So that you can read along and I'll give you a moment to find that place. Romans 6, beginning in verse 11. Romans 6, beginning in verse 11, this is God's Word, eternally true. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. And offer the parts of your body to him as instrument of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master because you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means. Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him and slaves, you are a slave to the one to whom you obey. Whether you are a slave to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Our discernment text this morning, our gospel lesson text, comes from second Peter, chapter two. That's found on page 860 in the Bible to your seat. Please turn there. We're working our way through the book of second Peter. And come to second Peter, chapter two, beginning in verse, beginning in verse three. And we'll take this all the way to the end of the chapter. This is God's word as well, eternally true, second Peter two, beginning in verse three. In their greed, these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them and their destruction has not been sleeping. For God did not spare angels when they sinned but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment. If you did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on into ungodly people but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others. If he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning into ashes, it made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. And if he restored, if he rescued lots, a righteous man who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men, for that righteous man living among them day after day was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds he saw and heard. If this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Old and arrogant these men are not afraid of slander celestial beings. Yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord. But these men, but these men, blaspheming matters, they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed. And like these, they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasures to crowds and broad daylight, their blocks and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop spinning. They seduce the unstable. Their experts in greed and accursed brood. They have left the straight way and wandered off the fall of the way of bailants, son of the orr, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing biodoncy, a beast without speech who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness. These men are strings without water. In this driven by a storm, lackist darkness is reserved for them. For they mount empty, boastful words and by appealing to lustful desires of simple human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of the gravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Sage Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome their worst off at the end, then they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them, the Proverbs are true. A dog returns to its vomit and a scow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud. Here ends our reading. Let us give thankfulness to the Lord for giving us this word for our benefit and for his glory. The word of the Lord. Let us pray. Our Father, we read this passage and we are stopped and struck at the seriousness of sin and of error. We ask that you would work by your spirit to work into us an inner conviction of the seriousness of the matter of following your way, the way of truth. We ask Jesus that by this your word and by your spirit you would preach to us, that spirit you would grant us understanding of this text. And God, I ask that you would use my words as you preach. For your glory, for your exaltation in our hearts, in our church, in what surrounds us. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. As a freshman in high school, some of you I have mentioned this story to you before. I played lacrosse and I hadn't played lacrosse before but neither had about anybody else. We were a young, it was a second year, teens, at my high school. And we had the same guy that was my soccer coach, was our head coach and the cross. And our assistant coach was somebody that he had picked up from the small university that was in my hometown town. It was a high O.F. Lane University. And to pick up someone from there was just great because a high O.S. Lane was often a top-board finisher in the Vision 3 across in the NCAA tournament. And this guy was a great player and he was just tired of playing. And so his senior year, he didn't play and he co-stepped. He was an assistant. Well, we got hommels all year except when we were playing, we were mostly freshmen and sophomore, first and second year players. And when we ever played a varsity team, we just got slaughtered. But occasionally we got to play a JD team or a freshman team from another high school and then we did a little bit better. But one day, we had just played one of these varsity teams today before. And as our head coach liked to do, I didn't pass in front of his classroom during the day but others did and then rumors fly and he was telling other members of the lacrosse team that we were going to run like crazy. Pretty much as punishment for getting tumbled the day before. And so we were all not wanting to go to practice that day. But we also knew something was true that our head coach had some other commitment and he wasn't going to be able to be there. So Jim Fischman, our assistant coach, was going to run the practice. So we got out to the practice field and Coach Fischman was not there and he continued to be not there and not there. And I don't know how long passed, maybe it was 20 minutes. And we saw our opportunity. We knew we were going to run that day but he wasn't there so we decided we were just going to leave. So we all kind of snuck off and went back by the school and we were going to get dressed to leave. And lo and behold, our coach's little brown Chevy Chevette, remember