1. 2 Peter 1:1-11
2 Peter: Be on Guard, Grow in Grace • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro: Guard and Grow
Picture in your mind, two churches.
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The first church we’ll call the “Guarded Gospel Church”. This church is very sure of what it is AGAINST. The Guarded Gospel Church understands (quite rightly) that false teaching and ungodly behaviour are real dangers to the church… they are on guard when it comes to watching out for these - doctrine is checked and double checked, guest speakers are rigorously examined before being allowed to preach. All of this (by the way) is GOOD - we’re going to see in this book (2 Peter) that false teaching and the ungodly behaviour it brings ARE real dangers to the church. However, the Guarded Gospel Church isn’t so hot on what it is FOR. If you ask the average punter in the pew to talk about the goodness of Jesus… they wouldn’t be able to give you much of a positive sense of his beauty, majesty and power. Likewise if you asked how they had been growing in personal Christlikeness they might not have much to say either.
The second church is quite different SLIDE - we’ll call it the “Gospel Growth Fellowship”. They are very clear on what they are FOR. They love Jesus who is their Saviour Friend and King - AND the great model of godliness, love and compassion. They speak all the time about growing to be more like Jesus… growing in love. This is GOOD (2 Peter will show us the need to have a positive vision of Jesus, and a real determination to become more like him). However… when it comes to Guarding the church from false teaching, things are a little but (shall we say) looser at the Gospel Growth Fellowship. They’re all about love and it’s loving surely to let lots of people teach (we wouldn’t want to exclude them would we)… as a result some unBiblical ideas are creeping in.
I hope you can see that BOTH of these churches have their strengths… but that BOTH of them are also deficient in important ways.
And THIS LETTER (2 Peter) is designed to help correct both of them.
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You’ll notice our series is called “Be on Guard, Grow in Grace”. BOTH of these things are important…. that phrase comes from (what is probably) the key sentence in the whole book - from right near the end chapter 3 verses 17 and 18
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17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Be on guard - we’re going to see that the churches Peter is writing to are in danger, false teachers, with ungodly behaviour threaten to ruin the church. Be on Guard…. BUT ALSO… Grow in grace… Peter is keen NOT ONLY that they avoid false gospels but that they grow in the true gospel - having a fuller and more glorious vision OF Jesus… having a greater determination to live LIKE JESUS… so they will, when he returns, be prepared to meet WITH JESUS.
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It’s an overused illustration - I’m sure you’ve heard it before - but do you know how US federal agents are trained to detect counterfeit money? Their training starts NOT by looking at fake bank notes… but instead by spending lots of time studying the real thing.
Peter is saying both guarding and growing are needed in our churches… One of the ways we’ll be trained and on our guard when it comes to false teaching and fakes gospels… is for us to spend time with and be more captivated by the REAL THING - by Jesus himself.
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Be on Guard, Grow in Grace.
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Lets jump straight in, look at v1
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1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
No surprises the letter of 2 Peter is written by…. Peter - that is Simon Peter, the former fisherman, disciple (apostle) - eyewitness of Jesus. A few things point to him as the author - not just the obvious fact he introduces himself…
Later on in chapter 1 verse 14 it’s clear Peter expects not to live much longer… but to die for his faith… something Jesus himself had foretold. Later on still (chapter 1 verse 16) it’s clear that this Peter (Simon Peter) is an eyewitness of the Transfiguration - that memorable moment when Peter James and John are with Jesus on the mountain and see his glory revealed. Then there’s the fact that so much of the content of this letter…. is obviously an echoe, a repetition (if you like) of the teaching of Jesus himself… heard by Peter, passed on in this letter.
But isn’t it interesting how Peter views himself? YES he’s an eyewitness of Jesus…. YES he’s an APOSTLE. But do you see what else he calls himself? v1…
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“Simon Peter a δοῦλος and apostle of Jesus Christ”
Our Bibles quite politely translate that Greek word as “Servant”. More literally…. it really means SLAVE.
