We're in First and Second Peter, A Message for Today's Church from Peter the
Apostle. This is lesson number six in the series.
It's entitled, Peter's Last Sermon. And we are in
Second Peter - we've completed First. We're in Second Peter, chapter 1.
In the first epistle of Peter, just to review here,
Peter talks about the effects of grace on a person, how you
can recognize the grace of God working in a person's life. He
enumerates the various changes, various effects that grace has
on a person's life. That was the substance of our study in
First Peter. In the second letter, Peter
deals with different things, because his own situation is
different. His situation changes and it changes what he is going to
write to the church about. I want you to
imagine for a moment, if you were the one that God had
chosen to do the following things: imagine if you were
the person selected to preach the very first gospel sermon -
the full gospel sermon - death, burial, resurrection of Christ. What if you were the one that was
chosen to preach that? What if you were the one who was selected to
organize, and be an elder, and a leader in the first congregation of the Lord's church?
What if that was you? What if you were given the opportunity to actually bring the
Gospel to the gentiles - a whole new group of people, other than the
Jews. What if it was you that was given the task of producing
inspired writings? And what if it was you, along with the other Apostles,
that was tasked with providing leadership for all the churches
throughout the empire during your lifetime?
Imagine that you're that person, you've got all those responsibilities, and then
all of a sudden, like Peter did - and then all of a sudden you knew that you
were going to die very soon.
What would you do?
Many historians tell us that Peter was in Rome in 67 A.D. and he
was caught up in the persecution of Christians that was going on at the time.
Some say he was finally executed by being crucified upside down, because he refused
to die in the same manner that his Lord died. And so they
apparently ceded to his wish, they crucified him upside down. Whatever
manner of his death, Peter knew that the end was near
and he wrote one last letter to the churches before his death.
He had one last chance to speak to the brethren, one last sermon to give, one last
opportunity to teach them. And this letter that we're going to study, Second
Peter, contains what the Holy Spirit directed him to write
in his final communication. So the first thing
he wanted to tell these people, that he's writing to, is this - the idea that we're
going to study today is this: he told them, you have to grow or you're going to
die. As Christians you must grow
or you will die, spiritually. Peter reminds them that
Christianity is a process. It's a
journey. It's a transformation that must take place.
And in chapter one of his second letter he describes the
changes that need to take place, not only to complete the journey,
but also to confirm that we are actually on the right road.
That we're on the right journey. If you get - if you keep those ideas in
mind, if you keep that in context, that this is Peter's last letter to the
churches before he dies, and the first message he sends to them is:
you need to grow spiritually or you'll die. So let's go to verse 1.
First Peter, chapter 1, verse 1. And let's read, "Simon Peter, a
bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received the
faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and
Savior, Jesus Christ." So he starts by introducing himself and
the relationship that he and his readers have. He's an apostle.
He's a special messenger of Jesus Christ. Now in those days there were a lot of messengers,
a lot of evangelists traveling around, they were messengers.
Missionaries, they were messengers. But only those who had been
chosen by Jesus himself, and only those who had witnessed both His
baptism, and His death and resurrection, only those people could be
referred to as apostles.
We know the one exception is Paul, of course, called later by the Lord.
So Apostles had a special calling. Jesus,
Himself, called them.
They had a special experience. They were with Jesus throughout his experience,
throughout his ministry. They had a special task, and their task was
to witness His resurrection. And they did miracles many times to
prove that their witness was true. And they also had a special
authority. Their letters were inspired. They wrote as
inspired individuals from the
Spirit of God. I want you to note also that he uses the term bondservant,
which denotes his humility. Yes, it's true, he's a special
apostle, he has special gifts, he has special authority, but all of that
means that he is simply a slave to Jesus Christ.
Not someone who lords his position over other people. He had
reason, maybe, to be proud. He did miracles. He saw the Lord. He was one of the
special. He had all kinds of reasons to be kind of full of himself,
but he isn't. He says, despite all of these things that I have, all that I
really am is a bondservant of Jesus Christ. The lowest kind of servant in
those days. He describes the readers as people
who are basically the same as himself. Same as the other Apostles.