those? This was 1982. And that came around the corner and the tires were screeching as he came into the teachers parking lot which is where we now were. And he came up to us and screeched the tires right in front of us as we stood there at the entrance to the football field and got out of his car, slammed the door and his windows shattered. So we came to which our uh-oh, we came and ensured it's out and I think we ended up having a practice there. Now while I claim good responsibility for being a part of this mutiny that day of leaving practice before the coach came, still there was an element for each of us there in that group of you know what everybody's talking about leaving practice we were all saying in our heads. And I know we shouldn't but I really know that we want to and I want to just if I do this. And at one point there came a decision for each one of us when we saw the group starting to lead the practice field which was clear on one side of the school in the far distance races to go back to where the teachers parking lot was where we ended up being where we said well I either have to go with what everybody else is doing which I know isn't quite right. And I kind of wanted to do that too or I stay here and what are the consequences either way of either staying here. How does my team perceive me or of going with the team and then how will my coach perceive me if he ever shows up. Now if he didn't and we found that out of course we would have told them that we did all the running that he wanted us to do. But this is a passage that addresses such a such an issue such a decision before us. This passage addresses if you if you'd like to fill out blanks in an outline you're welcome to do so you don't have to you can just listen if you'd like to just listen. But this passage addresses living righteously when the world and sometimes when the church around us isn't those your two blanks righteously and isn't. What do we do when in the midst of living in this world and when we look at you know the nonbelievers certainly aren't interested in living righteously. And even within the believing church community in the United States often there's a disregard for that as well. And so what do we think about that this is certainly the issue with the churches to whom Peter was writing in seconds here. There were these churches and they were being disturbed by people who were among them teaching them that righteousness doesn't matter. Live however you want to live and Peter describes some of the things that they were doing and they were certainly involved in in the sexuality and other things in this regard of God's law altogether. So Peter writes to grounds them to let them know how to respond and how to think about all of this and he says a couple of things to us. Now I've broken all kinds of rules here we have a five point outline you're supposed to have three points and they're also starting the same letter right. But we've got five point yeah that's right and it says it doesn't say so I almost said says scripture just be funny but I'm preaching so I won't okay. Five points but we'll move along quick with here things God wants us to know and that he works through as he inspires Peter here right these things that we should know and be thinking about when we consider our own lives. In the midst of unrighteousness okay the first thing God says to use me this morning is avoid avoid unrighteousness that's your point one avoid unrighteousness and there are three things that come out in this passage reasons why we should avoid unrighteousness. The first is this Peter says under inspirational spirit versus 17 and 18 unrighteousness is empty unrighteousness is empty verse 17 here these men are springs without water. Now you'd expect there to be something filling that spring up some substance but it's empty it's a spring without water they're like this driven by a storm. It's not a heavy rain that brings substance to the earth it allows roots and plants to survive and thrive but this driven by a storm they don't have a substantive effect. If you're speaking for these people that were advocating unrighteousness they mouth empty those four words. You ever know you weren't supposed to do something or something was wrong but you really wanted to do it and you did it anyway and then after you did it you say well that was stupid. And you get that empty feeling don't you within you say I just got taken. I thought in doing this thing that I wasn't supposed to do that I would be satisfied of undoing it and I got here and it's just empty. It's like being a robber in your robber banking you get back in your car and away from the scene and there's nobody chasing you anymore you open the bags and it's not real learning. It's empty and that's what Peter is saying about unrighteousness it may have some kind of appeal to us but when we pursue it it's empty it doesn't have substance to feed our souls. Second reason to avoid unrighteousness your B point here Peter says you'll get violated. You'll get violated and this is all through here of verse three indicates that the reason unrighteousness was being preached was because of the greed of those who were preaching it. You'll get violated you'll get your hang on to your wall Peter said when these guys come by. Verse 14 and 15 in this passage those who are preaching it have eyes full of adultery literally they're looking for women with whom they may commit adultery. They never stop turning they seduce the unstable their experts in greed. Peter says avoid unrighteousness because it just involves you in getting violated and all kinds of ways on to verses 18 and 19. They mouth empty and boastful words by appealing to the lustful desires of the simple human nature they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in air. They promised them freedom well themselves they are slaves of depravity so unrighteousness brings somebody into slavery unrighteousness when we follow it we've been enticed we've been taken. Yesterday my girls and I during lunch were watching Andy Griffith there are two episodes on channel five