2 Peter 1:1-11

Sermon Style Sheet

Write that down in your formation Journal

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Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

Psalm 139:14 CSB

14 I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.

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Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 12:30-1:30 2:12-3:00 3:14-4:02

2 Peter 1:1–11 CSB

1 Simeon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those who have received a faith equal to ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, 7 godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

Opening Illustration:

Has there been a time when you have felt especially useless - not useless in like depressed but where you realized you didn’t add any value to the situation. Even if the people wanted you there.

football useless

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Getting into the Sermon

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Peter is going to be encouraging us to be useful to God.

We are starting a new book today, it’s the book of 2 Peter. We just finished 1 Peter and this is the second one. It is written generally to the same people as 1 peter but it’s a few years later. It could be a soon as one year or as much as 6 but its close.

But in that short time, things have changed. The suffering in 1 Peter was largely pressure and relational. It was real suffering, don’t get me wrong, but the persecution hadn’t gottne into the stuff you typically think of with Rome, like people getting fed to the lions.

But all that has changed. In AD 64 there was the Great Fire of Rome that was blamed on the Christians and things really started to heat up. That marked the turning point. Full persecution is on. In fact, Peter seems to have an idea that he is about to die.

I think it’s helpful to place things in a timeline when we can. Jesus was born around the year 6 or 4 BC - the calendar probably got year 1 wrong. Jesus was crucified and resurrected around 30-33 AD. So that’s about 30 years earlier.

Paul’s first missionary journey was around AD 46-48

So this is all happening real fast. 1 Peter was written probably in the early 60s and then you have the 64 great fire of Rome. Peter and Paul were probably both executed around AD 66-68. And in AD 70, is the destruction of Jerusalem.

So a lot happened within that pretty short period of time.

So the situation has changed and now Peter is writing a second letter. He is going to be addressing some false teaching that’s been going on and he really wants them to understand how they should be living as Christians.

Peter is going to be encouraging us to be useful to God.

So let’s look at how the book starts:

2 Peter 1:1 CSB

1 Simeon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those who have received a faith equal to ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now, we can run right past this but it’s helpful to look at what he is saying. On the one hand he is an apostle of Jesus - this is the highest job in the church. You don’t get higher than being an apostle.

But then he is also a servant, the imagery is more like a servant. He is totally under the control of Christ.

So Peter is this is who I am. I’m a servant or a slave to Christ. I am totally under his authority. But I am also an apostle. I’ve got a mission. I knew Christ personally. I’m kind of a big deal.

But then he does something really unexpected. He says that the people he is writing to have received a faith equal to ours - ours being apostles.

Think about that. Here is what he is writing throughout the ages - if you are a christian - you have a faith equal to that of Peter.

This is a big deal. You are significant. Think about it this way - remember the fishing story where I was worthless - i hope so it was just five seconds ago - but maybe you feel that way.

Maybe you feel like a christian who has messed up really bad. You feel like a disgrace. How could God use me?

Maybe you are a teenager and you struggle living for Christ at school. You think, I feel a bit useless for God.

Peter is writing and saying that your faith, weak, broken, not as perfect as you would like it to be, is actually equal to his. How can that be? How can that be true of you?

2 Peter 1:1 CSB

through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

That’s the issue. It’s through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Here is what he is slipping in here.

Gospel - we are given Christ’s righteousness. imputed

We have Christ’s righteousness!

We are have the Spirit of Christ living in us, just like Peter did! The thing that marked Peter as different, that marked him as holy wasn’t Peter’s perfect living - it was Christ’s righteousness. It was the gift that he received.

he had received christ’s righteousness and filled with the holy spirit

you have received that same rightesouness and are filled with the same holy spirit.

This is a huge deal. You aren’t a second class citizen of heaven. You have the same Spirit that the apostles had. That’s what true about you!!

So our faith and righteousness is marked not by what we do but by what Jesus did. Our Salvation is because of what jesus did. That’s called justification we are right before God because we have Christ’s righeousness.

But we can continue to grow in our experience of God’s grace and peace.

But we don’t we grow in justification. We can’t become more accepted by God. Because we can’t add to the righteousness of Christ.

At the end of each service, I say “When God thinks about you its with a smile on his face and joy in his heart” that’s talking about justification. It doesn’t meant that we can’t grieve God, it means that even when we do grieve him by our actions, as christians we are still his beloved and adopted children - we don’t lose that.

I have never not been happy that my kids are my kids even when I have been angry with them. Right, I mean, I hope that’s true for you too. If you have a healthy family you love your kids not because of what they do but because of who they are.

So justification is the reality of our acceptance and that we have Christ’s righteousness. We don’t grow more justified. But we can grow to be more like him.

