R.C. Sproul

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.

We are to add to our faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance.