Let's turn to 2 Peter. There are certain words that we use
so often when we're talking to one another, when I'm preaching
to you. And I take for granted that you
know what those words mean. Last Thursday night, I preached
a message out of Psalm 8 titled, Why the Mouth of Babes? And after
the message, John went home with us and we were sitting around
the table and I said, John, is there anything about the message
that is difficult to understand that you might like some help
with? And John said, yeah. He said,
what are babes? I don't say that to embarrass
you, John. I say it to my own discredit. I take for granted
these things sometimes, that you know what words mean. Well,
one of, or two of those words is grace and peace. 2 Peter 1.2
says, grace and peace be multiplied unto you. What is grace and peace? That's our subject tonight. Grace
and peace is of God. And grace and peace is the sure
work that God accomplishes for and in every child whom He saves. I want to just look at three
divisions. They'll be real simple. We're
going to look at grace. Secondly, we're going to look
at peace. And thirdly, we're going to say a word about this
word multiplied. Let's look at this word grace.
The grace of God toward sinners. Now God is grace. We may not
realize that. God is grace. He is grace. When we see Christ Jesus in scriptures
and we see Him with the eye of faith, we behold grace. Grace. He is the express image
of the Father. As the Father is, so the Son
is. We behold grace. We add qualifiers. We add words to try to define
grace. We say grace is sovereign. We
say grace is free. We say the irresistible grace. We say unchanging grace. Unchangeable grace. Preserving grace. Saving grace. Well, grace is all of those things,
but the reason grace is all of those things is because God is
all of those things. God is sovereign, God is free,
God is irresistible, God is unchanging, God is unchangeable, God is preserving,
and God is saving. He saves. The grace of God is
all of those things. Because the God of all grace
is all of those things. Now when the truth is set forth,
and we proclaim that salvation is of the Lord, and you read,
ye are saved by grace, it's really the same thing. It's essentially
proclaiming the same thing. Because salvation is entirely
by grace. Because salvation is entirely
of the Lord. And salvation is entirely of
the Lord because salvation is entirely by grace. What's included
in salvation by the grace of God? Everything. All salvation. From beginning to end. From eternity past when it was
conceived in the mind of God until the final glory when every
one of His children are brought home to be with Him for all eternity. All salvation is by grace. All by grace. So, I want to look
at some scriptures tonight. Not unfamiliar to you. Look at
Romans 8. Romans 8. But I want you to see
by these scriptures that everything is by grace. Now this first scripture
I want to show you is just one passage of Scripture that is
all-inclusive, that's showing us from beginning to end that
salvation is by grace. Now, the word grace is not in
this passage, but this is all that God does by grace. Everything
He does by grace. Romans 8, 29. For whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son. that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified. He did it all. He did it all.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, and
that's what grace is. Grace is when God is for us. And if God be for us, who can
be against us? Nobody. All right, now let's
go to Ephesians 1. Go to Ephesians 1, and I want
to show you particularly what is by grace. What is by grace? Ephesian letter is written to
believers. That's what Paul declares to
us in the first verse. The faithful in Christ Jesus
are those who've been called by God's grace and believe on
God. So when you read through these
epistles, always read the first verses, the beginning of the
epistles, to see who's being written to. And that'll help
you understand who the writer means when he says all Us all
and things like that. He's talking about us all who
have been called by his grace and believe That we're saved
entirely by grace now now by grace God the Father chose and
predestinated His children unto the adoption of children in and
by Christ. Election is by grace. Predestination is by grace. God
did this. The adoption of children is by
grace. Now let's read these verses.
You know these. I want to look one by one at everything that's
by grace. Ephesians 1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. Now let me make
a point to you right there. First of all, all of God's grace
is in Christ Jesus. All of God's grace is given freely
because it's accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if
God's foreknowing of us was that He foreknew down the road that
we would be holy, that we would believe, or any of those things,
if that were so, It wouldn't say here that he chose us that
we should be holy. It's out blank before him in
love. His choosing is what made us so when he put us in Christ.
