In this sermon, the speaker shares a story about a man who rescued people clinging to a tree by using a helicopter and a rope. The speaker emphasizes the importance of doing the right thing with the right attitude. They also share a story about a girl who had to give up her plans to help her mother and how she learned the lesson of patience from the Bible. The speaker then discusses the concept of struggling and how it can lead to strength and growth, using the example of a moth breaking out of a cocoon. The sermon concludes with the message that love for God should be evident in our words and actions.

Let's just have a word of prayer before we start. Dear Father, I thank Thee for the privilege it is to come across the world to share what Thou didst lay on my heart, Lord. So I thank Thee for that privilege, but I feel so unworthy, so unable to do it, Father. And I ask Thee that Thou who seest into my heart and every heart here, who knows every life circumstance from the smallest child to the oldest person here, that Thou in Thy mercy will come so near to us and speak to us, Lord, that we may hear Thy words. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if the babies cry, I'll just speak louder, so don't worry about the babies. Our subject for today is adding, not subtracting. Adding, not subtracting. Now, our scripture verses are from 2 Peter, from verse four, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity, which is another word for love. For if all these things be in you and abound, they make that ye shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Now, Peter holds out to born-again Christians, and when we're speaking of born-again Christians, we're, of course, speaking of those who have passed from darkness to light, who are truly saved. He holds out to them seven steps to keep them from backsliding, to enable them to be victorious, and it is something they must do. Peter said, add to your faith virtue. And when he says something like add, he emphasizes that it is our responsibility. As a baby has to grow, so we have to grow. And he points out the seven steps that help us to grow as a Christian. Let's read these words again. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For a Christian to flourish, we have to show life and growth. If we don't desire to grow as a Christian, to become more Christ-like, then we have to question ourselves and say to ourselves, why isn't that desire in my heart? Is it perhaps because I've never passed from darkness to light? Why am I so willing to just sit back and think that I can slide into heaven? Those seven steps of growth must be our aim, our purpose, and they must be shown in our life. Otherwise, we will be stunted, and we will be in a sort of situation of stagnation. We will not be flourishing. How sad when Christians do not care to grow in grace each day. They do not seek those higher heights God sets upon their way. Instead of striving to please God, more Christ-like to become, they remain little babies and stay where they've begun. Christianity is not a stagnant religion. It's not a point that you come to, but it's a journey from that point. Add is a verb. We dare not slide, we must climb. We have to do it as a Christian, and it requires effort and perseverance and purposefulness and steadfastness in our lives and in our attitude. God says, add. Peter said, add to your faith. But if we are not adding, we are actually subtracting, and we become blots on our testimony and to the world around us. The Bible speaks of us as being barren, unfruitful, blind, unable to see ahead. Is that perhaps a picture of you? Are you perhaps like that? Or have you been adding to your faith? Now, we have to realize that faith is the bottom line. There are seven things that are steps from that bottom line. You can't add unless you have something to add to. Isn't that correct? Now, Nicodemus must be born again, the Lord Jesus said. The woman of the well, he said, if you drink this water, you shall never thirst again. For Zacchaeus, he said, come down from the tree. There has to be a point that is added to. Nicodemus, with all his religion, missed the starting point. The woman at the well, she was drinking the wrong water, like we can. Zacchaeus had to see himself as a sinner and come down, admit that he was a sinner, that he had stolen. And then when he repented, what did God say? Today, salvation has come to this house. So that was the starting point where they could add on to. What is faith? Faith, as I see it, is complete trust in God. Now, I want to use an illustration. I read in an old book about a girl. She had a limited mental capacity, and she was in this house, and the house was burning, and she'd rescued a little girl out of the house, and suddenly, she was standing on the windowsill, and the back part of the house, it's in this book, collapsed behind her. And she was standing on the windowsill, and the flames were rising against her, and the horrified people in front of her said, in minutes, that whole portion where she's standing is going to collapse from under her. And they started screaming, jump. But you know, she did the most natural thing. She clung to the windowsill, as if it was her only place or level of safety. And they were saying, jump, jump, you're going to die. You know, please, jump. Your life is at stake. But suddenly, in all the cries, there was one lady who had taken a special interest in this girl, and she