People who have been saved because of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
And he's telling his readers you and I are the same. I may have a special task. I may have been
given special abilities, but basically we're the same. We are people who had been saved through the
grace of God and faith in Jesus Christ.
As I said, he may have had a special role and responsibility in the church, but in essence he
is connected to his readers in the same way that all Christians are connected.
All were sinners at one time and all have been saved through faith in Christ, made possible
by God's kindness and righteousness. That's what connects all of us here. And
that's what connects all of us here to all the other Christians in the world. We're all the
same in the sense that once we were sinners and now we're saved. That's the thing that
connects us. Let's keep reading here, in the next couple of verses, Peter's going
to offer a blessing and then he explains how we come into this
blessing that He offers. Verse two, he says, "Grace and peace be
multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord."
Grace, we need to understand, it's a special word here. Grace, is the word that
encompasses all the good things that God gives us.
He saves us from sin, He makes us righteous, we become sons of God,
we received the Holy Spirit. We have the promise of all of those blessings.
Peter takes all of those blessings and he compresses them all down
into a single word - grace. There is a kind of a key word
there. Grace is the word that encompasses all the good things that God has
given us, all the favors. Peace is the feeling and the
condition that one who receives God's grace finds himself in.
Peter says that this combination of blessings and enjoyment that
comes from them will increase in proportion to the degree
that a person comes to know God and Jesus Christ, His Son. All
right. You get the idea. All of these blessings: grace, peace,
that experience that you have, peace with God, peace with yourself, that
grace and peace, that increases in
relationship to how much you know God. The more you know God,
the more your grace and peace - the more deeply that you come to
understand God, the deeper your relationship is with God, the greater
your grace, the greater your peace. Now here he says the knowledge of
God, the word "know", here, is not just the casual knowledge or an acquaintance.
Some people say, you know Jimmy from work?
Yeah, yeah. We work in the same building. I'm not talking about that kind of "know".
The knowledge here, this word here denotes an exact or full knowledge.
The degree of knowledge where the knower can influence the one who is known, that kind of
knowledge. So in verse 3 he says, "Seeing that His divine
power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and
godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own
glory and excellence." Humans can know God
only to the degree that He reveals Himself. Remember,
he's just explaining this grace and peace idea;
grace and peace in proportion to how much you know God. He's developing this idea and the
first thing he says is, human beings can know God only to the degree that God
reveals Himself. You can know that God, for example, is creative,
and He is powerful, and He is wise from what He has made. How powerful is God
to make all those stars? What I'm saying, that kind of knowledge, but the
creation doesn't reveal what God thinks, or what He wants
from man, or what the future is going to be, or what the spiritual world is like. I can
look at the Rocky Mountains all day long and I can't figure out what God thinks.
I can see that He must be powerful to have created the Rocky Mountains, or
whatever, the wonders in the world, the moon, the sun,
but looking up at the sun doesn't tell me what God wants me to do. I can stare at
the sun all day long and I'm not going to be able to know.
The knowledge of these things is only available if God actually reveals it to man.
The only way I can know what God is thinking is if God tells me. So a
man can only know God and, consequently, experience that blessing, that
peace and grace, from knowing Him. Man can only have
that to the degree that God allows Himself to be known.
God is the one who reveals to us about Jesus Christ. God is the one who reveals to us what the
afterlife is like. He reveals this to us, so concerning
this, Peter says that God has opened Himself up to full
disclosure, because He has permitted true knowledge.
So let's backtrack here. Grace and peace, based on how much we know God.
The good news, Peter says, is that God has opened Himself up to full knowledge.
That's a good thing - full knowledge. And this true knowledge
was made available through the gospel, which he refers to as the calling,
and the appearance of Jesus Christ, who refers to as His own glory and excellence.
Grace and peace based on how much you know God. Good news boys and girls,
God has permitted full knowledge, that means unlimited grace and
peace, and that full knowledge has been available through
Jesus Christ. That full knowledge has been offered through the Gospel.