That’s call sanctification. That’s what he is going to start talking about in verse 2

2 Peter 1:2 CSB

2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

So our standing before God doesn’t change but we can grow in grace. We can grow in our experience of that. We can grow in the way it is applied to our lives. And when we do, we are also growing in peace.

A lot of people carry with them a vague sense of unease. You don’t feel like you are at peace with God. Maybe you think that when you sin, God casts you aside so you feel uneasy. Maybe you feel insecure with God. Maybe you feel far from God. Sometimes there is this vague kind of anxious feeling. You don’t feel at peace with God.

As we grow in our sanctification, we grow in our understanding of our peace with God. We get to experience that peace in a deeper and deeper level. That’s what he is talking about.

We do that “through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Knowledge in the biblical terms when it its talking about people isn’t just information - it is information, but it is relationship language. Experience. he is talking about both our experience of him and our information of him.

Sanctification - We grow to be more like Christ the more we get to know Christ.

Think about it this way, the man who did the announcements is named Nate. In case you didn’t know that. If I said, “Hey, Nate is my good friend. Yeah, I really love his Australian accent. I mean that’s pretty cool. I mean to grow up as an aborigine and then move to the US. That takes a lot.”

Now, hopefully, you remember that Nate is not an aborigine from Australia. He is from New Jersey, actually. That’s where he is from. He doesn’t even have much of an accent.

But you would think, gosh, Tony doesn’t know this guy. He just let’s anyone on stage doesn’t he!

That’s the way some people talk about God. They have no knowledge of him. They don’t know the facts about his existence. They aren’t interested in the sound of his voice, because they don’t read their bibles.

When it comes to God, people can tend to act like Ron Swanson from Parks and Recs. I don’t know if you ever seen that show, but Ron is a super private guy. He doesn’t like to talk. Doesn’t want to have emotions. He doesn’t want to be known or to know other people.

At one point he says this, “The less I know about other people’s affairs ,the happier I am. I’m not interested in caring for people. I once worked for a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.”

Unfortunately, that’s how we can treat God. I don’t really want to care about him, I want him to care for me. I don’t want to know anything about him. We still never talk sometimes. BUT - I like to think of him as my best friend! Listen, we’ve got word habit, we’ve got foundation journals, so that you can get to know God!

And as you get to know him you will become like him because you become like who you are around.

Me and my best friend became roommates in college and we had this third guy living with us too. We didn’t know him. He was a nice guy but he had a significant stutter. What was crazy was, by the end of the first semester, both me and my friend were stuttering too. You become who spend time with.

you become like who you are around - so be around Christ!

So get to know God. Spend time with him. Learn about him from his word and you will grow in both grace and peace! You will really start to understand that you are saved and changed!

Because as Christians, we don’t lack anything necessary to have a victorious christian life!

2 Peter 1:3 CSB

3 His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

So we have everything we need already but we need to know God. We need to know christ. We need to spend time with him to become like him.

I bought a board game at a thrift store twice. One time, it didn’t have any of the pieces. Never played the game - it didn’t have what I needed. It was specialty version of Clue. But then there was another games, stratego, and it came with everything I needed. And I played that game, and it was fun.

As your living christian life, God has given stratego not clue. You have everything you need to live for him already.

2 Peter 1:4 CSB

4 By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.

look at how optimistic peter is!

I mean, the promises just get bigger. Now he doesn’t just say that you have received the righteousness of Christ you have received a share in the divine nature! And that through that we are able to escape the corruption of the world. - he is talking of course, about our having received the holy spirit, it’s in us. We are united with Christ.

Oftentimes, I think the idea of this seems bigger than the reality in our lives! I mean, do you feel like you don’t have any more evil desire? Right, this is a bold statement!

The point though, isn’t that we have achieved this. It isn’t that we already have this, it is that we “may share” in it. We can overcome our sin. We have everything that we need.

You don’t have to sin anymore. You can have victory over your sin. Now, I’m not saying that you can live a sinless life, practically speaking. But the power is in you. We won’t be fully sanctified until Jesus returns, but we need to understand the truth about us.

When Jesus rose from the dead he defeated the power of sin in our lives. It doesn’t hold us anymore. We aren’t obligated to it.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit allows us to fight and overcome sin on a day to day basis.

So often, we fall into the trap of sin because we believe we are going to lose. We go into it, thinking that we aren’t enough, thinking that there’s pieces missing from the box and not believing that we can win.

We are given everything we need to win. You can overcome sin! and you can grow!

2 Peter 1:5–7 CSB

5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, 7 godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

So he wants us to take action. He wants us to grow in the power of the Holy Spirit. We already have everything we need - so let’s put that to work to grow in Christ.

