Are we seeing who we are clearly? Peter challenges us to examine our spiritual “sight.” Join Pastor Tim as we look to 2 Peter 1:9-11 to find out our prescription.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The sermon uses the Route 66 metaphor to illustrate how believers can become “nearsighted” and miss the signs God has placed in their lives. What are some specific ways the modern world causes this kind of spiritual blindness, and what practical steps can we take to stay on God’s “scenic route” rather than drifting back onto the generic interstate?
Peter emphasizes that God’s election and calling are already established—not something we need to earn or convince God to approve. How does truly understanding this change the way we approach spiritual disciplines like Bible reading, prayer, and pursuing holiness? Do you tend to practice these things out of solemn duty or genuine excitement about who you are in Christ?
The Moses example shows that failure and distraction didn’t change his identity as God’s beloved, but it did cost him the experience of entering the Promised Land. What consequences have you seen in your own life when losing focus on your calling—even while your standing before God remains secure—and how does that shape the grace you extend to yourself and others?
Peter calls believers to “confirm their calling and election” by practicing godly qualities—not to earn God’s approval, but to see His faithfulness more clearly. What does this confirmation process look like practically in your daily life, and how does it address doubts about whether God truly loves and has chosen you?
The sermon closes with the image of entering Christ’s eternal kingdom like an Olympic champion returning to a hero’s welcome. How does anticipating that future reality reshape your priorities today, particularly when the temporary securities the world offers seem more immediate and tangible?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad to be with you again tonight as we continue our series Growing. Tonight, Peter is going to give us what we might call a spiritual eye exam, and I think it’s so important that we take time for this. So let’s go ahead and come before our God in prayer and then we’ll dig right in. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your love. Thank you for your goodness to us. Lord, thank you for providing your Word so that we can examine our hearts through the power of your Spirit. Lord, would you help us to see those things that we are clinging to that cause us to have blind spots, to miss your truth and what you’re doing in our lives? And through that, would you wipe those things away so that we might be more focused on seeing what you’re doing, having joy in what you’re doing, and showing your love to others? We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, last week we talked about what Peter said the Christian life was supposed to look like. We looked at a number of fruits that should come out in the Christian life, but we may start to feel a little lack of confidence in the midst of this. We may start to wonder, well if I’m experiencing struggles with these things, what does that mean for me? Does it mean that God doesn’t really love me? That I’m not really in Christ? And it’s really important, and that’s why we take the time for this tonight, to see the confidence that we can have in who Jesus is.
As I was thinking about this, it reminded me of one of my favorite places to go in Missouri—if you can call it a place because it stretches across the state—and that is Route 66. If you look at Route 66, all across the state there are these signs that you’ll see, like the one on screen, that are right next to interstate signs often, telling you where to turn to stay on Route 66. These are necessary because back in the 1980s, when the road was decommissioned, they took down all the highway markers. It’s one of the great disappointments to me that here was this road that is one of the most famous roads in all the world, and it didn’t even have signage.
These signs they put up are nice, but the problem is they’re not always reliable. They’re not at every single turn. The thing I love about Route 66 is that when you’re on it, even if it’s only a mile or less off the interstate highway—and it often is only a few hundred feet—the scenery seems completely different. You see more trees and hills, and you see interesting buildings that were built years ago, and it’s just a delight to go down it. But then you miss that turn because the sign isn’t there, or it’s sort of obscured, and suddenly you find yourself going down an exit ramp like the one in the picture, and you’re back on the interstate highway, and it’s all just sort of generic and plain. You miss out on the wonder of everything that’s already there; you’re just not getting to see it.