So in essence, what Peter is saying, bring it down a little bit here, life and
godliness that comes with true knowledge of God is now available
because God has fully revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. So if
grace and peace increase as I know God, then there is good
news, because God is open to being known fully.
Whatever amount of grace and peace is available, I have access to it,
because I'm a Christian. So in verse 4, he
summarizes and explains the true nature of the blessings and peace that he first
mentioned in verse 2. So let's read verse 4, he says, "For
by these," everything he said so far, "He has granted
to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them," the promises,
"you may become partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust."
He says through the revelation of Himself we have true knowledge and full
access, full knowledge. Then he says, true knowledge gives us
access to godliness and spiritual life.
And these blessings enable us to escape the condemnation that will fall on those
who remain ignorant of God and corrupted by sin and attached to this
world. We're not here to save the earth. I've said that to you before, what's
our calling? We're not here to save the world. We're not here to save the earth, save the seals, save
the oceans. That's not our calling. In other words,
knowing God and knowing Christ is a great blessing because this knowledge
permits us to escape the destruction that will come to this world and all
those who are part of it. In other words, how do I get out of this place, because you know
condemnation is coming to it. It's going to be destroyed and I'm part of it. I'm a human being, right? How do
I get out of it? And Peter says, you get out of it by knowing God. And
the good news for you is that God is open to be known completely.
Now, in the next seven verses Peter explains how this
knowledge of God and Christ is developed.
It's a cooperative effort, he says, involving God and Christ, and
the individual. So here's how it works. First of all, God creates the
universe, man, and sets all in motion. After man sins he
loses his knowledge and relationship with God. That's the thing that sin
damaged. We had this relationship with God, this open and full relationship with Him,
Adam and Eve did. And that's what guaranteed their constant and
continual existence. And when they sinned, they began to
lose that knowledge of Him and they and subsequent
generations just kept falling deeper and deeper into the darkness. That's the problem
with sin. And so because of that, man is doomed to suffer
death along with the creation. Why? Because of his ignorance. That's why.
And sin number two, Christ comes on earth to atone for
man's sins and to enable mankind to once again know God
and have a relationship with Him again and thus save himself from the decay and death
that the world is and will suffer. Three, man
responds to God and Christ's efforts and offer by
receiving again the knowledge of God and re-establishing his
relationship with God once again. In verses
5 to 11 Peter explains man's part. That was God's part -
sending Jesus, that was God's part. So in verse 5 to 11, Peter
explains man's part in knowing God and how this affects his life
and his salvation. And he explains the growth process that leads to a greater and
greater knowledge of God. Remember the idea is, grace and
peace increase as you know God. God is open to be known fully.
So how do I do that? How do I increase my
knowledge of God? Peter explains how you
do that. Let's read verses five to seven. He says, "Now for this very reason also,"
when he says "for this very reason" that summarizes
everything else, "for this very reason," because God is open to full knowledge, full knowledge gives you grace
and peace, because of that, he says, "applying all diligence,
in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and
in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your
perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly
kindness, love."
That's the process of knowing God.
So it begins with diligence, effort, commitment, resolve to the
process itself, right? You go to the gym, you want to lose some
weight, you want to tone up, get ready, whatever, for sports or something like that.
What does your coach tell you? You need to be committed to the process. You need to
be coming in three times a week, on a regular basis. You just need to be committed to it.
