Turn in your Bibles to 2 Peter
chapter 1. We have a question, don't we?
How do we attain these things? If we want any success in salvation,
I've sought through men's ways. How do we attain these things?
How can we live lives that truly honour our God in the world?
How about we cast the question that way? It's a big question,
isn't it? And it's a question on the hearts of all believers.
Thankfully, brothers and sisters, our gracious God gives us a very
clear answer to this question. all throughout his word. Everywhere in the scriptures
he answers this question for us. Just some examples, Jonah
in 2.9 when he came through that saving experience in the belly
of the fish, he came forth and he declared salvation is of the
Lord, that word of there is origin. So if there is to be any salvation,
it's gotta be in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 26.12, as far
as our works go, he's wrought all our works in us. That's amazing, isn't it? Philippians
2.13, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do
of his good pleasure. So even that passion, even those
good intentions, that desire, God works that will in his people. And one more Colossians 1, 5
and 6 and this is very significant to us. Colossians was the first
book that we studied in the church and this being the first chapter
and early in the verses, it was amazing when the Lord just dropped
this just beautiful scripture in our lap. For the hope which
is laid up for you in heaven where you heard before in the
word of the truth of the gospel. Don't miss that. It's singular.
There's only one gospel, one truth, one word. It's singular,
which is why the gospel is a singular priority of our church. Verse
six, this gospel, which is come unto you as it is in all the
world and bringeth forth fruit. That's where the fruit comes
as a Christian. The gospel is powerful and it's
always active in the hearts and lives of God's children. Now
we don't have enough time to look at them all, but you can
see this is the theme of all the scriptures. And this, brothers
and sisters, is our gospel. Every part of salvation, from
start to finish, no matter what's required, no matter how impossible
it seems, Every part of salvation is completely provided for in
the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And yes, even the
faith by which we receive the gospel is also both given and
grown by our great God. Our text today is 2 Peter 1,
just the first four verses, 1 to 4. And while it is a simple greeting,
It's yet another amazing testimony of the sufficiency of our God's
glorious gospel. So let's read it and consider
it a little closer. Simon Peter, our servant and
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power
hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory
and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust. What an amazing greeting. Today
I'm really hoping that our gracious God would open the eyes of our
understanding and cause us to see that his provision of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ is so comprehensive and so sufficient
that even our thanks and praise are supplied to us as God the
Holy Spirit works in our hearts and lives. Hebrews 13 and 15. So let's start at verse one.
I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to my servants than Angus's messages
last week. We've just seen in John 13 that Simon Peter, although
an apostle, is just another sinner before the Lord. See, this is a greeting. It's
a greeting from one sinner saved by grace to another sinner. The apostles in themselves, they're
just men in need of a savior, like all the rest of us, aren't
they? Sure, they walk with the Lord
and they personally heard him preach the gospel, but their
salvation is in the same way as anyone's. You can read about
it in Acts 15. Their salvation is of the Lord. And it's interesting because
in Acts 4.12 it also says, neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. If you're to be saved, you must
be saved this way. Which is why Peter begins by
declaring a full and finished salvation simply through faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what it is in Acts 22
when he's told to strengthen thy brethren. It's to preach
the gospel to them. So there are many types of faith
in the world, aren't there? We put our trust in people, in
objects, in theories, formulas. Basically, and usually the most
common one, is we put our trust in our own understanding, don't
we? But here in verse one, Peter's
speaking of a very particular faith. He's talking about a precious
faith. a real saving faith, a faith
that rests all its hope in all things on just one thing, on
the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ at the cross. Now this faith is a faith given
by God, Ephesians 2. It's a faith that accesses the
perfect everlasting righteousness of God himself. It's also a faith
which receives a complete justification from all sin committed in our
lives, past, present and future. And finally, if you look back
at our text, this is a faith that comes not of ourselves,
but through the righteousness of God and our Saviour, Jesus
Christ. You see, this saving faith is
a free grace gift from our God, and it's given to us entirely
upon the righteous merits of our God and our Saviour, Jesus
Christ. who has, Ephesians 1, blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. And the purpose of that, the
purpose of being chosen in eternity and blessed with all spiritual
blessings, listen to this, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. This perfect righteousness in
Christ makes every child of God, right now, no matter what condition
they're in, meet or qualified or acceptable, to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in the light, Colossians 1.12. Which is why Peter, with great
confidence in verse two, can say, grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. What an amazing wish for each
other, isn't it? Grace and peace be multiplied unto you Be wonderful
if the Lord laid his prayer on our hearts for each other. Grace
and peace be multiplied unto you. But you know, there's so
much more in this. This is actually an encouragement
to each other of an assured reality. See, grace and peace are eternal
blessings from God our Father. Their blessings obtained in the
finished work of God the Son. And their blessings, which even
now are applied by the continual work of God the Holy Spirit in
the hearts and the lives of His people. So grace, often in religion
I've heard it described as unmerited favor. I'm sure some of you have
heard that. I just don't think that the term does the grace
of God enough justice. While we were yet sinners, while
we were enemies, says Romans 5, we weren't neutral parties. We've never been neutral parties. According to Romans 1, when God
first revealed himself in our lives, we actively rejected him. We glorified him not as God,
neither were we thankful. And if you wanna read Romans
3.23, this is the sum of all humanity, except the Lord. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. So this grace of God, it's gotta
be so much more than just unmerited favor. The grace of God is the eternal
favour of a holy God towards saved sinners chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world. It's also comprehensive
grace which sustains us in every single circumstance of our lives,
both here and in eternity. This grace is given to us freely.
