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The Greatest Virtues 1 - Faith
- David Brown
- Aug 30, 2009
- Series: The Greatest Virtues
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Passage: 2 Peter 1:1-4
The Greatest Virtues 1
2 Peter 1:1-4 KJV
God has invited us to live on a higher plane than most.
We are invited by God to live in glory and virtue.
- Glory (honor, dignity, splendor, brightness, magnificence, majesty, an exalted state, a condition of blessedness)
- Virtue (a virtuous course of thought, feeling and action, valor, moral goodness or intrinsic excellence)
The three greatest godly virtues are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13 KJV
I Corinthians 13:12-13 (The Message)
12 We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
Faith…Hope…Love
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Verse 3 Faith…Hope…Love
Faith empowered them to work (act, achieve, accomplish)
Love enabled them to labor (painful and tiring labor)
Hope inspired them to endure (persist, persevere)
Faith empowers us to achieve.
Love enables us to do the labor that gets it done.
Hope inspires us to keep on keeping on!
The 3 Virtues are great because they are the characteristics of a Great God…and they’ll make you great!
These three Godly virtues caused the Thessalonians to become…
- Followers (V 6)
- Examples (V 7)
- Witnesses (V 8)
- Servants (V 9)
- Faithful (V 10)
Faith
It matters what you believe.
We must always be searching for truth, discovering truth and embracing truth.
As Christians, we believe that…
- Jesus is the truth. (John 14)
- God’s Word is truth. (John 17)
- Anything that is truth will not contradict Jesus or God’s Word.
It matters what you believe about God.
Someone twittered this past week…”You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Why is it that people constantly want to think of God as being how they want him to be…instead of how He says he is?
We must turn from idols to serve the Living God!
That takes faith…Faith to believe God is Who He says he is!
It matters what you’re believing God for.
Our true inheritance.
The precious promises of God to his Covenant people.
What God has done and provided for us in Christ.
(Through his death, burial and resurrection)
Romans
Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. We are to live by faith, work by faith, pray by faith, serve by faith, live every day and do everything we do by faith in Jesus!
Believe to live the higher life, the blessed life, the God life!