cried out. She said, dear, jump, my arms will catch you. And suddenly, as she heard that voice, she left the windowsill, and she leapt, and that lady cushioned her fall. And they said in the book, from that day forth, her mental, it seemed as if that fall, that impact made her alive mentally, and she developed to be a pleasure to all around us. But you see, she had to take the jump of faith. And in the same way, we are under the condemnation of sin. It's as if the flames of hell, or as it were, just creeping nearer and nearer to us. We stand on the threshold of life, and who says jump? The Lord Jesus, just like the cross stands like this, the Lord Jesus says, jump. Loose yourself from everything, your own self-righteousness. All those things you think are going to keep you safe up there, jump into my arms. And I am the only one who can save you, just like that woman was the only one that she could jump to, could cushion her fall. So the Lord Jesus is the only one that can save us. But you know, sadly, there are other voices that lure us. And Satan says to us, jump, jump. I can give you pleasure, I can give you excitement, I can give you fame, I can give you the approval of my followers. But you know, in that picture, it's to me as if Satan will say, jump. And when you jump, you'll stand aside, and you'll fall into the very flames of hell itself when you do jump. There's a world that says to us, jump, come, come to me. I can give you a reality, satisfaction. You know, I was reading with horror in a newspaper many years ago about a man that wanted to end it all. He wanted to take his life. He thought if he took his life, he would end his misery. But actually, he would have been in further misery because he would have entered hell itself. And in fact, he did end. But as this man was standing on a building in Cape Town and said, I'm going to end my life, there was a crowd of people underneath. And do you know what those people said? Instead of crying, stop, stop, stop, they cried, jump, with the excitement of the moment. And you know, there's so many people, we think they're friends, but they're not friends if they tell us to jump and head in the wrong direction. They want us to jump and be part of them, but we're heading for hell itself. The horror of the voices that call. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, do we know that we can build on faith because faith is there? Can we start adding? Can we start growing? Can we start being a real testimony because we have escaped the wrath like the flames that are around them? Or are we perhaps just clinging to our own self-righteousness? I'm so good, I'm so much better than other people. After all, look at what those people are doing and I'm not doing those things. And therefore, we cling to our self-righteousness. You know, it reminds me of the floods in the Gamtis Valley many years ago when I was in grade eight, many, many, many years ago. The river came down in flood as it's done many times and my mom and him were standing on the banks and suddenly they looked across this expanse of swirling water and they saw in the poplar trees these little black dots. And they wondered what these black dots were. And then with horror, they were helpless. They couldn't get there. They realized those black dots are actually people clinging to the tree. And then suddenly they heard a patter, patter, patter, patter, patter, and it was a little helicopter. And this man, because of the urgency of realizing these people's fingers were numb with cold, they'd been hanging on in the night, they couldn't hold on much longer, he just made a rope and attached it to the helicopter, very simplistic, and he'd hung it down with a loop and he flew over these people in these trees as they were clinging with their numb fingers. But you know, he went to individuals one by one. But as the rope came close to them, they had the choice to leave this tree with their numb fingers and just grab the rope. They couldn't grab the rope and hang on to the tree at the same time. It was their only hope of safety. And there were those who refused to take the rope, they were too scared, and there were those who grabbed it. And they hung on. And Maimonides said as they watched these people swinging not high above the water, they thought, will the rope hold? It looked so fragile to hold them. But they said, oh, the cheer, when the rope got the person to the shore eventually. And you know, there were those who didn't hang on. They didn't hang on. They hung on, but their fingers were so numb that when they got halfway across, they fell into the water and they were lost. And it reminds me a bit of Demas, who didn't hang on, did he? He turned his back on Christ. So we grasp with the rope of faith and we cling and we keep holding. But we have to unclasp, and I'm going to call that tree the tree of our self-righteousness. We've got to unclasp the things we think will get us to safety. Church attendance, Bible reading, all those things are good. They're part of growth on the other side, but they will not take us to safety. And we have to keep clinging in faith. Does my faith dwindle, falter, if I can't see ahead, clouds blurring the horizon, hidden what God hath said? Or do I lean on his word, as Abram long ago, knowing what God hath promised will be, for he said so? We mustn't only grab the rope, we must keep clinging. Our faith must grow despite storms God sends upon our way. If