Turn back to 2 Peter chapter
1. Title of the message, A Sermon
for the Church. A sermon for the Lord's Church. Now Peter writes this second
epistle just before he dies. He says over in verse 14, I believe
it is, knowing that shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle,
this body, I'm going to die. Even as our Lord Jesus Christ
hath shewed me. So this time when he's writing,
he is at the point of being put to death. And basically what
he writes in this epistle It's a warning of the false teachers
that's going to come. That was a subject that was on
the apostles' minds, Paul, Peter, others, that when they left,
they knew that these false teachers, these ravening wolves, would
come in. tried to devour the sheep, and
they gave much warning. Much warning. We never get rid
of them. We never get rid of them. It's like last week we looked
in chapter 5 of 1 Peter, and he talks about Satan there in
verse 8 being sober, being vigilant. Because your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. He's a very real person. He's
very real, and we'll never get rid of him until the Lord winds
all this up. And you'll never get rid of the
false prophets and false teachers. You'll never get rid of the tares
and the goats and all that. They'll be with us. And so they
write about these things. They are deeply concerned about
them. And he writes here to the church to encourage them in the
Lord Jesus Christ and to instruct them. That's what our purpose
is to do here every time we stand in this pulpit. The first is
to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, to give honor and glory to His
name. That's our sole or first purpose,
first priority for preaching and teaching. But secondly, it's
to instruct. Over in the Old Testament, the
Lord told His prophet, feed them with knowledge. Feed my people
with knowledge. Knowledge of God, knowledge of
Christ, knowledge of salvation. Feed them with knowledge. And
he starts out here now. He calls himself a servant before
he calls himself an apostle. It was just as much an honor.
It was every bit an honor to Peter to be a servant as it was
to be called an apostle. He counted every bit an honor
to say I'm a servant as it did to say I'm an apostle. What a privilege, what an honor,
and what a responsibility to be a servant and an apostle a
special messenger of Jesus Christ. And he never forgot that. He
never forgot it. And he writes to them that have
obtained like precious faith with us. Like precious faith. There is only one true faith.
There is only one true faith. And it belongs to all of God's
children. We all have the same faith. We
may not all have the same degree of faith, But we all have the
same faith, common faith, common salvation. One faith. And that one faith
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is precious. Peter speaks
of the precious blood. He speaks of precious faith and
he speaks of precious promises. These things are precious to
him and these things are precious to the Lord's church. But he
calls it precious. You've obtained, you have obtained
like, just like the faith that we have, you've obtained it.
He's saying you, the least in the church, if you can say that,
if we can call someone the least, I don't know, I don't like to
say that, but if you can say the least of the church has the
same faith that's given to the apostles. Maybe not the same
degree, but the same faith. And that faith is in Christ.
And it's precious because it's of God. You didn't come up with
it. You didn't muster it up. You
were not educated into it. It was given to you. It was given
to you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about that.
It's given to you not only to suffer for Him, or not only to
believe on Him, but also to suffer with Him. But it's given to you.
It's given to you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You
can't help it. Can you? Can you help but believe? You
can't do it. No more than you can help breathe.
Faith is a gift of God, and when He gives it, you can't help but
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't help it. And that's
why it's precious. It's of God. And then it's precious
because it's the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God, third
person in the Trinity, has created in you That faith which saves. That faith which takes God at
His word. That faith which lays hold of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That faith which lays hold of
eternal life. The Holy Spirit created it in
you. It's His power. It's His work. And that's why
it's precious. Not everyone has this. You know,
the devils believe and they tremble. But they're not saved. They're
not saved. It's not this faith. It's not
this kind of faith. And then it's precious because
it's the only one that saves. There is no other faith. There's
only one Lord, one faith, one baptism. There's only one. And
God gave it to you. God worked it in you. How precious
is that? How precious is it? And then it's precious because
it brings us to glory. It brings us to glory. To just
shall live by faith. And one day when life's over,
faith will give way to sight. But until then, we'll walk this
life by faith until we are received up into glory. And you have obtained
it. You didn't buy it. You did not
purchase it by any money or merit. No, you obtained it. And you
obtained it by grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, it says in Ephesians 2, and that faith is not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God. But God gave it to you by grace.
Sovereign grace. Sovereign grace. God chose you,
God loved you, God called you, God worked in you faith. That's
how you got it. By grace. And also, listen, through,
in, and by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. You got it by grace and you got
it by the work and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Look back here in verse 1. 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." Now listen, Peter is not talking
about two different people. He's not talking about two different
people here. He's saying of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
He's talking about one person. And our Savior, Jesus Christ,
he identified Jesus Christ. Here's what he's doing. He's
identifying God as Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God. He's speaking
here of one person. This is how you have obtained
like precious faith through this one person, through his righteousness,
through his mediation, through his work. This is how you have
obtained precious faith through God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. He's identifying him as the incarnate
God. Now, faith has been freely bestowed
upon us and wrought in us through the merits and mediation of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying. And
grace and peace be multiplied to you. I don't know that there
is anything that I could pray for you and you could pray for
me. is that grace and peace be multiplied. Grace and peace be multiplied.