You need to buy into the
process, and then just stick with it. That's the same, right, with anything else. You want to
lose weight? You want to do this, you want to do that,
you've got to stick with the process. Peter is saying that
gaining the knowledge of God, the first thing you need, diligence. You need to buy in. You need
to buy into the process. You need to have some zeal for it. You cannot know God if you're
lukewarm about it. The
Hebrew writer says that God will reward those who diligently seek Him,
Hebrews 11:6. So after establishing the attitude,
diligence, Peter lists seven pairs of virtues,
that when pursued, lead us to a fuller knowledge of God, that in
turn, produces the joy and the peace, the
increasing joy and peace in our hearts. So the first
set he says, faith and moral excellence. It
begins with faith, believing in God and what God says. And this is
naturally followed by doing what He says. A person's
faith grows and is confirmed when he or she begins to live according to
what they believe. So you start with faith and he says, add to your faith moral
excellence. Well, living right, doing right. What are some of the very first
things that Christians do when they become Christians? They get rid of some of those surface
bad habits. You know them, maybe stop cursing, or giving up
the bottle, or whatever. We give up those surface vices. Well that's
moral excellence.
And as you grow in Christianity, you drill down deeper and deeper and you
start working on hypocrisy,
honesty. You start working on that stuff. Add to your
faith moral excellence, he says. Second set, he borrows one -
moral excellence, you've got that going, add to that, knowledge.
To a good and pure life one is to add knowledge. This is not
knowledge of God, interestingly enough. Because that's what
you're pursuing - the big picture, you're pursuing knowledge of God. But here, the knowledge that
he talks about is a different word. The knowledge here, is
information, wisdom, the knowledge of oneself, the knowledge of one's
world, the knowledge of God's word. Not only the ability
to be a good person, but the ability to apply God's word to all situations
in life.
That requires knowledge, and maturity, and wisdom. So add
to your good life, wisdom; understanding that comes from
your study of God's word and understanding of life, and so on and so forth. Next set -
see how he does it, picks up knowledge, you've got knowledge. Add to that knowledge
self-control. A wise person becomes a prudent
person. A knowledgeable person begins to understand the nature
of the enemy. And the enemy's strength. A knowing
person understands that controlling one's self, controlling one's
tongue, controlling one's thoughts, are the surest way to
maintain faith and moral excellence.
You begin to think, you know what, this is my weak area. I need to be smart about my
weak area, and recognize that this is my weak area. And I need not to play to my weak area,
whatever that is.
If your weak area is watching porn, or whatever it is,
and the cable company offers, got a special this month, they're
offering ESPN and the Playboy Channel.
Maybe you ought to think twice about getting that extra free package.
Because for some people it wouldn't make a difference. They wouldn't watch the Playboy
channel if you paid them to watch it. But for other people that would, that would be
difficult to do. So you add wisdom. Know your weakness.
You can't have self-control if you don't know what it is you've got to control, or if
you deny you need control in that area.
Another set, to self-control, perseverance. So
once the A B C's of the Christian walk are learned: faith in God, holy
living, knowledge, self-control, once you got that down, the key, he says, is to
continue in these things regardless of what happens . Stick with it, stick with it.
Many learn about the faith, they're happy to get rid
of their sins that destroyed their lives in the first place. And they love to know more about
God, but when adversity, or persecution, or
pain, or inconvenience comes, they give up. They fall away.
Peter says that an indispensable link in the chain of cultivating
the ability to persevere in things already learned and habits are already acquired -
you've got to keep at it.
You made that good decision about the cable channels, you made that good decision.
Keep making those good decisions.
Number five, to that perseverance, add godliness.
Now this is a special one, right here. This is key, right here. This one -
this is the point in the transformation
that the new self becomes more evident. Up until now it's been a
ground game. You're changing, you're developing, not too
many people notice - you notice. But not everybody else does, but when you get to number five,
it starts to be evident that there is a change
in you. And it's evident not just to yourself, but it starts to be evident to
other people. I want to explain the idea of lift here.
I'm not a pilot, I don't know about planes and that, but I do understand a little bit of the
principle.
A plane is on the ground and it's got to go a certain speed, right. It's on the ground,
it's a ground-mobile for a little while, until it
reaches a certain speed. And then when it reaches a certain speed, depending on the
plane, you get what's called lift-off, right. All of a sudden, whoops, the
wind, the speed, the wind, everything, the flaps are down, and this thing that was rolling
along the ground is now taking off and now it's flying. It's got lift.
Well, it's the same thing with
VChristianity.
