“Called to Glory & Virtue” | Sunday AM | Pastor David K. Caruthers

Original Broadcast of Sunday Morning 11 AM Worship, 07/05/2026

Speaker: Pastor David K. Caruthers

Message Title: "Called to Glory & Virtue" 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Goodness to us. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse number 3, 2 Peter 1 and 3. I'd like to just read this verse to you and invite you to kind of hold that place. We'll come back to it in a few moments. According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. And today I want to preach for a few minutes, called to glory and virtue. Lord, we thank you for your blessings, your grace, your goodness. Thank you for every person that has joined together with us today. Thank you for this moment you've given us together. We pray that you would speak to our hearts, draw us close to you. Let your grace and strength and peace minister to us. You know every person in this house, you know every life, every heart, you know how to speak to each one of us. And we ask you, God, that our hearts would be open, our hearts would be receptive, that you would uh speak to us and draw us to you. Let your work be done. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Everybody say in Jesus' name. Thank you so much. You may be seated. Uh, if you're new to Calvary, thank you so much for being here today. We're so glad you're here and welcome you. Want you to be a part of everything. And uh, as I sometimes say, this is your invitation. We want you to be a part uh and just jump in and participate with what we're doing. We we want to just work together and grow together as God works in our lives. And so we are so glad you're here. And those of you joining us online, thank you for being with us. Of course, we're uh celebrating this weekend, uh Independence Day and uh the 250 years and all those great things, and uh and so I want to start with that for a moment today and just uh point out something uh that that I think is important to us. And and uh so at the at the founding of the United States, our leaders recognized something profound and biblical that a free nation cannot survive without virtuous citizenry, and that virtue grows from religious belief and foundation. In spite of their theological differences, the founding fathers agreed on three core principles when forming our nations. Number one, that rights come from God, not government. And that makes them unalienable or unable to be taken away because they come from God. The second thing that they recognize is that religion and morality are essential for liberty, that a free people must be a virtuous people, or freedom will naturally decay into chaos. And number three, that public virtue is necessary for self-government. Without moral citizens, the republic would collapse under the weight of opinions and everyone exerting themselves in power. These ideas formed the moral backbone of the founding of the United States. And so the need for virtue, supported by religious belief, by religious background, was often referenced by our founding fathers, and I want to share some of their words with you. First, let me share in the farewell address where George Washington makes this statement of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity. Religion and morality are indispensable supports. He continued, and let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that natural morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious principles. Now, those are not the kind of words that you're probably used to using today. I was reading some of the founding fathers as preparing for this day and just kind of looking at things, and it reminded me again at how much their language was more advanced than ours or what we commonly use today. But this passage shows us that the founders, regardless of their differences, and they had differences. Not all of them were Christians. Not all of them were Christians. In fact, several of the prominent ones were more deist. They believed in God, but they weren't really Christians. In spite of all that, they believed that liberty requires virtue, and that virtue requires morality, and morality is strengthened and built upon religion. And this shaped their thoughts and the culture at large and the education and civic life all around them. And so you can hear them echoing these words as they give speeches and write letters and all those things that we have record of. John Adams, in a letter to an officer of the first officer of the first brigade of the Massachusetts militia, wrote, Our constitution was made for moral and religious people. It is wholly and adequate to govern any other people. Benjamin Franklin, not particularly a religious man, in a letter, said this only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. Patrick Henry wrote in one of his speeches, it is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. Samuel Adams wrote in a letter to John Trumbull, religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness. James Madison wrote in a memorial against religious assessments, when he said, Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the governor of the universe. Thomas Jefferson wrote when, and again, he was rather skeptical of organized religion, and he affirmed, can the liberties of a nation be secured when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God. And finally, I'll read Alexander Hamilton, where he wrote, The sacred rights of mankind are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divine itself. These founders understood, they held to and believed that nothing written on paper could replace a moral and virtuous citizenry. A constitution and its associated laws are helpful, but they are not enough. And the same is true today. The same is true today. We must have, we must have, we must be, we must be built on a virtuous people following the word of God. We must be of good moral character, in other words. We must be building our moral character not on our own opinions, the opinions of our culture, but on