2 Peter 1

Bottom line

Are you growing in in your faith?

Opening Line

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and the tone of the conversation suddenly changed? Like the conversation started off really light hearted, a little bit of joking, and suddenly it became serious?

Oddly enough, I’ve experienced this most with church people. We will be having this fun time of connecting and laughing, and suddenly it switches to something serious and almost kills the whole mood.

I recall early in my ministry I was on a road trip with a gentleman, and I had a really good friendship with him. We were laughing and taking little jabs at each other, and at one point in the trip, he was sharing about something dumb he got involved with. Naturally, because I didn’t typically filter my thoughts, I said, “You are such a fool for doing that.”

Suddenly, he stopped laughing and scolded me for calling him a fool. He quoted Proverbs where it says, “A fool says in his heart that there is no god,” and he was not a fool!

Needless to say, that pretty much killed the whole conversation. It was a pretty quiet road trip for the rest of the time.

Introduction

I start there because the tone from 1 Peter to 2 Peter is similarly drastic, and it can be easy to miss it if you are not paying attention to the details. In the first letter, Peter is encouraging the believers, recognizing that they are going through hardships in their faith. He trying to lift them up, to stay strong in the midst of the trials. Though the content is centred around suffering, the tone is encouraging.

But 2 Peter shifts, and this letter has a tone of urgency to it. 2 Peter 1:12-15

2 Peter 1:12–15 NLT

Therefore, I will always remind you about these things—even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught. And it is only right that I should keep on reminding you as long as I live. For our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I must soon leave this earthly life, so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone.

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This is not just another letter from Peter to the church. This could be his last letter to the church, and everything he is going to talk about is specifically meant to remind and solidify the believers. He recognizes that the suffering is going to continue, and he wants to die knowing the that church is going to survive the trials that are coming. So as we go through the next 3 chapters, I want you hear the urgency, and to carry these words with special value. This isn’t just the last letter of Peter; it is the last letter, and he knows it. Nothing in here is an accident.

Main Point

Peter starts the letter by reminding the church that they need to be making every effort to grow in their faith.

Why it matters

This is so important, not only for the church at the time of Peter, but for the church today. There are a lot of believers that have convinced themselves that as long as they show up at church occasionally, or just tune in online, and read their Bible if they have time, that they have checked the boxes and met the minimum requirement. The problem is that these same people struggle with sin, don’t understand why the few prayers they pray never get answered, and their lives don’t look any different from the lives of the unbelievers all around them. They prayed a prayer 15 years ago and never moved past that point in their faith. Peter’s words this morning are so important because it is the reminder that faith requires action. There is this expectation that you are going to continue to grow.

So we are in 2 Peter 1 if you have your bible. It is on the app and you can follow along on the screen.

Scripture

2 Peter 1:3–4 NLT

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

You Have Everything You Need to Grow

I want you to catch the significance of what Peter has written here. God has given you EVERYTHING you need to live a godly life. There are so many believers that spend their whole life looking for the secret sauce to a healthy faith or being a strong Christian. Peter says that you have everything you need to live a godly life by what? By coming to know Jesus. I know this has been said a lot but I have seen how often the Bible repeats itself and so it is worth repeating again. When scripture talks about knowing someone, it isn’t just knowing about them. It is knowing them personally. So when Peter tells you that the key to growing in your faith and living a godly life is knowing Jesus, he isn’t saying you need to brush up on all the trivia knowledge you can. He’s not saying you dive into this book like a textbook and study like you are preparing for a pop quiz. Peter is saying you have to really know Jesus. You read the Word of God expecting the Holy Spirit to speak to you. You go into prayer expecting Jesus to speak to you. You know what excites Jesus and what breaks His heart and pursure the things that excite Him.

As you grow in your relationship with Jesus, you can’t help to be changed because He is so amazing that He inspires growth. You want to be like Him, you want to imitate Him.

As you get to know Him more, you begin to realize that He has made some precious promises. The word precious here means beyond value. His promises are amazing, and He has never failed to keep His promises. As you grow in the knowledge of Him and as you live by the promises He has made, you grow in godliness and you escape the world’s corruption. The sinfu desires that you were born with begin to give way for the godly desires that God’s Spirit begin to implant in you.

You have everything you need to live a godly life. It is for this reason that Paul says that you are without excuse. There is no secret that needs to be found. There is simply a person that needs to be known.