Up until number five you're on the ground. You're speeding along.
You may be going fast, but you're on the ground, but when you get to number five, when you start
producing godliness in your life, you're starting to get spiritual lift-off.
And the problem in Christianity, with Christians, is there are so many Christians that use their
plane as cars. Most of their Christian life they're
driving their plane around as a car. Does it get them from one place to another? Oh,
yeah, sure. But would you take a plane to go to 7-Eleven to buy milk?
Would it get you there? Well, sure, it would get you there. But how ridiculous to drive your
plane around as a car. And yet, that's what most Christians do.
They drive their plane around as a car.
So a lot of people, for various reasons of training, idealism, or self will, are
wise and prudent, and their perseverent, yes, but only those who develop
these qualities in a Christian context begin to show evidence
godliness. I'll give you another word for godliness, begin to
develop piety in their lives. And
when that happens, spiritual lift-off takes place.
Now, godliness means that you are more like
God, than you are like man. You're more
like God, than you are like woman. To be more like
Jesus, than to be like yourself. To belong more to
the church, than you belong to the world.
See what I'm saying? That's lift-off, spiritual lift-off.
So the regenerational process is definitely beginning to show
outwardly at this point.
Godliness, piety, Christ-likeness.
More like Him, than like you. Number six,
to godliness -
imagine, you're thinking some other high falutin word is going to come now, big theological
deep idea, right? He says to godliness, what, brotherly
kindness. Jesus said that the unmistakable sign of
discipleship was that you would know a lot of scripture by heart.
Is that what He said?
Or the unmistakable sign of discipleship would be that you would have regular
church attendance. Is that what He said? No. He said, the unmistakable
sign of discipleship was that you would be loving your brother.
That's the unmistakable sign of discipleship. I mean, if you're loving your brother, all those other
things I mentioned are just included in the package.
And we know that John 13:35,
The one who knows God understands that God sent Jesus to die
in order to do what? Establish the church. So God
loves the church and those who know God, well, they also love the
church. For God, the church is the most
important thing. So not to love the
church, to disparage the church, to ignore, to minimize
the importance of the church, to be unfaithful to the church, is a sign
that one does not really know God very well.
It's like, you can't be my friend and insult my wife. You
can't do that. You can't be my best buddy and
talk badly about my sons or my daughters or my daughters-in-law or my grandchildren.
You know what I'm saying? You can't do that. You can't pretend, you can't weasel your way into my
affection by putting down the people that I love.
It's the same thing. You can't say, I love you,
God, and put His church down, because He loves the church. He
sent his Son to die for the church. The head of the church is God, the
Son Jesus Christ, so to be godly is to be a lover of those who
make up the church - warts and all.
Warts and all.
Number seven, so to add to brotherly kindness
he says, you add love.
Loving those who love the Lord is a sign that you know the Lord.
Loving those who hate the Lord, and hate you, and hate the Church is not
only a sign that you know the Lord, it's a sign that you love Him the way that the
Lord loves as well.
See the difference?
Our knowledge of God is only complete when we begin to love as He
did. And we are willing to lay down our lives for others, even
others who hate us, like they hated Him.
So Christian love is the surest sign that, as far as it is possible in this week flesh,
our knowledge of God is complete and we are enjoying the blessings of peace that God
gives to all those who love as He loves.
All right, so let's move to verse 8 and 9, he says, "For if
these qualities," everything I've just talked about, "For if these qualities are
yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor
unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who
lacks these qualities is blind or short sighted. Having forgotten
his purification from his former sins." Peter repeats his primary,
the primary idea at the very beginning. The way to know God and to
enjoy the blessings of salvation is to continue growing and developing in
these virtues, because these virtues will bring you to a greater knowledge of God.