So YES he may be an eyewitness…. YES that makes him an Apostle… and YES he’s the author of this letter (God is speaking through him as he is carried along by the Holy Spirit - we’ll hear that later) BUT…. what does Peter consider himself? Just a slave. Just a servant - there to do his masters bidding. There to serve his master’s church. In fact you get a further hint of that at the end of verse 1… (read on)
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1 …To those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
Now that phrase “a faith as precious as ours” is a slightly tricky one and can also be translated (as the ESV does)….
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“those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours” (ESV 2 Peter 1:1)
In other words…. all the believers in all the churches who recieve Peter’s letter… even though they are jusy normal Christians scattered in normal churches across the region of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey)… their FAITH IN Jesus…. their KNOWLEDGE OF Jesus… RELATIONSHIP WITH Jesus…. is just as close, just as significant, just as precious - equal with PETER’S OWN RELATIONSHIP with Christ.
And of course the same is true for us…. it’s quite amazing what Peter is saying. We often think, don’t we, Oh if I had only been there and seen Jesus with my own eyes… then I would know him better….. you get a slightly watered down version of this from those who say, Oh I need to get to Israel… I need to see where Jesus walked, THEN (and only then) will I have a closer relationship with him.
I’m not knocking trips to Israel by the way, by all means take one…. but please TAKE IT FROM THE APOSTLE PETER who didn’t just go on a 21st century tourist trail to the Holy Land… but who walked in the first century with Jesus himself…. that WE - if we trust in Jesus - have a faith in just as precious… we can have a relationship just as close.
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This is a four point sermon and we haven’t yet reached number 1, so we best press on… four things to notice in this section of Peter’s letter, here’s the first.
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1. Picturing our Glorious God and Saviour
1. Picturing our Glorious God and Saviour
This whole letter (including today’s passage) is littered… simply littered with references to our LORD JESUS CHRIST… or our GOD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.
Do you see it there - look down if you’ve got your Bible open?
v1 - through the righteousness of our GOD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.
v2 knowledge of God and of JESUS OUR LORD - who has (v3) DIVINE POWER
v11 speaks of JESUS WHO HAS AN ETERNAL KINGDOM
v14 our LORD JESUS CHRIST
v16 our LORD JESUS CHRIST
Chapter 2 v1 he’s called the SOVEREIGN LORD
And on it goes… one of Peter’s main purposes here is to life our eyes to PICTURE… to SEE…. to have a VISION OF how good and great and glorious JESUS IS.
In fact, just skip back to that first example… see Peter’s quite revolutionary language… back to v1 he calls Jesus…
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1 …our God and Saviour Jesus Christ…
Occasionally you’ll hear those false teachers who say… Oh the early Christians didn’t believe Jesus was God… that was all invented and added on in later centuries.
Well, the evidence before our eyes says that’s nonsense!
It IS a radical thing for a Jewish man to say, of course… a good Jewish boy (or a Jewish boy at least!) like Peter would have grown up saying the Shema - those famous words from Deut 6:4
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4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And yet Peter has come to see that the God who is one, is also the God who is three. That Jesus is God… Jesus is Divine.
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1 …our God and Saviour Jesus Christ…
And just in case you think (to use the politician speak) just in case you think Peter MIS-SPOKE… he speaks (start of v3) about Jesus having DIVINE POWER
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3 His divine power has given us everything we need….
Peter wants to fill your mind with Jesus - who is divine, who is the LORD (the ruler) of all… the who who is high and lifted up who has an ETERNAL Kingdom. How big is your view of Jesus? It’s not big enough, says Peter.
In fact - as we’ll see - one of the problems that the false teachers have is THEY HAVE far too small a picture of Jesus…. they don’t believe he’s coming back…. they don’t believe he’ll really judge and really save.
There’s one more thing to see though before we move on…. can you see Peter’s emphasis? it’s not JUST that Jesus is glorious… it’s that this GLORIOUS JESUS and also BE KNOWN! - by the likes of you and me.
We can have (v2)… SLIDE
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2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Likewise… We can have (he says it again - v3) knowledge of him (of Jesus).
As he has already made clear, you and I can know this Lord Jesus every bit as fully and truly as Peter himself. Now that’s good news.
So Peter wants us to be knowing and PICTURING our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
But more than that… point 2 now we need to know and to remember…
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2. The Power of the Gospel of our God and Saviour
2. The Power of the Gospel of our God and Saviour
Read on now, v3 SLIDE
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Having asked his readers to LOOK UP and get a vision of the real glory of Jesus. Now he wants them (as it were) to LOOK BACK and to remember the effects of the Gospel.
