2 Peter 1:12-21
Notes
Transcript
2 Peter 1:12-21
2 Peter 1:12-21
Good morning church! We have a busy morning ahead of us and I know you are all sleep deprived from the clock change, but we will all appreciate it this evening when the sun doesn’t go down until 6:36 p.m.
Once we get into our message this morning we will be talking about Reasons to Believe as you can see up on the screens, but Peter will also be telling us about the importance of reminders. So with that I want to remind you all of a couple of things. First, you are invited to join us in a time of prayer and fasting, beginning Monday, March 25, and ending Friday evening (before sundown) on March 29th as we will be sharing an Agape feast together that evening at 6 p.m. here at the church. An agape feast is a lot like a church pot luck, except you put others before yourself, and actually bring something if you are able to share with others.
After our meal, we are going to make a quick transition at 7 p.m. to a night of praise and worship to prepare our hearts and souls for Resurrection Day, thee most important day on the Christian calendar, because if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then He could not be Messiah and there would be no such thing as a Christian calendar, because we would not be Christians.
Nicole mentioned a breakfast Sunday morning, but I want to remind you that on Sunday morning, we will be talking about the resurrection, that we worship a living God, that was willing to sacrifice Himself to save you. So I want to remind you that the bible says that my job is to teach you, or equip you…lets look at it...
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
Your job then saints is the work of the ministry. So do it! Invite your family, invite your friends and co-workers to come gather with us on Easter Sunday, and spend every day between then and now praying for their salvation!
Something else this morning, you guys that have been with us for awhile know this is one of my very favorite things to do as your pastor…we have a child dedication...
Elena Grindle
I know that lots of you come from church traditions that baptise babies. We don’t do that here for a couple of reasons, first, It is not biblical, and we don’t have an biblical examples of it being done. And Second, I personally won’t do them, because of those reasons. This is what we do see in the Scriptures...
16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
I won’t turn this into an entirely different teaching this morning, although I want to. A couple of things quickly, I want you to notice both the order and the emphasis of this verse. First the order, he who believes and is baptized. Belief comes first, we must first be saved, (and yes, that is something that is required of all of us if we want to have any hope of Heaven. Jesus made that clear in John chapter 3 when he was talking to an old religious guy, actually, not just religious, but a member of the Sanhedrin, so he was a religious leader and teacher of the Law. To him, to Nicodemus, Jesus said...
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
We don’t go to Heaven by being a good person, or doing good deeds, it is by, on only by being born again. Placing our faith, our trust, and our hope in what Jesus did on the cross, asking Him to forgive us of our sins, to be both our Lord, or the boss of our lives, and our Savior. That means we then believe that He paid the price of our sins on the cross and defeated the penalty of death, eternal separation from God, when He was resurrected, and that He is living and coming again. If you haven’t been born again, Jesus would say to you as he did to Nicodemus, you must be born again, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
So if we look again at our baptism verse...
16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
First we believe and then we participate in baptism as a public declaration of what has already occurred between us and God, not as an act of salvation. It is not baptism that saves us. I mentioned I wanted to you consider both the order and the emphasis. He who first believes, and then second is baptised will be saved…and our emphasis is on belief....if we look at the rest of the verse it says but, he who does not believe (it doesn’t say anything about baptism here) he who does not believe will be condemned.
So we don’t baptise infants or very young children that have not yet come to an age of understanding of these things, or an age that they can decide if they want to make Jesus the Lord of their life, or if they are going to be the Lord of their life.
What we do see in the Bible is child dedication, or baby dedication. We have the example of Hanna who took her Son to the temple and dedicated him to the Lord. And we have the example of Mary and Joseph...
21 And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
22 Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
So based upon the authority of scripture, this is what we do here. So Tyler and Stevie have both made the decision to follow Jesus with their lives. In doing so, they are committed to raise up their daughter Elena to know the things of God, to learn the Word of God and to learn about God from her Mom and her Dad. Why don’t you guys come on up?
We do this as a congregation because it is a promise they are making to God, before us, to train up their child in the ways of the Lord. In doing so, they are asking for our help and support to do this. To come alongside them as parent when they need that, to encourage, to love, and to guide them in doing this. It is also an act of accountability in that this gives us a role in this in that if they ever were to forget this day, or that they have dedicated their daughter to the Lord, we are to remind them of these things. So church, join me in dedicating Elena to the Lord, and praying for this family.
Pray for them and the message...
Let’s dig in...