every noon on Saturday so you can watch it 12 and 12.30 we haven't to slip it on at the end of dinner and it was on then too. So we watched three episodes for Andy Griffith yesterday but one of the episodes started out and Barney's wife was talking about investing some of his money. Andy told him that he should be careful about that and what he should really do is invest in coin collecting. And he said yeah coins he says like the open source if you see this nickel he pulled out a nickel and he said this nickel I got just as a nickel and he said then somebody told me that it was unique you see this buffalo on the back of it it's facing the opposite direction there are only three of these that were ever made. And so it's valuable in fact a couple years ago guy offered me $50 for it for just this nickel but I told him nope I'm going to hang on to this and it'll be worth even more. And so Barney's sitting there and Barney's thinking he says all right from you and he offers Andy a certain amount of money and goes out and as he's going out he pulls out of his pocket the rest of the change and he sees that that buffalo is facing the same direction. There's every other buffalo on every other nickel and so see Barney I'm teaching you how easy it is to be enticed to be taken to be violated by any salesman or any investment that comes your way. Peter says that about sin when we sin we've been taken we've been fake fake fake doubt and we look silly to ourselves and to others. All right thirdly why should we avoid unrighteousness because Peter said judgment and hell that's your blank hell awaits unrighteousness. And this is abundant for this passage in fact if you had one place to look in Scripture for a teaching biblical teaching on hell maybe this would be the place that would be most profitable to turn to. We have verse 3 4 9 12 17 and 20 all talking about punishment and hell and the God holds the souls of those who have died outside of Christ in and they're being punished until final judgment curtains. And then at which point we read in Revelation 20 that they'll be cast into the lake of fire as their permanent dwelling after as the second death. Peter says don't follow right unrighteousness because the kind of people that follow unrighteousness are the same kind of people that wind up in hell. Now this is insane that a person has to be perfectly righteous or they go to hell. Now what Peter's saying here and what he establishes elsewhere in his book is that those who are believers are people that are living righteous lives. Character as Jesus said the tree is known by his fruit and if you're a tree it's a Christian tree you're going to produce Christian fruit. But Peter says these guys who are preaching unrighteousness and as we look at the bottom of this passage he indicates to us and speaks to them in such a way that we know they're not believers. There are people that have come into the church and in some way since their form they've learned about the way of righteousness. They've learned about Christian teaching but they aren't believers. They're non-believers that have been in the church for a while and so it's true of them what the proverb say. A dog returns to its vomit. A cell that has washed, it's been in the church for a while. Not safe, not having the spirit as well them but it's been in the church for a while. A cell that has washed goes back to the mud and rolls around. Peter says this is what the false teachers among you are shouting themselves to be. They're non-believers. Non-believers live in a way that's unrighteous and unrighteous those that are non-believers go to hell for punishment for their own sins.
Now this should cause us to fear a little bit. When we hear that those who are unrighteous go to hell because believers, us, most of us here are also unrighteous. Say it's a blank for you. Believers are also stained by unrighteousness. None of us are perfect in our righteousness and if we claim to be Scripture turns to us and says, no you're not. If you refuse to confess your sins first down one tells us then that's the sign that we're not a believer. A believer of an indication that he is a believer is that he's confessing his sins. And so we have unrighteousness in us and so there's a measure in us which you should say, uh-oh, if the unrighteous go to hell then that's where I should go. But the good news is this, you as a believer escape. That's your blank, your next blank there. You as a believer escape because Christ took your unrighteousness upon Himself when He hung up upon that cross. He took your unrighteousness that deserves judgment and hell which Peter talks about over and over here. And he took upon Himself all the judgment that all our sins through all our lives have for us in a future deserve in the justice of God. So I cater in some measure to talk about in this book that we have escaped the corruption of this world. Talks about believers escaping the judgment that rightly should come upon us. The reason we do is because Christ took that judgment upon Himself for all who believe. Hell awaits the unrighteous. So since you're not a person that has hell in front of you, don't be unrighteous. Don't behave like those who are. Okay, second one. Not only should you avoid unrighteousness because of empty, because you'll get violated, because hell awaits the unrighteous. But two, God says to you and to me be encouraged in pursuing righteousness because God rescues the righteous. Number two, God says to you be encouraged in pursuing righteousness because God rescues the righteous. We see this in that section from verse five to verse eight. We have that while God has punished the angels that fell with Satan, He also has rescued the angels that did not fall, that remained loyal to God. Just like the world was completely destroyed during the days of Noah, a preacher of righteousness, he rescued Noah and seven others. God has rescued the righteous in the past and the midst of His judgment. Same with Lot from Genesis when we have that account of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot living in Sodom and