Sermon: Sunday, 22nd February, 2026
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: 2 Peter 1:5-11
In this passage, Peter wants us to ‘make every effort’ to do something. What have you chosen to ‘make every effort’ to do recently? Perhaps it was to lose weight, or finish a project at work, or decorate a room, or develop a friendship. I’ve made considerable effort to try and socialise and train our puppy, with mixed results. But it took time and hard work.
What is it that God, speaking through the apostle Peter, wants you to make every effort on? We read: ‘For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.’ (2 Peter 1:5-7) In other words, Peter wants us to make every effort to work on our Christian character. He wants us to be growing and developing in Christlike character qualities.
Peter is not asking us to try a wee bit harder. This word ‘make every effort’ means to do something with great earnestness, haste and zeal. Peter is passionate that we focus on our Christian character. He wants this to be a massive focus on our lives, and not something relegated to something we spend little time or effort on. He wants us to try our hardest at being godly. What does godliness look like? It looks exactly like the list of these 8 qualities we find in verses 5-7.
1. Becoming more like Jesus takes considerable effort
If I want to become fitter, it doesn’t just happen by itself. I need to eat the right things and make sure I exercise properly. It takes time and effort. Godliness is the same. We don’t just wake up one morning and look in the mirror and think, ‘I’m godly now.’ Becoming more like Jesus is hard work and requires us to make ‘every effort’ to do so. Friends, this is simple and yet profound. The obvious question is, are you making every effort in this area? Or are your time and energy all going to work and family and entertainment and physical health? This is a challenging question for us all. Perhaps we are not determined to grow in this way as we undervalue the power and importance of Christian character.
Before we get too upset about another thing we are supposed to be doing, I want us to see the wonderful balance Peter gives us in this passage. Yes, we are to make every effort. However, as we saw last week, ‘… [God’s] divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life…’ (2 Peter 1:3) So, when it comes to becoming more like Jesus, it’s not just down to us. There’s a balance we need to grasp: God has given everything we need for a godly life and so now we need to get on with using those resources in our daily Christian walk. We are to make every effort, but Jesus gives us his power to enable us to do so. This is synergy. It happens when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. What resources has God given us? Daily prayer and Bible reading is the obvious foundation. And hearing God’s Word preached and putting these teachings into practice is also vital.
Angus Macleay: ‘Our growth in godliness is all about the continual cooperation between Christ and the believer.’
Think of a godly person you know. Do you think they just woke up like that one day? Of course not! The godly people we know have all worked hard on their Christian character. They have been prayerful and keen on reading and understand and putting Scripture into practice and they have fought hard against wrong desires, desires which never go away this side of eternity. Godly people who have been lazy with these things do not exist. They have made every effort.
Think of how a sailboat works in the wind. Of course, a sailboat cannot create the wind and yet relies upon it. Without wind, the boat goes nowhere. God’s divine power is the wind. However, there are things the sailor must do: she must: raise the sail, trim the sail properly, positioning it in the right place, steer the rudder and adjust to conditions. If she sits passively, the boat drifts. If she tries to row against the wind in pride, she exhausts himself. Good sailing needs human effort and wind power! Together, real progress can be made. The boat only moves when the wind fills the sail, but the sail must be raised. Sanctification is not rowing in our own strength; it is positioning ourselves to be carried by the Spirit. It is to be found with an open Bible. It is to be found on our knees. It is to be found in church.
2. Becoming more like Jesus has a clear pattern
This is the pattern: faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection and love. All of these character qualities are seen so clearly in the life of Jesus himself. Think about them as you read of how Jesus interacted with people and long to live in the same way. We know that we will never be perfect until Heaven. Nonetheless, God is telling us here that we should: ‘… possess these qualities in increasing measure…’ (2 Peter 1:8) In other words, we should be heading in that direction. We should be growing in these areas. Over time, we ought to be able to see progress.
Notice that the list, just like our Christian lives, begins with faith. Faith in Jesus is the foundational character quality. We hear the voice of Jesus and trust he is telling the truth and we lean into his promises. In John’s gospel, Jesus meets a royal official whose son is dying: ‘The royal official said, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies.’ ‘Go,’ Jesus replied, ‘your son will live.’ The man took Jesus at his word and departed.’ (John 4:49-50) Friends, we need to be the kind of people to take Jesus at his word. If he says something is going to happen then it is.
We are to pursue goodness. Goodness means ‘moral excellence’. Jesus was a man who went around doing good. (See Acts 10:38) We are to be intentional about doing good to others too. We are to be growing in our knowledge. As we know our Bibles more and more, we will be better equipped to know and to carry out the will of God. This takes effort. You cannot short-circuit studying God’s Word. If you find that hard to do on your own, then come along to the mid-week Bible study and the Ladies’ Bible study.