we cling to what God said, we gain in strength each day. But if we rather despair, not keep our gaze on God, we will fall and stumble, lose heart, weary each footstep trod. You know, just as Abram's faith was tested, when God, it says in Isaac, shall your seed be blessed and everything, and God says, go and offer Isaac. And as he tested different ones and test us today with our faith and things happen the opposite to what we think, God wants us to cling in trust. Not only the trust of trusting him for salvation, but to keep trusting him every step of the way. Like Job, Job's wife, her faith crumbled. But Job, he might have despaired and he might have murmured, but never ever did his faith falter. Now, virtue is the next, the first step. Virtue, add to your faith, virtue. Virtue is the outworking of the work of grace God has done in our hearts. It's no use to claim salvation if that salvation is not evident in our lives by what we do, what we don't do, how we react. James said, in James 2, 17, faith without works is dead. Real faith will work out in your life. If faith is not seen by virtue shown, it is either non-existent or we're hiding it under a cover or a bushel. Virtue is goodness on the inside shining out. And you know, I love the write-up in Proverbs about the virtuous woman. She was very busy, but you know, her virtue was shown in the very ordinary things she did. And that you and I do, food, linen, sewing, business, all those mundane tasks, God labeled her as a virtuous woman. Are we eager and bustling, even in these very practical things, to just live out virtue for the Lord, live out our faith for the Lord? Or is there nothing of that in our lives? You know, I don't know if you people did that. When we were children, we took a bean seed and then we put it under wet cotton wool in between two layers of cotton wool. And then the exciting moment was when we saw a little green shoot come out of those beans. Do you also do that with children to teach them how things grow? But if no green shoot came out of the bean seed, then we knew that was a dud seed. It wasn't real. And so if faith does not work out in our lives, then we've got to question ourselves and say, is my faith genuine? Have I really passed from death unto life? Or must I question? Now there was a little girl I read in a book, and she read in a journal these words, tasks done with a good attitude become a pleasure. So in other words, what I'm trying to say is we don't only have to do the right thing, but we've got to do it with the right attitude. Now this little girl was so excited because her friend was coming to visit her for the day. And she dressed up in a cashmere dress, it's Victorian times, with a big bow at the back and she was ready. And she heard a call from downstairs, come along, and she said, coming, and she was so eager. But when she got down and looked over the banisters, her mom said, would you give up your friend for the day? The servant that does all the work, he's got a headache, and I want you to take her place for the day. And she was just about to say, no, I'll never, how can you expect me to give up the whole day and everything, when suddenly it came back to her. What were the words I read? Tasks done with a good attitude became a pleasure. And she determined that she would try to please God in this way. And so the book follows her through all the tasks that she did, and she had to discipline herself to do it with a good attitude, and it became a pleasure. So virtue is not only doing what is right, but doing it with joy and the right attitude. You know, you get some people, they do, all right, I'll do it, I'll do exactly what you say, but they sort of moan all the time. No, that isn't true virtue. The little girl had added to her faith the proper version of virtue. Although I claim to be God's child, nobody thinks it's true. For I have not allowed virtue my nature to renew. Did Peter not say we must add virtue to faith that we could grow and be examples, all that God's child should be. Then after virtue, we add wisdom and knowledge. That's the next adding. Now Proverbs 24, verse three says, through wisdom is a house builded, and by understanding is it established, and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. Now we need wisdom as women. Whether we be children or adults or older people, we need wisdom to make our home environment, the room we stay in, the place we are in, to make it comfortable, to make it a welcome haven for not children, for friends, and to make it comfortable for our parents. Wives should seek knowledge how to treat their husbands, how to give a listening ear at all times, to see the needs on every level, and jealously guard that place as the husband's best friend. Because if you do not take in that place, somebody else is going to usurp you in that place. It is very important to have sympathy with his plans, his hopes, his dreams. But perhaps your husband is antagonistic. If you have a husband, he's cruel, he's selfish, he doesn't uphold you before the children. Now you need to seek wisdom to keep your side of the slate clean so that when the family remembers the situations, they remember your reaction, and your reaction later in life might be a pointer to Christ himself. You have to also cover with a mantle of love the idiosyncrasies of your husband, the funny things that your children might do or ask of you, because you want to please God in every relationship