They have been called (v3) by the glory and goodness of Jesus. (we’ll see more on being called or chosen later).
They have been given (quote) the very great and precious promises (v3).
What are these? Well they are the promises of the Gospel. The gospel message which tells us that there is a way to escape the corruption of our world (end of v4)…. a way to escape the corruption - not just or our world - but of our own hearts. Each of us is a sinner, who has broken God’s law, and deserves his judgement…. each of us is a sinner in need of a saviour.
But Jesus has come to be that Saviour… come to die on the cross, in our place, to pay for our sin… so that if we will say YES to him, if we will believe in him and receive him as our saviour we can be forgiven and welcomed home as God’s children, saved from our sin and his judgement.
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It’s interesting different NT writers picture this journey of conversion, of becoming a Christian in different ways.
Paul often talks about JUSTIFICATION - how we are declared legally not guilty in God’s courtroom.
In John’s gospel we read of being BORN AGAIN - in Jesus we get a new start so complete we are born again.
There’s different ways to put it… different language to describe it… but it’s lovely here in 2 Peter the language he choses, the way HE describes our conversion as being all about KNOWING.
It’s about KNOWING… about coming to KNOW Jesus. In YOUR life, as YOUR saviour, YOUR King.
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But, even more than that… it isn’t JUST about escaping the corruption of the world and the corruption of our own sinful hearts… see what he says (v4) coming to know Jesus means PARTICIPATING IN THE DIVINE NATURE. As we come to Jesus we get to share in the very light and life and love of God himself.
But if you participate in the Divine nature… or course it means, more and more sharing that nature - that is, becoming more and more like Jesus or (as our third heading says….)
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3. Progress in Living for our God and Saviour
3. Progress in Living for our God and Saviour
Read on now, v5… SLIDE
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
Here are 7 qualities, 7 areas where we must actively pursue GROWTH.
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And again - Peter is well place to know this first hand because he lived and walked and talked with Jesus… but aren’t these the character traits of Jesus himself?
Goodness - those who opposed him wanted something to pin on Jesus, but they could find nothing, they had to fabricate.
Knowledge - we’re told that, as a boy, Jesus grew is knowledge, wisdom and stature… and when it comes to KNOWING his Father, Jesus is in the closest possible relationship with him.
Self Control - Jesus is constantly goaded by religious elites, who seek to trick and trap him. He remains in control at all times. Or thing of his temptation in teh wilderness with Satan, he will not bow to pressure.
Perseverance - picture Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, wanting anhy other path forward but this one, YET persevering in obedience to the will of the Father.
The list goes on - Godliness…. mutual affection… these are ALL JESUS…and final, of course, the one virtue or character trait which sums up the lot… love. And supremely here we meet Jesus…
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16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
It would be a good exercise to write down these 7 character traits and think - how and where do I need to grow?
And the onus is on US… do you see they Peter puts it? v5?
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5 For this very reason, make every effort to add…
That’s a phrase Peter will introduce more than once in this letter when he’s moving to points of APPLICATION.
If we are followers of Jesus we are saved by grace, YES! But Peter is clear that we have a role to play, MAKE EVERY EFFORT in these areas.
But If you think that means God just sits back, folds his arms, and says “come on then - lets see how you do”… then you couldn’t be more wrong.
Remember what he has just said - v3
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3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
So….
Want to grow in goodness? knowing Jesus and havign the Holy Spirit has already given you all you need to grow in this way!
Want to grow in Self control? knowing Jesus and havign the Holy Spirit has already given you all you need to grow in this way!
Want to grow in mutual affection? - do you find your church family hard to love at times? - knowing Jesus and having the Holy Spirit has already given you all you need to grow in this way!