It's another one of those gifts of God. It's completely sufficient
grace, 2 Corinthians 12. And here in our passage, it's
a grace that's multiplied by our God in the lives of these
people. It's also by the blessings that
this grace supply to our life. that we have peace with our God. Now this peace, first and foremost,
this is the peace that we have with our sovereign, holy God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5.1. In fact, Romans 2 tells us that
our Lord Jesus Christ is our peace with God. This peace, as
with the grace of God, is eternal peace. This peace is the peace
of reconciliation with an offended God, a God offended by our sin. You see, this peace, it forms
the basis of restoration of relationship. with our God. And that's a relationship
through which we receive all things as joint heirs with Christ. We just read about it in Romans
8. This peace is peace with our God, which in turn brings peace
into our lives. When we have peace with our God,
we also have peace within our own consciences, as the Holy
Spirit applies the precious blood of our Savior to our hearts. And even more than that, we come
to find greater peace in our everyday lives, no matter how
bad they seem. And you know why? Because real
peace comes to us through the actual presence of our God. as he draws near to his people
in relationship with them, which is why this peace is said to
be multiplied by our God. Grace and peace are fixed and
full blessings from our gracious God, but they are multiplied
as it were. As the Holy Spirit further opens
the eyes of our understanding, Ephesians 1, as he grows us in
the grace and knowledge of our great King and Saviour, to Peter
3, and as he transforms us from glory to glory to Corinthians
3. Again, how do we further receive
these blessings? Through the knowledge of God
and of Jesus our Lord. This isn't speaking of an intellectual
or a theoretical knowledge, okay? In Genesis 4.1, Adam knew Eve
and she conceived. This knowledge is an intimate
union with God. It's a relational union. It's
a union so close that in God's eyes, we and our Savior are one
flesh, Ephesians 5. So much so that his life is actually
our life, John 17 3. It's that new creation of 2 Corinthians
5, born of God, 1 John 3, Christ in us, the hope of glory, Colossians
1 27. Look at Paul for a minute. He's
a pattern to all believers. And in Galatians 2.20, he says,
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. Brothers and sisters, we also
need to remember that grace and peace are all that come to the
saints through this union with our God. Look at verse three. According as his divine power
hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory
and virtue. According as here means in accord
with the way or with respect to, on the basis of or even because. Simon Peter is saying to every
believing child of God that the grace and peace in verse 2 are
multiplied by God on the basis of or because our God's divine
power hath given unto us all things. Brothers and sisters, we can't
even comprehend the power of our God. The best way we can
do it is look at his scriptures and see what he says himself
about his own divine power. In Daniel 4.35 he says, all the
inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand, nor say to him, what doest
thou? You can't even question God.
Exodus 15, 6, Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in
power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy. In Ephesians 1.21, we just sung
a bit about it. Our Lord Jesus Christ sits far
above all principality, all power, and might, and dominion, and
every name that is named, not only in this world, but also
in that which is to come. In Jude, at the end of our service,
we sing to the only wise God and our Saviour, the glory and
majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. And in Revelation 19.6, and I
heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the
voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings
saying, hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Do you know what omnipotent means?