that you have got. Perhaps you've got an unsaved husband. You seek to win him to God, studying how best to please him on normal levels that one day he may seek the God that you are trying to please. You also need wisdom how to avoid pitfalls. You know, I was with people, it was just so, you know, they had children, there was a whole lot of children around us, and I could just see where these kids are heading for a real fight. And this person just distracted them. You know, wisdom, to know how to distract before it becomes a big issue, how to be forgiving, even as children, to your parents when they do wrong, to defuse difficult situations, and to handle difficult personalities. And then you learn by experience. They said Moses was the meekest man on earth, but I think he wouldn't have been so meek if he didn't have such a difficult people to deal with. And sometimes we think, why did I land up with this lot, you might say. But if you allow God to teach you how to handle with wisdom, whatever your situation is, whether it be at work, you will learn from it, and you will gain wisdom. Sometimes we have to talk down. Sometimes we have to talk up and get more knowledge to be able to talk. We have to bear with the fragile and the aged, that they can sense their worth. We have to appreciate their years of experience. There's so much wisdom, it is unending. We will never learn enough. And we need to add to our faith and virtue, knowledge. And of course, the foremost source of knowledge is the scripture, isn't it? But you know what, you can gain that knowledge and use it wrongly. I was in a meeting, and there were two uncompromising people at the meeting. And the one just bombarded and was cruel with the correct knowledge that he was imparting. But the other one spoke the same things, but with such love that people went crawling and hiding from his words. We have to know and learn the wisdom of how to interact with people. We gain wisdom through studying scripture, and we gain wisdom on how to show ourselves approved unto God, but we have to how to deal with souls in love, and yet to be true to the scriptures at the same time. We need that wisdom. And God says, add to your faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge. There are Christians who, there are the Christians who have been saved. We know it's true. But wisdom, sadly lacking in what they say and do. Not wise, how sad the verdict on such a stagnant heart. Not reaching their potential planned for them from the start. Now the next step is temperance. Now what is temperance? Temperance is self-control, and we need it in most areas of our lives, but especially with our speech. Proverbs 16, 32, he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. James 3, if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn about the whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven by fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, our greater matter a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. What a warning. We need temperance and self-control when it comes to our tongue. I think we need to take note that it says the bit and the helm. It's such a small little thing that turns the tongue in the right direction. And I think to me, for me personally, that speaks of the Holy Spirit. We know when God says in our heart, don't do that, just avoid that, just keep quiet. He is, there's the little bit that is trying to steer us in the right direction. But if there was a horse and he didn't want to listen to the way the person was directing him, and he pushed against the bit, what would happen to his mouth? That bit would hurt him. And so when we resist the Holy Spirit's leading, or the remembrance of scripture that he reminds us of, and we resist it, we are going to be hurt. And we're going to be heading not where we should be, and where God wants us. We may speak with anger, whining, moaning, murmuring. And it blots our testimony and harms God's testimony. And we can also explode in anger. Now, in the Golden Ten Minutes, I read about a little girl who had a terrible temper. Now, I sympathize with her, because when I was a little girl, I had quite a temper. And when I was about eight, nine, I had to really put that on the altar and say, Lord, I submit to Thee, and I'm going to do everything in my power not to get cross, you know? But anyway, this little girl had a temper, and her father was reading in the newspaper about a boiler that burst at Dorchester. And many lives were lost, and the building was damaged. And the visiting uncle came, and he was sitting at the table, and he said, well, that could probably have been avoided. In most cases, that can be avoided. And she said, how, to the uncle. And he said, you know, when a boiler explodes, when a boiler explodes, it's usually because there aren't enough safety valves. A boiler needs a safety valve that it doesn't end exploding itself. And he said, turned to the little girl, and he said, do you know, I was once a human boilerette. I exploded at everything until I discovered the safety valve that helped me in the situation. So she said, how did it work? So she said, you know, when I was saved, I committed everything to God, but because I was so used to exploding, he said, this boiler, it was in such a habit that when the next situation happened like this, I was ready to explode again. But he said, my safety valve was to call on God immediately before I