Peter wants us to understand how this applies to our lives as Christians as well, because there are signs, and God’s signs are clear. They don’t change. They aren’t taken down. But sometimes in our own sinfulness, what we do is we put a hand over those signs, or we turn away. He says we get blinded to them, and that’s what we see when we turn to verse 9. So if you turn there with me:
Peter says, “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”
Satan, our sinful hearts, all the forces of the broken world love to blind us to the things of God, to redirect us so that we are so busy being pulled to those things that feel really urgent in our lives that we start to look at those, and as Peter said, we are blinded to the others. He says that you become so nearsighted that you’re virtually blind. We can only see what’s right in front of us, and we miss the expanse of what God is doing in our lives, in the lives of others, and in the future. And in doing so, we miss out on the comfort that we have when we see what God is doing.
Where am I doing that? Where am I getting focused on the wrong things? That’s actually our first question tonight—our biblical eye exam, as it were. This is a really important question to ask ourselves: Where am I blinded by focusing on the wrong things? Where am I putting my trust in things that aren’t really providing security to me, but I think are going to? The things that the world says are really important. You need to care about these things. These are the things that you need to put your energy into. And in doing so, I’m missing out on the fact that the God of the universe is working in my life and bringing out fruit, and that at the very core of that, He’s called me His own child.
If I can’t see things, if I’m too nearsighted to really see what’s going on around me, it doesn’t change the status of the things around me, but I lose the effectiveness in taking and using them, in enjoying them. It’s sort of like, imagine that you need to go cut something. We’ve probably all had this experience. I’ve had it more times than I’d like to admit. So I go and get my scissors, my trusty scissors, and then something interrupts me—maybe a phone call, maybe I see something else I need to do—and I go and do that. Then I come back and think, okay, it’s time to cut whatever it is I needed to cut. I start looking around, and where did I put my scissors? They have to be around here somewhere. I had them just a minute ago. Then I look, and there they are right on my hand, right where they’ve been the whole time. I become blinded to it. They weren’t any less there. They weren’t any less powerful or sharp, but I couldn’t enjoy them. I couldn’t utilize them. I lost that effectiveness because I was blinded to where they were.
And what Peter says is that in our spiritual lives, the power of God’s Word is just as sharp all the time, but we can become so blinded that it’s just like that scissors. It’s ineffective, even though it’s right there. And that’s why we need this time to ask these questions and allow God’s Spirit to show us those points where we are being drawn away from really embracing and enjoying what God has already done.
We look everywhere saying, “Well, why is it that things seem so hard? Why do I feel so insecure in my faith?” I start to wonder, “Did God really choose me? Am I really a Christian? Am I really faithful enough?” We start to ask all these sorts of questions, and all the time the Bible is right in our hand like that pair of scissors. God’s Spirit is in our hearts, but we’re blinded to what God is doing.
It’s really important to remember that Peter is speaking to believers here. Anyone who believes in Jesus, who’s been called by Him, can still struggle with these things, and it doesn’t make it any less true that God has called that person, but it means they’re missing out on the joy of seeing what God is doing. When we start to act like the world, when we chase after those things the world says are important instead of what God says is important, we start to become more and more blinded to what God is actually doing. And in the midst of that, then we start to lose our confidence in doing the things God calls us to do, because we say, “Well, maybe the reason I can’t do this is I’m not really one of His. Maybe I’m not supposed to be a Christian. How can I know that God actually cares about me?” But God’s Word gives us a new prescription, and that’s what we see in verse 10.
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
Peter says here that we should be diligent, but the way he says it, we should be excited. We should be recognizing that the God of the universe is working in our lives, and because of that, we want to embrace the calling to live as He’s called us to live—not out of a solemn duty, not because we feel like we’re afraid that God is going to smite us, but because we’re excited, because we know who we are, and we know that those things declare the status that God has already given us.
It’s really important to note here that Peter refers to this as making sure our election and calling. Now maybe we read election and we think, especially in 2020, “Ah, political election,” and we start thinking in terms of, well, basically God’s calling me to run some kind of really effective campaign, and if I run a good enough one of plenty of good works and please Him through those good works, maybe God will vote for me, and that will make my election sure. That’s not what Peter’s talking about.
