For just a minute tonight, turn
in 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 18. The apostle Peter in these two letters. After many reminders, and after
many warnings concerning false prophets and false professors,
he concludes these letters with these words of instruction and
admonition. Look down in verse 17. He says, Ye therefore, beloved. He's writing to those who are
believers. He's writing to the Lord's people. He's writing to the church here.
He says, Ye therefore, beloved. seeing you know these things
before. He's just been reminding them,
instructing them, warning them. Beware, lest ye also, being led
away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. He's been warning them, encouraging
them, instructing them. And then on the last note, in
the last statement of this epistle, He turns to command them in the
positive. He turns to command them to do
that which they were to do in light of all these things, how
they were to be, how they themselves were to be, what they themselves
were to be doing. And he says in that last two
statements, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and
forever. Amen. He says, you as believers, are to grow in grace. Turn over, if you would, to the
first chapter and the first verse of this letter. And I say he's writing these
things to believers, not in order to get grace, but because they've
received grace. He says in his opening instruction to them, his greeting,
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them
that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness
of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. The reason that they have received
faith And the reason that any of God's people receive the gift
of faith and believe is because of an accomplished, established
gift of righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. He's made them righteous in Himself
through His work, and therefore He's given us faith to believe
what He's done, believe what He said. So He's writing to them
and to us as believers, and He tells us in this verse something
that we ought always to remember. And that is, you cannot separate
grace. It cannot be separated from growing
in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Men talk about believing, and
sometimes, at the same time, they belittle knowledge. or they
talk about knowledge and they, in some way, diminish faith or
believing. You cannot separate grace and
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This growth in grace,
it comes from knowing Christ and knowing Him in our experience
of grace. We know something about the grace
of God. We have the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But at the same time, He's given us faith and the knowledge
we have of the Lord Jesus Christ is an experience of knowledge. It's an experience of knowledge,
as we say, not knowing him only in our head, but in our heart. We know him. Just like Adam knew his wife
in a very intimate way. He knew her experientially, I
guess you'd say. He didn't know who she was. He knew her name was Eve, but
he knew her in a loving, intimate relationship. So Peter says here,
grow in grace, but grow in grace in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when we grow in grace, I don't know how many people
in this world are taught and led to believe that growing in
grace somehow makes us less sinful. Now I know that anything that
God in grace curbs us from doing, or causes us to do is because
of His grace. It's because of His gracious
Spirit's work in us. But when Peter talks about growing
in grace, he's been talking about all of these errors, all of these
false prophets, all of these deceiving spirits, all of these
errors regarding the gospel. And then he comes down and he
says to us, but grow in grace. and in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. So, in a sense, it has to be
true that if there's any less sinning done by us, or any more
fruitful works done by us, that is the grace of God for sure,
but that's not what he's talking about here, I don't think. Because
these people are already in grace. In order to grow in grace, number
one, you have to be living. And when something is alive,
it grows. It doesn't grow to become alive. It grows because it is alive. And grace is the way we've been
made alive in every sense. And therefore, we grow in that
grace. But what does that mean? Well, I was down in my study
day thinking about this thing and I just, it just thoughts
came to my mind from days past and experience and from talking
to people and from studying the Word and from knowing people
who have obtained like precious faith and knowing what the Bible
says in general. And I came up with these things. When we grow in grace, we learn
more and more that grace comes from God alone. It just comes from God. And it begins toward us in old
eternity. It begins with God. He's not
only the God of grace, but He's the one who initiates grace to
us. In 1 Peter he says, but the God
of all grace. If He has all the grace, we only
have what He gives to us, and it has to come from Him. But
the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory
by Jesus Christ, after ye have suffered a while, make you perfect,
establish, strengthen, settle you. We know more and more that
all grace comes from God. Also, I believe we grow in grace
the more we see and realize more and more that the only way we
could be saved is by grace. Grace humbles us. In other words,
the grace of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and I are
such sinners, such wretched creatures that the only way that we could
be saved was for the Son of God to leave heaven and take on Himself
human flesh and die in order to show grace to us. That's something. That's humbling
beyond imagination. when we realize that the only
possible way we could be saved. We can't add one work to it. We can't add one doing to it. It all has to be by grace. I think about a lot of times
those tribes, I mean those people in the land of Canaan who had
occupied all this land and built these houses and planted these
fruit trees and planted these vineyards and raised these cattle
and done all of these things and then God turns and gives
it all to the Israelites. And then somebody says, But that's
not fair, is it? No, that's grace. God giving
us what does not belong to us, what we never would have, what
we never would experience if left up to us. He's giving us
everything in somebody else, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
the only way. And the more we learn that, the
more that we experience that, the more that the Scriptures
teach us that, and surely that's what the Spirit of God teaches
us, that the only way that we could be saved is by grace. We grow in grace when we learn
grace as it is in the Scriptures, biblical grace. Not by man-made definitions,
not by what the world comes around calling grace. That's the great
deception of our day, taking biblical words and putting man-made
definitions to them. And when you find out more and
more about biblical grace, when you find out how grace is according
to the scriptures, the more you find out and will have to know
it's sovereign grace. It's God's to give or withhold. It's His mercy to show or not