exploded and ask him to help me. So what does he do? When we call on God, I've been in situations like that, and I think, how can they do that? And I just wanted to react and say, oh Lord, please just help me to deal with this situation. And then, you know, when we do that, when we use that safety valve, then we see things from God's perspective. And we see there's a bigger picture around the situation. And we stop that angry rejoinder, which is so detrimental to our testimony. All of us can cry for help. We can all use that safety valve. Everyone is facing different situations. And God can help each one of us in our situation if we lean on him. Psalm 141, verse three, set a watch, oh Lord, before my mouth. Keep the doors of my lips. We need temperance and self-control in all areas, whether it's eating, whether it's our behavior, everything needs to be tempered with temperance. Can that be said of you as a Christian? It's hard to control your temper when you know you are right. It's far easier to end up in a huge verbal fight. It's hard to be the least when others force you to do the things that they neglected and dump it onto you. It's hard to listen quietly to one who thinks her words are full of wisdom when they are boring and absurd. It's hard to hold in anger when people hurt and jab, when every word they utter enters like a deep stab. But self-control is vital to keep your witness bright at home, at work, on all fields, essential to stay bright. The next essential step to be added as a Christian and to guard against backsliding is patience. Now when we think of patience, we immediately think of patience towards other people. And of course, we do need to have patience towards other people. But there's another vitally important aspect of patience that we need to exercise and add to faith in our lives. And that is patience towards God when we do not understand what he brings upon our path. What he's doing and why he is doing these things. Think of the patience that Joseph had to have when he experienced all those trials and disaster before God fulfilled his promise. And sometimes we hang on to promises for God to answer. And so many things happen to the contrary, but we have to cling and stay trusting and exercise patience. Romans 12 to rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. Hebrews 10, 35, 36, cast not away your confidence, which has great recompense of reward, for you have need of patience. That after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. My granny, 40 years praying, eventually God answered. James 1, 4, but let patience have a perfect work that he may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Are you allowing patience to have her perfect work in your heart? Now, we're given a lesson in nature. We all know about a little pupa in a cocoon and how the pupa breaks the cocoon and then it comes out of the cocoon and it's a beautiful butterfly. But when it's struggling to get out of that cocoon, it really looks as if it's having a hard time. But God allows it to struggle, to break the cocoon and to get out, because that period of struggling is actually the strengthening of the moth. And once the moth is out, it can fly high because it gains strength even in that process. Now, there was a little boy or a girl and they were watching the cocoon and they thought, oh, that little moth is so struggling. I'm going to help it. And so they took a scissors and they cut it open. But when the moth came out, it wasn't strong. It couldn't, it limped as it flew. It just wasn't the same as what it would have been if it went through that period of trial. We also have to have patience as God puts trials upon us and trust him that it will help us and strengthen us so that we can rise above the situation that he places upon us. My dad quoted this quote, Troy, that he had read. He said, I have enough faith that God will answer my prayers and patience enough to await his timing. I'm going to read that again. I've enough faith that God will answer my prayers and patience enough to await his timing. I sometimes find it hard to have patience with prayers I have. It's all very well to say we have faith when everything falls into place. But when disappointment and trouble abound, it's patience we need in the race. Patience to trust God and rest in his will. Patience that in our heart peace will instill. Patience just waits that we can't understand because we're holding tight onto God's hand. Now, another aspect of patience that is essential and to add to our faith is patience with others around us. Although God has infinite patience with us, I find in the Christian world, we often don't have the same patience shown to us with those around us. Ephesians 4.32 says, and be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Now, when a little baby is born, I'm sure you've all heard the story from one book or another, the one little brother or sister was looking at the baby and said, he's not finished at all. Where are his teeth? Where is his hair? And as a baby, Google, the baby can't speak. He's not proper at all. He's not the finished product. You know, as a weak little baby needs patience to learn to focus in the first month and then to react and all those things, how to crawl, to stand, it's all those steps. We need patience. Imagine if you said to the baby, listen here, you've come in our house and you better just hurry up. We can't wait. We need to have patience for