Having, now that's the election that we're talking about. Having,
verse 5, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself. Now that's his predestinating
grace, his adopting grace. He predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. And he did
it according to the good pleasure of his will. Why? Why? Verse six, to the praise of the
glory of his grace. That he might be applauded by
all whom he saves for saving us by his grace. Choosing whom
he would, putting them in Christ, predestinating them, and bringing
this gospel unto us. To the praise of the glory of
his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. There's
absolutely no sinner that deserves to be saved. There's no sinner
that has merited salvation. There is nothing in the sinner
good. There's nothing in us that is
capable of believing on God. Nothing in us that can bring
ourselves to God. Nothing in us that can commend
us to God whatsoever. God's salvation is by His grace. Grace and works exclude each
other. They cannot be mixed. Let me
show you one more verse, one more passage. Hold your place
there in Ephesians and look over to Romans 11. Romans 11. Paul is speaking of, he'd been
declaring that not everybody in Israel were of Israel and
he said, He said right then, Romans 11 5, even so, Romans
11 5, even so, then at this present time also there is a remnant
according to the election of grace. He said there's a remnant
God will save according to the election of grace. Now look at
verse 6, and if by grace then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. If it's not entirely according
to the election of God's grace, God's own choosing, then it is
no more grace. And if by grace, then it is no
more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then is it no more grace. Otherwise,
work is no more work. We understand that the two can't,
they can't go together, can't mix them. It's either salvation
according to God's own choosing, whom he would, or it's salvation
because there was something in the believer that committed him
to God. It can't be both, one or the other. That's the clear
declaration of scripture. His electing, predestinating
adoption and adopting is by grace. All right, back to Ephesians,
Ephesians 1. What else is by grace? Well,
Christ Jesus came and He finished the work of redemption. He finished
the work needed to completely obey every every jot and tittle
of the law. He fulfilled everything about
it. He did by his own obedience so
that the righteousness that was his as a man under the law could
be imputed, charged to his children who were sinners, men, women
under the law. And he laid down his life to
justify us from the penalty of that law. So that everything
that we have, this perfect justifying standing we have before God,
this perfect righteousness we have with God is all by the grace
of God accomplished by Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1 7. In whom
we have redemption through his blood. That means His blood paid
the redeeming price to buy us out of the bondage of the law. To buy us out of, out from under
the law. He paid the price of His own
blood. We have the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins. According to the riches of His
grace. In Romans 3.24 it says we are
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. When a sinner has been made to
hear this good news, when you hear this good news, it will
be the riches of His grace because you will find out how bankrupt
and how poor and unable and unworthy you are for all of this grace
that God is bestowing upon you. If He calls you, that's what
you're going to find out. And this grace, grace will become
one of your most favorite words. Grace. I love that word, grace. That's how I'm saying, grace.
You'll find out that He's redeemed, that He's justified, that He's
made us the righteousness of God by His own obedience unto
death. We have this by God's grace. Alright? What else is given to
us by grace? Alright, Ephesians 2. It's by
the grace of God that every sinner for whom Christ died shall be
quickened to life together with Christ Jesus. Look at Ephesians
2. We were dead. We were dead. We
were just like everybody else born into this world. Children
of disobedience, dead in trespasses and in sins. But look at verse
4. But God who is rich in mercy
For His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins. What can a dead man do? What
would you depend on a dead man to do? Is there anybody here
that would ask or depend or be so foolish as to call upon a
dead man to do anything for you? That's exactly what every sinner
is born in this world, dead. That's what we are by nature,
is dead. Some of you sitting here this
night, right here before my eyes, listen to me very carefully.
