Spiritual Growth - Trust Fall SeriesSample

Goodness and Knowledge

Growing in our character is like building a house. The first thing that you need when you are building a house is the foundation. The foundation is key. You can’t just go out and build. It says in Matthew that we shouldn’t build upon a sandy foundation of shifting sand. We are to build upon a strong foundation of rock so that our life will make it through the storms. (Matthew 7:24-27)

So what is our foundation? Peter says the foundation of our lives is faith. Many people have not made faith the foundation, but have instead made it just one of the parts of their life. Faith in Jesus Christ is a foundational aspect that will take you all the way through eternity.

The first pillar that we are going to add to the foundation of our faith is goodness. Goodness is what is called “moral excellence.” When we hear “moral excellence,” many of us freak out and think, “Oh, no. Wait a minute. That means perfection.” But that is not what Peter means. Moral excellence means that we are going to walk in a way that shines with Jesus.

As we have the foundation of faith, and the pillar of goodness, the second thing that we need to add is knowledge. The knowledge spoken of here is not just about being book smart. It is not only about knowing things in our heads. There was a group of people spoken about in the Scriptures who were called the “Gnostics.” They believed in knowing things, but they were not Christians and they were not walking with God. It is a false teaching that all you have to do is to know stuff. In today’s American Church we know a ton, don’t we?

We are not talking about just knowledge in our head; this is about knowledge in our feet. It is practical knowledge being lived out. (Hosea 4:6) So we want to know things, but we also have to apply things. James says that faith without works is dead. (James 2:14-26) 

Mark Twain put it like this: “It is not the things that I don’t understand in the Bible that bother me. It is the things that I do understand in the Bible that bother me.” We know plenty enough to be able to start moving and to put our knowledge into application.

These are the attributes we have studied: faith, goodness, and knowledge. (2 Peter 1:5) We will continue with more tomorrow.

Let’s pray, “God, thank you for communicating so clearly with us. Please, give us all the wisdom and willingness to diligently add these things to our faith.”