Make Your Calling and Election Sure
2 Peter 1v8-12
12th January 2024
We continue with our study of 2 Peter Chapter 1. In verses 5-7, Peter has been exhorting us to make every effort to grow in goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. He now says:
2 Peter 1v8
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective
and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I only have one life on earth, and I'm most of the way through it, and I want to use the time left to me to do God's work. I'm nothing special, and neither are you, perhaps, but Ephesians 2v10 tells us that God has prepared good works for us to do. Every one of us can make a difference. We'll be effective and productive in God's service if we grow in these Christian virtues, and we'll be ineffective and unproductive if we don't. And, as we seen, we'll grow in these things if we develop our knowledge, both head knowledge and personal experience, of God.
2 Peter 1v9-10a
But if anyone does not have [these virtues] he is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that he has been
cleansed from his past sins.
Therefore, my brothers, make every effort to make your calling and election sure
We can't stand still. Either our love for God will grow or it will shrink. Either we'll see things as they really are more and more clearly, or we'll become more and more blind to the truth. Either we'll learn more and more about God or we'll gradually forget about Him.
Peter repeats the phrase "make every effort" from verse 5. He's talking about the same things – the same process – that he was talking about before, of growing in Christian virtue. Now he tells us of a second consequence of this effort. Not only will we be productive in God's service; we will make [our] calling and election sure. What does he mean by this?
Of course, God doesn't doubt your calling and election. God knows whom He's called. He knows whom He's chosen. He knows everything. He certainly knows who His people are. Peter isn't writing about making God sure you're saved. God knows you're saved. He's writing about you being certain you're saved.
"Election" means "choice". We use the word every 4 or 5 years when we "elect" – that is, "choose" – a government. God chose us before the beginning of time to be His and to become like Him, to participate in His nature. Because He chose us, God has called us into His kingdom, into His family, into relationship with Him, and He's making us more and more like Himself.
Some Christians know with great certainty that they're saved – that God has redeemed them from their previous life, and included them among His people, that they're destined for heaven. They don't doubt this. Other Christians do doubt that their sins are truly forgiven, that they are truly born again, truly God's. Peter says that the way to what we call assurance of salvation is to make every effort to walk the Christian walk, live the Christian life, think as God thinks, and do things God's way, and thus grow in godly character. As we see God's character being gradually formed in us, we will be more sure that He has indeed saved us. As we grow in knowledge, we will be more and more sure of God's promise to keep us safe, and His ability to do it.
Our enemy can be very subtle. He seeks to persuade those Christians who have doubts to give up on the Christian life because of those doubts. God, speaking through Peter, says exactly the opposite. He says banish those doubts by committing to the Christian life, and they'll fade away to nothing. When we reduce our commitment to God, we doubt. When we increase our commitment, we lose those doubts.
James 4v8b
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
So again, the key to the Christian life is knowing God better and better. Not just knowing about God, and not just having personal experience of God, but both.
2 Peter 1v10b-11
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 Saviour Jesus Christ.
When Peter uses the word "stumble" here, he isn't claiming that we'll never sin. James 3v2 says, "We all stumble in many ways" and 1 John 1v8 says, "If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves". Peter means that if we continue to grow in Christian virtue, we will never fall away from faith in Christ.
You can't stay still. Either you move forwards or you fall back. If you want to be certain that you're truly saved, if you want to ensure you never fall away, and waste your life, keep working on these Christian virtues. Then you'll grow closer to God, peaceful and assured in the knowledge that you're His and you'll always be His.
2 Peter 1v12
So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established
in the truth you now have.
We need to hear the same messages over and over again. We can forget some of the basic truths of the Christian life. Peter wrote this letter not long before he was executed. He wanted his last letter to the people he cared for to be about our God, Jesus Christ, about the wonderful salvation Jesus has won for us, about his full provision to us of everything we need for life and godliness, and about how we can best enjoy all He has given us. That is, by growing in relationship with God, and by becoming more and more like Him. He wants us to remember that we're God's chosen people, as he wrote in his earlier letter, in 1 Peter 2:9, and to be fully assured that we are, indeed, God's people, saved for eternity.
Does your Christian life seem less fulfilling than it was ? Do you feel like you've plateaued spiritually? Do you even doubt you're truly saved? If any of these are true of you right now, then invest in getting to know God better. Your character will grow more Christlike, you'll be closer to God, you'll experience a deeper grace and peace, And you'll see more fruitfulness for Jesus in your life.
May God bless you as you continue to seek deeper relationship with God, as you grow in Christian character, as you serve our Lord in this life and the next, and as you continue to co-operate with the Holy Spirit as He shapes you to be more and more like Jesus Christ. Amen.