Gomorrah. Even though Sodom and Gomorrah are completely wiped out by the Lord, God rescues Lot. This is the case with Jesus as well. Jesus took upon Himself in the cross all of our unrighteousness and He was punished for it. He was judged for it but in the midst of that great judgment, God the Father rescues Jesus in the resurrection. By His Spirit, God gives His, God the Father gives His Son Jesus life and rescues Jesus in the resurrection. And so this gives us hope and causes us to be encouraged as we seek to live righteously in the midst of unrighteousness in our world. We remember, yeah, Noah experienced that too. Lot, lot experienced that too. But the message there is not join in. The message is remain righteous and God will rescue me, God will rescue you. Thirdly, God says not only avoid unrighteousness and be encouraged in pursuing righteousness because He rescues the righteous, but He tells us how we are righteous. What does righteousness look like? What is the shape of righteousness? What is that involved? God says to you, you need the righteous number three, the righteous by observing the moral law. Be righteous by observing the moral law. Here I have listed for you in your bulletins, verses 7, 8, 19 and 21. And none of those verses talk about the believer and what righteousness involves. Rather, what those verses talk about are the unbelievers, the false teachers who are spreading falsehood among God's people. And what it says about the unrighteous is that they are recurring word in all those verses, lawless. Lawless. Those who are lawless are unrighteous by definition. What that means is those who are righteous are seeking to fulfill in their lives the moral law of God. And the moral law is your next rank. The moral law is God's ten commandments. Okay? Moral law summarized by God's ten commandments. Ten commandments tell us, commandments one through four, how we love God. Commandments five through ten tell us how we love our neighbor. Righteousness is being faithful to this, to seeking to fulfill this. Not that any of us will fulfill any of these ten commandments perfectly. None of us will, on this side of our death. But that's our aim, that's our goal, that's what we shoot for as we're interacting with other people. To fulfill the second table of the law. Commandments five through ten with that person and with that person and with that person and with that person. And when we look toward God to fulfill those first four commandments toward Him. And as we do that, as we seek to fulfill righteousness, the end fruit or the result of this is here your blank. And Peter's covered it in chapter one, verses five through seven. The end result of this is kindness and love. Peter says in verse five of chapter one, you start with faith and what builds upon it. And he builds these various things on it, perseverance and so forth. And finally he gets through the last two things. Brotherly kindness, kindness toward fellow believers, being gracious and merciful and loving toward them. And then love, being loving toward all. If you're really righteous, if you're righteous in the way God's words defines righteousness, you'll be a loving person. And people will say that of you. And when you don't feel like loving, you'll call upon God to give you strength to be loving toward those around you. And as we do this, as believers in Christ, as we are considered among the righteous, as Noah was, as Lot was, they weren't perfect men. But they call it God's law. They were not among the lawless. This behavior will demonstrate to the world the gospel. That's your last blank on number three here. As we pursue righteousness, that righteous behavior shows the gospel to the world. What's the gospel? If the message that the world is unrighteous, but the God is a lover of undeserving people. And so we fulfill this. As we love those who don't deserve to be loved, we love those who have harmed us. As we love our neighbor, we're demonstrating the gospel to the world. Because we didn't deserve to be loved by God, but God loved us. And so as we love others that don't deserve to be loved by us, we demonstrate in our actions the gospel. Okay, fourth thing. God says, avoid unrighteousness. He says, pursue righteousness and be encouraged as you pursue righteousness. He reminds us that righteousness looks like love as we follow the Ten Commandments. Then Peter warns us, but there's some things that might hinder you from righteousness. As you pursue righteousness, there's some things that might get in your way that might block you toward getting to this goal. And the first thing that might hinder you, that's your blank on number four, the first thing that might hinder you is people. This is certainly the case during Peter's day. And maybe today there are three different categories of people that we have that might hinder us from pursuing righteousness. And the first category of these people are non-believers. Number one, some non-believers may hinder us from being righteous. I remember going to college and seeing all around me unrighteousness and being a believer and hearing all these tempting reasons and offensive logic. It's a lie to be unrighteous, a lie to pursue things that stand clearly outside of God's instructions to us in the Ten Commandments and it's moral law. And that may be a tempting thing for us to pursue those things, all those that matter to just in college or wherever we are. Whether it's to do something that goes outside the Ten Commandments in our workplace or in our home or in our society, whatever it is, there will be non-believers who come to you and they'll give you their philosophy of life. That is a justification of doing something outside of God's moral law. And Peter warns us here, be aware that non-believers will say things to justify their own actions but be wary of that. Don't take that in and say, yeah, that's right. I see that perspective there. No, evaluate everything that comes to you by Scripture. Run it through the moral law of God and if it doesn't fit, throw it out. But now that that comes from non-believers, it presses in on