We need to see progress in our self-control. Do you have more self-control now than two years ago? It is the ability to say ‘no’ to wrong desires we have and to the temptations which often come our way, particularly sexual temptations. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit and needs to be valued highly.
‘Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.’ (Proverbs 25:28)
Pray, ‘Lord, build up strong defensive walls of self-control in my life’.
Perseverance or endurance is the ability to keep on going even when circumstances are tough or when we’re persecuted or discouraged. So many people seem to be falling away from Christ right now; perhaps there has never been a greater need to pray for perseverance. It’s easier to follow Christ when all is going well in life, but what about times when everything is coming apart at the seams? Pray for godliness, which is the ability to please God in every area of our lives. We want to be those who seek the will of God, and because of that we will seek the welfare of others as well.
This leads us to the next quality, brotherly kindness or mutual affection. If we love Jesus, we need to love all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a family.
‘Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.’ (Hebrews 13:1)
‘Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.’ (‘Romans 12:10 )
Peter saves the most important quality for last – love. This is the kind of cross-shaped, sacrificial love which Jesus modelled for us on the cross.
Douglas Moo: ‘Love is not only the last and greatest Christian virtue; it is also the glue that holds all the rest of them together, the quality without which all the others will be less than they should be.’
I hope it goes without saying that we must not treat these virtues like a ‘pick and mix’ sweet stand at the cinema. We must ‘make every effort’ in all eight areas. But perhaps one or two of them struck you as areas of weakness as we explored them just now. Why not turn that feeling into a prayer? Ask the Lord to strengthen these qualities. There is wisdom on focusing on a few items of the list if we feel a particular lack. Or why not memorise these eight virtues and turn them into a prayer list you return to frequently? We look for progress in these areas; we will never reach perfection in this world.
3. Becoming more like Jesus has several benefits
Let’s focus on 3 of them.
3.1 Peter tells us that it makes us fruitful and effective Christians. This is so encouraging and positive. If you have a character genuinely growing in these 8 areas then you will have a positive impact on your family, work colleagues and neighbours. V8 says: ‘8 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…’.
Warren Wiersbie: ‘Some of the most effective Christians I have known are people without dramatic talents and special abilities, or even exciting personalities; yet God has used them in a marvellous way. Why? Because they are becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. They have the kind of character and conduct that God can trust with blessing. They are fruitful because they are faithful; they are effective because they are growing in their Christian experience.’
3.2 A life that pursues holiness also helps us to ‘make our calling and election sure.’ (2 Peter 1:10) What does this mean? It means that your fruitful living is evidence that you are truly born again. It is evidence that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. We know that faith without deeds is dead.’ (See James 2:17) The opposite is also true – as these Christian virtues grow within us, they are hallmarks that we are amongst those who have faith in Christ and have been chosen by him. Again, we receive this helpful confirmation not with perfection but with progress.
It is possible to be a Christian and to become stagnant. We are unlikely to have this assurance of faith in such a condition. ‘But whoever does not have them is short-sighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.’ (2 Peter 1:9) This is a warning to Christians who drifting along aimlessly in their Christian lives. What has gone wrong? They have forgotten to keep on looking backwards and looking forwards. When we are driving, we are constantly looking ahead to know what is in front of us, and good drivers are also looking in their mirrors to see what is going on behind them. As we drive through the Christian life, we must also keep looking backwards and forwards. We look back to the cross. We must not forget all that Jesus has done for us in the past. This is a great mistake. But we must also keep on looking ahead to the future of Heaven and the day when all our struggles against sin and all our efforts will have been worth it. In this way, looking back and looking ahead regularly will keep us on track, focusing on godly living. Are you doing this?
3.3 Finally, a life pursuing holiness will give us a rich welcome from Jesus into Heaven. ‘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.’ (2 Peter 1:10-11) Imagine you are at the airport and are in the arrivals area and you see family members meeting again for the first time in years. They throw their arms around one another. It’s a beautiful thing to see. This is but a shadow of the kind of welcome Jesus will give us in Heaven. We will be ‘going home’. Let’s look forward to the day when Jesus will furnish us with such a welcome. Now we know Jesus by faith, but one day we will know him by sight.
Someone met me for the first time in about 10 years and said ‘you haven’t changed a bit’. I took that as a compliment, even if it wasn’t true! However, if someone hasn’t seen us in 10 years and spend time with us and can say about our Christian character, ‘You haven’t changed a bit’ then that is a dangerous sign. May God help us, through his divine power, to make every effort to slowly but surely become more like the Lord Jesus Christ.