Untitled Sermon (3)
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Last time we wrapped up 1 Peter, which was a letter to the people in Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey. That letter was to bring encouragement to the readers undergoing persecution. Now in 2 Peter, his second letter, it is to the same group of people. This letter is filled with exhortations, warnings about false teachers, and encouragement, which is similar to 1 Peter. This letter is a little shorter, and maybe a little more broad in terms of exhortations. In 1 Peter he provided instructions on how to live within your family, government, and the church body. To live properly, as God wants us to, we must grow in our faith. What we’ll start with today in 2 Peter chapter 1 is how to grow in our faith and what it looks like when we do.
Prayer
Let’s start with the first couple verses, which is the greeting.
1 This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.
I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior.
2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
Whenever we see the word “slave” used in reference to Christ, should be viewed in a positive way. The Greek word used here for slave means someone under under another’s authority, but it also suggests honor. Peter is saying I am completely owned by God and it is an honor to serve the Lord.
Now on the topic of faith, where does it come from? Does it come from us because we chose to follow God? No, in the latter part of verse 1 “This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior.” Have you ever tried to explain an amazing experience you had to someone else, and you can tell they’re just not grasping it, and you’re like you just had to be there to see it. It’s just not the same explaining it. Now Peter witnessed Jesus perform miracles, fulfill prophecies, and ascend into Heaven. After witnessing everything, he does not claim to have a different faith than us. He says we share the same precious faith. That’s to all believers in Christ. It is because of the power of God we can share the same faith.
As Christians it’s expected that we grow in our knowledge of God. It’s a process, but we should not be stagnant. This was many months ago, but I remember Larry talking about the topic of the importance of knowing the Word of God. How so many Christians, and I’ve also had seasons of this, are stagnant and struggle to grow because they don’t know and study the Word of God. If we come to God, seek his face, we will grow.
This greeting basically gives us the theme for what this letter is about. So now lets dive into the first main section, verses 3-11.
3 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. 4 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.
5 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, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
10 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. 11 Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
These verses can be broken down into three sections.
Verses 3-4 is focused on God’s divine acts. God called us to himself, and when we can came to know Him, by His divine power we received everything we need to live a godly life. Remember we don’t receive stronger faith by living a more godly life, it’s not a transaction where we earn anything. We grow closer to God, and He changes us from the inside out. Our godly life is manifesting that change within us. His power is how we are changed. Credit goes to God.
In verse 4 we read God has given us “great and precious” promises. Whenever we read about what God has given us in scripture, there’s usually multiple adjectives to describe what we receive. This is to emphasize how great it is. Although we know what His promises are, we still can’t even comprehend how great they are. The reward we receive from God is indescribable, we can’t use enough adjectives to describe it. And that makes it so hard for us because we like to see things with our own eyes.
The Greek word for “promise” here in verse 4 appears only in the New Testament here and in 2 Peter 3:13. That passage tells us exactly what some of these promises are.
13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
This is focused on Christ’s return. When everything will be made new and all evil will be destroyed. We look forward to Christ’s return, we don’t know how or when it’ll happen, we just know that it will. And that gives us great encouragement.
17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
Paul is telling readers here, focus on the promises of God that we receive when we go to Heaven. Although we can’t see it, we just need to know everything here is temporary and everything we receive from God is eternal. This is so much of what Peter focuses on in these two letters. Any encouragement he gives is always about what is to come through God’s promises.
From other passages, we also know that God promises us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will guide us in life, that’s how God works through us. Because of what we receive now and will receive later from God’s promises, we are equipped to share in his divine nature, we are now a new creation. There are false teachers that will say we are now gods, with a lowercase “g”, claiming that because we are children of God and take on his divine nature we are gods. That’s not what scripture says. We share in it, but we are not divine ourselves, the Holy Spirit works within us and we see the process of sanctification happening as we grow in our faith and that leads to a godly life, but we are not perfect. We cannot escape our fleshly desires and struggles completely until we go to be with the Lord in Heaven.
Now let’s focus on verses 5-10, this is more centered on pursuing a godly life. And this can be achieved because of what we just talked about in the first section, God has equipped us to live a godly life by His divine power. God has given us so much and we should respond by following his commands and pursuing Him. However there are views and teachings such as Antinomianism that says, if you believe in God live whatever life you would like. There is no change needed, you can pursue every evil desire you have because Christ died for all yours sins, so it doesn’t matter. This is a completely evil twist on scripture. It is true that you can be forgiven for any sin commited, no matter how many times it has been committed, but that is no excuse for sinning.
20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now let’s continue to Romans 6:1-2, which believers of Antinomianism apparently avoid.
1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
Jesus also said if you love me you will follow my commands. I’m not saying we won’t mess up as Christians, but how can someone believe Jesus is the Son of God and died for their sins, and then reject the Word of God and live a life with no conviction when they fall and in fact encourage others to do the same. There’s a difference between someone struggling with sin and repenting afterwords, knowing they failed God and they want to live better for Him, they are pursuing a godly life. Instead of someone who says, I like the idea of going to heaven so I’ll say I believe in God but a godly life doesn’t sound fun to me so I’ll reject everything else.
We can’t earn our salvation, but someone who has received salvation, understanding God’s promises will share in his nature.
Look at the chain of characteristics we are to pursue to supplement our faith in verses 5-7. “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.” That’s how we are to respond to God’s promises.
Everything Peter suggests here is very similar with what’s spoken of in Galatians, where the fruits of the Spirit are described. They are “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”
When talking about false teachers vs. teachers of the true Gospel, Jesus said you will know them by their fruits.
Pursue God and the Holy Spirit will work within you to produce these fruits.
Peter says when these fruits are produced in you, you will then be more productive and useful in your knowledge of the Word of God. Reading the Word of God and pursuing a godly life both should happen. Even a lot of atheists know what the Bible says, but they obviously don’t believe it, they don’t feel the need to pursue the life it says to live. We must know the Word of God, believe it, and pursue the life that God says we are to live. Then you will be productive for God.
Closing with verse 11, it’s focused on what we talked about a little earlier, the promise of eternal life with God. God called us to Him, He enables us to live a godly life, which will bring Him glory, and in the end we will receive eternal life. Peter says “Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
We, who deserve nothing but hell, have the opportunity through christ to receive the inheritance of Heaven and a grand entrance into it. That is an incredible promise. But while we’re here on earth we have a mission to serve the Lord and do His will, which he has already enabled us to do.