To this idea he adds a second thought, that ignoring these
things, that not concentrating on these things is foolish and it
is a sign that a person is forgetting God's kindness, in forgiving him
in the first place. Do these things, but if you're not doing these things
you've forgotten what Christianity is all about. So he says in verse
10 and 11, "Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain
about His calling and choosing of you; for as long as you practice these
things you will never stumble. For in this
way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be
abundantly supplied to you." So a final word of encouragement,
in this particular passage. He repeats the original
word, diligent. He started with, be diligent. He finishes - bookends -
be diligent again. And he says, make an effort, pay attention. Stay
focused on these things and several things will be produced.
If you focus on these things, what's going to happen?
Well, first of all you're going to feel confident and secure about your
salvation.
There'll be no guilt, no fear of death, no dread of judgment, because you are certain
that you will go to heaven, because the knowledge of God brings
security. The more I know God, the more secure I am in my
salvation. Nobody can shake that. Number two, if you focus on these
things, you will sin less. You won't be sinless.
Everybody wants to be sinless. I'm tired of making mistakes and put my foot in my mouth,
and getting angry for nothing, and lying.
I'm tired of doing that, but you will sin much
less if you focus on these things. Sin, it causes trouble, and
sorrow, and worry, and pain. Those who are diligent in these kinds of things
will sin less and not lose faith, which might cause one to fall
away from Christ. And, of course, when you fall away from Christ, you sin
more. If you find yourself sinning more and more, you're saying, what's my problem?
Well, you're falling away from Jesus, that's your problem. And then a third thing he says
that will happen, you will grow in knowledge, you will grow in your knowledge of
God and His Son, Jesus. This idea now described as entering the kingdom,
remember, I said that the writers use different words to express the same ideas.
So in one passage he talks about
salvation. Another passage it talks about knowing God. Now he
describes the same idea as entering into the kingdom. The change
that we undergo is the process of being transported from earth to
heaven. These seven things - this is
the process that transforms us from earthly
beings to heavenly beings. And the final break
comes at our death. So Peter says
that those who practice these virtues will experience an accelerated
transfer from Earthly to heavenly. In other words, they'll begin to
experience heaven before they're actually transported to heaven.
If you begin to get a taste of heaven through the process of knowing God,
that taste of heaven will give you that grace and peace, will give you that joy here, will give you
that strength and security, that understanding to withstand any
of the things that happen on this earth. What's interesting about these
virtues - it's not like you've got to memorize stuff. You've got to learn stuff, or
there's like a secret that you've got to figure out. There's nothing like that. It's very
plain as to what you need to be actually doing.
Of course Peter was not just philosophizing here. This is not just
theological speculation. He was talking to real people about their spiritual
progress and how to move it along. The practical application
for our lives is to determine, where are we at in this
process?
If there's any take away from this class this morning, if you've got the notes or whatever, you need to ask
yourself at some point, where am I in this thing, here?
Are we at the beginning, dealing with the preliminary issues of faith and
morals?
Is that where we're at?
Perhaps being baptized, we haven't done that yet. Or giving up our bad habits, or
getting to church on a regular basis. Is that where we're at? Adding to our basic faith.
faith some moral virtue. Is that where we're at? It's okay. As long as we
understand, oh, that's where I'm at on the continuum. Or are we further along the
line, persevering in leadership or struggling to maintain a godly image in a perverse
world. So whether you're at - wherever you're at, rather,
this lesson is a reminder that
you need to be diligent in your efforts to grow spiritually. It's
not easy, but it needs to be done because if you don't grow you are going
to die spiritually.
Secondly, there is a pattern to the growth. And Peter describes it here.
You can know where you're at, and you can know which way to go to increase. It's not a
guessing game in Christianity - what's the direction? What do I need to do? It's laid out
here, this is what you need to do.
And thirdly, the ultimate goal, of course, is to love as Jesus
loved.
You know those bracelets, what would Jesus do. Good idea. I mean I've done that myself, I've
asked myself, what would the Lord do in a situation like this.
It helps, but there should be another bracelet.
And it should say,
how would Jesus love? How would Jesus
love? How would He love? How would He express His love, in this particular situation?
And that's what this passage eventually leads you to, in the end.
That's our class for this morning. We'll continue on Second Peter in our next session. Thank you for your attention.