something bigger than we are, something greater than we are, the absolute truth of the Word of God. I want to mention kind of three areas that's common to you today, and just to illustrate the need for us to have virtue as American citizens. The need for us to be morally strong people. First, I want to mention crime. Now, I'm going to get to the message of God here in a moment, but I'm trying to lay a foundation for you. Let me talk about crime. There are not enough laws nor law enforcement officers to force, to stop, to prevent all crime. In fact, we don't have nearly enough to make that happen. When you stop and think about how many law enforcement officers we have in relation to how many citizens we have, it's obvious that they cannot control the citizenry. There has to be something more. There has to be something deeper. There has to be something greater than the law and greater than the consequences imposed upon you by the legal system. There has to be virtue among the people. There has to be people of good moral character. They have to have a foundation of truth. It has to be there for that to be maintained. Crime will overtake a society when there's no moral code that prevents it from everyday people. Because we will tend to do whatever works best, whether that's the for us, whether that's the speed limit or the stuff we want, we will tend to do what works best for us. There has to be some internal virtue. There has to be some internal moral code. Laws are arbitrary. Laws seem forced and have to be enforced. They cannot stand alone by themselves. There has to be people that will stand no matter what the law says, they will stand firm in their moral foundation. Safety and security requires virtuous people. Another thing I want to mention that's common to us, these some of these may feel a little controversial to you. Another thing I want to mention that's common to us is our border. We've experienced in the last two, especially, I'll say, especially the last two administrations, a shifting back and forth of how to handle our border. And there's a reason for that. Whatever your opinion is about the country's border, how it should be managed, or how it should be handled, it's a complex balancing of a lot of different factors. And it's got to be persistently and consistently managed and balanced and held. Laws, again, are arbitrary, but those that are crossing the border are people with various backgrounds and various histories, various needs. They're people, they're not borders and they're not laws, they're people. And how do we balance all of that? It's difficult even for us as Christians to balance that. We don't want our country and our security to be damaged by immigration that's uncontrolled and unvetted. But at the same time, we want to have compassion and we must have compassion and care for people. The law will not resolve that. It takes virtuous, godly people to resolve that. To do something, to do what needs to be done. The law will never resolve it. We should know by now that our politicians cannot solve that problem. It should be far enough to know that it's not left to politicians. There must be virtuous people, virtuous people that will live out what God instructs to us. It requires that. The laws won't fix it all. And finally, I'll mention a third thing that's important to us all. I won't go into detail, but we're dealing with it every day, is all the role of AI in our lives. The laws cannot keep up with that. They are not keeping up with that. We must be virtuous people. We must be virtuous people. As citizens, we must be people that stand for right and good and do our best to follow that. Now I don't understand all of AI, I'll just tell you right up front, I don't understand it all. I don't know how it works. If you understand it all, God bless you. Great, wonderful. But I know it's much more pervasive than we realize. And it's a, I wouldn't say brave new world, but it is a new world. And so managing how we respond to that and how we react to that and what we do and how it looks in our lives and all that, that's not as easy as it seems, and the law is not going to do it for us. We've got to be people trying to follow God with all of our hearts. We've got to have a moral foundation, a moral underpinning to base our lives on. And in the same way that no document like the Constitution can alone be enough to produce success for our country. We need citizens of strong moral character, of moral character, and that must moral character needs to be based on God and His Word. And our individuals' lives, though, are the same. No amount of understanding of religious traditions, no rituals, no heritage is enough to guarantee success of people. Knowing theology is not enough. Having rituals and traditions is not enough. Being raised in church is not enough. It's only then that we have the foundation for our lives to be successful. It's only then that we have the foundation for our lives to be fruitful, for our lives to be meaningful. Our lives are built on the word of God, on the foundation of God, not just hearing it, but doing it. The Apostle Paul writes, after his initial greeting to the church in this second book, he says, according to his, God's divine power, has given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. We are called to glory and virtue. Glory in this context means splendor, honor, or brightness. We would say in in honor, honorably. In a brightness that shines in honor. And virtue is, of course, referring to that moral excellence of following God. That we are called to live our lives that reflects Jesus. The glory is not our own, it's his glory reflected through us as he works in our lives. We cannot simply claim to be Christians, wear a badge, have a flag, have a sticker on our car, and do what we need to do for God. We've got to live for God, serve God, follow God, and when we do, God has called us, God has called us to live in His glory and virtue. Peter continues. He says, whereby, with that we are given unto an exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. It's sort of like what we were talking about this morning, that you are taking part in the nature of God, not your own nature. You live in your own mortal bodies, you live in your own human life, but you can step above just that human life and live in the divine nature that God wants you to live in because God has granted it to us, allows that work to be done in our lives, makes it possible for us. And then Peter goes on and describes this progression of growth in our lives and how our lives should be growing in this virtue. And he said, beside this, giving all diligence, making all effort that you have to 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. And Peter says, For if these things be in you and abound, they shall make, they make you that you shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Peter concludes this thought with the challenge that if we do these things, if we abound in them, Jesus makes us fruitful. He makes us productive, and in modern terminology, he makes us successful. Because his glory and his virtue is shining through us. I'm speaking this to you today because I want to be sure that you understand that the world that we live in needs you. America needs you. It needs you to stand on the principles of the Word of God and to demonstrate a virtuous and godly people. Jesus said it this way in Luke chapter 6. He said, For every true tree is known by its own fruit. For of the thorns men do not gather figs, or of the bramble bush do they gather grapes. A good man, think here, virtuous person, out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And that's not just talking about words, it's talking about how we live our lives. It's from the heart that this flows, from the heart of God in our lives, from the heart that God has given us, not the rocky, stony heart of sin, but the heart of love and compassion and grace that God has given us when we are born again. Out of that heart should be growing the love and the kindness of God that demonstrates God's grace. And then Jesus bridges to this topic and why call me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I say. Whosoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show what he is like. He is like a man which built a house, digged deep, and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the floods arose and the stream stream beat vehemently upon the house, and it could not shake, and could not shake it, for it was founded upon the rock. But he that hears and does not, notice they're both hearers. He that hears and does not is like a man that without a fountain, a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin thereof, the ruin of that house was great. Of his word. Everything else you build will collapse if you're not built on the foundation of God's word. Everything else you build will wobble and wake and fall and be unstable if you're not built on God's word. But if you're built on God's word, no matter what comes against you, no matter what intrudes upon your life, no matter what experience you are, even if you're not in a free country, even if the government collapses, even if the economy is gone, you have a foundation to build your life on. And I'm saying to you today, the most important thing we can do, not just for ourselves, but for our country, is be people of godly character, built on the word of God that continues to stand and to live and to experience our lives on the word of God. So as we come to a close today, I want to remind you again of Peter's words that God has called you to glory and virtue. God has called you to glory and virtue. You may be only one, but you are not one alone. God is with you, and God will strengthen you. One of the things that I've realized as a pastor some years ago, in particular in having some conversations with some other pastor friends, one of the things I realized at that point, I think there was a conversation about people and saints and how we direct and lead, and and a comment was made to the extent of from a pastor that it's sort of complaining, I'll say it that way, that it's too big of a burden that the church is looking to him to know what to do. But the truth is that people need a point of reference. People need a point of reference, they need something that's going to stay true. They may not agree with you, they may not like some of the things you do or some of the ways you live, they may debate your theology, they may try to critique you, they may criticize you, they may even harass you and give you a harder time, but they need a point of reference. They need somebody that will stand in the virtue of God, will stand on God's word, and will stand true to what God is calling us to do. And today, as a pastor, I'm trying to challenge you to do that. To stand strong, to stand true, to stand in the honor and virtue that God has called us to stand in, to stand in God's power and strength. And not just to believe, or not just to hear, but to grow and become what God has called you to be. And it's not just us or them, it's me. It's you. God has called you. God has called you. Every one of you. God has called you to his glory and virtue. He's not called you to be perfect in yourselves, he's called you to stand in his glory and virtue. You have your own frailties and you have your own weakness, and we have our own humanity that we deal with, but we can stand in the glory and virtue of God. We can stand in the strength of God. Today I'm challenging you. I'm challenging to build your life on Jesus. Let it be the solid rock of your life, let it be the foundation of your lives. Our country needs it. Your family needs it. This church needs it. Your neighborhood needs it. They need somebody that'll stand in virtue and grace and the power of God. As Edward Mote wrote in that classic hymn, 1834, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. And that should be our anthem today that we will stand on Jesus and on his word and commit ourselves not just for our country and not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us on the foundation of Jesus Christ.