Grace and peace be multiplied, he says to you. Grace and peace
comes to us through the person of Jesus Christ, the only mediator
between God and men. The multiplication of grace.
You want more grace? Are you really interested in
more grace? Are you really interested in
more peace? I mean to know more of it by
experience. To have more peace. To enjoy
the peace that comes through believing. To enjoy the peace
that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. To enjoy that peace that
He is for us. And here's how it comes. He tells
us how to have it. The Scripture is so plain. The
Scriptures are so plain. Grace and peace be multiplied
to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. This is how grace and peace is
multiplied. It's knowing Him. Paul said,
Oh, that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection.
That I might come to know more of Him in His Godhead, in His
manhood, in His person? Do you know all there is to know
of God? Do you know all that there is
to know of Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God? Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of Him, through knowing Him,
more and more. that you would know Him more
and more in your soul. There's no way to grow in grace.
There's no way to grow in peace apart from growing in Christ. It can't happen. It cannot happen. For me to grow
in grace, to grow in peace, I have to grow in knowledge of Him.
I tell you, that knowledge has
to go from here down to here. God went to heart. It's a heart
knowledge. Heart knowledge of Him. We never
receive any blessing from God except it comes to us through
Christ, our Lord and Savior. Every blessing we have, every
spiritual blessing, and even every material blessing we have
is channeled through Him to us. If I can use this word, conduit.
He's the conduit through which all the blessings, all the grace,
all that God has for us, He's the conduit through which it
flows. How important is it for me to
know Him more and more? How important is that? And he says here in verse 3,
according as His divine power, according as His, who's he talking
about? He's talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ here, the God-man. According to Christ's power,
His divine power, He's God and His power is divine. He's God
and His power is divine. It's not just like the power
of man, it's the power of God. His power is divine. According
as His divine power hath given to us, all things that pertain
unto life and godliness. And that word life is that new
life, that new man, that new creation. It is Christ by His
mediation. He has given us by His divine
power through His mediation all things, everything we need that pertain unto that new life
and godliness. Christ by His power has given
us all that we need. He has supplied all our needs. All that we need now and all
that we need for eternity, He has supplied. Ye are complete
in Him. You're complete. And notice, through the knowledge of Him,
that hath called us to glory and virtue." You notice as Peter
goes down through here writing under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, there is no salvation apart from Him. There is no salvation,
now listen, apart from knowing Him, believing Him, trusting
Him. Paul says, he's given everything
up for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, knowing
Him, over there in Philippians chapter 3. Everything, everything we have
is connected to Him. He said, I'm the vine, you are
the branches. So everything the branch has
comes through the vine. And that's our connection to Him, our union
to Him. And he says here, through the
knowledge of Him that has called you to glory. You know, this is our calling. We've been
called to eternal glory. We will experience this in a
little while. It may be before the night's
over. I know we always seem to think
that it's way out there somewhere. Well, it's not. It may be before
the night's over. that we have been called to glory,
to His glory. Behold, His glory that He had
with the Father before the world was. We may be called to behold
that. And virtue. We've been called
to His glory and to a godly walk. You know, they go together. Our
calling and our conduct go together. You can't separate them. In verse
4, whereby are given, and I like to read it like this, through
whom are given all these things that he's speaking of here, all
these blessings and all that he's speaking of here, through
whom are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.
All the promises of God in him are yea and amen. It is through
him, this is what Peter is saying, it is through him that we are
given all these exceeding. You and I have not even scratched
the surface of God's promises in our understanding. You know,
we have some understanding. God has given us an understanding.
The Son of God hath come and given us an understanding. But
there's a whole lot there yet to understand. There's a whole
lot yet to be tasted. through whom are given unto us
exceeding great and precious, precious promises. We have been given by Christ,
that is by His glory, by His power, and through His righteousness,
we have been given these great, precious promises. We have them
on His account. What was it He said in Psalm
2? I'll give you the heathens. We have them on His account.
And by these great and precious promises, we have been made partakers
of the divine nature through Christ, through His righteousness,
through His mediation. We have been made partakers of
the divine nature. Now, I'm going to tell you, this
is over my head, just like Christ had been made sin for us. I looked
at this today, and I looked at this hard, and I realized, you can't comprehend this. You
can't comprehend it. I tried to think of how can I
bring this out? Well, I don't know. I don't know
if there's words sufficient to bring it out. He hath made Him
to be sin for us who knew no sin. We might be made righteousness
of God in Him. How in the world can you comprehend
Christ being made sin and yet He knew no sin? And here we are
made partakers of the divine nature. And this has to do, I do know
this, I do know this much about it. It has to do with the new
birth. It has to do with Christ in you,
the hope of glory. It has to do with those things.
We have been made partakers of the divine nature by new birth. Christ is in that new man, and
that new man is in Christ. And they are one. They are one. He became bone of our bone and
flesh of our flesh, that we might be partakers of His Spirit. That which is born of the Spirit?
Now listen, it does not say that which is born of the Spirit is
spiritual, even though it is. It says that which is born of
the Spirit is Spirit. And there's only one Spirit.