Peter goes on. 2 Peter 1:5-7

2 Peter 1:5–7 NLT

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The Keys to Grow

Peter goes on, and he tells the church that because God has taken care of the key element of your growth, he has laid the foundation, now you need to take ownership of your faith and build on it. At first glance, these may seem like really good ideals for any believer to grow in, but I want you see that actually Peter was very intentional about how he worded this next part. So let’s look at each of these and how each one balances the one that came before it.

Since God has given you everything, and you simply need to believe that and grow in your relationship with Christ, the next thing to add is moral excellence. Moral excellence is understanding God’s standard for purity and trying to live by it. It is actively avoiding those things that are contrary to God’s nature and not allowing the corruption of the world to pull you away from Him.

You add to moral excellence knowledge. These two work in tandem. Without moral excellence, your mind will be filled with the things of the world and there won’t be any space to take in the things of God. Moral excellence helps to cleanse your mind of filth so that you can receive the things God wants to plant in you. Knowledge is growing in understanding of who Jesus is and what He is doing in the world. It is good to grow in knowledge of the things of God.

Knowledge with self-control. The danger of knowledge without self-control is you can get yourself into trouble. I read an article about a pastor who studied extensively and learned that Jesus really did turn water into wine. His research allowed him to excuse drinking in the life of a believer, which lead to going to bars, which led to clubbing, which led to an affair, which led to divorce. This pastor, because his knowledge was not tempered with self-control, lost his family and his ministry. Growth in knowledge needs to be tempered with self-control.

Self control with patience. Have you ever noticed that as you grow in self-control, you become more aware of everyone around you who is not growing in self-control? If others aren’t growing, it can be really easy to become impatient with them. Why aren’t growing? Why aren’t you where I am? You’ve been a believer longer, what’s the deal? Patience is understanding that God is growing everyone at their own pace, and everyone stumbles. You may be growing now, but there may come a time when you’re not. You need to be patient, trusting that God is working and things will happen at His pace, not necessarily yours.

Patience with godliness. The idea here is that you can actually be too patient. It is one thing to be patient with someone’s growth, it is another to be patient in the midst of unrighteousness. Godliness recognizes that there are times when you need to take a stand for truth and righteousness; there is a time for patience, and there is a time for doing what is right. It is possible to be too patient and let things go that need to be addressed.

Godliness with brotherly affection. However, just because you need to take stand doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it. Remember that we are all family, bought by the precious blood of Christ. You need to treat each other with that level of love and affection.

Transition to Application

Just as much as one of these aspects balances the one that comes before it, I also see these as building upon one another. As you grow in moral excellence, you want to understand more fully what it means to be morally excellent. As your knowledge grows, you begin to understand the value of self-control. Since self-control is an exercise of patience with self, you begin to grow in patience for others. As you become patient with others, you realize that major point of contention in life are points of ungodliness, so you begin to weed it out and grow in godliness. As you become more godly, you begin to see people as God does, which results in an increase of love and brotherly affection. One builds on the other.

Main To Do

So if you want to grow, if you want to have the kind of faith that can endure the trials that are coming, then you need to intentionally grow in these areas. If you feel like your faith is dry and you are disconnected from you God, you need grow in these areas.

If these are building blocks, then identify which block you are at and start working on that one. Some of you may need to start with the understanding that God has given you everything for godliness and what that means for you. If the foundation is shaky, the blocks will tumble. Once you fully believe that God has given you everything, then start working on your moral excellence. Be honest, and start building where you are at.

Why it matters

Why do you need to grow in these areas? Here’s what Peter says.

2 Peter 1:8–11 NLT

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

You either grow, or you’re blind

Peter says that if you grow, you are going to be an effective part of God’s plan to redeem the world and your faith be vibrant and exciting. The alternative is that you continue to live in the sin that God has saved you from and your faith is slowly withering away. You actually run the risk of falling away if you do not intentionally grow in these areas. I wonder how many believers have fallen away from the faith and never realized it. I wonder how many struggle with sin and corruption when they have all they need to live in victory.

According to Peter, if you’re not growing in these areas, you are blind and risk falling away.

Closing Line

As Peter before me, I implore you, do not be counted among those who are falling away.

Discussion Questions

1. What stands out from chapter 1 and the message?

2. “You have everything you need to live a godly life.” Why do you think many believers struggle with this truth?

3. If verses 5-7 are building blocks, which one needs the most work in your life? Discuss ways you can grow in this area.