You're blinking, you're breathing, you're licking your lips, batting
your eyes, reading these scriptures, and you're dead. Dead. Dead in trespasses and in sins. Absolutely dead. and dying every
day. And we'll soon meet God very
soon. The only way a sinner is going
to be brought to life to where what God is saying is more valuable
than bread that your mama had set on the table tonight. The
only way you're going to be made to see that this is more valuable
than the water you drink, than the clothes you have on your
back, than the house you live in, than the jobs we work at,
than anything else in this life is for God to make us alive. And how's that done? Verse 5,
even when we were dead in sins, He's quickened us together with
Christ. The word quickened means made
us alive, regenerated us, made us alive. Look at the parentheses. By grace, you are saved. This is what God does by grace. Alright? What else does He do
by grace? Well, look down at verse 8. Everybody that's given faith,
and this verse just talks about faith, but every, Peter tells
us later, all things that pertain to life and godliness. Everything
that pertains to life and godliness. Life itself, faith, repentance,
humility, temperance, brotherly kindness, charity, hope, all
of these things are given through the grace of God by the Spirit
of God sanctifying us in Christ Jesus by His grace. Look at Ephesians
2.8. For by grace are you saved through
faith. You see, you're going to have
to believe on God. We're going to have to believe
on God. We're going to have to be brought to cast all our care
into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ if we'll be saved. That's
all we have to do. That is all a sinner has to do
to be entirely saved by God is believe on another to save you. And that's going to be by grace.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. It is
not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works. And those good works
right there are the works I'm just talking about. It's repentance,
it's humility, its temperance, its
brotherly kindness, its charity, all the fruits of God's grace
that He gives to us are works which God hath before ordained,
He determined beforehand, just like He determined who would
receive His grace, just like He determined for whom His Son
would lay down His life, just like He determined who He would
make alive, just like He sent forth all this grace into the
hearts of those that He's made new, He ordained before that
we should walk in those good works. Do you think there's any
possibility that anybody that God ordained before, any of these
works that God ordained before for His children to walk in,
do you think there is a remote possibility that they won't?
Not a chance. Not even a possibility. Because
the God we're talking about is the God who is able to do everything
He says He does. Alright, what else is going to
be ours by grace? This time we're going to turn
over to Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1. See, you're right. Philippians chapter
1. We're going to be kept, that
is, kept believing, protected, kept in the faith, kept trusting
the Lord Jesus by grace. That's going to happen by his
power, by grace. Philippians 1.6 Paul said to
the Philippians, he said, I'm confident of this very thing
that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. He will, the word perform there
means finish. He will finish it until the day
that Jesus Christ returns. What made Paul so confident of
that? What made Paul so confident that
if God had begun a good work in the saints to whom he spoke,
that God would finish the work? Look at the end of verse 7. He
says, ye are all partakers of my grace, or partakers with me
of grace. That's how he knew. That's how
it was going to be carried forth. That's how it was going to be
completed. Now, Romans 6. Let's go to Zechariah. Turn over
to the Old Testament. Two books into the Old Testament.
Zechariah. Look to chapter 4. Now, we've seen here that God's
election is by grace. We've seen here that His predestinating
of His people unto the adoption is by grace. We've seen here
that the redemption, the forgiveness of sins, the justification of
His people is by grace accomplished by Christ. We've seen here that
the quickening of His children is by His grace. We've seen here
that the gifts that He gives through the Holy Spirit such
as faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, all of these things are
by his grace. We've seen that he's going to
keep his children until the return of Jesus Christ by his grace.
There's something else we need. We're going to die and our bodies
are going to go into the dust and they're going to return to
the dust. And when we die, We need to enter into God's presence
immediately. We need at the end for our bodies
to be raised incorruptible and given a new glorified body that
our body and our soul and our spirit might dwell with God for
all eternity. We need God to do that for us
just as much as we need God to do the first work of grace for
us. I said to you, beginning to end, salvation is all by grace. So, is He going to do that work
for us? Romans 6.23 says, The wages of
sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. This is what the Lord told Zechariah. And this was a picture of that
temple being built. We know that the believers have
stones built up in his temple. And this is what he says, verse
7. He says, Who art thou, O great
mountain? Whatever obstacle stands in God's
way, who art thou, O great mountain? Is death going to be a great
mountain? Is the fact that our bodies are going to be returned
to the dust and eaten by worms, is that going to be a great mountain
for our God? Who art thou, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel, before the governor, before him on whose
shoulder the government rests, Christ Jesus our Lord, thou shalt
become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof
with shoutings, crying grace, grace unto it. So you see, everything
beginning to end is all by the grace of God. All the salvation
of God's people beginning to end is by the grace of God. I
was finishing up studying today and an email came to me over
the internet and I was reading it in a bulletin and I saw this
illustration. I thought this might be good
to put here. It told this parable, this story
about a woodpecker. This woodpecker flew up to a
big oak tree. He was pecking around on that
oak tree trying to get to something in there that he could eat, something
he could live by. But all of a sudden, a bolt of
lightning came out of the sky and struck that tree. And the
woodpecker rolls across the ground, and he got up. And when he got
up, he looked, and that big oak tree was split right in two.