You see, when the Bible talks about election, what it’s talking about is that from the very foundations of the world, God has known who you are and called you. So what Peter is referring to here is not the idea that you somehow need to convince God to elect you or call you. He’s been very clear at the beginning of this chapter: God has already called the people He’s addressing, both in that time and today.
Rather, what he’s talking about when he says to make those things sure is to spend the time to see what God is doing in our lives so that we can rejoice in what He has done already. If you recall, so much of what Peter’s talking about at the very beginning of this chapter is about receiving the righteousness of Christ, that gift that He gives us, that we partake of the divine nature, He says. And in that, He’s not talking about the things that we do, but rather He’s saying here that we need to spend the time to see what God is doing for us.
Imagine going to an eye exam and then leaving and intentionally putting on a pair of glasses that didn’t improve your eyesight but actually made it worse. And so often we do that in life. We add those spiritual glasses that make it harder to see where God is calling us. But Peter says here, as we do the things that He’s been talking about—as we exhibit the nature of Jesus by following Him and seeking to be more like Him—what do we do? It reminds us that the way we can do that, the way that we have the ability to show God’s love, to be patient, to be steadfast, the way that we do these things is God’s Spirit working in us. If God’s Spirit is working in us, it reminds us of who we are. It gives us confidence in our calling and election. And He says when we do these things, then we’ll never fall.
Now, you may think, “Well, I’ve been a believer for a number of years and that’s just not true. I’ve fallen plenty of times. I’ve failed to do what God’s called me to do. I failed to love Him. I failed to love my neighbor.” And what Peter is talking about here isn’t perfection in this life. He’s not saying if you do these things that I’ve been talking about, you’re never going to mess up. Rather, what he’s saying is that we will have the confidence to continue the calling that God has given us because we know who we are. We’re His sons and His daughters.
That leads us to our next question we really need to make sure to ask ourselves, and that is: Am I eagerly looking for the truth of who I am in Christ? Am I so busy in life looking at other things—how other people think of me, what kind of success I can achieve, the things I can do, even if they’re perfectly good things but they’re not core to my calling—that I’m missing out on the most important thing I can know, which is who I am in Jesus?
As we ask that question and come again and again to the knowledge of who we are in Christ, we start to see more clearly where God is taking us. And that’s so important, because as we look in this life, again, we start to look really closely because we’re just looking at today or tomorrow, or maybe we think we’re being really long-term by looking at a few months from now, maybe even the rest of our lifetime, but we forget the span of eternity that God has called us and loves us.
This calling that Peter talks about, that was true then and it’s true for any of us who believe in Jesus now, is true for all eternity. We have so much to look forward to, and that’s what we see in verse 11:
For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Commentators think, as Peter describes this scene of coming into Jesus’s kingdom, that he’s alluding to the way an ancient Olympian would have returned to his city after the Greek Olympic Games. If you came back a champion in the Olympics, they’d tear down a part of the city wall and build a special entrance into the city so that as you came in, they could celebrate the accomplishment of that Olympian, of that athlete, and all his athletic prowess. We’ve seen that image of athleticism throughout this chapter, thinking in terms of how we prepare for the race. Now Peter imagines that person returning and being celebrated, people cheering and excited.
What he says is this: Here’s what you need to recognize about what Jesus has done for you. As He works in your life, as He enables you to do what He’s called you to do, it’s all moving towards a time when we enter into His eternal kingdom and God Himself embraces us and celebrates us and the victory that He’s achieved in us.
This is for an eternal kingdom. Now the Romans liked to speak of Rome as eternal. They liked to think of it as lasting forever, but we know it didn’t. Rome lasted a very long time, but then it fell. And that’s true of everything we’ll trust in today. The things that we think of as eternal—or at least somewhat permanent—we cling to, thinking, “I’m going to hold on to this because this will provide me security.” And then it falls and it fails.