Glenn to speak properly. You're in certain words, but there's a lot of guessing going on with these sentences. We need patience. But you know, we are so impatient with this newborn spiritual babies. We expect them to run when they're not even at the crawling stage. We expect them to speak like theologians when they are not at the time to speak like that. Just as God had patience with us, we need to have patience with the little babies in the faith. When little babies cannot walk, we smile and say one day they'll be running us out of breath. Just wait and see, we say. When little babies cannot talk and merely smile and pout, we smile and say they'll soon converse and even scream and shout. We know that it takes time to learn to grow into a man. Their baby steps and stuttering words, we excuse, understand. And yet we are impatient when converts are quite new and don't do all the very things we think that they should do. We do not show them patience, remembering that we were once too a mere baby, growing steadily. Have you added patience to your faith? Now we come to godliness. And godliness is a further step on the road from virtue. It's more and more Christ-like. Kenneth Bedwell, his father was asked, what is godliness? And he said godliness is just becoming more like Jesus. 1 Timothy 6, 11 and 12, but thou, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Follow after. The world expects us to be godly. They are disappointed if we are not godly. When David fell, what did God say? The enemies of God will blaspheme, they'll stumble over what he did. When we have failures, when we are ungodly, the world says Christianity does not work. It is not worth seeking. Think of the price Christ paid on the cross. That price that he paid for every one of us should make us want to be godly. We should not want to discredit his work on the cross. Gratitude should make us strive to be as godly as we can. Won't it be sad one day when we stand before God and there'll be people that pointed at us and say your ungodly life made me, put me off Christianity. You claim to be a Christian, but your life was so un-Christ-like. Now Evangeline Booth, Mrs. Booth's daughter, had a little pet monkey, and she contrived to make a little Salvation Army uniform for this monkey. And she put the monkey on and she was so excited and her mother suddenly, she showed her mother this monkey in the Salvation Army uniform. And her mother said, take it off immediately. I would like you to take it off. So she took it off and she came back after and she said, but mommy, there's nothing wrong with putting that, I thought it was so clever. And the mother said, no, I don't want that uniform on that monkey because that monkey can't live the life. If we claim to be Christians, we need to be godly and we need to live the life. Are we parading as Christians? We claim we have faith, but godliness, the outworking of faith does not correspond in our life. We're careless in our habits. Worldliness is dominant in our lives. We're not diligent to add to our faith, not only virtue, but godliness. There's no excuse. 2 Corinthians 9, 8, and God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. We can't blame God if we're not godly. It is us that have not added to our faith godliness. The world is watching them, us. Do we draw them to Christ? What do they see? Our children, our parents, our brothers, our sisters. Do they say we are godly in what we do? Let us strive to add to our faith godliness. God can form us into his image. I feel ashamed when I think back of what was seen in me. Sadly, others will not reply that I have been godly. Instead of seeking to please God in every single way, I did just as I pleased. Therefore, people provoked each day. Oh Lord, I must confess that I have fallen into sin. I fear that those who know me now will be harder to win. Cleanse me, dear Lord. I wish to grow more godly every day, to be a light, not stumbling block to others on my way. And then we come to brotherly kindness. We have to have kind thoughts about fellow Christians. We have to make allowances for their weakness because as we said, they may not be at the same stage that we are on the road. They may be still learning to stand up and not run. Christ was a compassionate high priest. He remembered that we were dust. He had compassion on us in our infirmities and let us have the same compassion on our brothers. Are we quick to judge? Now, the one minister was so irritated when he gave his sermon because there was a little old lady that sat in his congregation. And when he started giving the sermon, she sat with her back towards him and all she was looking at was the door. And so she missed the first 15 minutes of his sermon while stragglers came into the congregation. So he said it was just, and he just saw her back. And when the end of the sermon came and he made his appeal and people came, there were those who shuffled home under conviction and wanted to get home fast enough, but she would run to the back of the church and she'd be standing there and greet everybody that came out. So he said to her, but why do you come to church at all? I mean, you're not listening to the first part of my sermon and you can't wait to get out of the church at the end to stand at the back and just greet the people. Why did you come? So she says, oh, did you not realize? It was my mission. I smiles them in and I smiles them out. So there while he was judging her, it