And the woodpecker said, man, look what I did. That's foolish,
isn't it? That's as foolish as men who
try to say, start bragging about what they did for God, how they
came to God, how they made a decision for God, how they did something
for God, when the whole of God's salvation is by the divine power
of God Almighty. Everything is by His power. Do
you see how to grace, how great a debtor we are? Everything is
by grace. We're constrained by grace. Alright, now let's look at the
next word. The next word is peace. The next word is peace. Whenever God crosses a sinner's
path with the gospel of grace, the gospel of peace, and begins
to reveal the righteousness of Christ Jesus, His righteousness,
At first, there's not going to be any peace. I'm always hopeful
when somebody gets mad at me for preaching the gospel. I'm
always hopeful. I'm more hopeful for that than
somebody that sits lukewarm and just comes now and again. I'd
rather somebody get mad and turn their back on me. That might
mean God's doing something. It might mean God's doing something.
Whenever a man comes to hear the gospel, God's going to start
destroying every false refuge that he has. He's going to take
away every false refuge he has. The gospel, little by little,
it'll hit. This gospel will hit at every
single refuge a man has his trust in. And the more a man sits and
hears it, the more he'll It'll get closer to his refuge, closer
to his refuge, closer to his false refuge. And there won't
be any peace at first. There will not be any peace at
all at first. It'll be a word that will cause
him to blame everybody. He'll blame everybody. He'll
become aggravated at the man preaching it, at the brethren
supporting it, at his wife, at his kids, at his dog, and at
his cat. He'll get mad at everybody. You
ever seen a man A man in some of these videos where men are
desperate to be saved. They're desperate and they know
they're drowning. They're thrown out and they're
desperate. A man will hang on. A man that never would put a
two-by-four in his hand and never latch on to anything like that
will latch on to a two-by-four if he's out in the middle of
an ocean drowning. He'll thrash about. He'll try
to take down everybody around him. He's trying his best to
just get his head above water, and there's no peace at all.
And that's what a man will do when he begins to hear the Word,
the truth of God's Law. It'll make a man a lost man,
whether he's been religious or otherwise. It'll start to make
him a lost man. It'll start to make him see he's
altogether sin, that that's all he is. His lewdness, God will
say, is unrighteous. And he'll hear this in his heart.
His decisions, or whatever it is that he's done for Christ
when he was in his days of false religion, God will begin to say,
it's unrighteous. All of it's unrighteous. Whatever
it is, the works he thought that were commending to God, he'll
begin to hear God say in his heart, it's unrighteous. Whatever
it is that is he's holding on to, whatever it is that he's
been trying to justify himself with, ignore God or come to God
with, whatever it is that he's been trying to do, God will make
him see all he is and all that he's ever done for God is nothing
but the lust of his flesh. And there will be much unpeace.
The law worketh wrath. The law worketh wrath. And it
makes sin exceedingly sinful. And there will be much unrest.
There won't be any peace. It will be all unrighteousness
and all ungodliness. And you'll be looking fearfully
into the eyes of the God of all judgment at fiery indignation
and the wrath of God. And there won't be any peace.
There just won't be any peace there. That's the beginning of
peace. If God's working that work in
the heart, that's the beginning of peace. That's the beginning
of peace. And God always wins this battle. Grace always wins this battle.