us and in movies and CV and newspapers and everything that we see from the non-believing world that come to us, encouraging us, unbeknownst to them many times, encouraging us toward unrighteousness. So beware of that one kind of people that lead us in the wrong way or that would hinder us toward righteousness. The other kind are the Robert, not the Robert Haynes, not the Robert Connells, not the Dr. Roberts, the Robert Seltons. Of this world, those who would blatantly aren't CVD an example of somebody that Peter would describe here. Enticed people who are just escaping from those who live in error, masters of greed, picking us apart, enticing us in a shameless way, verse 14, experts in greed, offering you various blessed handkerchiefs and so forth on TV that you know, if you give this certain amount of money, you'll receive this special blessing in your life. Or if you give this hundred dollars, God will give you a thousand dollars and they'll give you testimonies, you know, of people that, oh I gave this hundred dollars and then I received this anonymous thousand dollar check in the mail and that kind of thing. Experts in grief, know that that will come, know that that will come and don't be enticed by it. That is someone trying to exploit you. Thirdly, where would this unrighteousness or encouragement to be in righteousness come from? Lawless, number three, lawless churches. Now very few churches are out there saying, find out what God's law is and do the opposite. That would be very hard to find out there. None the less in a more implied way, in a harder way to see, most churches, especially in America today, subscribe to a theological way of looking at scripture that gets called dispensationalism, which at its roots says that just that God's law today is not binding, is not binding on the Christian. And when they look at Romans six that we looked at this morning, they'll say see we're under grace, we're not under law. And then they proceed to give you a misunderstanding of that passage. Paul's writing in that passage saying, you're under grace, you have God's spirit. Therefore, lawless beings should not come out of you. Should we sin more because we're under grace? This is no, you've got it completely backwards. Since we're under grace, we have the grace of God's spirit within us and the fruit of the spirit will come out. Righteousness will come out. Now, obedience to the law will come out because we're under grace. But today in a great majority of churches, this is not what is taught. What is taught is, well, we're under grace, so we really don't have to look at God's moral law or measure our spiritual maturity by it. If you do that, then you're a legalist. And that is a misunderstanding. God saves his people out of Egypt. He saves them from their slavery. And then he gives them his law because he cares for them. You know, if they obey his law, their lives will be better. They won't destroy their spouse, their kids, their co-workers. They won't destroy their own careers. If they obeyed the moral law, because God loves us, he gives us his law. And so today, Jesus has saved us from our slavery to sin. Saved us out of Egypt, so to speak. And after he saves us out of Egypt, after he saves us from our slavery to sin, he gives us his moral law because he doesn't want us to make a mess out of our lives. He doesn't want us to make a mess out of the lives of those around us either. So beware of that. In the Christian book store and on Christian radio, there will be churches that don't understand how God's law is to govern our lives as believers for given aversons.
Okay, next, what else can hinder us? Besides people, what can hinder us? Verse 18, our sin nature. We've talked about this a little bit last week or the week before. Why is it that heresy takes hold? Why is it that any preaching that goes against a following of God's moral law? Why does that appeal to us? Well, Peter says in verse 18, it appeals to us and it entices us sometimes. Because it appeals to our sin nature. As believers in Christ, we have God's spirit. But we also still have our sin nature. And so when we hear the message, give us hundred dollars and you'll get a thousand dollars back. We live in greed. We live not because we're saying God, do with your kingdom, you know, whatever you can and I'll get back officially to you. And you don't have to give me anything back. I want your kingdom to succeed. Rather we're enticed by the Robert Tillins of the world into giving a hundred dollars to get back. That appeals to our sin nature. I would love to have a million dollars dropped into my bank account tomorrow. And so if somebody comes to me preaching using the authority of God's word and misteaches from it and says, did you that since so God will drop up a million dollars in your bank account tomorrow. I have to fight against my own sin nature when I hear that. So beware, we're all, each of us individually is part of the problem. We have a sin nature and we have to remember that when we hear various things that would hinder us from following God's law. Thirdly, what hinders us? Youthfulness in your faith. By youthfulness in your faith, I mean undeveloped understanding of God and who he is and what he wants from us. Youthfulness in your faith doesn't particularly, not particularly tied to your age. It can be. It is somewhat tied to how long you've been a believer. There are believers certainly who have been believers a long time who are not very mature in their faith either by unfaithfulness or by lack of teaching. Whatever the case, we all have areas in which we are youthful in our faith in which we are less developed and Peter says, watch out. Because verse 14 and verse 18 looked there. Verse 14 talking about the false teachers with eyes full of adultery. They never stopped hitting. They seduce the unstable. We all have weaknesses in our theology and our biblical understanding and are unstable in certain areas. Verse 18. They are speaking of the false teachers for they mouth empty both for words and appealing to the lustful desires of the sinful human nature that should