We are picking up where we left off in 2 Peter chapter 1, we made it as far as verse 11 where Peter exhorts us to be even more diligent, to make our call and election sure…for if we do those things we won’t stumble and an abundant entrance into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ will be supplied to you…now he begins...
12 For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.
Why would Peter remind them and us of these things if the people already know, and are established in the truth? Well in his time, remember that the people that he was writing to had been dispersed due to persecution to the point that it was far beyond what we have ever seen in this country. I won’t go into great detail, but I do want to read you one description from a historian at the time named Tacitus.
Quoting from Washington State University Professor, Paul Brians’ website, He quotes the historian as writing this about Christians...they were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses or set aflame, and, when the daylight passed away, they were used as nighttime lamps. Nero gave his own gardens for this spectacle and performed a Circus game, in the habit of a charioteer mixing with the plebs or driving about the race-course.
See Nero was looking for a scapegoat and the Christians were an easy target. If you don’t know the story of Nero, his ascent to the position of power was one of manipulation and maneuvering, primarily by his mother. By her manipulation he was ultimately given the position of being the 5th Emperor of Rome. However, once he ascended to power, his mother didn’t really appreciate her limited power in Nero’s kingdom so she seeks to use her persuasive powers again and have him replaced with a younger son.
Nero gets wind of this and decides to take the threat out, meaning he killed his mother and brother. Believe it or not, things like killing your own mother went over just about as poorly then as it would today. And then there was another big hit to his favor among the people. How many of you have heard the story of Rome burning and Nero standing by and playing the fiddle as he watched it burn?
I’ve heard it a number of times, some of you have as well. But it is completely untrue, 1st the fiddle had not even been invented yet, so that takes away the credibility of the story, and 2nd, Nero wasn’t even in Rome at the time of the fire, he was roughly 35 miles away in a city called Antium.
Rome at the time was made up of 14 districts. In the fire 3 of those districts were completely destroyed, several of them were partially destroyed, with only 4 that were completely untouched…very unfortunate for the city and the people. However, there was no need for this tragedy to be a bummer for everyone, or at least that was the position that Nero took, so with the burned out areas, he expanded the borders of his personal palace to one square mile in the the center of the city. He had a lake in the center of it where they could have large ships reenact battles for entertainment. He also built a bronze statue of himself that was 120 ft high.
All of this was taking place, the building of this opulent palace was occuring while the people had been burned out of their property, their jobs, their livelihood, and were struggling to survive. I know for us today, it is hard for us to imagine our politicians not caring about the condition of the people, while they try to better their own circumstances.
So between the City of Rome going through the greatest tragedy of their lifetimes while there leader was away, and then watching him build what was referred to as his golden palace while the people were in poverty and barely making it, let’s just say that Nero was no longer polling very high with the people. In fact, some started to suggest that Nero started the fire on purpose just so he could expand his palace. There of course was no truth in that as he was several miles away at the time of the fire, but just like today, truth was not a requirement in politics.
So what Nero needed was somebody to blame. The Christians were not true Romans, they were foreigners, they were poor, lower class, they had no social influence. They refused to worship the Roman gods or the Roman emperors, so their persecution was the perfect distraction.
In addition to this external persecution, I mentioned last week that there was a new threat to the church and it was coming from those that were now inside the church. Peter is now, and is going to continue to throughout this letter address the dangers of the false teachers that have now infiltrated the church. This is such a big deal because we will see that they cause confusion, they create disorder, and disunity. They began teaching things like Jesus isn’t really coming back. Our that we don’t really have to answer to God for our sin, just believe, you’ll be saved by grace and that grace will cover you continuing to live like hell.
No need to repent, no need to obey Jesus, and one of the problems with that is when you take away any part of the gospel message, you no longer have the gospel. This speaks to us today. Pastor Jim and I attended a conference last month where the theme was Hold Fast. That came from the verses in 2 Timothy chapter one that say..."13 Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. 14 That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us." - 2 Timothy 1:13-14 NKJV
That is what Peter is telling them, and telling us. Today there is all kinds of crazy that has come into the church. I don’t mean this church, but the bigger church as a whole. This idea to be hip and relevant. Look we want to reach the culture around us, but not by becoming the culture around us. If there is no difference between us and the world, then what is it that we have that they need?
So Peter is at the end of his life and he makes 3 promises here in the next few verses to these people. I’ll read it again, but in verse 12 he promises this. I’m going to remind you of the things you know and are presently standing in. That’s the gospel, the good news, it is salvation, that we are saved by grace, that there is a doctrine of personal responsibility - yes you must choose, you must be born again, and we all have a responsibility to then grow spiritually. Read Psalm 1, it is a exclamation mark on our personal responsibility to not just raise a hand or say a prayer and continue with the same old, same old.
