dependent upon the monergistic, the sole working of God, the Holy Spirit, who in his sovereign immediate power raises you from spiritual death. You are utterly, completely passive in that action which is the beginning of the Christian life. But from that moment until you die, the whole pilgrimage, the whole progress of your Christian life, is a synergistic action, one that does involve a cooperation between you and. And God. You know, the apostle Paul tells us that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, with all diligence, because God is at work within us both to will and to do. That's a cooperative activity. Everything after rebirth. Now, what Peter is saying here is if you want to have a fruitful Christian life, if you want to grow in grace. If you want to move forward in your sanctification, one of the most important things that you can do is early on in your walk, make sure of your election. Because those who are sure, with the sound reasons of assurance of their election, are not like those who are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. They're not double minded people who are up one day and down the next. But they're people who know that their destiny has been settled from the foundation of the world. When I talk with my Christian friends who, you know, just kick and scream against election predestination everything I say, you don't know the sweetness of these doctrines. You just don't understand how valuable these are in the Christian life. To know that your final destination is in God's hands, not yours. And the irony is, the more sure of that you are, the more likely it is that you will bear forth fruit in abundance. You know, we say that the purest flower in God's garden is the tulip. T for total depravity, U for unconditional election, L for limited Athena, the Five Points. And we also say in a teasing manner to our Arminian friends that their favorite flower is the daisy. As a semi Pelagian never knows for sure, he sits there and he takes the daisy and pulls the petals. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. Daisies don't give you much substance of hope for your eternal destiny. But when you know the truth of election and the efficacy of God's calling inwardly in your souls, that matter is settled and you will begin to bring forth your fruit in your season, being, as the psalmist said, like a tree planted by rivers of living water, bringing forth abundant fruit, God grant that it will be so with us. Amen.