to show it because none are deserving. Grace doesn't have to do with
anything concerning need. It has to do with God's pleasure. Every sinner needs grace. But every sinner will not receive
grace because grace is in the hands of a sovereign God who
says, I will be gracious to whom I'll be gracious. And I'll have
mercy on whom I'll have mercy. And when men buck up against
that, when they fight that notion that show that they know nothing
about grace, they can't appreciate the grace of God in the fact
that he says to some, I will be gracious to them. We know and grow in grace as
we learn that all grace is in Christ Jesus alone. If you'll
pardon my English, there ain't no grace anywhere else or in
anybody else. Everything God has to give to
a sinner comes in grace. What does grace mean? Well, it's
described as unmerited favor. In other words, I show favor
to you even though you don't deserve it. Even though you can't
do anything, deserve it. And even though you've done everything
to not deserve it. That's what grace is. And all
the grace of God, all the promises of grace are yea and amen in
Christ, over and over. and over, in picture and type,
in plain statement, in promises, in the covenant, every way, God
has said, and it'll be, that grace is in Christ alone. It's through His perfect person
and the work that He accomplished by it. Everything God has to give, he
has made us accept it in the beloved. He's given us this salvation
by grace in Christ. You can't speak of grace. You can't preach grace without
preaching Christ. It's always been here. It's only
in Him. John said, for the law was given
by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Paul in Corinthians said, I thank
my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which was
given you by Jesus Christ. And we grow in grace the more. when we learned that that grace
could only come to us through Him being crucified, dying. This grace which I'm talking
about, which is saving grace, You can debate whether or not
God's gracious or not in some other things. I won't debate
it with you. But I'm talking about saving
grace. Saving grace can only have come
to us as sinners by Christ laying down His life for us. You say He was a prophet? Yes,
He was. You say he was a sinless man
and the perfect moral example? Yes, he was. You can name a hundred
or a thousand wonderful things about the Lord Jesus Christ if
you know them, but if he had come and ascended back into heaven,
we'd never known grace. Because grace could only come
to us through his death. And the more we realize that,
the more the Lord teaches us, the more that we grow in the
knowledge of that. I don't know how many times in
scripture, in every way, the Bible emphasizes
the death of Christ. the sacrificial substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus Christ for His people that God might
be gracious to them. And that's why it says grace
reigns in righteousness. Paul in Romans 3 says being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. In Hebrews he writes, but we
see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by
the grace of God, should taste of death for every man. Except the verse says for every
man or for all, which means all the Lord's people. If Christ
tasted death for a man, he's going to be saved. If Christ tasted death, that
man will not have to die a death for sin. If Christ tasted death
for you, God showed grace to you. Showed grace to you. And then one more thing. When
we grow in grace, we grow more and more to see our need for
grace daily, constantly, every waking second. In some way, We have to be saved by grace
in our experience every day of our life. And I know Christ's
work is sufficient, that's God's grace, but if he left us for
ourselves, if he left us to our own means, If he left us just to what the
world or the devil or circumstances bring, we'd perish. We need God's grace. And we realize when we grow in
grace that we need it more and more every day. More and more every day. In our daily experience. In the
dangers that we face. In the mistakes that we make. Me and my wife have made enough
mistakes in this week. There's no way that I could be
here tonight. But I am. Just God's grace. They were back from Kentucky
with two tires. One of which the air was leaking
out of so much that it was so flat this morning the man couldn't
pump it up. And another one with the side
wall gouged out of it that can't be fixed, must be replaced. And
I drove 500 miles in the snow all the way. And I wouldn't even have been
able to do that if it hadn't been for grace.
I wouldn't have even been able to stay, I mean, to start out. My plane got delayed twice because
of mechanical issues. But I finally was able to make
the trip by grace. The morning I was supposed to
go, she informs me by message that she can't find the keys
to her car that we're going to drive back. Oh, what a scramble. So what does she do? She goes
out in the car and sees if somehow it will start. Pushes the button
and it starts. Got to have the key fob for it
to start. It will not start without that.
It started. And so she's there at the airport
to pick me up. She's not going to cut it off
because we don't want to risk that. First thing, she pulls
up there and cuts it off. Pushes that button. Miraculously,
it starts again. I say that because God works
in grace every way. when we are not even aware of
it. When His people live in this
life, they experience grace. They don't deserve it. So I went out yesterday and I
emptied that car because I wanted to find out why it ran. She hadn't cranked it up since
January. And I got to looking, and I didn't
see anything. I didn't find any key fobs. Then finally, I picked up a jacket
that had been in there. She hadn't worn it since January.
Just threw it in there, and I felt the pocket. There was the key fob. There
was the reason it started. Been there since January, at
least. Crammed in the back of that trunk
with a zillion other items. Grace. Every day, God, His people,
they experience grace, grace. And with that grace and knowledge,
when we grow in grace, We become more gracious. We don't become
perfect in this flesh. We don't know everything. Our
tongues don't drip with honey. But you can believe it. We're
gracious to people because we've been shown grace. And we are especially gracious
to our brethren. to the Lord's people. Not just in word, but in deed. Toward others, and toward our
brethren, and we trust only in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
trusting Him more, we're knowing more about Him, learning in our
experience, learning biblically, learning through the gospel,
And what do we do? We speak everything and do everything
to the praise of the glory of His grace. Grace. Grow in grace. Our Father, we thank you for
your mercy and grace to us in Christ in every way. Before time,
when Christ came to this day, every day that we live on this
earth, we are being saved by your grace in every way. And we thank you for it. We praise
you for it. And we thank you for this food
that we're about to partake of tonight. We ask that you would
use it to your glory, the strength derived from it. We thank you. In Christ's name and for your
grace, amen.