But Peter says there’s something that is eternal. There’s something we can run to and embrace and be embraced by, and that is God’s love and His kingdom that He invites us into. Whatever amount of celebration we might get in this life for our athletic prowess, success in business, or our ability to make friends—all those things are going to fall short. They’re going to come to an end. But God’s love doesn’t.
He’s saying, “I know what you want. You want to compromise because, yes, you know about these eternal things of God, but there are all these things that seem so important in this life, these things that we need to hold on to. We think this is going to make me happy. This is going to make me secure.” Peter says, “No, it’s not. What’s going to make you secure is Jesus and His kingdom.” And what we need to recognize is that it’s not just something distant, almost to be forgotten. It’s something that’s there—that we can see what Jesus has already done in our lives, and with that, we can have confidence that God is tearing down that hole in that wall and building that triumphant entrance so we can enter into His kingdom and see the God of the universe celebrate us, celebrate you, celebrate me because He loves us.
That brings us to our final question for the night: Do I live life with anticipation of what Jesus will still do? We know that Jesus has redeemed us if you’ve trusted in Him. If you haven’t and you’re thinking about it, maybe you’re thinking that would be a really nice thing to know, and I hope even tonight that you would accept Him as your Lord and Savior and you would know that.
We think, “Well, this is really great. I’ve experienced Jesus’s love.” Then again, we start looking at all those other things and we put our hand up and block out that sign that’s telling us to turn so that we don’t end up just back on that generic interstate, but we see the beautiful scenery on the scenic route. We get so busy with life we just end up right back on that interstate. We miss out—not on what Jesus has done for us; that’s as true as that scissors was in my hand—but we miss out on getting to use it to experience the fullness of God’s joy because we’re so distracted, so blinded by other things. When that happens, we lose the ability to do what God has called us to do. We get so focused on other things.
That’s what happened to one of the greatest prophets of all time, Moses. Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through God’s power. He saw what God could do. He actually came into God’s presence. God spoke to him from the burning bush to up on the mountaintop as he received the Ten Commandments. These things happened in Moses’ life. He knew who God was, and he knew God’s love for him. Yet in Numbers 20, we see where Moses has gotten distracted. He’s annoyed by the people grumbling—the people of Israel—and he wants them to love him. He’s lost his focus on God’s love for him and he wants the people to love him. He gets so frustrated he forgets what God’s commanded him to do in that moment and he does this, which we read in Numbers 20 verse 10:
“You see, Moses had become so focused on how the people were grumbling, he became blinded. He turned right back onto that interstate and the beautiful scenic route God had been taking him on, he missed out on. He didn’t get to finish the project that God had set out for him. He fails because he doesn’t recognize who he is.”
We see those consequences all the time as God’s calling us and we become distracted. We turn away and don’t recognize who He is. We have the scissors of His Word and His Spirit working in our lives, ready to cut through things that need to be cut, yet we can’t find them.
So Moses doesn’t lead God’s people into the land of Israel. We should pause there for a moment though, because what’s really important, and what Peter is very clear on here, and is also clear in the story of Moses, is it doesn’t change who Moses is to God.
We turn to Deuteronomy chapter 34 at the very end of the story after Moses has died. It talks about who Moses is, it talks about how God came to him and spoke to him, came into his life as a friend, and talks about how important Moses is. It expresses clearly God’s care for Moses. It didn’t mean that Moses lost his salvation or that God no longer loved him. It just meant that he lost the experience of being effective, of getting to enjoy the very joy of God in that moment.
And that’s true for us too when we fail. It doesn’t mean God cuts us off and says He doesn’t love us anymore. But it does mean that we miss out on that beautiful scenic route, that wonderful path God has for us in that moment that we can enjoy, that we can rejoice as we come into the very presence of God. And in that, then we start, just as Moses did, to lose confidence. We struggle to love our neighbors and struggle to love God because we start to doubt as we look at our lives and we just see our failures.
