Power Outage

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
—2 Peter 1:8-9

Most of us have experienced a power outage at one time or another. Last year, we had a wicked ice storm around New Year’s that downed power lines for miles and miles. The power was off for most of three days. And due to the ice on the roads, you couldn’t get away from the area to go somewhere that had power, either.

A power outage is good for one thing. It makes you realize how much we all take electricity for granted. At first, it’s kind of fun and exciting. “Get the candles! Start a fire in the fireplace! Woo hoo!”

Everyone is forced to spend time together actually talking for a while. Someone always says, “So this is what it was like in the olden days.” Maybe you play board games by candlelight.

But it gets less fun as the hours pass. “I want to watch TV; my show is starting! How can I check my Facebook? Why do I keep flipping the light switch when I know it doesn’t work?”

Then it starts to get serious. “We're about out of wood for the fire. How much food do we have left? My cell phone battery is dead; what if something goes wrong?”

By the third day, the electric company could charge triple the normal rates for electricity and everyone would pay it. When it comes back on, you can’t believe how wonderful it is to have light, heat, hot food, and electronics. In the 21st century, life without power just isn’t normal.

In the passage above, Peter tries to get us to understand that for Christians, life without spiritual power isn’t normal, either. So far, we’ve learned from this chapter that knowing God through Jesus Christ gives us access to the mind-blowing power of God’s “divine nature.“

Last week, he told us what to do with our power: build a pyramid! On top of your faith, build goodness, then knowledge, then self-control, then perseverance, then godliness, then brotherly kindness, then top it off with the most powerful thing in the universe: God’s kind of self-sacrificing love.

Then he hits us with this negative: If you don’t have these qualities in your life -- if you’re not growing better at living this way all the time -- you’re living with the lights out.

Okay, what he really says is that you’ve become "ineffective" and "unproductive" as someone who knows Jesus. You’ve been given huge power, but you’re living like electricity hasn’t been invented yet. You’re wasting your life in Christ by refusing to turn the lights on.

Let's be really honest with each other: We all know lots of Christians who don’t seem to be growing in these qualities. Many don’t seem to care about living this way, at all. They go to church. They do what’s expected. But they’re not really into talking about or showing goodness, knowledge, self-control, etc.

In fact, we've all had seasons like that in our own lives. But this doesn’t have to be one of them for you. You can ”make every effort“ to tap into God’s power in your life to live this way.

Part of the problem, Peter says, is that we forget to put our contacts in. We’re near-sighted. Like someone feeling around in the dark, we only really care about what’s right in front of us. If we'd turn on the lights (by looking through God's Word), we'd easy see past right now and into eternity. We’re practically blind because we forget we’ve been rewired with the power of God. We’re not built to flail around in our sin any more. We’re built to live well-lit, climate-controlled, high-speed Internet, meaningful, powerful lives that will matter forever.

Let’s turn the lights on, already.