I read this great illustration this week in a book (on 2 Peter) by Angus Macleay. Listen to how he illustrates the point…
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Peter wants believers to make every effort to ‘add’ to their faith a whole range of qualities…. ‘furnish’ might be even better. Imagine a situation where a newly married couple have been given a new, empty apartment by wealthy parents as a wonderfully generous gift and have also received all the money required to furnish it and make it their own home. They are immediately able to move in to what they have received, but they need to start furnishing it in an appropriate way using the money already provided. So they head off to the shops, aiming to furnish their new property in a way which will be attractive. Of course, the process of furnishing the home will take some time as different items are brought into the apartment, but the aim is clearly to establish a beautiful home. So it is for believers. Angus Macleay, Teaching 2 Peter & Jude.
Peter says the same thing a different way down in v10
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10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble
Peter knows that we only trusted in Christ in the first place because God chose us and called us… but he sees no contradiction between that fact AND the need we have to make that calling sure…. to press on with progress in our Godly living.
And this is IMPORTANT… if we are not growing, Peter says we are STAGNATING in our Christian walk… v8
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8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
I love the metaphor of sight here… remember Peter has had us looking UP to remember how glorious Jesus is… he’s had us looking back to remember the power of the Gospel… he’s had us looking at ourselves to see how we’re growing in Godliness…
The person who doesn’t do this ends up blind - forgetting who Jesus is, forgetting what he has done AND….. crucially (here’s another major theme in this letter) - FORGETTING THAT IN THE FUTURE JESUS IS COMING BACK AGAIN.
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4. Prepared for the Coming of our God and Saviour
4. Prepared for the Coming of our God and Saviour
See how this section ends - our first little hint of an important theme Peter will return to time and again - v11…
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11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Part of the Christian life is LOOKING FORWARD and remembering that Jesus is returning… he’s coming as saviour and judge. All who trust in him will find a place in his perfect and eternal Kingdom… all who reject him as King - have no place in that Kingdom and are cast outside into judgement.
We want to be prepared don’t we, for that day?
Whether our own physical death or the return of Christ comes first - we want to be found IN CHRIST don’t we? We want Jesus to find us trusting in him AND growing in him - both are essential - don’t we?
In a sense Peter says this to complete this picture of ‘looking’ - he’s said…
LOOK UP to see how glorious Jesus is
LOOK BACK - to see the wonderful power of the gospel to save you
LOOK WITHIN - to see the change and growth that must take place in the power of the Spirit and the help of our saviour.
finally it’s LOOK ON - remember Jesus is coming.
But there’s more to this than first meets the eye… it will transpire (we’ll see this in later weeks) that their are powerful and dangerous false teachers within the churches Peter is written to.
It’s interesting in fact to compare Peter’s two letters….
in his first letter the challenge to the church comes mainly from OPPOSITION and PERSECUTION from OUTSIDE the church…. but in some ways the presenting issue by the time we get to 2 Peter is even more dangerous… it’s OPPOSITION from false teaching WITHIN the church.
And one of the things that these false teachers are denying…. in fact they are mocking and scoffing about it… is the return of Jesus.
“you’ve got it all wrong” they are saying “Jesus isn’t coming back” they are saying “look, everything in the world goes on as it always has - don’t fall for this nonsense about a returning messiah, it’s pie in teh sky” they were saying.
And, of course, once you pull out that piece of the puzzle… what else begins to fall apart?
Well…. if Jesus isn’t returning then there is no final judgement…. and if there is no final judgement why do I need a Saviour? and if there is no final judgement…. well I’ve no need to grow in Godliness, IN FACT I can live as I like and DO WHAT I WANT…
Why bother struggling with self control? it’s hard work I’ll just go with the flow of my instincts and desires, if it feels good i’ll do it and hang the consequences…
And why bother with trying to grow in goodness? it’s hard… and besides nice guys finish last, I’ll just do as I please instead.
Why bother struggling to grow in mutual affection? it’s hard to love people I’ll just go for selfishness…
Do you see how dangerous this false teaching is, that denies the return of Jesus?
We’ll see much more on that topic in later weeks. For now…
will you look up - to see and appreciate our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
look back - remember the power of the gospel - God’s divine power not just to save you but to give you all you need for a Godly life… speaking of which…
Look in - see the need, in the power of Christ to grow to be more like Jesus in our interactions.
And finally look ahead - Jesus IS coming back.
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There’s more to follow tonight as we continue with the next section of this letter - come back then. don’t miss it. But for now, let’s pray.
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