He'll bring that man to cry out, woe is me, I'm undone. Just like
he did Isaiah. He'll bring a man to cry out
like the parable of the of the publican. He'll bring him to
smite upon his breast and not even be able to lift his head
to God. And he will make that man pray
for the first time in his life and say, God have mercy on me
the sinner. Have mercy on me the sinner. And the son of righteousness
will arise with healing in his wings. He will arise with healing in
His wings, and He will speak into the heart that He's brought
to nothingness, the heart wherein He's created this unrest, this
new heart He's already made, where He's created unrest and
made the man to loathe Himself. And God will speak into that
heart, and He'll say, Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins be forgiven
thee. Your sins are forgiven you. He'll
sprinkle that heart from the evil conscience that he's been
weighted down under. That evil conscience where he's
been weighted down and he's been heavy laden and he knows he's
been guilty, he knows he's been wrong, he knows all his works
have been works of vanity and playing and putting on a pretense
and a show and God will purge his conscience from all the guilt
of his sin and from all those dead works he's been laboring
under and God will make him to see, I have finished the work. It's done. Forgiven. You're forgiven. And when he does that, when grace flows in, and does
this work, peace will come flooding into the soul of a man like a
river. It will flood into the soul of
a man like a river. What kind of peace? Peace of
knowing you've been freely justified by the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace
of knowing you've been reconciled unto God by God Himself in His
Son. Peace of knowing that full pardon,
full atonement has been accomplished by the blood of Christ. Peace
of knowing you're complete in Christ Jesus. peace of knowing
that you don't have to war against God anymore. You don't have to
war against his people anymore. You don't have to put up that
charade and that false facade anymore and labor and labor and
labor to make everybody think you're somebody when you go home
and get to yourself and know you're really nobody. You don't
have to labor for all that anymore. You have the peace of knowing
God receives you. The peace of knowing God accepts
you. The peace of knowing that God says there's no more condemnation
for you. It's gone. Have you ever been
weighted down? Have you ever had something that
just... I guess the only thing I could
liken it to is sometimes you get bad news. You get bad news. I got some news this week about
some friends of mine that I've known from high school. They
have a 19-year-old son that's in a terrible car wreck. And I thought, that is a parent's
worst nightmare, I think, to get some kind of news like that.
And to get news like that, and you're just waiting. That's what
it is to be under sin, is to be weighted down like that, to
be weighted down with it. And to get this good news that
all is well, all is well. Can you imagine those parents
getting the news, your son's gonna be fine? Wouldn't that
be, oh, wouldn't that just be a, oh, just a tremendous weight
off of you? That's what it is to come into
this peace. Look now at Romans 5. Look at
Romans 5. Look at verse 1. Let's begin reading in verse
25. Talking about Christ delivered
for our offenses, raised again for our justification, therefore
being justified. By faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand. You know what that's
going to do? You know what peace and grace
are going to do in the heart of a believer? and we rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God. It's gonna make us rejoice. It's
gonna make us happy and rejoice. Whenever, look over at Romans
15. Whenever the believer has peace in his heart, peace in
the inward man, knowing he's robed in the righteousness of
Christ, knowing that we're complete in him, knowing that God has
reconciled us to himself and that he saved us by grace and
he will keep us by grace and he will bring us to him by grace,
knowing that he will supply all the sufficiency of our need by
his grace. When we know that, when we have
this full, complete assurance, It really doesn't matter if our
outward man is facing great trouble and great trial, because we know
we have an inward peace and an inward, by grace, we have this
inward peace so that we're at peace. If we have peace with
God, that's what matters. Now our Lord said, this is peace
that I give you. And he said, it's not peace like
the world gives you. It's not given as the world would
try to give it, nor is it the peace that the world's able to
give. This is what this peace is. Romans 15, 13. Now the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing. That's what it is. It's peace
in believing. You know when our peace is disturbed? When we doubt. You know when
our peace is, when we become all at unrest and start foaming
up just like waves coming in and hit the bottom of the sea
and they're just foaming up and there's dust and dirt and rocks
and everything mixed with it? You know when we become like
that? When we stop believing. When we doubt. When we doubt. It's going to happen. This grace
is going to come and it's going to be peaceful in our hearts
in believing, in believing that you may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost. What is it, this peace? I like
the song. It says, when peace like a river
attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever
my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with
my soul. How so? How can a believer say
that in the midst of all kinds of trials? The last stanza, or
second to last, says this. My sin. Oh, the bliss of this
glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the
whole. is nailed to the cross and I
bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. That's what peace
we're talking about. That's grace and peace. Now I
want to look at the last word. Multiply. We're going to look
more at this, Lord willing, next time. But I don't want to end
without giving you this word to go home with. I want you to
look at this. How is grace and peace multiplied? It says, grace and peace be multiplied
unto you. How is grace and peace multiplied? The more we behold His grace,
the more we'll have peace. The more He's given us peace,
the more we'll be able to behold His grace. It's like a snowball,
Joe. It works all together. The more
we behold His grace, the more peace we'll have. And the more
peace we have, the more we'll behold His grace. Now, He works
this peace by His grace, and He causes this grace and this
peace to be multiplied by His grace. Now, how does He do that? I want to just show you two things,
and we'll close. First of all, He gives us a desire and a heart, a diligence
to hear and to study the gospel of our God and our Savior. Look
at verse 2. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. The same way He put this fruit
of grace in us, this peace in us, is the way God's going to
multiply them unto us. He's going to do it through the
gospel. He's going to do it by causing
us to hear more of Him. We're not going to find this
grace and peace by looking somewhere else other than to the God of
all grace, to the Lord Jesus Christ by whom it was accomplished.