was her life mission that she was trying to fulfill. And then Peter reaches the peak of the adding on, the sum we have to do as Christians. And what is the peak? It was charity, love, the crowning virtue. Ephesians 3.17, that he being rooted and grounded in love. Corinthians 13, we all know that portion where he describes, it draws a picture, a painting of what love is. How does love, if we've added love to faith, how does it show itself to the world? And of course, charity is a word for love. It says, charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own. Is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. Love is the crowning addition that makes the sum complete. To love others and to love God. When the Lord Jesus was tricked and they said, we want you to sum up the commandments, what did he say? Love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the crowning virtue. And if we love somebody, if you love somebody, you'll keep talking about that person. Is that not correct? If you hear somebody's in love, you'll find that person is just on their lips. And so in the same way, our love for God should just bubble over. That others will say, well, obviously they love God because they can't stop speaking about him. And I mentioned at girls camp, the one chief, somebody confronted him and said, why are you always talking about God? I mean, why can't you just talk about normal things? Why are you so full of God? And then he put a little dry circle of twigs like this and he put a worm in the middle and then he lit those twigs. And suddenly the little worm was going left, right, left, right to get out of the circle. And suddenly he realized there's no escape. And then what did he look? The worm pulled itself up and looked up. It was as if the worm cried help and this chief lifted the worm out to safety. And he said, that is what Christ did for me. If Christ has done that for you, if he has, you have passed from death unto life, oh, you should just be bubbling over with love and gratitude for what God has done for you. 1 John 4, 16, he that dwelleth in love, in God, he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Have we added love? Has love, his love, influenced the way we speak, the things we do, what we avoid because of our love for him? Is our driving passion love? Is that what people think of us? When they think of us, do they say, she really loves God? Because I can see it. It has to be seen. Or is our passion things of the world and things around, they say, I didn't know she loved God at all. Not the way she speaks, not the way she does or what she does. Love lets me walk the extra mile and turn the other cheek. Love lets me temper what I say into an answer meek. Love lets me seek in word and deed to rather be the least, in all things seeking God's well done until all toil is ceased. At the end of addition, love crowns the final sum, for love holds all the virtues and makes them into one. In closing, we have to ask ourselves, have we grasped that rope of faith? Are we still clinging to our self-righteousness and other things? Are we still clinging like those people to the tree because in that flood, one after another of those trees fell down with the people that weren't willing to leave the tree and to grab the rope. Can we add in our life, because faith is the bottom line, is faith your foundation? Is there a moment that you can testify as that girl who leapt from the burning building knew that she had leapt to safety? Then we have to ask ourselves, have we grown since that day? Is it perhaps that God in this afternoon has put his finger on an area in our life that we have not grown, that we have not diligently endeavored, as Paul said, to press towards the mark. It's possible that I may be blind, stumbling on my way, because addition was not thought essential for each day. Although I grasped the rope of faith was saved by God's own grace, addition did not follow, thus stumbling in the race. For after faith comes virtue, essential for each one to live out her salvation. In all that's said and done, work out your own salvation, my sheep will follow me. Obedience is the keystone right to eternity. Then comes a word called temperance, to keep yourself in hand, keeping your temper constant, doing as God hath planned. And then the next essential, patience upon your way, to bear with other's failings, to trust God has full sway. The next stage in addition is godliness, for you will become more like Jesus in everything you do. Of course, kindness is part of the great addition call, to reach out to your brother, to lift those who may fall. When you have reached the goalpost, adding upon your way, charity will be the virtue that crowns all else that day. What is the secret answer in your heart with the question that God has confronted you with? Are you resolved to add? Do not be stagnant, do not rest on your laurels, we'll never slide into heaven. But didn't Paul says, this one thing I do, I press towards the mark, for me to live is Christ, there's action. Christianity is climbing, he will make my feet like hind's feet, to leap upon the high places, there's action, we have to add, Peter says. How sad when Christians do not care to grow in grace each day, they do not seek those higher heights, God sets upon their way, instead of striving to please God, more Christlike to become, they remain little babies, and stay where they've begun. May that not be true of us, amen.