It's all powerful or having all power and authority. Brothers and sisters, what great
comfort we should experience in knowing that it of God himself
that actually gives and grows every blessing that's ever been
promised to us by our loving Father. Look back at our verse
for a moment. Just notice, not only has his
divine power of God sustained faith, grace and peace in But
by that very same divine power of our God, he also gives us
all things that pertain to life and godliness. My sermon title
today is Life and Godliness, as this is a subject at the very
heart of our salvation. It's at the heart of most religious
opposition that comes our way. It was certainly at the heart
of our fall in Adam, and more importantly, it's at the heart
of our own personal relationship with our holy God. So life. So far, Simon Peter's
told us that the saints of God received faith, grace, and peace
freely as blessings from their loving Father in heaven. It's
by blessings like these that we truly experience a real relationship
with our God in His Son, Jesus Christ. And according to John
17.3, that is eternal life. But even more than that, our
sovereign God orders all things in this world for His glory and
our good. Again, we just read it in Romans
8. So even our lives here on earth are constantly and perfectly
provided for and sustained by the divine power of our God. All things that pertain
to life. It makes you wonder why we worry
so much, doesn't it? Ye of little faith, it's just
our unbelief. every single time. So what about
our question? How can we live lives that truly
honour our God? Well, according to our text,
not only do we receive life according to the divine power of God, we
also receive godliness. Every believing child of God,
as I said earlier, desires to honour our God in this world.
And in one way or another, we're all vexed with very real agonies,
soul agonies, over our morality, our Christian behavior, our reverence
to God, our love to Him and His people, over our prayer, study,
reading, understanding. Anything and everything that
we think is necessary to be in fellowship with our God, we agonize
over. Again, by the divine power of
our God, in our Lord Jesus Christ, believers already are the everlasting
righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. But here in our verse, we have
the most amazing provision of our God regarding even our conduct
and godliness in this world. Let men struggle and labor to
produce their own religious, moral righteousness. Okay? Our God clearly promises
here in our text that every single thing necessary will be done
in you that he could ever require of you. What amazing grace. And again, it's all through the
knowledge of him that has called us, called you to glory and virtue. Every blessing of God perfectly
measured and applied by God the Holy Spirit flows freely to the
saints through the union with our great God in our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has called you When our God calls his people to anything,
his call is creative, compelling, and it's always effective. He's
God, isn't he? Brothers and sisters, it's impossible
for our God to lie, Hebrews 6a.d. And he shall not fail, Isaiah
42.4. Just look at our God's divine
power when he called Lazarus forth from the tomb in John 11. Is there anything too hard for
our God? If he's called us to glory and
virtue, then by his mighty hand, through all necessary provision,
The saints freely receive glory and virtue. Do you believe God? This is what he says here. Do
you believe God? And if you do, just rest by faith
in him, Hebrews 4. So glory. For a start, glory
is usually the result or a product of an achievement. an attribute
or a characteristic. But in the case of God, it, like
all things pertaining to God, is infinite and it's perfect. Brothers and sisters, it's actually
this infinite and perfect glory of God that we receive here through
this powerful call of our Lord. Listen to how good this is, John
17, 22 and 23. And the glory which thou gavest
me, this is the Lord in prayer to his Father in heaven. The
glory that thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be
one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." In 1 Peter 5.4, Peter describes
it as a crown of glory. Again, it's a symbol or acknowledgement
of our salvation. in the eyes of our all-seeing
God. However, there's so much more to this call to glory. In
Exodus 34, after he'd spent time in the presence of our holy God,
Moses' face shone as he reflected the glory of our God. It gets even better than this.