God is Spirit. I can't explain that, but I tell
you what, I can sure rejoice in it. I can sure rejoice in
it. He has made us to be partakers
of the divine nature in that new nature that is created in
us in the new birth. And that new nature in you is
Christ. You're in Christ. That new man
is Christ. Christ is in that new man. And
that's you. Am I confusing you? But we can
rejoice in it, though we cannot You know, we can only go so far.
But someday we'll know these things by experience. We'll know
them. And beside this, in verse 5,
you see, he talked about what we have in Christ, what the Lord
has done for us, being partakers of the divine nature. But he
says here in verse 5, and beside this now, give all diligence. You give diligence. Great effort
you put forth. That's what Peter is saying to
the church. You put forth great effort, giving all diligence. Add to your faith. Add to your
faith. This is where it starts. Faith. He starts with faith.
It all starts here. And add all these things to faith. Faith never stands alone. James said, I'll show you my
faith by my works. Abraham believed God and he acted
on it and he acted like it. He believed God. So add to your
faith. Then he gives this list of things
here. He says, add to faith virtue. Courage. One writer said moral, moral
virtue. But I like what Henry said on
it. It's the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering. Add these things. Work on these
things. Seek the Lord to bless you in
these things. You add to faith virtue and then
add to virtue knowledge. Knowledge of God. Like I said,
do you know God? Do you know all there is to know
of God? The angels don't even know that.
They haven't even scratched the surface. They desire to look
into the things that you and I know. They desire to know the
things we know. Knowledge of God, knowledge of
His will. Oh, to give diligence and know
the will of God. Knowledge of His Word. Getting in the Word of God and
understanding and knowing God through His Word. Knowing His
will through reading His Word. Temperance. Add to knowledge
temperance. That means avoid excess in anything. Eating, drinking, at leisure, pleasure. Workaholic. I know one particular man that
comes to my mind. He's a workaholic. He never stops. Seven days a week, six days a
week, seven days a week. You know, there's got to be temperance
in that also. Temperance. Avoid excess in anything. Except worship. I don't think
we'll ever be guilty of excess in worship, will we? But temperance,
and he's talking about temperance and earthly things. And patience. Patience. Waiting on the Lord. Waiting on Him in trials. Waiting on Him to answer a prayer.
That's difficult, isn't it? Wait, I say, on the Lord. That's what David said. Wait,
I say, on the Lord. And He shall give you strength. Wait on Him.
Patience. Waiting on the Lord. And listen,
I wrote this down. Waiting on others to grow up.
Patient with others. And waiting, being patient. Be patient with those who are
young in the faith. Be patient. You know, I look back and I think
how patient Henry was with me. I look back and somebody gave
me one of my messages I preached in the preacher school and I
listened to it about five minutes and threw it in the trash. I
did, I threw it in the trash. And I could not believe after
I listened to that that Henry let me step back in that pulpit
again. Patience. Patience. Sooner or later they'll grow
up just like your children. Patience. Patience shows understanding. I think it shows understanding.
You realize that you were there one time. You realize that was
you at one time. It may still be you. And then
add to that godliness. That is fear of the Lord. This
has to do with worship. Worship. And this begins with in first,
then it comes out. And then brotherly kindness,
taking care of one another. You see how Peter doesn't leave
these things off. He talks about what the Lord's done for us and
the precious promises and being partakers of the divine nature.
But now he says there's some things you need to work on. Some things
you need to cultivate and see after. And these are the things
He gives us. And brotherly kindness, taking
care of one another, preferring one another, looking after one
another like you'd look after your own children. What would worship be without
that? And then last of all, love. Mike
read 1 Corinthians 13. Love. The greatest of these is
love. Love. If you lack in any of these
other areas, love will cover a lot of it up. Love covers a
multitude of sins. Love. Love, the Scripture says,
fulfills the whole law. And if these things be in you,
if these things are in you and they grow in you, you notice
how it all starts in you. Salvation is a work within. It's a work within. For if these
things be in you and abound, they grow, they make you that
you shall neither be barren or idle, but run fruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If these things are in you, they
will keep you from being barren or idle in your spiritual life.
That's what Peter's saying. They'll keep you from being idle
or barren in your spiritual life. But, he that lacketh these things,
he's blind. It doesn't matter what he says. It doesn't matter what he professes. If he lacks these things that
Peter spoke of here, he's blind, he cannot see far off. In other
words, he's short-sighted. The only thing he's looking after
is himself. That's all he's doing. And he's
forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore,
the rather brethren, give diligence again. Give diligence. And I'll
close with this, and I'll probably pick up here the next time. Give
diligence. Great effort to make your calling. And these things go along with
our calling. They go along with our calling.
Make your calling and election sure. Don't be presumptuous. You and I can presume a lot of
things and come out all right. We can presume a lot of things
will be all right. But not here. Not here. He says, make your
calling and election sure. If you do these things, you shall
never fall. You shall never be idle. You shall never fall. You'll
be fruitful in your life. In your spiritual life, you'll
be fruitful. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you
abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.