be there. They enticed people who were just escaping from those mid and air. Peter knew that there were young believers in the congregations of whom he was writing. People who had just escaped from the world into the church. People who had at the pattern of their life a very different pattern before they came in contact with the moral law of God. And Peter said, those people are susceptible especially to going back in to former patterns of life which don't conform to the moral law of God. As we look in scripture, it speaks both in a positive and negative way about warring, not alcohol. And speaks of it as a great blessing in the promised land that there's warring. But also warring can be of use. Balkall can be of use. And when scripture speaks of drunkenness taking his good gift of warring and overdoing it, drunkenness is a bad thing. Well, when I went to college, my roommate Rob, he was my roommate for four years. He had not been a believer all through high school. He had been popular. We always kidded him. He was voted Mr. Senior. That was literally the title. It was like homecoming king. He was Mr. Senior. He was quarterback of his football team. They were ranked number one in the state of Kentucky, his senior year. And he was a quarterback. And he loved the drink. And he would go to university Kentucky. He was from Louisville. He thought we had to say Louisville. It's not Louisville, he would say. He would go from Louisville over to Lexington to the UK, where his brother was in a fraternity. And they had this 70k beer bash. And he drank and got passed out. And that was his life before coming to Christ. But he came to Christ beginning of August before coming to college. And it changed his life. But all through college, he really had a hard time being around. The party scene, the drinking scene, because of his past. And he had to take his fine with it now. But he had to take that safeguard in his own life. Because he didn't want to fall back into the ways of his past. He didn't want to be enticed because he was just escaping from those who lived in the air of drunkenness. So beware, we all have ways where we're youthful in our faith. Here's the good news. Last point, number five. There are things that will propel, that's your word, propel you to righteousness. In verse 19, he talks about sin being the master of non-believers. And being the master of those who were the false teachers in this church. They were non-believers. Sin was their master. And that's why they were talking this way and encouraging people in unrighteousness. But the encouragement for us is that if you're a believer, it's not true that sin is your master. And we looked at Romans 6 this morning where Paul makes that point specifically. If you're a believer, you have God's spirit. And sin is no longer your master. You're no longer in that legal relationship with sin being your employer. Sin being your master and you being friends with. Because of Jesus coming into your life, breaking in, regenerating you by his spirit, giving you life by his spirit, we have the power by his spirit to say no to sin. And to not be whipped for it because sin is not our master. And Peter has gotten into that already for his happening. In chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, he says, we are partakers of the divine nature. That God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, for godly living, we have everything we need. We have divine power to say no to sin. So A, you're under grace. That's your blank. And sin will not. That's your second blank. Sorry, I didn't give you much room there. Run around the space. But two words there. You're under grace and sin will not be your master. You have God's spirit. And that will propel you toward righteousness. And B, as we mentioned before, chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, you are a partaker of the divine nature. That doesn't mean you're divine. It means God's spirit lives in you. You are a partaker of the divine nature. And because God's spirit lives in you, you have power to say no to sin. You have power to say yes to righteousness. And for Peter and God says to you this morning, persevere in righteousness. Know that unrighteousness is out there. It's all around you. But be like Noah. Be like Lot. Persevere. Know that the end for those who are unrighteous is punishment, judgment, and hell. Know that people like us that have God's spirit. Our end is being rescued from this corrupt world in which we live. So pursue obeying God's covenant, being righteous, being righteous, following God, loving Him, loving neighbor by adherence to the sin commandments. And be aware that those are things that may hinder you, nonbelievers, people who are intentionally trying to deceive within the church and churches that do not encourage us in following the law. Knowing that we have our sin nature and that we have the fight over that, knowing that we have certain susceptibilities in our own development, certain ways in which we are unstable, being encouraged. We have God's spirit. We are partakers of the divine nature and this propels us the righteous living, which is a life that demonstrates the love of the gospel that we have experienced selfishly in our salvation. It demonstrates that to the world. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we are grateful for the good news that she took our unrighteousness upon yourself and endured judgment and hell for us. We are grateful, our Father, that she sent Jesus to demonstrate for us adherence to your law. We're grateful, our Father. While there are things that may hinder us, you have alerted us to many of them here. Causes to evaluate everything that we're asked to do under this grid of the Ten Commandments. Always asking the question, is this in some way getting me to not love God? Is this in some way getting me not to love my neighbor and rejecting those things that would lead us toward unrighteousness and help us by your spirit within us to say yes to righteousness? To love our neighbors well, to love you well too. We're asking Christ's name. Amen.