It's more of a representation, more than a representation. This
glory is actually imparted through our relational knowledge with
our God in His Son. And brothers and sisters, even
better than that, when Moses reflected the glory of God externally,
this glory is now revealed in us, Romans 8, 18. And as we're further exposed
to the glory of our God through our knowledge of Him in Christ,
we ourselves truly are grown from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3.18. And virtue,
much like glory, virtue is a result or a declaration regarding a
particular achievement or attribute. In our text, virtue is the result
or a declaration regarding our godliness before both God and
men. The Hebrew meaning of the word
virtue is worth or strength, moral righteousness, a pattern
of thought and behavior based on God's will and commands, conformity
to a standard of right, moral excellence. This call of our
Lord to virtue is so effective, that through the knowledge of
Him, through that intimate union with Him, we can even have boldness
in the day of judgment. Why? Because as He is, so are
we in this world. 1 John 4, 17. See, by our union
with our God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, We really are made
the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5.21 again. And are eternally fit to enter
and to stand in the holy presence of our God. Glory and virtue
in many ways, well they seem to be general comprehensive terms,
But as we move into verse 4, we'll see that Peter now shows
us that our glorious God applies these creative realities to us
in a very specific and personal way. He does so through his word
of promise. Verse four, whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might
be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption
that is in the world through lust. Exceeding great and precious
promises. For the believer, these promises
are personal assurances from a loving Father in heaven. and
they're essential to our life and our salvation. Again, we
can rest easy. Philippians 1.6 tells us that
he which begun a good work in you will perform it until the
day of Jesus Christ. It's a continual work of grace
of our God in our lives. For the believer these promises
are our life, and as the Holy Spirit applies this powerful
call of the Lord in our hearts, he does so by these precious
promises. So what are they? What are these
precious promises? Now I hope it hasn't been too
much for you, but with this message I've tried to not only give you
scripture, But I've really given you a lot
of scriptural references, and I'm sorry about that, but the
reason I've done it is because these scriptures that I've been
reading out, they're the promises. This book, our scriptures are
filled, they're brimming from cover to cover, every subject
and every page is jam-packed with these promises. and their promises from a loving
father to his precious children, personal promises. And brothers and sisters, these
are gospel promises, and they're sure promises. Why? 2 Corinthians
1.24 says, And it's amazing, isn't it? It's by these precious
promises and by this powerful call of
our Lord to glory and virtue, that we might be partakers of
the divine nature, the very nature of God himself. Just think about
that for a moment. This isn't a reforming of our
old flesh, our old nature, as if somehow we can fix up what
we've become and then start to try and live satisfactorily to
the end of the holy presence of our God. No, the scriptures
say that our flesh is incurable, Jeremiah 30, 12, and that we
are without strength, Romans 5, 6. And that we're captives
of Satan, 2 Timothy 2, and slaves of sin, Romans 6, 7, 8. No, this must be a whole new
creation, that creation, that new creation in 2 Corinthians
5, 17, that's born of God and cannot sin, 1 John 3, 9, Christ
in us, Colossians 1, 27. In fact, Colossians 3, 10 says,
and this is beautiful, the new man, which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him. Don't you love that? Brothers and sisters, how amazing
is this work of God? He births and grows his own divine
nature within our body of death. What a miracle! And according
to 2 Corinthians 4, as God the Holy Spirit, by divine Power,
a creative call and precious promises works in our lives personally
and intimately. The inward man is renewed day
by day. This is the only way, the only
way we can ever truly enter the presence of our holy God. It's
to be as holy as he is. Long before our fallen Adam,
long before time, the Lord and his people were one. Scripture uses words like reconciliation,
redemption, and restoration. And they do so because they're
speaking of a reuniting of separated loved ones. When we fell to the
I will of Satan, our very nature, the nature that God in Genesis
1.31 had described as very good, our very nature was subject to
corruption. A text says having escaped the
corruption that is in this world through lust. Corruption can
mean a process of decay, putrefaction, or just simply death. When did
corruption enter this world? In Romans 5.12 we're told, What
was God's warning in Genesis 2.17? Surely thou shalt die. When we ate of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, we effectively rejected our God's
grace and in lust, lust for our own personal glory, we took responsibility
for our own righteousness before him. And at the very same time,
we died spiritually and were separated from our God. And our
nature was so completely corrupted that all we are is sin. And therefore, all that we could
ever have done is also sin. How could we ever possibly expect
to do even one thing of ourselves acceptable to infinite holiness? That's ridiculous, isn't it?
Thankfully, what's impossible for man is possible for God. Mark 10.27. Our text says that
the chosen children of God have escaped this corruption. How? Well, Simon Peter's just told
us in the last four verses, hasn't he? Our great God gives us the
precious faith necessary to believe and be in relationship with Him
in His Son Jesus Christ. Verse 1. Through this saving
knowledge of our God, He both gives and multiplies grace and
peace toward us. Verse 2. He gives us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness and rewards us with glory and
virtue. Verse 3. And here in verse four,
he's given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that
by these, not by our own efforts, not by our own wisdom, but by
these, we might be partakers of the divine nature. This is
the only way we can be restored to relationship with our God.
This is why the gospel is so important in this world, and
especially why it's so important in the life of believers, Every
time we think we have to do something for God, every time someone suggests
that God could possibly be more pleased with us, every time the
world and its so many distractions take our eyes off the finished
work of our King and Saviour, We need this same gospel reminder
again and again and again. This is why the gospel is so
important to our church. If there is to be any true hope
of salvation in all this world, it must be in Christ and him
crucified. May our God continue to remind
us of the sufficiency of his gospel. May he cause us to remind each
other as often as he'd allow. And may he always cause us to
rest in his son for all things, especially for life and godliness. Okay.