So you are a christian with faith -add goodness. It means be a person of upstanding moral character. Be honest, courageous, loyal. Think about what does it mean if someone is a good dude. A good woman. Maybe go home and write it out. What are the marks that someone is really good?

Add knowledge - get to know God

Also add self-control - look, self control is the ability to resist temptation. You might be a decent person but you can’t control yourself. That’s not good. You may have lost so many times that you don’t think you can win anymore. But you can. You can resist. You can control yourself, because you have the Holy Spirit inside you.

Add endurance - don’t just be holy for little while. Get strong in the faith. Get ready to run to the finish line!

Then he said add godliness. In the men’s ministry last month I asked them, if you were to describe the characteristics of someone who was truly godly. Like, wow, that is a godly man what would those characteristics be? Maybe go home and make a list. Then know this - you already have what it takes. So with your faith add goodness.

And then brotherly affection and love. Start to live for the wellbeing of others. Live like other christians are your family. Live as if you really care what happens to them and you are willing sacrifice for them.

And if you do that - you will become someone really powerful for God. Look at verse 8

2 Peter 1:8 CSB

8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ok, so maybe you don’t have all these characteristics down just yet. That’s ok. Its time to grow in them. That’s why he says he wants you to have them in “increasing measure.”

It’s not about if you’ve arrived, it’s about your direction. sometimes we are running, sometimes we’re walking, sometimes we are just leaning in the right direction. But we are growing, increase the amount of all those things.

Nobody expects you to be perfect. Nobody expects you to have it all together perfectly. But you should own where you are at, talk about it and get better. That’s all.

I just got done reading a book on apologizing. I thought it was great - we might make it part of our book club. But one of the thing it says that that when you apologize and you own your actions, like you know what you did was wrong, you should also make a commitment to change. You aren’t going to do that again. You recommit yourself.

But… for most people, change doesn’t happen automatically. You are going to mess up again. What then? What happens if you do it again? Well… you own up to it. You apologize, you try to learn and you commit to getting better. Not just verbally, but you actually try.

And if you think about it with your spouse or a friend or a child, you know that’s the case. You know that they aren’t ever going to be perfect but you want them to grow in their behavior. If your 15 year old behaves the same way as he or she did at 5, there’s a problem. You want them to be growing in their behavior and in their character. But you still don’t expect them to be perfect. If your 25 year old acts the same as he or she did when they were 15, that’s a problem too. You want your kids to grow and to become more and more competent. You want them to become firmer in their faith and character. And you understand that it takes time.

You own where you are at and recommit yourself to the change.

It’s the same way with God. We grow. We live a lifestyle of repentance and owning our mistakes.

when we mess up - we own it and recommit ourselves to God, to Goal.

But we become dedicated to that growth. And as we grow in our faith and in goodness and in knowledge and in self-control and in endurance and in godliness and in love - over time we are going to bear a lot of fruit and to be really useful to God.

Think about that statement. Useful to God. Wouldn’t you like that to be said about you? Isn’t that a high thing. That people would look at you and say, she’s useful to God. Or that God would look at you and say, “you are useful to me.”

Think about where you are in your walk with Christ. Are you useful? Or are you me wanting to throw the cast net into the water? If you aren’t, what changes do you need to make to grow in your knowledge and character and all that? Maybe its starting by reading word habit. maybe its starting by getting Christian friends.

Feeling lonely drops 30% anger 32% bitterness 40%, spiritually stagnant 60%

Resist temps alcohol abuse 57%, pornography 60% sex 68%

Sharing faith 200% discipline others 230%

Whatever the case, I hope you think its time to start! Because look at what it says about the people who don’t:

2 Peter 1:9 CSB

9 The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.

has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. That’s rough. Way back in the day, probably over 20 years ago, there was man running for president who had served in vietnam. His name was John Kerry. Now, I am not getting into politics here, that’s not the point. But when he went around on his stump speeches he would always bring this one guy with him by the name of Jim Rassmann. Now here’s what weird about it, Kerry was a democrat and Rassmann was a republican. So why did Jim always support Kerry?

Well, 35 years earlier, Jim was a green beret serving in Vietnam too. They were on whats called a swiftboat but Jim was blown off the boat and was in the water. Kerry, could have taken to boat and driven off but he turned around and rescued Jim. He saved Jim’s life.

35 years later, Jim hadn’t forgotten that. He hadn’t forgotten who saved him. Imagine if he had. How ungrateful would that be?