And it pleased God for us to hear of Him and to read of Him
and to study about Him by this Word right here. Now look, there
are some things to be added. Verse 5. He said, beside this,
giving all diligence. All diligence. Just as God doesn't
believe for us, He gives us faith and we believe. He gives us repentance
and we repent. He gives us love and we love.
He gives us humility and we're humble. He gives us all these
things. And He says, now you give all
diligence. Add to your faith virtue, and
to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance
patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness,
and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you
and abound, They make you that you shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now,
I just said to you, the more you have peace, the more you're
able to diligently look into His Word and hear His Word and
see His grace, and the more He grows you in grace so that you
have this peace and these things are added by the Spirit of God,
When has it become most difficult to come and hear the gospel preach
and to read his word and to seek the grace and peace of God? When
we're at unrest, when our peace is disturbed. And sadly, when
our peace is disturbed, usually we think the wisest thing to
do, we manifest our own wisdom, is to stop hearing the word and
stop picking up the word and reading it. He was going to have
grace and peace multiplied unto us through a knowledge of God
and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how it's going
to come. If I'm too busy to hear the gospel, I'm too busy. If
I'm too busy to read the Word of God, I'm too busy. Where God
gives grace and peace, He's going to make this doctrine that was
so dead and to become the good news of our living Redeemer.
And as He does it, we'll have grace and peace. That's how it's
going to be increased. Here's the second way. We're
going to look more at this next time. The second way is going
to be by His divine power and wisdom. We're not going to have
it without His divine power and His wisdom. Look at 2 Peter 1.3.
according as His divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness." Did you see how we saw that it
was by His divine power that He gave us all things to begin
with? He's the one that did it by His grace, by His divine power.
And He's going to do it by His divine wisdom through the knowledge
of Him that hath called us. He's the power and He's the wisdom.
He called us to And he called us by glory and virtue, his glory
and his virtue. And that's how we're gonna be
grown in grace and peace. Whereby, through his gospel,
through his divine power and wisdom, there's been 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. His divine power and wisdom
brought the gospel to us. His divine power and wisdom regenerated
us and made us partakers of the divine nature to begin with.
The same power and wisdom that called us is the power and wisdom
who called us by His glory, by His virtue. You remember the
woman with the issue of blood? She was sick. She didn't have
any peace. She had nothing. All she did
was touch the hem of his garment. And you know what he said? the
virtues gone out of me. You know what happened immediately?
She was healed. That's the divine power and wisdom
we're talking about. The glory and the virtue that
enters in to the believer. The same power and wisdom that
made and fulfills all these exceeding great and precious promises to
us. He made them, he fulfills them. And it's by those promises
that he increases grace and peace in us. The same power and wisdom
by whom we have escaped, we have escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust. The same divine power and wisdom
that won't allow sin to have their dominion anymore is the
divine power and wisdom of our God who alone is able to multiply
his child in grace and peace. Now, here's the conclusion of
the whole matter. the beginning of our salvation
right now during our salvation and all the way final to the
ultimate end. The ultimate end of everything
God does beginning to end that He has and He is doing toward
us, toward His children and His elect through Christ is this, to the praise of the glory of
His grace. praise the glory of His grace. We're going to praise the glory
of His grace. You know what every believer
that's tasted this grace is going to say? Every believer that tastes
this grace, if he continues to feed and grow and nurture, this
is what we say. I am what I am by the grace of
God. Don't you have something else?
But isn't there just something now that you're going to admit
to me that you did? Nope. Nope. Anything that I've ever done,
anything I've ever said, anything I've ever thought, anything that
anybody in this earth might look upon and say, well, that appears
to me to be a good work, it's only been. by the grace, by the
power, by the divine power and wisdom of Christ being formed
in me so that he's washed me, so that I'm perfectly clean,
so that he receives everything I do, those sins mixed with all
of it, purging it and cleansing it so that it's perfect before
him. Everything, everything I am is owing all to the grace of
God. And you know what that does for
me? It gives me great peace. Great peace. Amen.