Or to just get saved and then maintain the bare minimum. I’ve never seen that happen, ever! We are either moving closer to God, or we are sinking farther way from God. No one stands still.
So again the first promise, I’m going to remind you of the things you know and are presently standing in. Verse 12
12 For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.
Vs. 13
13 Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you,
14 knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.
Promise #2 As long as I’m alive, I’m going to stir you up with these things by reminding you over and over. I’m trying not to use my wife as an example, so I’m just say that someone in my immediate household likes natural peanut butter. You know the kind that you have to stir or the peanut oil separates so the stuff on top is so runny it won’t even stay on the knife when you go to spread it and the stuff on the bottom gets thicker than PB fudge? Someone in my house loves that stuff! I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, but in order for it to be at it’s best every time, you need to stick a knife in it all the way to the bottom and stir the whole thing up. When you stir it up you get the best of what’s at the top and the best of what’s at the bottom and it all comes together.
Peter is telling us that Christians can sometimes get like a jar of natural peanut butter. We can get sedentary with the gospel. We can get sedentary with the hope of Heaven and those things can settle in our lives and we can forget. The things at the surface can become what we are feeding ourselves with and things can get a little thin. Peter says as long as I’m alive, I’m going to stir you up and remind you guys.
He doesn’t actually say as long as I’m alive does he? He says as long as I am in this tent. I like that he says that because that itself is a reminder that our time on this earth, and the things of this earth are temporary. It is easy to let this life become all about us. All about our flesh, that’s why its a good idea for you to join us for our time of prayer and fasting.
But Peter give us some perspective here. Today you can’t turn on the television or open a magazine without seen some kind of advertisement for a product to invest in that will preserve you mind, strengthen your body, help you loose weight, help you gain muscle, but Peter calls his flesh this tent. He is making his investments in Heavenly things, where moth and rust won’t corrupt. He knows Jesus is preparing a place for us, a real home in Heaven.
Most of you guys know that Eli and Abby will be moving in a couple of months for a job that he has been offered down east. They have some land and as the Lord provides, they want to build a home for their family. In the mean time, they are looking for a tent. Not an actual tent, but something that will get them buy. Eli has looked at a bunch of trailers. At growth group the other night I mentioned a free trailer on the Bradley Road, and his response was that he had already looked at it, and it wasn’t worth investing much of anything in that temporary tent.
Peter knows that his time is near and wants to spent the time he has left in this tent, not investing in the tent, but in Heaven and he does that by pouring out his life here into others for the sake of the Kingdom.
Promise #3 He says, I’m going to be diligent to leave you reminders of these things once I’m dead and gone. Look at verse 15 with me please...
15 Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.
How will Peter do that? By writing these things down. Leaving a living legacy. Did you know that in order for a book or a letter to be considered to be included in the New Testament it had to be of Apostolic origin. Meaning it was either written by one of the Apostles or it was written by their secretary, or one that recorded it for them. So Peter gave us these two letters, but also he is considered the source for the gospel of Mark that was penned by John Mark. Paul is considered the source for the gospel of Doctor Luke.
But Peter was careful to ensure that his life here on earth would continue to matter and would continue to remind after he was gone to Heaven, and we are being reminded of these things today, 2,000 years after Peter died. Now after these three promises, in this closing section of our chapter there is a bit of a transition and Peter gives us some reasons to believe.
Now it is important for Christians to know what we believe and not just what we believe, but why we believe what we believe. IF we believe what Jesus said to Nicodemus that in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven you must be born again, then we want to have as many reasons to believe as we can possibly have to share with the people that we love, to convince them correct?
Well all of that is good stuff and we should be solid in our faith, and learn things like apologetics, or how to defend your faith, but remember, Peter is writing to Christians. Peter is writing to those in the church that now have those inside the church, wolves in sheep's clothing that are mixing in just enough truth in their lies that it is beginning to cause some doubt. That is what our enemy does. He tries to discourage us, he tries to depress us, this world that we live in right now is all about distraction, but I think one of the biggest tools of Satan in our lifetime is doubt.
Peter has given his whole life to Jesus. Walked away from his job, his family, everything that he knew to follow Jesus, how did Peter know that all of this was true? The thing that he had devoted his entire life to, how did Peter know it was true.
Now something that we don’t talk a lot about in church is doubt. The questions that come up in our mind. How do I know that this is all true. Is it just the faith of my fathers? Do I just believe because this is what I was taught and if I was taught something else, or grew up somewhere else, I might believe something different? Probably at one point or another in your Christian life you have struggled with doubt, or will?