But when we hear this calling and seek after Jesus, seek to be more like Him, what happens? It takes away that spiritual blindness and we can look in our lives and see not what great things we’ve done—or you’ve done—we don’t look so that we can pat ourselves on the back and say, “Wow, I’m really holy now.” No, what it is is we look and say, “Wow, look at what God is doing in my life.” If God is working in my life, if the Spirit of the living God is in my life, then I know who I am. I can be confident. It reminds me of what’s already true.
You see, Jesus calls us to faithfulness in our lives so that we can see His faithfulness to us. When we follow Him more, it gives us a clearer picture of what’s true—not true of ourselves, but true of the God who loves us. When we turn and hang on to those other things, we miss out on the fact that we are already called sons and daughters of the living God. But as we pursue Him and pursue holiness, it allows us to see what God has already done and takes away those doubts—not because somehow we’ve won over God but because we can see what God has already done from the very moment at the foundations of the world that He knew us.
That’s the joy and the confidence that Peter wants to make sure we know tonight—that we don’t cling to lesser things but cling to the God who loves us. Jesus calls us to faithfulness, but not so He can approve us and decide that we’re okay. Rather, He calls us to faithfulness in our lives so we can see the faithfulness He has for us in our lives—from the moment long before we ever existed and through all eternity. We will come to that day when we enter that heavenly Jerusalem and see that wall He’s torn down, and see not just anyone but God Himself there waiting for us to celebrate that victory.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your love. We thank You that You love us enough to take us even when we’re failing You, even when we’re going in an opposite direction from where You would have us to be. You start to chip away at that sin, that spiritual blindness, and You keep chipping away, allowing us to be more and more like Jesus. In that, You give us the very confidence to continue because we see how You are at work in our lives. I pray that You would give each of us that confidence tonight as we see that—that we can go forward enjoying Your presence, that we’re in You, that we can go forward loving others better because we know that we have that confidence, that we have that security in You. Lord, would You enable us to have that all the more as You continue to work in our lives? We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, if you think about it tonight, what we’ve been talking about is the confidence that we get to have in our own lives as we look and see that process of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. But Peter doesn’t stop there. Next week, I hope that you’ll come back and join me once again for Steadfast at 7 p.m. on Monday night as we’ll turn to the next part, which is that not only do our lives testify to who God is and His love for us, so does history itself. Peter walks us through that and says you can look to your life and see who God is—that you’ve already been cleansed, that you’re already righteous in Jesus—and then you can look over here and hear the faithful testimony of reliable witnesses that testify to the same things—the love of God.
I do hope that you’ll join me next week for that and that maybe you’ll invite someone else as well. If tonight has been encouraging to you, if this has been helpful to you, I hope that you take a moment and that you’d like us or retweet us—whatever platform you might be on—maybe share this to your friends on Facebook or our Twitter. When you do those things, maybe send an email link to someone you know who needs to be reminded of who they are in Christ. You can help us to spread the good news of the gospel by simply sharing these things and then inviting others to come back. I would so appreciate it if you do that. And then like us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, subscribe on YouTube. As you do these things, you can stay up to date on what we’re up to. You can see encouragement from Scripture, and you can join us as we join together as the body of Christ and show God’s love to a world that desperately needs it.
If you have any questions about what we’ve been talking about tonight, if you’re wondering more about how you can have confidence knowing that God loves you, if you’re just wondering about how all this works and how God’s faithfulness throughout the ages applies to you, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to shoot me an email or put it down in the comments, and we can all talk about it together.
Likewise, if you have a prayer request this week, feel free again to email me—you can let me know if it’s just private between us or if you’d like the Little Hills team to be praying for you, or you can stick it in the comments, and we can all pray together.
I thank you again for being here tonight. I hope this has been an encouragement to you as we look at the victory that God calls us to recognize has already been won for us. I hope you’ll join me again next week as we look at the historical confidence we have in the God who loves you. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week. Thank you again for joining me.