Look, Jesus saved you from something bigger than physical death. He saved you from eternal death. But what he wants from you is a greater loyalty than Jim had. He wants you to turn from everything in this life and live for Him. He wants you to remember who cleansed you from your past sins and live in gratitude and recognition that your past sins are what doomed you!

Then he goes on to this criptic end.

2 Peter 1:10–11 CSB

10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

This is something that has been difficult for people for a long time. What does it mean to confirm your calling and election?

Calling and election points to the fact that God is responsible for our salvation. He chose you, he elected you. He brought you to repentance. Why do we pray for people to be saved? Because only God can open someone’s eyes to see the reality of their sins and to repent. Salvation is the work of God.

So how do we confirm it? some translations say make your election sure

We don’t confirm it to God we confirm it to ourselves.

One of the theologians I read said that when it comes to salvation there are four types of people.

First, there are people who are unsaved and know they are unsaved. Maybe you are here today, and you are here because someone made you come. You don’t really believe in God you don’t believe in Jesus. Maybe you are starting to believe but you have never given your life to Christ and you know it. Let me say, I am glad you are here, even if you aren’t. If you are struggling with belief and need to talk to someone, we are here to talk. If you haven’t put your faith in Christ, but you know you should. There will be people ready to pray!

So that’s the first type of people.

Then there are people who are unsaved but think they are saved. And there are people who are saved who think they are unsaved.

That’s a scary place to be.

On the one hand, maybe you are unsaved but you think you are saved. maybe you say, well I walked an aisle when I was five or I had an encounter with God when I was 13 at youth camp so I am good. Even though you have no desire for God, you haven’t grown in your faith. Nothing has changed. You are like Ron Swanson - we still never talk. You hear this sermon and you are feeling a little insecure because salvation leaves it’s mark.

maybe you think you are saved but you think you aren’t.

Or maybe you came from a tradition that taught that if you sinned you lost your salvation. So you are always feeling back and forth. You don’t know where you stand. I get it. I grew up in a tradition like that and I can remember going forward in the altar call every Sunday. The pastor said - you don’t have to do it every week. And I said, If you tell me every week I’ve lost my salvation, I am gonna keep coming every week to get saved- I know my sin and I don’t want to go to hell!

But you are from that background and now you aren’t sure. You feel insecure with God.

What Peter is saying is that salvation leaves it’s mark. that you judge your salvation not by a past event but by the way you are living and growing in Christ. Are you growing in Christ? Have you seen fruit? If you haven’t, then perhaps it’s time to get right with God. I want to invite you to do that today.

You grow in your knowledge of him both by growing in a deeper relationship experientially and by knowing him through his word.

Here’s the deal, there may be some people here today who need to recommit their lives to God. You need to say, ok, from this day on, I am going to make sure that I am growing and that I am useful and that I actually know God.

If that’s you, I want to encourage you to get serious about it. Grow close to him so you can grow in confidence and grace and peace. You can have peace with God.

The fourth group is what probably most people are. You are saved and you know you are saved. I want to encourage you today to dream about the man or woman of God that you can become. I want you to dream about being growing in usefulness to God.

What does that mean, it means that you are diligent with prayer and you actually start to see God answer your prayers.

We want to be a discipleship factory, so we need useful people, who know the word, who know God to be able to disciple other people, to lead bible studies and community groups. I want you to imagine that is you one day. We are in need of new community groups - we need people like that.

I want you to dream about walking into Mercy Hill when you are old. Like real old. And I want you to imagine what it would mean for the people in the church to look at you and talk behind your back and say - that man, that woman, really knows the Lord. That’s a godly man. That’s a godly woman.

I want you to imagine, standing at the judgment seat of Christ, and he looks at you and says, “Well done my good and faithful servant you were useful to me!” How big of a deal will that be? I think that’s something to dedicate our lives to.

You have right now everything it takes to make that happen. So let’s start making it happen. If you want to know what the next steps are, let’s talk. We can put together a personal discipleship plan if we need too.

Because your greatness in God is what I dream about too. I dream about a church, this church, filled with men women, teenagers, children all of whom have vibrant relationships with God. Who know God. Who live for God and living in victory. I dream of a church where we all, are useful to God. Where people who come into church who don’t know God and within a short time are saved and are on the path to a vibrant relationship with God. I want other Christians to look at us and say, man, we gotta get some Mercy Hill people in our church to help wake us up!

That’s my dream. I spend most of my time dreaming about your greatness and what Peter is calling you to, is for you to spend time dreaming about your own greatness a greatness made possible because you have received Christ’s righteousness and have remembered the one who cleansed you of your sins.

That’s the type of church I want, That’s what I want Mercy HIll to be and if you want a church like that, let’s make that happen together!

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.