Essentially the question becomes how do I know this is true? How do I know what I believe is the truth and what someone else believes isn’t true? Because I don’t know about you, but as a human being, I don’t want to waste my time, waste my life following something that is false, investing in things that don’t matter because they aren’t real. I’m here to tell you this morning that I’m here because I’m convinced Jesus is real. I’m convinced that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and like Paul says in Acts...
24 But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.
That is what Peter does in these closing verses. Verse 16
16 For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
17 For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
18 And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
One of the things causing doubt was rumors being spread that these guys made it up, that Peter and the others got together and said, Hey, you know what we could do? But Peter says, reason #1 to believe is that we saw it with our own eyes and heard it with our own ears. We were eyewitnesses. We weren’t following or making up fairy tails here, we saw His majesty.
We saw the miracles, we witnessed the healings making the blind to see and the deaf to hear, we saw it. Peter says we, this is his faith, he believes because he knows that he knows because he witnessed it himself.
One of my boys married a free woman. She’s not gluten free, she’s dairy free. Now this was a few years back but our boy now avoids dairy as well. When he was telling his mother and I, he made the statement, it’s not big deal because I never really drank very much milk. And Nicole and I looked at each other and we just smirked. We knew, despite what someone else apparently believed, what we new was true.
We saw the boy take the gallon jug from the refrigerator and drink right from it after hockey practice. And when he was confronted on it, he assured us he was going to drink the whole thing. We heard the dairy burps we smelled them, we saw gallon after gallon go on the conveyor belt at the grocery store. We knew what the truth was because we were witnesses to it. Peter is saying reason #1 to believe is we saw it, we were eyewitnesses.
All except for one died a martyrs death.
“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
― Charles Colson
Then he gives us a second one here and that is the transfiguration. I won’t go there this morning but I encourage you to check it out later in the first few verses of Matthew 17, we read there that Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a high mountain and they witnessed, personally saw literally His majesty. The bible tells us, He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And God said these words…This is My beloved Son...
A lot of Christians don’t really understand what happened on that mountain, but it was simply that. God pulled back the veil and allowed those three to see the divine glory and majesty of God. This was witnessed personally by all three and this eyewitness testimony is confirmed by these other witnesses as well, that Jesus is God in His divine glory and majesty.
Reason #3 verse 19
19 And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;
I like the King James version here a little better it says we have a more sure word of prophecy. Over 300 prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament.
There was a man... Peter Stoner was chairman of the mathematics and astronomy departments at Pasadena City College until 1953 when he moved to Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. There he served as chairman of the science division.
Professor Stoner set out to show statistically the odds of one man stepping into history and fulfilling just 8 of those prophecies. What were the odds that one would just randomly be born in the City of Bethlehem, that He would have a forerunner come before Him to announce His coming. What were the odds that He would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the odds that this same man would be betrayed by a friend and suffer wounds in His hands and His feet? The odds that He would be betrayed for exactly 30 pieces of silver, not 29, not 35, but 30.
They did their math, their fancy figuring and found that in order for one man to fulfill just 8 of the over 300 prophetic prophecies that were made about Messiah those odds would be 1 in 100 Quadrillion. What is that number? Silver dollars knee deep across the entire state of Texas, and then put a black check mark on one of them. Set a guy loose, blindfolded in that sea of silver dollars and set him free, the first one he touches is the one with the check mark, that is a good reason to believe.
Read Psalm 22 this afternoon that talks about how Messiah would die hundreds of years before Crucifixion was even invented as a form of capital punishment. Read the prophecy’s of Isaiah, read the gospel of Matthew and how he describes event after event after event as this was so as it was written, or in fulfillment of what was prophesied.
Reason #4 Peter gives us here…verse 20
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,
21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah didn’t just sit down and say I think I’ll write a story about a man named Jesus. This book was written by the very Hand of God. The one who knows the beginning from the end. That could reveal what was to come without error and tell us the truth.
So two quick things...
1. We started this morning with the words from Jesus to Nicodemus saying you must be born again. Do you remember a time in your life, a moment in your life when you know that you were born again?
2. Second those of you that are struggling today or have been struggling today with doubt. I hope you’ve heard some things today that have provided you with a more sure Word. My encouragement to you who are dealing with doubt, with discouragement, or depression, or more common distraction from the things that you know God is calling you to, that today you would decide to stand in teh things that you know to be true and be established in the truth as those receiving this letter were. Let’s pray.
Grace and peace